Political Articulation Research Articles

Del sentido histórico a la agenda ampliada: la experiencia de la Mesa de Trabajo por los Derechos Humanos de Córdoba, Argentina

El artículo analiza la experiencia de la Mesa de Trabajo por los Derechos Humanos de Córdoba como referente paradigmático de articulación entre viejos y nuevos modos del compromiso político en el momento de su conformación y consolidación. En particular, reflexiona sobre las complejidades de la acción política y la cuestión de los derechos humanos en un régimen de historicidad diferente al relacionarlas con las derivas del tratamiento político e institucional de las demandas que la Mesa expresaba.

The social work Reconceptualisation Movement in Latin America and the renewal in Brazil: the protagonist role of the Latin American Social Work Centre

This article is part of the research ‘The Social Work Reconceptualization Movement in Latin America: Historical Determinants, International Interlocutions and Memory’. It portrays the 1960s’ socio-political framework in Latin America, as well as the cultural, ideo-political and socio-economic processes that have deeply affected global societies. In this context, it situates the contribution of the Latin American Social Work Centre to the Reconceptualisation Movement of social work in Latin America, when breaking with traditional social work, and the so-called ‘turnaround’ of Brazilian social work, responsible for profound transformations in academic and professional development and education, professional activity, and organisation, through the political articulation of several professional entities.

Le rôle et le positionnement de la Gauche dans le mouvement « Un sur cinq millions » en Serbie

The political and economic crisis that followed the Great Recession (2008) created an impetus for mass mobilisation across Europe, protesting austerity measures or demanding more democracy. In Serbia, the protests organised under the slogan “One of Five Million,” which broke out in late 2018, were not framed as “economic” but solely as “political.” This paper explores the socio-historically embedded opportunities and barriers for the political articulation, mobilisation and institutionalisation of left-wing movements and organisations in Serbia by focusing on their role in the “One of Five Million” protests. We demonstrate that despite greater prospects for the rise of the Left, stemming from the global economic crisis and the adverse socio-economic outcomes of the post-socialist transformation in Serbia, an unfavourable discursive opportunity structure still presents a significant impediment for the development of left-wing political parties and movements.

A Critical Discourse Analysis of Military-Related Remembrance Rhetoric in UK Sport: Communicating Consent for British Militarism

Sport has been a major strategic cultural practice used by Western allies to encourage citizens to support and “thank” their governments’ military actors. This increasingly visible intersection of sport and militarism occurred simultaneously alongside the development of propaganda departments by the American and Canadian governments seeking to use sport (and other popular cultural activities) to communicate consent for their respective military actors and actions. United Kingdom (UK) has witnessed many of these campaigns being replicated with a wide range of popular culture practices being utilized to provide public performances of support for its nation’s military personnel. This article critically analyzes “support the troops” rhetoric in UK by discussing a selection of official sporting and political articulations. Of significance is the extent to which those coordinating numerous support strategies for military-related violence (and its political rationale) have incorporated the language and symbolism of UK military-related remembrance, which historically has been viewed as a sorrowful and sombre reflection on the mass slaughter of millions during two world wars. The significance and centrality of on-the-surface-apolitical communication in and of sport as a form of ideological inculcation is illustrated.

Taking Back the Future

I
 n this article we discuss unique free software-based digital infrastructures and networks that were developed in Brazilian communities, presenting situated models of resistance. We will discuss the background of the networks and characterize their practice and infrastructure, that are largely under-studied. The analysis we pursue highlights the importance of minorized decentralized technological practices that convey integral organizational models opposing capitalist hegemony. In order to describe the intersection of these alternatives in the Brazilian context, we will mobilize a feminist epistemology which considers necessary principles of “intra-action” (Barad 2007) across heterogeneous sociotechnical spaces.
 We will describe how different projects intersect, among them: Baobáxia, “a rota os Baobas” an eventually connected network, that can exist both on the larger internet and disconected from it, as a local local network, which nodes are located in quilombolas communities; “Metareciclagem”a collective of Brazilian technologists promoting the “up-cycling” of discarded computing technologies and their usage for artistic expression through “Gambiarra” (“makeshift”) re-appropriations; and another political articulation of the reflection about the appropriation of digital technologies that has given rise to an international network and practices which are identified by activists and artists as “Technoshamanism.”
 The role and place of digital activism in the Brazilian context is uniquely tied to specific needs of the communities at a moment in time. This led to unique examples of construction of what we have called “singular technologies”, we mean: "intentional and contextual technologies, developed specifically by a community to respond to their specific context." In Brazil, they emerge from a decolonial position and cultural narrative re-appropriation, supported by a benevolent policy. This brings us in the conclusion to qualify the construction of singular technologies that stem from the need to characterize daily practice by citizen groups that deploy their successful institutional arrangements and affordances under the radar and outside the competency of traditional institutions. These concepts do not try to define any tangible essence, but rather articulate social dynamics of the studied groups. We will qualify these social dynamics as the unique relation that technological processes emerge from.

