Hardship Politics

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (6) ◽  
pp. 741-764 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz

This article explores how undocumented people and their family members strategically narrate stories of hardship to build community, legitimize their experiences, cultivate political consciousness, and combat dehumanizing stereotypes of undocumented people. As they share stories, personal experiences of hardship become a critical source of information and validation, as well as a resource that undocumented organizers can draw upon to cultivate possibilities for social and political change. This article considers not only the political possibilities that strategic deployment of hardship narratives present but also their theoretical, methodological, and political implications for ethnographers.

Author(s):  
Arnold Anthony Schmidt

This chapter takes an original approach to Byron’s much-discussed engagement with the early Risorgimento by focusing not on biographical aspects, but rather on formal issues. It centres on The Two Foscari in the context of the highly politicised contemporary Italian critical debates about the dramatic unities. In this fashion, it teases out the political implications of Byron’s adherence to the unities by comparing his play to Alessandro Manzoni’s Il conte di Carmagnola, which programmatically violates them. Focusing specifically on the playwrights’ representations of the fifteenth-century mercenary leader, Francesco Bussone da Carmagnola, the chapter explores these writers’ use or abuse of the unity of time, in particular. In doing so, it throws light on, and contrasts, Manzoni’s Risorgimento agenda on the one hand and Byron’s generally sceptical attitude about leadership and uncertainty about social and political change on the other.


This present research analyses Benazir Bhutto's Daughter of the East (1989) and Fatima Bhutto's Songs of blood and sword: A daughter's memoir (2011) to explore how Pakistani women, belonging to elite political families, are politically conscious while engaging their fathers' stories in their autobiographies. The autobiographies share specific characteristics: both the narrators belong to the same Bhutto family, and their self-narratives are predominantly father clear; both texts are written after their fathers' political assassination, and the narrators have tried to defend their father's political vulnerable image; the word "daughter" in each of the subtitles emphasizes the idea of filiation. The narrators reflect their political consciousness by defending and praising their fathers' political actions and elaborate on how national politics' political implications have affected their personal and political familial lives. Highlighting the importance of political education, Benazir distrusts outdated politics of compromises and narrates that the political profession requires sacrifices. Being a politician, one has to compromise even with the murderers of one's (her) father. Benazir condemns patriarchy and mentions that daughters can inherit their father's political legacy like sons. Meanwhile, Fatima criticizes Benazir that she is the usurper of her father's political legacy and does not follow her political principles. Fatima's self-narrative challenges Benazir's political claims made in her autobiography. Both the narrators look gender-sensitive and condemn patriarchy even though both of them try to defend their fathers. Benazir and Fatima discuss their personal and private matters publicly for political reasons, as manifested through the text.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yannick Rumpala

There is a growing interest in 3D printers because of the technical and economic implications they could have. The objective of this paper is to take the analysis further by asking to what extent they could also have a range of socio-political effects, as a consequence of their impact on the material practices of production and consumption. The first part of this contribution re-examines the promises associated with this technology and highlights its prospects for restoring individual and collective capabilities (I). Secondly, the ways in which these machines could destabilize the industrial bases of contemporary societies, and therefore the economic order, are analyzed, along with the political implications of such a shift (II). Finally, the latent constraints and the points of friction that these technological developments may encounter and that might affect future trajectories are clarified (III).


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 167-191
Author(s):  
Kirił Marinow

The Bulgarians’ settlement in the Lower Danube area constituted one of the most significant events in the history of the Balkan Peninsula in the Middle Ages. The Danube Bulgaria’s rise and its territorial expansion changed the political situation in this area. The Bulgarians became Byzantium’s chief opponents in the struggle for establishing ascendancy over the Balkan Peninsula. The analysis of Theophanes’ Chronography, which remains, in addition to the account by Patriarch Nicephorus, the main source of information about these events supports the conclusion that this Byzantine author took a very negative view of the effects of the arrival of these nomads in the former Byzantine territories. Although this account has been analysed in detail by a number of scholars, these authors have paid no attention to the key role of the tale of Khan Kubrat and the disobedience of his five sons who failed to remain faithful to his last wish. The significance of the personal experiences of Theophanes, who witnessed the Bulgarian expansion during the era of Khan Krum, is also omitted from today’s discussion of these issues. These experiences contributed to the way in which he viewed the migration of the ancestors of the distinguished Bulgarian ruler. The chronicler may thus be considered to have offered a very clear view of what the readers should think of the Bulgarians’ arrival in the Balkan territories.


