Some reflections on contemporary writing in the indigenous languages of America

Abstract

This article surveys recent literatures in the indigenous languages of Latin America. The past decade has witnessed a continent-wide rise in indigenous-language publications – a rise calling for a reevaluation of the critical state of indigenous rights and language policies that was expressed in the context of protests around the quincentennial celebrations of Columbus' 'discovery' of the Americas. The new wave of indigenous literatures has arisen in the wake of dramatic acts of violence, such as military repression and neoliberal economic restructuring. However, the large-scale displacement of indigenous peoples that has resulted from these processes has also provoked a desire among indigenous writers to utilize print media in order to preserve knowledge and communal memory. Drawing on specific examples from contemporary indigenous poetry of Peru and Mexico, the article argues that indigenous literature challenges conceptions of indigenous expressive culture as inherently oral, traditional, rural, and communitarian.     

Neoliberal discourses and ethnonormative regime in post-recognition Peru: redefining hierarchies and identities

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the impact of ‘recognition’ of cultural and ethnic diversity in Peru. It proposes that the rise of a new global ‘ethnonormativity’ – a regime to define and administrate cultural and identity differences, to establish boundaries between those who ‘are’ ethnic and those who are not, and to set rights and duties derived from identities – has had meagre effects in Peru. While the past decades have witnessed the emergence of Latin American political actors who regard indigenousness as their basic political identity, there has been no ‘emergence of indigenous movements’ in Peru. The discourses that highlight the importance of diversity have gained terrain – unsettling, to a certain extent, the narratives of assimilation through ‘development’ and mestizaje – and the Peruvian state has officially embraced ‘recognition’, including it in its official rhetoric and creating institutions to design policies to guarantee the rights of the indigenous and Afroperuvian ‘peoples’ (itself a label part of the language of multiculturalism). The state has also crafted a definition of ‘indigenous peoples’ and introduced ethnic variables in censuses and official statistics, thus being active in the production and regulation of subjects. Some civil society actors have also incorporated ethnic labels into their rhetoric to adapt to the global turn to identity politics. Peru remains, however, a fertile terrain for neoliberal policies and discourses of a different kind. A discourse that exalts ‘emprendedurismo’ (entrepreneurship) and states that success depends entirely on personal effort has become a new common sense, obscuring the structural inequality that has historically affected indigenous and Afroperuvian people. Extractivism continues to damage the environment and the rights of indigenous people, while the expansion of agribusiness in the coastal valleys of Peru keeps people – regardless of their ‘ethnic’ self-identification – in poverty and without basic labour and social rights. The article suggests that the ambiguities of the ethnonormative regime in Peru may serve as a diversion from structural issues in a context of neoliberalism and may re-elaborate racial hierarchies, racism and the narratives of mestizaje it allegedly opposes.     

“The most bombed nation on Earth”: Western Shoshone resistance to the Nevada National Security Site

This article explores a set of protests challenging U.S. occupation of the Nevada Nuclear Test Site as a means of understanding the deployment of bordering rhetorics in colonial expansion and indigenous resistance. The protests have used a variety of strategies that appropriate artifacts historically controlled by colonial powers such as passports and No Trespassing signs to assert their own sovereignty and demand a change to the material conditions of U.S. occupation of land recognized as belonging to the Western Shoshone in the Treaty of Ruby Valley. These protests offer a chance to complicate current scholarly understandings of decolonial protest. This article analyzes the verbal, visual, and performative elements of these protests and argues that indigenous citizenship and border protests can coopt and reappropriate traditionally hegemonic rhetorics as a means of challenging naturalized assumptions about nationhood, borders, and sovereignty.     

