The role of memory practices in building spiritual solidarity for survivors of state violence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Escobar
Keyword(s):  
State Violence ◽  
Memory Practices

scholarly journals The Problem of State Violence

Daedalus ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 151 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-37
Author(s):  
Paul Butler
Keyword(s):  
Use Of Force ◽  
State Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
The Public ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Abuse And Neglect ◽  
The Future ◽  
State Actors

Abstract When violence occurs, the state has an obligation to respond to and reduce the impacts of it; yet often the state originates, or at least contributes to, the violence. This may occur in a variety of ways, including through the use of force by police, pretrial incarceration at local jails, long periods of incarceration in prisons, or abuse and neglect of people who are incarcerated. This essay explores the role of the state in responding to violence and how it should contribute to reducing violence in communities, as well as in its own operations. Finally, it explores what the future of collaboration between state actors and the community looks like and offers examples of successful power-sharing and co-producing of safety between the state and the public.

“Thank You, Black Twitter”: State Violence, Digital Counterpublics, and Pedagogies of Resistance

2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 286-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Lamont Hill
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Black Community ◽  
Black People ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Political Organizing

In this article, I examine the role of Black Twitter as a “digital counterpublic” that enables critical pedagogy, political organizing, and both symbolic and material forms of resistance to anti-Black state violence within the United States. Focusing primarily on post-Ferguson events, I spotlight the ways that Black people have used Black Twitter and other digital counterpublics to engage in forms of pedagogy that reorganize relations of surveillance, reject rigid respectability politics, and contest the erasure of marginalized groups within the Black community.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Charles Devellennes
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
State Violence ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
The Social ◽  
Fundamental Challenge ◽  
New Type ◽  
The Right ◽  
Over Time

This chapter gives introduces the gilet jaunes. The gilets jaunes, a group of French protesters named after their iconic yellow vests donned during demonstrations, have formed a new type of social movement. The gilets jaunes have been variously interpreted since they began their occupation of French roundabouts. They were at first received with enthusiasm on the right of the French political establishment, and with caution on the left. The fourth weekend saw scenes of violence erupt on the Champs Élysées, notably around and within the Arc de Triomphe, which towers over the first roundabout built in France. The headlines of newspapers and stories of the news media became almost exclusively focused on the violence of the protests. Images of state violence became ever-present on Twitter and independent media outlets, making it clear that it was the use of disproportionate force by police units that was at the centre of the events. The chapter explains that the aim of the book is to show that the use of violence is not the only tale to be told about the role of the protesters in the contemporary French context. Their contribution to the political landscape of France is quite different. They have provided a fundamental challenge to the social contract in France, the implicit pact between the governed and their political leaders. The movement has seen the numbers of participants diminish over time, but the underlying tension between the haves and the have-nots, the winners of globalization and those at risk of déclassement [social downgrading], are enduring and persistent.

الشعب‎ يريد‎ اسقاط‎ النظام‎ “The People Want to Overthrow the Regime”

2019 ◽  
pp. 46-73
Author(s):  
Amy Austin Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
State Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Breaking Point ◽  
Mass Mobilization ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Security Organizations

This chapter analyzes the first wave of the revolution against Hosni Mubarak. Refuting arguments that focus on the role of the social media, or divisions among the elite, and the alleged neutrality of the Egyptian military, the chapter illustrates that it was a revolutionary coalition of the middle and lower classes that created a breaking point for the regime. Key features of this mass mobilization included the refusal of protesters to be cowed by state violence, the creation of “liberated zones” occupied by the people, “popular security” organizations that replaced the repressive security apparatus of the state, and strikes that crippled the economy in the final days of the Mubarak era. Key moments during the 18 days are described with ethnographic detail, including the unfiltered reactions of protesters to the deployment of soldiers on January 28. The revolutionary nature of the uprising is that people demanded more than just the ouster of Mubarak—they wanted to topple “the regime” by naming the names of a slew of Mubarak’s cronies to remove them from power.

scholarly journals Securitizing the Muslim Brotherhood: State violence and authoritarianism in Egypt after the Arab Spring

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 239-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Pratt ◽  
Dina Rezk
Keyword(s):  
Muslim Brotherhood ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Critical Security Studies ◽  
Securitization Theory ◽  
Middle East Politics ◽  
The Muslim Brotherhood ◽  
The Arab Spring

