‘TODOS SOMOS PRESIDENTES/WE ARE ALL PRESIDENTS’

In light of recent discussions of Jacques Rancière's notion of the political in cultural theory and the ‘left turn’ in Latin America, exemplified in the election of Evo Morales as the first indigenous president, this essay discusses concepts of governance elaborated by Bolivian indigenous intellectuals and media activists. It engages in detail with three examples of thinking through what is arguably a broad de-colonial process: the work of the Andean Oral History Workshop (THOA) and the movement to reconstitute the ayllu; Pablo Mamani's analysis of the micro-governments in El Alto; and CEFREC-CAIB's indigenous media activism. Thinking from the perspective of a long-standing struggle against global capitalism and its colonial legacies, the political constitutes – paradoxically – a complex and dynamic process of institutionalized consensus governance. Levels of community, regional, and national governance are bound into a feedback loop where representation gives way to the ideal of ‘mandar obedeciendo’ (governing by obeying). The Bolivian ‘democratic revolution’ is hence not conceptualized merely as a widening of the citizen base – a form of inclusion that Rancière would call ‘police’-but rather as profoundly reshaping the relation between the social, the cultural, and the state, and thus of democracy itself.     

Pierre Bourdieu: Economic models against economism

The use of economic analogies by Bourdieu has often been the object of much criticism. For some scholars, it reveals an “economistic” vision of the social world too much inspired by neoclassical economics. For others, it is a kind of mechanical metaphor transposed to cultural phenomena in a determinist way, as in the holistic (Marxist) tradition. To understand this usage and to refute these contradictory criticisms, we return to and focus on the very first occurrences in the 1958–1966 period – the focus of our article – of what Bourdieu would call a “general economy of practices” in his book Esquisse d’une théorie de la pratique. Two central aspects, often forgotten by critics, are presented here: first, the close but very particular link between his work and economics as a growing scientific discipline during these years; second, the criticisms Bourdieu makes of the economic model as a general scientific tool for the social sciences. If one insists only on one of the two sides of the coin, one risks misunderstanding Bourdieu’s original scientific habitusand intellectual project. By contrast, this “double” position opens the possibility of an “integrated” vision of social and economic factors of practices, thanks to the introduction of the “cultural” and above all the “symbolic” dimensions of social life.     

Organizing the organism: a re-casting of the bio-social interface for our times

I present a future-oriented look at sociology and anthropology's historical appropriation of the concept of organism. The ‘future’ of which I speak is one in which the biological and technological are blending together. In cultural and science studies, the figure of the ‘cyborg’ is often discussed in this context. But the cyborg tends to be treated as a specifically ‘postmodern’ innovation, whereas the organism has always invited the cyborg's ontological ambivalence. This sensibility goes back to the dawn of both the modern biomedical sciences and the social sciences. I begin on the relatively familiar terrain of the role that emerging medical conceptions of the organism in the mid-nineteenth century played in the formation of such founding figures of sociology and anthropology as Emile Durkheim and Franz Boas. I then move to the specific ‘relativization’ of Darwin's theory of evolution that fostered turn-of-the-century conceptions of the social organism, including that emergent entity, the ‘superorganism’, which figures prominently – albeit differently – in the attempts to characterize the uniquely ‘human’ character of culture and technology. Finally I look at one very explicitly ‘constructivist’ approach to the social organism promoted by the distinguished chemist Wilhelm Ostwald, who was in turn anathematized by Max Weber in one of the original episodes of sociology's disciplinary boundary maintenance. The pride of place that Ostwald gave to ‘catalysts’ in consolidating and enhancing social organisms – from business firms to academic disciplines – earns his perspective a second look in our time. I end with directions for further exploration, which include reviving Norbert Wiener's cybernetic vision.     