Extending the local: activist types and forms of social media use in the case of an anti-mining struggle

As political activists increasingly use social media in local protests, scholars must redirect attention from large-scale campaigns to scrutinize the ways in which geographically confined actors use social media to engage in protests. This paper analyses how a 2013 anti-mining campaign in Kallak, Sweden, combined on-site resistance with social media strategies via Facebook pages. The study examines which activist roles and forms of social media use that emerged and aims to explore what larger practical and theoretical implications one can derive from this specific case of place-based struggles. Results show that three typologically distinct activist roles emerged during the protests: local activists, digital movement intellectuals and digital distributors. These different types of actors were involved in four different forms of social media use: mobilization, construction of the physical space, extension of the local and augmentation of local and translocal bonds. Based on our findings, we argue that the coming together of these different activist roles and the different uses of social media added a translocal dimension to the peripheral and physically remote political conflict in Kallak. Media users were able to extend a locally and physically situated protest by linking it to a global contentious issue such as the mining boom and its consequences for indigenous populations.     

What is the right way to protest? On the process of justification of protest,and its relationship to the propensity to participate in different types of protest

This study explores how citizens in Spain perceive different tactics employed in anti-austerity protests in 2011–2013, and tests the model of the process of justification of protest. This model combines the elements of Gamson’s collective action frames theory (effectiveness, anger and grievances, operationalized as appraisal of harm) with the concept of legitimacy. It also links justification to the intention to participate. We empirically differentiate between three protest tactics: normative demonstrations, non-normative peaceful strategies, and non-normative violent actions. We find that demonstrations are perceived to be more legitimate, but less effective than non-normative peaceful protests. Violent strategies, on the other hand, are seen to be more effective than legitimate. We postulate and find that legitimacy and effectiveness partially or fully mediate the impact of political ideology, anger, and appraisal of harm on the probability of participation in non-normative protest. Finally, we establish meaningful differences in the predictors of the likelihood of joining normative, non-normative peaceful, or non-normative violent protests. Overall, our results suggest that the study of justification of collective action and especially, the inclusion of the notion of legitimacy, enriches our understanding of the popular approval of and propensity to participate in different forms of collective protest.     

The rise of information activism: how to bridge dualisms and reconceptualise political participation

While conventional wisdom sees politics as involving collective action in the political arena, some contemporary approaches focus on connective action beyond the political arena. Crucially, both treat the distinction between arena and process definitions of politics, and relatedly between collective and connective, as dualisms. This paper looks to reconceptualise political participation by arguing that these two dualisms should be treated as dualities. In doing so, it posits a new form of political participation, ‘information activism’ and explores it in practice by drawing on survey data from the 2013 political protests in Turkey.     

‘Tourists go home’: anti-tourism industry protest in Barcelona

This profile looks at the wave of at times violent protests against the economic, social and environmental consequences of mass tourism in Barcelona, which came to international attention in the summer of 2017. It outlines the leading role played by left-wing nationalist activists linked to the Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP, Popular Unity Candidacy) political party in the protests. I examine CUP’s direct-action methods, targeting local business interests and foreign tourists, as well as the largely critical response this prompted from the wider anti-tourism industry movement. This profile addresses the CUP’s justifications for the action and the echo effect it had in other parts of Spain. It argues that to understand the events requires a focus on aspects of both continuity and change in urban social movement mobilisation in Barcelona, against processes of neoliberal urbanisation, in which anti-tourism industry contestation is to the fore.     

Moral education as intercultural moral education

In a diverse country such as Peru, moral education should reflect social, cultural, political and spiritual dilemmas of both indigenous and non-indigenous peoples and their communities. To promote understanding and respect amongst people from different sociocultural backgrounds, moral education should encourage a dialogue between indigenous values and mainstream hegemonic values. In this article, we argue for the need to conceptualise moral education as intercultural. Against a common view that portraits indigenous people as incommensurable, that is, as trapped in their own radically different moral perspective, our own research in Shipibo-Konibo and Asháninka communities show that indigenous people display a moral point of view when analysing cultural traditions and practices. This moral point of view appears intertwined with their cultural values and ethnic identities and allows intercultural dialogue. In this vein, we argue for the need to incorporate intercultural moral conflicts and dilemmas into moral education to promote understanding and respect for others.     