Unprecedented levels of state violence against the Muslim Brotherhood, and the widespread acceptance of this violence by Egyptians following the July 2013 military coup, have been under-examined by scholars of both critical security studies and Middle East politics, reflecting implicit assumptions that state violence is unexceptional beyond Europe. This article explores how the deployment of such levels of violence was enabled by a securitization process in which the Egyptian military successfully appropriated popular opposition to Muslim Brotherhood rule, constructing the group as an existential threat to Egypt and justifying special measures against it. The article builds on existing critiques of the Eurocentrism of securitization theory, alongside the writings of Antonio Gramsci, to further refine its application to non-democratic contexts. In addition to revealing the exceptionalism of state violence against the Muslim Brotherhood and highlighting the important role of nominally non-state actors in constructing the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat to Egypt, the article also signals the role of securitization in re-establishing authoritarian rule in the wake of the 2011 uprising. Thus, we argue that securitization not only constitutes a break from ‘normal politics’ but may also be integral to the reconstitution of ‘normal politics’ following a period of transition.

Peaceful Nuclear Tests, Eco-friendly Reactors, and the Vantage Point of Tamasha

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-223
Author(s):  
Fathima Nizaruddin
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The South ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Nuclear Tests ◽  
Asian Context ◽  
Epistemological Violence

The article analyzes the role of the documentary form in building pronuclear narratives around the Indian nuclear project. It situates the nuclear films made by two state institutions, Films Division of India (Films Division) and Vigyan Prasar, as part of a network of expert statements, documentary assertions, and state violence that bring into being a pronuclear reality. Through the insights gained from my practice-based enquiry, which led to the production and circulation of a film titled Nuclear Hallucinations, I argue that the certainty of the pronouncements of such documentaries can be unsettled by approaching them as a tamasha. I rely on the multiple connotations of the word tamasha in the South Asian context and its ability to turn solemn assertions into a matter of entertainment or a joke. This vantage point of tamasha vis-à-vis the Indian nuclear project builds upon the strategies of antinuclear documentaries that resist the epistemological violence of pronuclear assertions. In this article, I explore the role of comic modes and irony in forming sites of tamasha to create trouble within the narratives that position nonviolent antinuclear protestors as “antinational” elements. The article also expands on how the point of view of tamasha can engender new solidarities, which can resist the violence of the Indian nuclear project by forming new configurations of possibilities.

Motives for ‘Disappearances’ in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay in the 1970s

1995 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang S. Heinz
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Internal Security ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Military ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Selection Of

The article looks at the motives of military governments in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay to introduce ‘disappearances’ as a new method to fight ‘subversion’ and thereby commit human rights violations. Five variables are taken as a point of departure, the country's previous experience with use of state violence, the selection of victims, the role of international public opinion, the selection of methods within the state and ideological factors. Among the key elements were in two countries the shift of responsibility for the use of violence to the military before the coup (except Chile), a lack of civilian control and influence in the formulation and control of internal security policies and an overwhelming, confused ideological definition in Argentina and in Chile (to a lesser degree in Uruguay) of the armed conflict as a war between good and evil and against World Communism which endangered the survival of the nation.

scholarly journals Animating the subjugated past: digital greeting cards as a form of counter-memory

2019 ◽  
pp. 147035721989063
Author(s):  
Mykola Makhortykh ◽  
Maryna Sydorova
Keyword(s):  
Potential Role ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
World War ◽  
Cultural Products ◽  
Visual Elements ◽  
Greeting Cards ◽  
Memory Practices ◽  
Second World

This article discusses how popular culture products – digital greeting cards – interact with hegemonic historical narratives in the context of war remembrance. It employs the Foucauldian concept of counter-memory to analyse how user-generated mnemonic content interacts with historical power relations. Using content analysis to examine a sample of amateur greeting cards, the authors investigate how these cultural products engage with official and counter-official memory practices in Russia related to the Soviet victory in the Second World War. Specifically, the article explores how different visual elements are employed to (de)construct specific narratives about the Soviet victory and it discusses how the use of computer graphics, in particular animation, influences the potential role of greeting cards as a means of resurrecting the subjugated past.