Hayek and the Methodenstreit at the LSE

ABSTRACT

Friedrich Hayek’s Inaugural Address at the London School of Economics (LSE), ‘The Trend of Economic Thinking’ (1 March 1933), has been recognized as of particular importance for the understanding of his work. In it, Hayek argues that economics has a key role of showing what we cannot achieve: of showing that some attractive ideals are utopian. In developing this theme, Hayek referred to Mises’ arguments about the problems of economic calculation under socialism; but the idea – which I suggest might be seen as a theory about the structural constraints imposed by a flourishing market economy – becomes a more general motif in Hayek’s work. In the lecture, Hayek’s ideas are developed through engagement with the younger German Historical School of economics, which is criticized for espousing methodological ideas that would call the idea of such constraints into question. In this article, I suggest that there were also local targets at the LSE. I discuss the way in which William Beveridge, the Director of the LSE, and Lancelot Hogben, who held a Chair in Social Biology there, were engaged in an extended empiricist critique of the methodological ideas of the LSE economists and of theoretical economists more generally in ways close to the younger German historical school.     

Ambivalence and the paradoxes of grandparenting

This paper focuses on ‘normative talk’ about grandparenting. It is based on a secondary analysis of a study involving 46 interviews with grandparents. It identifies two main cultural norms of grandparenting that emerged from the data –‘being there’ and ‘not interfering’. There were very high levels of consensus in the study that these constituted what grandparents ‘should and should not’ do. However, these two norms can be contradictory, and are not easy to reconcile with the everyday realities of grandparenting. The study found that norms of parenting and also of self determination were also very important for the grandparents in the study. They had a keen sense of what being a ‘good parent’ (to their own adult children) should mean – especially in terms of allowing them to be independent – but this could sometimes conflict with their sense of responsibility to descendant generations of grandchildren. Using the concept of ambivalence and drawing on the accounts of grandparents in the study, the paper explores and offers an explanation for both the coexistence and conflict between different sets of norms, as well as for the remarkably high levels of consensus about ‘being there’ and ‘not interfering’. The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the limitations of the data and the analysis, and with suggestions for the development of further work in this area.     

Raymond Williams and sociology

The purpose of this article is to recover Williams as a major theoretical inspiration for the social sciences, specifically, as the inaugurator of what might be regarded as a research paradigm, cultural materialism. In the first section, Williams's encounter with the discipline of sociology is traced and distinguished as a critical alternative to the presently ascendant – at least in the USA – neo‐Durkeimian school of ‘cultural sociology’. In the second section, his cultural‐materialist programme is proposed as a powerful analytical framework for the study of culture and society today. In the final section, a key concept of Williams's cultural materialism, mobile privatization, is selected illustratively and proposed as a powerful analytical tool for studying the production and technological mediation of typical modes of communicative sociality in the early twenty‐first century.     

The Passagenwerk and the place of Walter Benjamin in cultural studies: Benjamin,cultural studies,Marxist theories of art

This essay is a reflection on the circumstances that led me to a particular research project, on Cajun dance and music spaces, and also on the project's mutations through subsequent phases of development. Above all, this essay attempts to take stock of the difficulties – personal, scholarly, and theoretical – as well as the personal choices that have gone into developing an ongoing scholarly project. While I indicate the importance of the experiences of personal pleasure that originally inspired my research, I also show how the personal and the pleasurable often necessarily encounter tensions and even certain kinds of conflict when linked to a ‘disciplinary’ domain. This essay therefore traces a particular example of how ‘cultural studies travels’ both geographically within a life and disciplinarily within something that has come to be known as‘French cultural studies’.     