Maze of Resistance: Crowd,Space and the Politics of Resisting Subjectivity

Abstract

In 1968 the streets around the world saw a rise of a mass political movements. Nowadays, 46 years later, a nostalgic revolutionary aura surrounds that time; as since, such is the impression, the street is yet to emerge as a strong political actor or an effective practice of resistance is yet to take form. It seems as if the old ways of resistance have met their end, and new ways have not quite come in place. However, the most recent protests, as this paper aims to show, might have started a new path of resistance at the centre of which is a particular political subjectivity gaining its power from a space of resistance and appearing in a form of a ‘crowd’. By looking at the power of the crowd as a particular embodiment or a cross between a political subject and a multitude this paper explores the constituent power of political gatherings by rejecting race, ethnicity, religion, class or gender as their mobilizing force and instead focusing on the power of coming-together (common) in a particular space. The political capacity of such ‘common’ mobilising force was fully exposed in the recent protests across Europe and the Arab world (the two examples on which this paper draws). The paper opens with a discussion of the distinct relationship between the sovereign (or state) and political subjectivity. The constitutive moment of subjectivity (the self-other relation) is placed in a political context and by drawing on the examples of sans papiers and Bouazizi's act of self-immolation the difficulties of the act of resistance and their inherent and unavoidable violence are highlighted. These two recent acts of resistance expose the need to think political subjectivity otherwise, and point to vistas (the crowd), which can facilitate such a different thinking. By drawing on the constitutive idea of the common as logic of subjectivation the intricate relationship between the body and the political space as manifested in the most recent against austerity and oppressive political regimes protests is interrogated. In the hope of placing the political subject closer to the driving seat of politics a case is made for a rather distinct relationship between political subjectivity of the crowd and the emerging space of resistance. This is a relationship that amounts to a new ‘resisting political subjectivity’ and that can bring about a new way of engaging with the politics of oppression and begins to think political contestations otherwise.     

The Collective Self and the Ethnopolitical Movement: "rhizomes" and "taproots" in the Amazon

The present situation in the Amazon is frequently characterized by political tensions between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. As a consequence, indigenous peoples are organizing in order to defend themselves and their land against the encroachment of representatives from the national society. To the Matsigenka, who live in the monta a of southeastern Peru, this process is relatively recent, and so is the conceptualization of ensuing conflicts in ethnic terms. Although ethnic criteria for constructing social identity is still largely alien to most Matsigenka, it has, to the indigenous organizations, come to serve as the model for defining political issues mainly because it is imposed by the dominant national society, which defines the rules. At the same time, categories of beings that are defined in notions of the cosmogony remain a significant factor in the Matsigenka conceptualization of the social world. The employment of two parallel models for constructing identity, which are occasionally conflicting, produces both conceptual confusion and organizational problems for the Matsigenka ethno-political movement.     

‘Systemic thinking’, ‘regenerative culture’, and new forms of prefigurative politics: challenges for the global left

ABSTRACT

One of the aspects of the current crisis of the Left is an ‘epistemological blindness’ that prevents it from identifying opportunities for its own renewal. That includes the dismissal of the contribution of prefigurative forms of collective action which do not fit its institutionalized orthodoxies. Their most significant expression is a range of grassroots initiatives based on ‘systemic thinking’ and aimed at promoting a ‘regenerative culture’. It includes non-capitalist economic initiatives, such as those of the transition movement, social and solidarity economy and the Global Ecovillage Network, as well as of the temporary communities created by Occupy Wall Street movement and the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. They regard social polarization, patriarchy, and the crisis of democracy as interconnected dimensions of a civilizational dysfunction that asks for whole-systems solutions. Such approach, if adopted by the Left, may contribute to its renewal and political strengthening.     

