‘UNPRECEDENTED PRESSURE’: POLICE RAID RUSSIAN STUDENT JOURNAL’S OFFICE AND ITS EDITORS’ HOMES

Grigory Levchenko

doi:10.21557/dsp.68115167

An ‘Expanded’ Class Perspective: Bringing capitalism down to earth in the changing political lives of Adivasi workers in Kerala

Modern Asian Studies ◽

10.1017/s0026749x14000407 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 48 (5) ◽

pp. 1334-1357 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

LUISA STEUR

Keyword(s):

Model Development ◽

Social Processes ◽

Public Debate ◽

Focused Attention ◽

Class Analysis ◽

Land Occupation ◽

The People ◽

Development State ◽

Police Raid

AbstractFollowing the police raid on the ‘Muthanga’ land occupation by Adivasi (‘indigenous’) activists in Kerala, India, in February 2003, intense public debate erupted about the fate of Adivasis in this ‘model’ development state. Most commentators saw the land occupation either as the fight-back of Adivasis against their age-old colonization or the work of ‘external’ agitators. Capitalist restructuring and ‘globalization’ was generally seen as simply the latest chapter in the suffering of these Adivasis. Little focused attention was paid to the recent class trajectory of their lives under changing capitalist relations, the exact social processes under which they were having to make a living, and what had only recently—and still largely ambiguously—made them ready to identify themselves politically as ‘Adivasi’. Demonstrating the usefulness of ethnographic curiosity driven by an ‘expanded’ class analysis, as elaborated in Marxian anthropology, this article provides an alternative to the liberal-culturalist explanation of indigenism in Kerala. It argues instead that contemporary class processes—as experienced close to the skin by the people who decided to participate in the Muthanga struggle—were what shaped their decision to embrace indigenism.

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Cannabis, Moral Entrepreneurship, and Stigma: Conflicting Narratives on the 26 May 2016 Toronto Police Raid on Cannabis Shops

Qualitative Sociology Review ◽

10.18778/1733-8077.15.2.10 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 15 (2) ◽

pp. 148-171

Author(s):

Thaddeus Müller

Keyword(s):

Media Coverage ◽

Moral Panic ◽

Historical Context ◽

Social World ◽

State Agencies ◽

Social Constructions ◽

Moral Panics ◽

The Media ◽

Police Raid ◽

Do So

On May 26, 2016, the police raided 43 cannabis dispensaries in Toronto, Canada, making 90 arrests. This article aims to describe the narrative of the responsible state agencies concerning the police raid and compare it to the narrative of those who opposed it, such as activists, as well as consumers and sellers of cannabis. While such concepts as moral entrepreneur, moral panic, and moral crusade have traditionally been used to study those in power, I will employ them to explore both the state narrative and ways in which counterclaims-makers resisted it. In order to do so, I will further develop the concept of moral entrepreneurship and its characteristics by relating it to studies of moral panics and social problems. This article will be guided by the following question: How did each party socially construct its cannabis narrative, and in what way can we use the concept of moral entrepreneurship to describe and analyze these narratives as social constructions? I have investigated the media coverage of the raid and ethnographically studied shops in Toronto in order to study the narratives. My findings show that both parties used a factual neutral style, as well as a dramatizing style. The later includes such typical crusading strategies as constructing victims and villains and presenting the image of a dystopian social world. In order to explain the use of these strategies, we will relate them to the shifting wider social and historical context and to the symbolic connotation of cannabis shops in Toronto in particular and in Canada as a whole.

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