Citing history

ABSTRACT

Although rarely considered within the existing scholarship on social movements, even a cursory analysis of protest activity suggests that movements regularly invoke historical citations (whether consciously or not) while working to clarify aims and mobilize constituencies. In order to make sense of this process, and to account for the variations that arise among the different citation modalities favored by movements on opposite ends of the political spectrum, I draw upon the theoretical contributions of Marxist cultural critic Walter Benjamin and, in particular, on his exploration of ‘wish images’ and ‘dialectical images,’ their attributes, and their interrelationship. According to Benjamin, such images summoned the past either to project visions of future happiness (as with the wish image) or to deposit the witness before a moment of decisive, present-tense reckoning. After outlining the role of historical citation in social movements and in the broader cultural field through which these movements find expression, I analyze two recent protest events – the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, VA, in which wish images were actively deployed, and the 2017 Women’s Strike in New York City, where a dialectical image arose from the constellated nodes of the march’s route – to consider the relationship between citation modality and protest outcome. Following from this analysis, and in keeping with the unapologetically partisan nature of my investigation, I conclude by advancing some strategic recommendations for movements seeking – as Benjamin once enjoined – to ‘improve our position in the struggle against Fascism.’     

Trotsky’s error: multiplicity and the secret origins of revolutionary Marxism

ABSTRACT

Uneven and Combined Development uniquely incorporated societal multiplicity into Marxist theory. So why did its first application end in Stalinist dictatorship? This paper seeks an answer by turning the idea back on itself, applying it first to Trotsky’s doctrine of ‘permanent revolution’ and then to Marx’s original idea of revolution. Trotsky hoped that Russia’s ‘revolution of backwardness’ would be rescued by ‘advanced’ revolutions in the West, modelled on the French revolution. But what if – as this paper argues – that event too was ultimately a ‘revolution of backwardness’? Two implications follow. First, Trotsky’s ‘permanentist’ strategy was logically flawed: if all modern revolutions have been internationally-generated catch-up revolutions, then the idea of Bolshevism being rescued by ‘advanced revolutions’ elsewhere fails. But second, the consequences of multiplicity reach even deeper than Trotsky realized: they underlie and explain the original political formation, and troubled history, of revolutionary Marxism itself.     

Becoming ‘culturpreneur’: How the ‘neoliberal regime of truth’ affects and redefines artistic subject positions

In relating to the politico-economic concept of ‘creative industries’, the paper explores in what way the art field and its actors are discursively repositioned within ‘flexible cultural capitalism’. Through empirical material from the independent Austrian theatre scene, the paper, moreover, illustrates how the ‘culturpreneurial’ transformation of the field affects the specific artistic practices, forms of organizing and conduct. In this regard, it will be shown that the artists’ modes of conduct are, at least to some extent, precarious: due to their ascetic and disciplined self-concept, artists seem to contribute, in parts, to their own marginalization as well as to the strengthening of certain ‘neoliberal orders’ and ‘culturpreneurial subject ideals’ of flexible capitalism – even though they are actually keen to resist current governmental technologies like the promotion of competition and market-determined assessment.     

‘You Are a Girl’

Feminist scholarship has shown how gender is integral to understanding war, and that the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was partly legitimated through a reference to Afghan women's ‘liberation’. Recognizing this, the article analyses how gender is crucial also to understanding the practice of ‘population-centric’ counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. Because this type of warfare aims at ‘winning hearts and minds’, it is in engaging the population that a notable gendered addition to the US military strategy surfaces, Female Engagement Teams (FETs). Citing ‘cultural sensitivity’ as a key justification, the US deploys all-female teams to engage with and access a previously untapped source of intelligence and information, namely Afghan women. Beyond this being seen as necessary to complete the task of population-centric counterinsurgency, it is also hailed as a progressive step that contributes to Afghan women's broader empowerment. Subjecting population-centric counterinsurgency to feminist analysis, this article finds that in constructing women both as ‘practitioners’ and ‘targets’, this type of warfare constitutes another chapter in the various ways that their bodies have been relied upon for its ‘success’.     

