Critique internationale - Content
No Abstract
No Abstract
[Bolivian Katarism: The Emergence of an Indian Challenge to the Social Order]
The Katarist movement that emerged in the 1970s in the Bolivian Andes owes its name to Túpac Katari, the Aymara leader of the Great Rebellion of 1780-1783. In order to understand what led Katarist activists to turn to this marker of ethnic identity, the historical and sociological conditions that preceded the production of an Indian discourse must be considered: first of all, the degradation of relations between the State and the peasants and, next, the urban experience of Andean migrants. It seems that the contradictions that have appeared in Katarist discourse concern the contemporary political situation of Bolivia and the questions raised by the arrival to power of Evo Morales.
[Ethnography of an Indigenous Student Organization in Peruvian Amazonia: The Ambivalence of Protest]
The ethnography of an indigenous student organization based in Iquitos, the largest town in Peruvian Amazonia, allows one to examine the experience of its leaders. On the basis of skills acquired through contact with schools and activist organizations, these new leaders are asserting themselves via ever more visible mobilizations. The process of politicization through which students learn to demand their rights in the name of an indigenous identity is examined from the point of view of their place in urban spaces of activism. It is in such spaces that definitions of indigenous leadership are developed. These come into conflict with other, more traditional organizations and contribute to internal tensions within the “indigenous people’s movement”. The networks of mediation in which indigenous students participate – networks that serve as conduits for the messages that local authorities, ecological activists and petrol companies wish to pass on to indigenous communities – underscore the ambivalence of this protest movement.
[Ethnicity in Bolivia? The Paradox of an Indigenous Category, the Folklorista]
The presence of Bolivia’s highest political authority at the Señor Jésus del Gran Poder festival demonstrates the importance of fraternidades in this country. The large street performances, or Entradas Folkloricas, organized by these congregations, which can consist of several thousand members, are above all intended to promote their faith. They nevertheless play a role that goes well beyond the sphere of religious and cultural practices. Indeed, folklore is both an identity-based repertory through which individuals categorize themselves in terms of shared socio-cultural traits and a matter of growing importance on the political scene. By studying the festive practices associated with folklore, one may grasp an essential category of social life in Bolivia, that of the folklorista. Most members of the fraternidades fall under this category, which exists independently of the categorizations usually employed by political actors.
[The Challenges of Comparison in the Age of Globalization: A Geertzian, Contrast-Oriented Comparative Approach]
This article analyzes the manner in which globalization has transformed the exercise of comparison in the social sciences and explores prospects for the method of contrast-oriented comparison developed by Clifford Geertz. The first part of the article examines the manner in which globalization is reflected in a series of specific social mechanisms. Taken together, these call into question the nation as the relevant framework of comparison, encourage greater attention to the various scales at which social phenomena occur and transform our understanding of the independence of particular cases. The second part examines the contrast-oriented method in the context of comparative approaches, giving attention to the forms of demonstrative reasoning they involve. The third part, finally, looks at how contrast-oriented comparative approaches respond to the challenges of globalization for comparison.
[The Challenges of Comparison in the Age of Globalization: A Geertzian, Contrast-Oriented]
Comparative Approach This article analyzes the manner in which globalization has transformed the exercise of comparison in the social sciences and explores prospects for the method of contrast-oriented comparison developed by Clifford Geertz. The first part of the article examines the manner in which globalization is reflected in a series of specific social mechanisms. Taken together, these call into question the nation as the relevant framework of comparison, encourage greater attention to the various scales at which social phenomena occur and transform our understanding of the independence of particular cases. The second part examines the contrast-oriented method in the context of comparative approaches, giving attention to the forms of demonstrative reasoning they involve. The third part, finally, looks at how contrast-oriented comparative approaches respond to the challenges of globalization for comparison.
[Contemporary Worker Mobilization and Politicization: “Recuperated” Factories in Argentina]
In spite of renewed conflict in the world of work, including the industrial sector, social scientists in France and elsewhere seem to have permanently abandoned the study of worker mobilization, seen as “out of step” with new social movements or “defeated” by economic crisis. Since the turn of the century, however, the case of Argentina has offered an opportunity for studying new forms of protest: the social and political crisis that affected the country in 2001 provoked an unprecedented series of factory occupations and “recuperations” by workers. This study of the symbolic fight for a textile factory aims less to rehabilitate the political centrality of social “class” as a category than to understand the social mechanisms at work in the activism of what had long seemed a population immune to mobilization. For while the large-scale mobilizations of 2001 appear to have encouraged this occupation and, to a certain extent, the participation of politicaly inexperienced workers, the factory’s “recuperation” above all reflected a specific mode of professional socialization, what I here describe as an “ethos of zeal”.
[Contemporary Worker Mobilization and Politicization: “Recuperated” Factories in Argentina]
In spite of renewed conflict in the world of work, including the industrial sector, social scientists in France and elsewhere seem to have permanently abandoned the study of worker mobilization, seen as “out of step” with new social movements or “defeated” by economic crisis. Since the turn of the century, however, the case of Argentina has offered an opportunity for studying new forms of protest: the social and political crisis that affected the country in 2001 provoked an unprecedented series of factory occupations and “recuperations” by workers. This study of the symbolic fight for a textile factory aims less to rehabilitate the political centrality of social “class” as a category than to understand the social mechanisms at work in the activism of what had long seemed a population immune to mobilization. For while the large-scale mobilizations of 2001 appear to have encouraged this occupation and, to a certain extent, the participation of politicaly inexperienced workers, the factory’s “recuperation” above all reflected a specific mode of professional socialization, what I here describe as an “ethos of zeal”.
[The Telangana Diaspora and Off-Site Regionalism]
Among diasporic communities, nationalism is a widespread but under-studied phenomenon. The present article examines southern India’s pro-Telangana movement as a window on the regional scale of off-site mobilization. In doing so, it allows us to move beyond the psychological explanations that are too often supplied for the phenomenon. Indeed, in the past ten years, this movement – which in fact dates from the 1950s and calls for Telangana autonomy within the Indian Federation – has undergone a revival, in large measure thanks to expatriate Telanganans. Through very active organizations in the United States, England and the Gulf States, they finance activities in India, supply electoral material, travel to promote candidates and, in some cases, themselves run for office. Examining this transnational political involvement helps delineate the political economy that links activists of the diaspora to their country of origin.
Lecture croisée. La non-utilisation de l’arme nucléaire depuis 1945 : tabou ou tradition ?
Luc Capdevila, Isabelle Combès, Nicolas Richard, Pablo Barbosa, Les hommes transparents. Indiens et militaires dans la guerre du Chaco (1932-1935), Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2010,249 pages.
Christian Gros, David Dumoulin Kervran (dir.), Le multiculturalisme « au concret » : un modèle latino-américain ?, Paris, Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2011,462 pages.
Stanley R. Bailey, Legacies of Race : Identities, Attitudes, and Politics in Brazil, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2009,294 pages.
Kurt Weyland, Raúl L. Madrid, Wendy Hunter (eds), Leftist Governments in Latin America : Successes and Shortcomings, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010,216 pages