A Little Spark Kindles a Great Fire? The Paradox of China's Rising Wave of Protest

Mass protests in China in recent years have been more frequent and widespread than in other authoritarian settings and have thus become a serious source of concern for the party-state. Many believe that a rising tide of protest has the potential to impose a significant political challenge to the stability of the regime in comparison to the fragile situation of 1989 the Tiananmen incident. However, the motives behind today's protests are clearly not revolutionary. The growing protest movements do not serve as a severe threat to the continued rule of the Chinese Communist Party for three reasons. First, the nature of recent protests has not been that of pro-democracy; rather, the participants are aggrieved citizens who have suffered economic losses and who demand concrete and practical rights for unfair and unjust treatments. They are politically weak despite their huge numbers. Second, the characteristics of recent protests do not constitute any of the features that would involve serious political risk. Instead, protests are focused on local issues and target specifically at local authorities. Third, the shifting international environments and China's rise to international power change the political visions of educated Chinese and further undermine their potential to initiate protests that would have more serious political implications.     

Party activism: the permeability of the asylum protest arena in Austria

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to the growing field of studies on party–protest linkages that highlight the dynamic nature, complementarity and fuzziness of the parliamentary arena and protest arena. Taking the policy field of asylum, it investigates, first, the conditions for the permeability of the protest arena for party activism and, second, the ways in which party activism shapes and transforms the protest arena. The empirical observations refer to Austria, which has a political framework with highly politicized immigration, strong political parties and a weak protest culture. Methodologically, the paper combines a protest event analysis with two in–depth case studies on protests. The authors argue that the openness of the asylum protest arena for parties is characterized by modest protest demands, and depends on the dominant political position as well as the decision making structure regarding the protest issue. The article demonstrates that pro-asylum protests are less open to political parties than anti-asylum protests, which are in tune with the dominant political position on asylum in Austria. The findings also show that anti–asylum protests are not only more likely to attract the involvement of political parties, but also tend to become instrumentalized for party–competitive ends. Pro–asylum protests, in contrast, keep their substantive, grievance–focused orientation even when political parties step in.     

DOES ANTIREGIME ACTION UNDER COMMUNIST RULE AFFECT POLITICAL PROTEST AFTER THE FALL?

This article addresses the effects of political protest at a certain time on the actors' protest at a later time. I argue that if there is an effect it is indirect: political protest leads to a change in certain variables that affect participation at a later time. In a first step, these variables are specified, based on previous research. It is assumed that public goods preferences (i.e., political, economic, social discontent, and political alienation), weighted by perceived personal influence, a felt obligation to protest, and integration into protest-promoting networks are the major causes for participation in political protest. In a next step, I propose a theory specifying the effects of protest participation on these variables. The hypotheses are tested by panel data collected in Leipzig (East Germany) referring to the situations of 1989 and 1993. The most important results are that participation in antiregime action in 1989 led to political, social, and economic satisfaction and increased perceived political influence in 1993. There were no effects of participation in the protests in 1989 on accepting felt obligations to protest and on integration into protest-promoting networks in 1993.     

Assessing the bias in samples of large online networks

We consider the sampling bias introduced in the study of online networks when collecting data through publicly available APIs (application programming interfaces). We assess differences between three samples of Twitter activity; the empirical context is given by political protests taking place in May 2012. We track online communication around these protests for the period of one month, and reconstruct the network of mentions and re-tweets according to the search and the streaming APIs, and to different filtering parameters. We find that smaller samples do not offer an accurate picture of peripheral activity; we also find that the bias is greater for the network of mentions, partly because of the higher influence of snowballing in identifying relevant nodes. We discuss the implications of this bias for the study of diffusion dynamics and political communication through social media, and advocate the need for more uniform sampling procedures to study online communication.     

Challenging the Republic from the Provinces: An Analysis of Crowd Action after the French Separation Law (1905)

Abstract

The Separation Law of 1905 is widely considered a defining moment in modern French political culture and an enduring legacy of the Third Republic. Whereas scholars have mostly concentrated on the political and intellectual genesis of the law, this article asks how ‘ordinary Catholics’ reacted to separation. It concentrates on crowd action in response to the so-called inventories of 1906, during which State officials audited all property that the Church either possessed or of which it had rights of use. By analysing the forms, motives and legitimation strategies underlying popular resistance against the inventories in Brittany, this article highlights the importance of space for structuring protest and violence in early twentieth-century France. It argues, first, that crowd action heavily drew on concepts of homeland, alternately understood as the local commune, the Breton region or the international community of Catholic believers. Secondly, the article demonstrates that these protests targeted the Republic itself and not, as had been the case during the 1890s and the post-1907 period, individual republicans. Finally, by analysing how crowd action sought to defend the homeland against the encroaching power of a State poised for change, the article reveals the persistence of reactive protest in post-1848 France.     