POLÍTICAS PÚBLICAS NO BRASIL: NECESSIDADE DE POLÍTICAS PÚBLICAS PARA TRATAMENTO DE IDOSOS COM ALZHEIMER

O envelhecimento populacional é uma questão mundial. Embora decorrente da queda do número de mortalidade e melhores condições de vida, está acompanhado de problemas específicos dessa parcela da população (como o aumento do número de portadores do Alzheimer) e que necessita de respostas pontuais dos governos. No Brasil não é diferente, tratando-se de um país em desenvolvimento o fenômeno da alteração demográfica provocada pelo crescimento do número de idosos, infelizmente não ocorreu posterior ao crescimento econômico, a consolidação de valores democráticos, nem tão pouco a construção de uma sociedade igualitária, como nos países desenvolvidos. Aqui essa alteração demográfica, ao contrário, evidenciou problemas já existentes e exigiu respostas que a princípio foram atendidas apenas por leis. Falta pesquisa, conhecimento e educação à própria sociedade para acolhimento aos idosos. Neste trabalho buscou-se através do método indutivo, investigar teorias sobre o envelhecimento, causas e consequências. Através da pesquisa bibliográfica e de dados estatísticos em secretarias e órgãos do governo, além de identificar direitos e programas atribuídos aos idosos e desenvolvidos pela articulação política entre ministérios. Conclui-se que as respostas afirmativas a questão são mínimas e insuficientes, pois além da alta demanda, este não é um fenômeno passageiro, mas que requer políticas públicas exclusivas sustentadas ao longo do tempo e articuladas pelos governos federal, estaduais e municipais.

Disrupting the Rhythms of Violence: Anti‐port Protests in the City of Buenaventura

AbstractThis contribution draws on rhythmanalysis and the political economy of assemblage to provide a framework for understanding the productive spatio‐temporal effects of physical violence on urban rhythms. The paper explores how Buenaventura, Colombia's biggest port city, is transformed both by the growth in container turnover, and through recurring, spatial and temporal practices of violence. What role does violence play in the relation between trade‐driven acceleration through the port, and the aquatic, tidal rhythm that historically shaped the city? The contribution mobilizes the notion of disruption to analyse the frictions emerging between infrastructural nodes of acceleration, inhabitants’ movements, and urban space. I argue that while recurring violence provides urban rhythm itself, social movements may employ the temporal instrument of disruption as a means both of political articulation and transformation within the logics of accelerated accumulation and in a context marked by violent rhythms and forced mobility.

The Spatial Politics of Far-right Populism: VOX, Anti-fascism and Neighbourhood Solidarity in Madrid City

This article explores the spatial politics of the Spanish far-right party VOX, deepening discussions around the spaces of xenophobic populism and anti-fascist politics. The paper foregrounds the need of moving beyond the nation-centred, institutional and descriptive approaches that characterise the literature on far-right politics, to focus on the quotidian grounds of far-right mobilisations. Through an analysis of VOX’s politics of hate at the neighbourhood level, I explore the co-constitutive relationship between ‘institutional politics’ and the ‘politics of the street’. Focusing in Hortaleza – a Madrilenian district targeted by VOX’s mobilisation – I analyse the ways the party attempts to exploit situated inequalities linked to the urbanisation of border regimes and how neighbourhood movements are challenging VOX through constructing alternative anti-racist politics of belonging. The paper argues that the centrality of the neighbourhood as the lived space of political socialisation makes it a key scale of articulation of anti-fascist politics and grassroots solidarities.

A Populist Desire: "All You Need Is the Heart of the People Rather than the Palace s Screens"

The populist repertoire relies on the glorification of the people against the elites and establishment; it operates through an antagonistic discourse driven by blame and emotional appeals. The opportunity to observe the populist style emerges during “critical moments” in political life when the appeal to the people becomes clear in the midst of the competition to determine how the conditions of life will be reproduced. There are a limited number of studies of female populist leaders that focus on their alternative role or form of political articulation. This article aims to contribute to our understanding of female populist leadership by examining the populist discourse and performance of Meral Aksener, the General Chair of the IYI Party (the Good Party) in Turkey. Aksener’s campaign speeches during the presidential election of 2018 are analyzed with a view to understanding how populist frames came to permeate the Zeitgeist in Turkey at that time.

Evangelicals and political power in Mexico: reconfiguring alliances and antagonisms

Recovering the historical conditions that configure it, in this text I address the emergence of the evangelical political subject in Mexico from the analytical proposal of Joanildo Burity in his article The Evangelical People: Hegemonic Construction, Minority Disputes, and Conservative Reaction. Making use of his approach on the populist moment, I sustain that this emergency only acquires its full meaning in the interactions with the political field and in relation to the state of their relations and I reflect on the articulation of evangelicals and politics against feminism as antagonist.