On Certainties and Ambivalencies: Reply to My Critics

Slavic Review ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric D. Weitz
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
Human Heredity ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Population Politics

Eric D. Weitz argues that the Soviet Union promoted the development of national institutions and consciousness and explicidy rejected the ideology of race. Yet traces of racial politics crept into Soviet nationalities policies, especially between 1937 and 1953. In the Stalin period particular populations were endowed with immutable traits that every member of the group possessed and that were passed from one generation to the next. Recent scholarship, he suggests, has been resistant to drawing out the racial elements in the Stalinist purges of certain nationalities. Francine Hirsch challenges Weitz’s argument, arguing that the Soviet regime had a developed concept of “race,” but did not practice what contemporaries thought of as “racial politics.” Hirsch argues that while the Nazi regime attempted to enact social change by racial means, the Soviet regime aspired to build socialism dirough die manipulation of mass (national and class) consciousness. She contends that it is imperative to analyze the conceptual categories that both regimes used in order to undertake a true comparative analysis. Weiner proposes that Soviet population politics constandy fluctuated between sociological and biological categorization. Although the Soviets often came close to adapting bioracial principles and practices, at no point did they let human heredity become a defining feature of political schemes. Race in the Soviet world applied mainly to concerns for the health of population groups. Despite the capacity to conduct genocidal campaigns and operate death camps, the Soviets never sought the physical extermination of entire groups nor did they stop celebrating the multiethnicity of tiieir polity. The radicalization of state violence in the postwar era was triggered by die nature and role of the war in the Soviet world, the alleged conduct of those who failed to rise to the occasion, and the endemic unstable and unassimilated borderlands, and not by die genetic makeup of the internal enemies. Alaina Lemon’s contribution suggests that scholars seek racialized concepts by treating discourse as situated practice, rather than by separating discourse from practice. This allows consideration of the ways people use language not only to name categories but also to point to social relationships (such as “race”) with or without explicidy naming them as such. Doing so, however, is admittedly more difficult when die only available evidence of past discursive practices are printed texts or interviews. In conclusion, Weitz responds to these critics.

Without a “Concept”? Race as Discursive Practice

Slavic Review ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alaina Lemon
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
Human Heredity ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Population Politics

Eric D. Weitz argues that the Soviet Union promoted the development of national institutions and consciousness and explicidy rejected the ideology of race. Yet traces of racial politics crept into Soviet nationalities policies, especially between 1937 and 1953. In the Stalin period particular populations were endowed with immutable traits that every member of the group possessed and that were passed from one generation to the next. Recent scholarship, he suggests, has been resistant to drawing out the racial elements in the Stalinist purges of certain nationalities. Francine Hirsch challenges Weitz’s argument, arguing that the Soviet regime had a developed concept of “race,” but did not practice what contemporaries thought of as “racial politics.” Hirsch argues that while the Nazi regime attempted to enact social change by racial means, the Soviet regime aspired to build socialism dirough die manipulation of mass (national and class) consciousness. She contends that it is imperative to analyze the conceptual categories that both regimes used in order to undertake a true comparative analysis. Weiner proposes that Soviet population politics constandy fluctuated between sociological and biological categorization. Although the Soviets often came close to adapting bioracial principles and practices, at no point did they let human heredity become a defining feature of political schemes. Race in the Soviet world applied mainly to concerns for the health of population groups. Despite the capacity to conduct genocidal campaigns and operate death camps, the Soviets never sought the physical extermination of entire groups nor did they stop celebrating the multiethnicity of tiieir polity. The radicalization of state violence in the postwar era was triggered by die nature and role of the war in the Soviet world, the alleged conduct of those who failed to rise to the occasion, and the endemic unstable and unassimilated borderlands, and not by die genetic makeup of the internal enemies. Alaina Lemon’s contribution suggests that scholars seek racialized concepts by treating discourse as situated practice, rather than by separating discourse from practice. This allows consideration of the ways people use language not only to name categories but also to point to social relationships (such as “race”) with or without explicidy naming them as such. Doing so, however, is admittedly more difficult when die only available evidence of past discursive practices are printed texts or interviews. In conclusion, Weitz responds to these critics.

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