Reaching Beyond the Net: Political Circuits and Participation in Toronto's G20 Protests

Using a survey of 359 participants in the 2010 protests against the G20 in Toronto, this paper examines the effects and effectiveness of the different communication media in informing diverse participants about the protest. It finds that the communication networks that surrounded the G20 summit protest in Toronto in 2010 were dense and interconnected. Drawing on Tilly's ‘political circuits’, the survey shows that activists at the core of these networks used a combination of online and offline modes of communication, while those outside of that core were reliant on fewer channels of information about the protests. These included people of colour, people who are not part of student networks, less educated people and people less involved in existing social movements. Using logistic regression models, we demonstrate that the digital divide may be less important than the structure and means of communication that make up the political circuits of a movement. Based on these models, we argue that communication modes such as social networking sites and the mainstream media may be important tools for bridging the gap between core and peripheral participants.     

Between Revolution and Defeat: Student Protest Cycles and Networks

This article reviews the literature on student protest movements, during and after the mass mobilisations of the 1960s. It considers the usefulness of the major social movement frameworks that have been applied to student protest movements. The first part of the article explains how the new social movement paradigm developed from the wave of 1960s protests in the United States and Europe. This was because of a rare conjunction of social and political structural societal changes and dynamics within the student population. The second part considers student protest movements in authoritarian regimes. In particular, how the political process approach allows for an analysis of student protests after the 1960s within and outside of the occident. The third considers the relatively recent application of social network analysis to student protests and the politicising effect of the university campus. Finally, the article concludes by arguing that student protest movements are not a homogenous phenomenon. Their dynamics and the political structures they challenge vary between countries. Furthermore, although the conditions of student life and the rapid turnover of generations suggest sustained long-term political activity is not possible, recent research drawing upon social network analysis suggests political activity across student generations may be maintained.     

The New Anti-war Protests and Miscible Mobilizations

This paper analyzes the factors contributing to the relative success of the recent mobilizations against war despite the peace movement organizations' weakness and unfavorable political opportunity structures. I argue that these anti-war protests were shaped by two factors: first, by trigger events which created new grievances and, second, by the use of new information technologies such as the Internet. These factors contributed to what I call miscible mobilizations, or simultaneous mobilization efforts by movements with compatible ideologies and shared activist communities and SMOs. Results from an extensive study of the anti-war protests from September 2001 in the USA support this notion and call attention to the need to develop a synthesis between traditional resource mobilization, political process, and new social movement theories of mobilization and to focus research on the fluid processes of miscible mobilizations.     

Protesting the police: anti-police brutality claims as a predictor of police repression of protest

Police face a unique dilemma when policing protests that explicitly target them, such as the anti-police brutality protests that have swept the United States recently. Because extant research finds that police response to protests is largely a function of the threat – and especially the threat to police – posed by a protest, police may repress these protests more than other protests, as they may constitute a challenge to their legitimacy as a profession. Other research suggests police agencies are strongly motivated by reputational concerns, suggesting they may treat these protests with special caution to avoid further public scrutiny. Using data on over 7,000 protests events in New York over a 35-year period from 1960 to 1995, I test these competing hypotheses and find that police respond to protests making anti-police brutality claims much more aggressively than other protests, after controlling for indicators of threat and weakness used in previous studies. Police are about twice as likely to show up to anti-police brutality protests compared with otherwise similar protests making other claims and, once there, they intervene (either make arrests, use force or violence against protesters, or both) at nearly half of these protests, compared to about one in three protests making other claims.