Explicación del ethos discursivo de Lenín Moreno y Rafael Correa en 2018

Este artículo aborda el análisis de discurso de Rafael Correa y Lenín Moreno en un nuevo contexto deEcuador con una variación de articulaciones políticas, en el que las estrategias discursivas tienen unarenovada formación del nosotros y los otros. El objetivo es indagar la construcción del ethos discursivode ambos políticos durante 2018, a través de lo dicho por ellos sobre sí. Es un análisis cualitativo deun corpus de 16 discursos televisivos (de diferentes tipos) de Moreno y 9 de Correa. En los resultadosaparece una fuerte carga de valores personales y políticos en lo manifestado por Moreno para sustentarsu propuesta del diálogo y ser refundador de la institucionalidad del país, mientras que Correa enfatizasu integridad moral, se declara perseguido y se construye como un redentor de la patria para salvarla.El estudio permitió conocer cómo estas estrategias discursivas buscaron construir su imagen sobre loshechos del pasado y el presente para formarlos de manera diferencial ante sus opositores construidos.

Cultural Insecurities and the Desire for Separation: Political Articulations of the Memory of the Algerian War in France

French colonization and the consequent War of Independence in Algeria have marked contemporary French society deeply in numerous ways. For decades, the history and memories of these events have been described as ‘padlocked’ by the state. Since the 2000s, academics have observed an increase in the political use of memory. While the literature has often employed psychoanalytical concepts to interpret this resurgence of the repressed, I argue that these readings are in fact designed to be present incursions into the past, serving to legitimate contemporary political projects. This is because new political actors and projects have emerged defending certain visions of the past in order to bolster present ambitions. In recent years, France has also experienced a rise of both far-right nationalist movements and Islamism. These radical formations continue to instrumentalize the history and memories of colonization and the war in Algeria to legitimate their discourses. In a fast-changing world, radical groups promote the rehabilitation of a reassuring past in which racial hierarchies and endogamy are associated with prestige and stability. I contend that while radical elements develop discourses bearing on the past, they thrive on the cultural insecurities of today’s youth and thereby contribute to the reification of identities. Thus, while trying to come to terms with the past, memory policies might actually contribute to its resurgence, as they tend to focus on discourses rather than social frustrations.

The Subnational Indigenous Quota in Peru: The Paradoxes of Political Representation

ABSTRACTThe objective of this article is to explain the territorial variation in indigenous political representation at the subnational level in Peru. The Peruvian state introduced a weak indigenous electoral quota, and its effects have varied across provinces. This article presents a typology that combines descriptive and substantive dimensions of political representation. Using a subnational comparative method, the four cases studied illustrate distinct dynamics. The article argues that these differing dynamics are explained by a combination of sociostructural variables (i.e., political articulation and cohesion of indigenous organizations as a result of a conflict) and individual variables (i.e., candidates’ political capital). This article demonstrates how, even in an institutionally adverse environment that does not feature ethnic parties, both descriptive and substantive indigenous political representation can be achieved, and that these two dimensions are not necessarily related. The article is based on fieldwork and interviews with key provincial political actors.

Populism or pragmatism? Two ways of understanding political articulation*

Populism or pragmatism? Two ways of understanding political articulation*

Innovation Dynamics of Socio-Technical Alignment in Community Energy Storage: The Cases of DrTen and Ecovat

With energy transition gaining momentum, energy storage technologies are increasingly spotlighted as they can effectively handle mismatches in supply and demand. The decreasing cost of distributed energy generation technologies and energy storage technologies as well as increasing demand for local flexibility is opening up new possibilities for the deployment of energy storage technologies in local energy communities. In this context, community energy storage has potential to better integrate energy supply and demand at the local level and can contribute towards accommodating the needs and expectations of citizens and local communities as well as future ecological needs. However, there are techno-economical and socio-institutional challenges of integrating energy storage technologies in the largely centralized present energy system, which demand socio-technical innovation. To gain insight into these challenges, this article studies the technical, demand and political articulations of new innovative local energy storage technologies based on an embedded case study approach. The innovation dynamics of two local energy storage innovations, the seasalt battery of DrTen® and the seasonal thermal storage Ecovat®, are analysed. We adopt a co-shaping perspective for understanding innovation dynamics as a result of the socio-institutional dynamics of alignment of various actors, their articulations and the evolving network interactions. Community energy storage necessitates thus not only technical innovation but, simultaneously, social innovation for its successful adoption. We will assess these dynamics also from the responsible innovation framework that articulates various forms of social, environmental and public values. The socio-technical alignment of various actors, human as well as material, is central in building new socio-technical configurations in which the new storage technology, the community and embedded values are being developed.

