Cruel Pessimism and Waiting for Belonging: Towards a Global Political Economy of Affect

Recent theorizations of affect have focused largely on Western historical, political and aesthetic contexts to distinguish between affect and emotion. Notably, these interventions offer new imaginaries to reinvigorate analysis of politics in the face of shrinking possibilities. However, much of this literature views affect as autonomous from emotion, while overlooking the political history of development and the differentiated relation to affect under colonial capitalism in other historical contexts. This paper studies subaltern engagement in activist performance in India to address these issues. It thinks through Lauren Berlant's account of the aesthetic genre and affective structure of cruel optimism, and her focus on historical contexts where people have recently lost the vision of a good life. By contrast, focusing on the historical present of those born into a pervasive and intractable sense of marginality and insecurity, I ask: what is the subject's relation to affect and activism in contexts where the loss of vision of a good life is not new under neoliberalism, but rather, reworks long-standing violence and inclusion/exclusion of colonial capitalism and nation-state histories. I argue that it is useful to understand Berlant's ‘materialist context for affect theory’ in light of uneven global histories of colonialism, development and neoliberalism. The affective experience of time is different across different spaces. As such, this paper contributes a global materialist context for affect theory, by focusing on activist theatre by a tribe called Chhara, designated ‘born criminals’ by British colonial law – a status legally denotified in 1952, but that is practically still effective in postcolonial India. Competing affective structures – sentimental optimism, cruel pessimism, betrayal and ordinary regard – shape and are shaped by Chhara negotiations with branded criminality. Ultimately, for the postcolonial subject, surviving in the neoliberal present involves vacillating among competing affective structures, only some of which generate sustained political critique.     

The Solidary Relationship’s Consequences for the Ebb and Flow of Activism: Collaborative Evidence from Life-History Interviews and Social Media Event Analysis,

Acting in solidarity with deprived others has become a central topic in social movement research. The explanations of solidarity activism or political altruism are few. However, social movement researchers have claimed that solidarity with out-of-group others is a by-product of in-group interaction. In contrast, we argue that out-group interaction with the deprived other and the formation of a solidary relationship is central to the ebb and flow of solidarity activism. We investigate the Danish refugee solidarity movement and show that the meeting with the deprived other 1) brings about an interaction order which makes an ethical demand on the activists to care for the other both within the bounds of the situations and in the future; 2) enacts and amplifies activists’ values and beliefs because the deprived other becomes an exemplar of the injustice and the need to help the broader group of people in the same fragile situation. We develop and test this theory drawing on 42 life-history interviews and a social media dataset containing a panel of 87,455 activists participating in refugee solidarity groups.     

The “diseased” activist's body as the site of trauma: Anti-racist struggles and the postrace academy

This paper is an autoethnographic account of the “racialized activist body” in the White academy and in tandem the bio-politics and bio-ethics of its right to be an affective body or to possess its senses against the trauma of anti-racist struggles in higher education institutions. The paper argues that in the postrace university, the “activist body” birthed through trauma becomes a conduit for the pain of others enacting it as a site for the deposition and transmutation of trauma in the quest for racial and social justice. It employs Bracha Ettinger’s notion of “matrixial borderspace” to examine the interplay of social relations between of the activist body and other traumatized subjects in the provision of care as an activist. Two narratives unfold in the paper fusing the articulations of the main text with the paratext to unleash the tumultuous psyche of the activist and her journey of voicing resistance in her anti-racist struggles. In the process, the activist body emerges as a “diseased site,” overloaded with the trauma of others, yet numbed in its inability to reconnect with its own corporeality and professional identity in its interface with White governmentality. The paper asserts that anti-racist struggles reassemble the activist body, tightly welding it with exhaustion which manifests in the pervasiveness of racial battle fatigue in the ivory tower.     

Social movement schools: sites for consciousness transformation,training, and prefigurative social development

ABSTRACT

We develop the concept of “social movement school’ (SMS), showing how these organizational spaces are deliberately designed for purposes of educating, mentoring, training, and coordinating individuals as effective, committed movement agents. SMSs can also be important sites of prefigurative design and practice for future societal development consistent with movement goals. We motivate the theoretical significance of SMSs based on five perspectives in social movement scholarship: (1) resource mobilization; (2) cultural approaches to repertoires of contention; (3) cognitive perspective; (4) micro-mobilization; and (5) biographical consequences of participation. We then offer a typology to capture primary purposes, and spatial reach within the broad field of SMSs. Within-movement variation is illustrated by focusing on a variety of SMSs in the U.S. civil rights movement; and the cross-movement breadth of the concept is illustrated by highlighting contemporary SMS forms drawn from three very different movements–labor, radical feminism, and mindfulness meditation movements. In the interest of launching a research agenda on SMSs, we end with several key questions that could serve to guide future research. Important theoretical, empirical, and practical considerations suggest that SMSs deserve the attention of scholars and activists alike.     