Putting Bourdieu to work for class analysis: reflections on some recent contributions

Recent developments in class analysis, particularly associated with so‐called ‘cultural class analysis’; have seen the works of Pierre Bourdieu take centre stage. Apart from the general influence of ‘habitus’ and ‘cultural capital’, some scholars have tried to reconstruct class analysis with concepts drawn from Bourdieu. This involves a theoretical reorientation, away from the conventional concerns of class analysis with property and market relations, towards an emphasis on the multiple forms of capital. Despite the significant potential of these developments, such a reorientation dismisses or neglects the relations of power and domination founded in the economic institutions of capitalism as a crucial element of what class is. Through a critique of some recent attempts by British authors to develop a ‘Bourdieusian’ class theory, the paper reasserts the centrality of the relations of power and domination that used to be the domain of class analysis. The paper suggests some elements central to a reworked class analysis that benefits from the power of Bourdieu's ideas while retaining a perspective on the fundamentals of class relations in capitalism.     

Regrounding Youth Cultural Theory (in Post‐Socialist Youth Cultural Practice)

This article considers how the study of youth cultural practice in Eastern Europe informs theoretical and empirical debate about youth culture. It charts the trajectory of academic writing on East European youth cultures and suggests the region’s state socialist past (which made social inequalities relatively insignificant at a time when, elsewhere, youth cultural studies were dominated by class‐based readings) combined with the explosion of inequality in the post‐socialist period (by which time class‐resistant post‐subcultural theories led anglophone academic discussion), makes it an interesting vantage point from which to reconsider academic paradigms. Drawing on empirical examples of youth cultural practice in (post)‐socialist Eastern Europe, it argues for a perspective that integrates structural and cultural factors shaping young people’s lives. It suggests moving forward western theoretical debates – often stymied in arguments over nomenclature (‘subculture’, ‘postsubculture’, ‘neo‐tribe’) – by shifting the focus of study from ‘form’ (‘subculture’ etc.) to ‘substance’ (concrete cultural practices) and attending to everyday communicative, musical, sporting, educational, informal economy, and territorial practices. Since such practices are embedded in the ‘whole’ rather than ‘subcultural’ lives of young people, this renders visible how cultural practices are enabled and constrained by the same social divisions and inequalities that structure society at large.     

RIDICULING THE ‘WHITE BREAD ORIGINAL’

The 1994 US Supreme Court decision in Luther Campbell et al. v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., written by Justice David Souter, reversed a lower court decision and argued in favor of the rap group 2 Live Crew's playful critique of Roy Orbison's ‘Oh Pretty Woman’ by its function as parody. This essay seeks to contextualize that decision by showing the roots of 2 Live Crew's recording in the practice of ‘covering’ – the re-recording of an existent popular composition – and thus the possibilities for redefining authorship that arose with the advent of digital technology. The compositional techniques allowed by computer programs led to the proliferation of sampling in the hip-hop community, thereby liberating sounds from the original content and reconfiguring them in new songs. The technique allowed a critical, and in some cases adversarial, stance to be taken towards long-standing Western definitions of authorship and ownership. 2 Live Crew added to this rich stew of possibilities the familiar and time-tested genre of parody. Their piece took what one judge referred to as the ‘white bread original’ of the Roy Orbison record and twisted about the implicit point of view with regard to gender and sexuality. Discussion of the legal complications that followed upon the suing of the group by the holder of the copyright in the Orbison song, Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., includes the apparently sanctioned use of the song in the Disney-produced film Pretty Woman as well as the use of other Orbison material in director David Lynch's Blue Velvet. The essay concludes with suggestions as to how the language of Justice Souter's decision allows not only for future parodies but also a reinvigoration of speech, one which calls into question power relationships codified in US copyright statutes.     

The economic proposals of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and gender budgeting in Italy