Professare ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Claudemir Aparecido Lopes

<p class="resumoabstract">O professor Giorgio Agamben tem elaborado críticas à engenhosa estrutura política ocidental moderna. Avalia os mecanismos de controle estatal, nos quais os denomina ‘dispositivos’, cuja força está na imbricação às normas jurídico-teológicas com seus similares ritos e liturgias. Suas ocorrências e legitimidade preponderam no tecido social cuja organização sistêmica se põe quase como elemento natural e não cultural. O texto tem por objetivo explorar a concepção política de Agamben sobre a política contemporânea, especialmente considerando seu livro: ‘Estado de Exceção’, cuja investigação apresenta a possibilidade de atenuação dos direitos de cidadania e o enfraquecimento da prática da liberdade política e o processo de relação dos indivíduos no meio social através da redução das subjetividades ‘autênticas’. Analisamos ainda a transferência do mundo sacro elaborado pelos teólogos católicos presente na modernidade à política cuja democracia moderna faz do homem (sujeito) tornar-se objeto do poder político. Faz também, reflexão dos conceitos de subjetivação e dessubjetivação relacionando-os às implicações políticas do homem moderno. A pesquisa é bibliográfica com ênfase na análise dos conceitos elaborados por Agamben, especialmente quanto ao ‘dispositivo’. Conclui que o indivíduo ocidental, de modo geral, sofre o processo de dessubjetivação e está ‘nu’, indefeso e alienado politicamente. Ele precisa voltar-se ao processo de ‘profanação’ dos dispositivos para libertar-se das vinculações orientadoras que forçosamente o descaracteriza enquanto ser ativo e livre.</p><p class="resumoabstract"><strong>Palavras-chave</strong>: Política. Liberdade. Subjetivação.</p><h3>ABSTRACT</h3><p class="resumoabstract">Professor Giorgio Agamben has been criticizing the ingenious modern Western political structure. It evaluates the mechanisms of state control, in which it calls them 'devices', whose strength lies in the overlap with legal-theological norms with their similar rites and liturgies. Its occurrences and legitimacy preponderate in the social fabric whose systemic organization is almost as a natural and not a cultural element. The text aims to explore Agamben's political conception of contemporary politics, especially considering his book 'State of Exception', whose research presents the possibility of attenuating citizenship rights and weakening the practice of political freedom and the individuals in the social environment through the reduction of 'authentic' subjectivities. We also analyze the transfer of the sacred world elaborated by the Catholic theologians present in the modernity to the politics whose modern democracy makes of the man - subject - to become object of the political power. It also reflects on the concepts of subjectivation and desubjectivation, relating them to the political implications of modern man. The research is bibliographical with emphasis in the analysis of the concepts elaborated by Agamben, especially with regard to the 'device'. He concludes that the Western individual, in general, suffers the process of desubjectivation and is 'naked', defenseless and politically alienated. He must turn to the process of 'desecration' of devices to free himself from the guiding bindings that forcibly demeanes him while being active and free.</p><p class="resumoabstract"><strong>Keywords</strong>: Politics. Freedom. Subjectivity. </p><p> </p>


Author(s):  
Daniel S. Markey

This book explains how China’s new foreign policies like the vaunted “Belt and Road” Initiative are being shaped by local and regional politics outside China and assesses the political implications of these developments for Eurasia and the United States. It depicts the ways that President Xi Jinping’s China is zealously transforming its national wealth and economic power into tools of global political influence and details these developments in South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Drawing from extensive interviews, travels, and historical research, it describes how perceptions of China vary widely within states like Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Iran. Eurasia’s powerful and privileged groups often expect to profit from their connections to China, while others fear commercial and political losses. Similarly, statesmen across Eurasia are scrambling to harness China’s energy purchases, arms sales, and infrastructure investments as a means to outdo their strategic competitors, like India and Saudi Arabia, while negotiating relations with Russia and America. The book finds that, on balance, China’s deepening involvement will play to the advantage of regional strongmen and exacerbate the political tensions within and among Eurasian states. To make the most of America’s limited influence along China’s western horizon (and elsewhere), it argues that US policymakers should pursue a selective and localized strategy to serve America’s aims in Eurasia and to better compete with China over the long run.


Author(s):  
Hugh B. Urban ◽  
Greg Johnson

The Afterword includes an interview with Bruce Lincoln, in which he is asked to reflect on the current study of religion, methods of comparison, and the political implications of academic discourse. In addition to responding to specific points in these chapters, Lincoln also fleshes out what he thinks it would mean “to do better” in the critical study of religion amid the ongoing crises of higher education today. Perhaps most importantly, he reflects upon and clarifies what he means by “irreverence” in the study of religion; an irreverent approach, he concludes, entails a rejection of the sacred status that other people attribute to various things, but not of the people themselves.


Author(s):  
Talbot C. Imlay

In examining the efforts of European socialists to forge a common position towards the issue of post-war empires, this chapter highlights some of the political stakes involved in decolonization. As debates between European and Asian socialists suggest, the process of decolonization witnessed a struggle between competing rights: national rights, minority rights, and human (individual) rights. Each set of rights possessed far-reaching political implications, none more so than minority rights, as they were often associated with limits on national sovereignty. These limits could be internal, such as constitutional restraints on the working of majority rule; but they could also take the form of external constraints on sovereignty, including alternatives to the nation state itself. The victory of the nation state, in other words, was inextricably tied to the defeat of minority rights as well as the growing predominance of human rights.


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