著名土壤学家陈恩凤教授学术思想研究——纪念陈恩凤教授百岁诞辰

为了纪念著名土壤学家陈恩凤教授诞辰100周年,《沈阳农业大学学报（社会科学版）》农学家研究栏目专题介绍陈恩凤教授的学术思想以及他在土壤地理、土壤肥力和土壤改良等领域做出的卓著科学成就,以志怀念。陈恩凤教授一生热爱科学,追求真理,学术成就显著,教书育人,培养出众多的高素质人才,桃李满天下。他的学术思想、科学成就和教学艺术,以及高尚的人格魅力,令后人感佩不己,受益终生。     

英雄伦理与抗争行动的持续性——以鲁西农民抗争积极分子为例

在中国乡村抗争研究中,农民抗争的动机经常被理解为一种“受损逻辑”。虽然受损逻辑能够部分解释抗争行动的发起,但却不能解释在利益补偿、伦理关系修复的情况下,抗争为何会继续进行。本文在对鲁西农民抗争积极分子进行研究的基础上指出,推动抗争积极分子持续抗争的动机是一种由抗争行动本身带来的、突出的、不同于受损逻辑的“英雄伦理”。这种英雄伦理发展出了互助连带机制、等级区分机制和友情再造机制等三种机制,从而推动着抗争的持续进行。然而,这三种机制在推动抗争持续进行的同时,也存在着各自内在的限制。最后,笔者讨论了“英雄伦理”对于理解中国乡村抗争政治的贡献。     

"郑经是台独分子"说质疑--以《东壁楼集》为佐证

某些"台独"学者为了替自己寻找历史根据而称郑经在台湾"独立建国";中国大陆也有人"以古鉴今"而说郑经是分裂国家的"台独分子".对此,不断有学者依据史料加以质疑和辩驳.近年新发现的郑经<东壁楼集>中的近五百首诗,呈现一位继承其父郑成功遗志和"遗民忠义精神",始终奉明正朔,矢志抗清复土,时而孤独消沉,时而慷慨激昂的抒情主人公形象.这是郑经并非"台独分子"的佐证.对历史人物的判断要慎重,与某些"台独"学者针锋相对地争夺对历史、文化的阐释权是不容忽视的.     

高情远志育桃李 躬耕科研献三农——记著名农学家和农业教育家顾慰连教授

顾慰连教授(1931-1990),著名农学家、农业教育家和社会活动家。潜心于教书育人,为农学本科生、研究生分别讲授作物栽培学、玉米栽培与良种繁育、作物高产栽培理论与实践等课程;他先后担任沈阳农学院教务长、副院长、院长和沈阳农业大学首任校长,倾心于学校的恢复、整顿与发展,为把学校办成以农为主,农理、农工、农文结合的综合性农业大学而创新求索。他躬耕于玉米栽培技术、玉米育种与繁育、玉米高产栽培生理等科学研究,并为服务"三农"做出了积极的贡献;他关心国家大事,兼任国家、省市各级学术、社会组织领导与成员,忠实履行职责。顾慰连教授具有博闻强识、爱岗敬业、矢志科学的忘我精神和修身厉行、尊师重教、温恭自虚的优秀品质,这些科学家的伟大风范值得农业科教工作者效仿、学习和发扬光大。     

The reconfiguration of social movements in post-2011 Romania

ABSTRACT

Since 2011, a series of citizen mobilizations have emerged in Romania, from local replicas of the ‘Occupy’ movement to the 2017 and 2018 mass protests against corruption. In this article, we develop three arguments for a better understanding of the successive waves of protests that have shaken the Romanian social and political landscape since 2011. First, while each protest has a specific claim and target, the forms of commitments, repertoire of actions and relationship to politics point to clear continuities between protest events that should be analyzed as part of the same cycle of protests. Second, while some analyses have emphasized the specificities of the Romanian context, we maintain that the actors and dynamics of this cycle of protest are simultaneously deeply national, embedded in the mutations of Eastern European civil society, and in resonance with the post-2011 global wave of movements. Third, while it is indispensable to analyze these citizen mobilizations as a whole, it is equally important to understand that they result from the convergence of diverse activist cultures, from left-wing autonomist activists to right-wing citizens and even nationalist militants. Each of these activist cultures has its own logic of action and its vision of democracy and of politics.