Charlotte Perkins Gilman anticipated Amartya Sen's theories on the economy of wellbeing and the theory of the capabilities by placing humanity at the centre of economic politics, the full development of abilities of the entire population and the participation in all the social, economic and political activities of men and women, as a premise for social progress and genuine democracy. In particular, she highlighted the value of women's competences and female innovative contribution towards the achievement of these goals. Today, the European Union considers these issues as a priority but in Italy they are not fully taken into consideration. Gilman, the American authoritative sociologist and economist, defined in 1993 by the Women's Hall of Fame as one of the 10 most influential women of the twentieth century, thanks to her studies and her in-depth analysis of women's real conditions of life, reached the conclusion that the origins of the traditional sexual roles – and of the female ‘natural’ subordination to man – are not due to nature, but to the economic dependence on man. Consequently, she believed that true freedom and effective citizenship for women are possible only with economic independence. Through the denunciation of the myths and traditional stereotypes that tie women to the so-called ‘natural roles’, Gilman showed the damages that the exclusion of women from socioeconomic activities cause to the progress of human society, and proposed the new woman. The new woman is well-educated – and thus endowed with a critical mind – and professionally prepared, and is aware of the necessity of her full citizenship. Women are also aware of the fundamental social value of maternity. Consequently they are aware that the ‘unpaid caring works’ should not be exclusively assigned to women but rather should be shared by both family and society. Gilman's theories and proposals for the social and economic reorganization, and her criticism of the traditional myths and stereotypes, supply a valid contribution to the present gender politics and in particular to the affirmation of gender budgeting in economics. These policies Gilman had indicated in her study Women and economics, published in 1898!     

Holding the Traveller's Gaze Accountable in Shiva Naipaul's North of South: An African Journey

Abstract

Travelogues are partly based on what is witnessed, observed and noted about the places and people visited and what is already known in advance, mainly from an existing archive. The archive, therefore, is an important element in travel writing. However, an author cannot avoid responsibility for what she/he notes/writes/composes about a place and its people. In a sense, a biography of a place may represent a writer's struggles to compromise between the material in the archive – such as existing books on the subject of his/her writing – and what she/he actually observed/observes. The veracity of the writer's narrative/story is dependent on the logic of the evidence that he/she adduces. The weight of the archived narrative, however, can burden the writer in which case he/she would need to limit its influence in order to tell a ‘believable’ story. Shiva Naipaul's extensive reliance on the existing pre- and colonial-time archive of writing on Africa seriously undermines his representation of life in postcolonial East Africa. The result is a travelogue filled with a great sense of personal disappointment with the political, cultural, economic and social conditions in postcolonial Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia – the countries that he visits. Shiva seems to unwittingly translate this sense of deep disappointment into a ‘demonisation’ of Eastern Africa. Whilst acknowledging that there is a difference – and an important one – between a text and the world that it seeks to represent, the key proposition in this paper is that Naipaul's biography does not offer any redemptive characterisation of both the African space and the people that he writes about precisely because it summons a biased archive as evidence for its own claims.     

Framing the rabbit to snare the votes

Results in cognitive psychology and experimental economics suggest that people are prone to systematic misperception of policy. This paper embodies voters’ misperceptions of policy into a standard political economy framework with complete information, and examines whether and to what extent political parties may use this misperception to manipulate voters and derive political gains. We analyze the equilibria and welfare implications for different setups. A payroll tax incidence detailed example is used to illustrate the framework. The paper is based in part on a chapter in the second author’s Ph.D. dissertation. The authors wish to thank Elhanan Helpman, seminar participants in Silvaplana and Bonn University and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions. The authors are grateful for financial assistance by the Sapir Fund.     

Culture,Development, and Social Theory

The following comment was written in response to conference presentations by John Clammer and Raymond Apthorpe. In his paper, ‘Development Futures and Cultural Choices’ (in this issue as ‘Culture, Development and Social Theory’), Clammer traced recent emphases in conceptualisations of ‘culture’, in order to ask whether these better serve an integration of culture and development: (1) the idea of culture as process, (2) the rediscovery of indigenous knowledge, and (3) the integration of economy and culture. I argue that, while each of these has something good to bring, even taking account of all of them would leave us with a rather anorexic version of what is needed: systematic and sustained analysis and theorisation of social relations; and the attempt to weigh up the implications for proposed or negotiated social intervention and directional change. I exemplify issues with a discussion of the Papua New Guinea elections of 2002. Apthorpe's contribution builds on his explorations of tendencies inherent in development practice and discourse, to which I add its claims to serial progress, consistent with its technocratic tendencies.