Outlining the history of cyberactivism in Brazil

Notwithstanding the growing interest in cyberactivism in Brazil since the 2013 protests, not much is known about the previous unfolding of this kind of activism before it became a major actor in challenging the political system. Thus, this paper aimed to offer a first outline of cyberactivism’s history in Brazil, taking into account which actors and practices were present in each moment, stressing their continuities and discontinuities. To this end, we used existing empirical literature – predominantly focused on particular actors, practices or moments – to gather data, facts and processes. Our investigation found out three moments of cyberactivism in the country, disrupted by an entaglement of socipolitical and technological factors and classified on the basis of existent actors, practices and platforms. First, the emergence, whereby web portals served as a source of information and a space for self expression and political articulation. Second, the consolidation, in which blogs provided networks for debates known as blogospheres. And, finally, the routinisation, when the emergence of social networks – stimulating debates, individual political manifestations, exchange of strategic information and calls for demonstrations – enabled cyberactivism to become part of everyday life.

LA ALIANZA DEL PACÍFICO Y LA HEGEMONÍA DE CHINA Y ESTADOS UNIDOS

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo explorar la relación de los cuatro países miembros de la Alianza del Pacífico (AP) con la República Popular China (China). La investigación de este artículo se hizo desde un enfoque y metodología cualitativa de tipo analítica. Se encontró que uno de los objetivos de la Alianza del Pacífico es convertirse en una plataforma de articulación política, integración económica y comercial, y proyección al mundo, con énfasis en la región Asia-Pacífico. China es el principal mercado de Asia Pacífico y el segundo a nivel mundial. Sin embargo, la Alianza tiene vínculos importantes con Estados Unidos, tanto por su modelo económico como por los tratados de libre comercio (TLC) que cada miembro tiene con dicho país. Estados Unidos y China se encuentran en una guerra comercial, y ambos compiten por el comercio regional e internacional. El déficit comercial de los miembros de la Alianza del Pacífico con China, el cual también Estados Unidos comparte, se debe al dominio comercial del dragón asiático en el mundo. La forma en que la Alianza del Pacífico está enfrentando dicho déficit es cerrándose al mercado chino y estableciendo alianzas con Estados Unidos. Dicha situación genera cuestionamientos como la forma en que afrontan los países de la Alianza del Pacífico la llamada “guerra comercial entre Estados Unidos y China” y de qué manera enfrentan la dicotomía entre la importancia del creciente mercado asiático lidereado por China frente a ser parte de la zona de influencia de Estados Unidos. Este artículo explora las relaciones entre los países de la Alianza del Pacífico y China de lo que se puede concluir que la nueva Ruta de la Seda es una alternativa para la diversificación de la Alianza del Pacífico.

The Dynamics of Islamic Political Parties Amid Indonesian Multicultural Society

<p class="06IsiAbstrak">Islam is not limited to religion that only talks about God. Islam has a comprehensive concept in all aspects of life, one of the aspect is politics (siyasa) that discusses the concept of the state, the exercise of power, who deserves to exercise power, how much power they can have, and the characteristics and objectives of Islamic politics itself. Political party is a superstructure in a political system that carries out several strategic functions, including political socialization, political recruitment, political articulation and aggregation of interests. Political party also has an important position in the policy making process. This paper aims to analyze how the dynamics of Islamic politics in Indonesia in the middle of multicultural society by carrying out its function as an articulator and aggregator of interests.</p>

Yiddish-Language World History and the Emergence of a Jewish Nationalist Politics in Late Imperial Russia

ABSTRACT Scholars have long posited a connection between the emergence of Jewish historical consciousness and the “new Jewish politics” of the period 1881–1917. They have largely neglected, however, the many popular Yiddish-language histories that appeared during this time. These popular histories – nearly all of them printed in Warsaw and dedicated to the topic of “world history” – were sold in the first decade of the twentieth century by newly established Yiddish publishing houses and were heavily advertised in the burgeoning Yiddish daily press. I argue that the narratives of cultural work presented in this genre of history provided a conceptual infrastructure for the eventual articulation of a Jewish mass politics in the post-1905 era. Moving beyond the textual analysis of canonical (Russian and Hebrew-language) historical literature reveals the discourses and practices that enabled Yiddish-speakers in the rapidly urbanizing Pale to imagine the Jewish nation as a coherent historical agent.

When Best Intentions Fail: Why Ads May Fall Short in Combating Islamophobia

Increasing crimes against Muslims are evidence that Muslim Americans are being targeted, while political and media rhetoric has aided the rise of Islamophobia. In response, the Council on American-Islamic Relations initiated an advertising campaign to reframe the discourse. Relying on terror management theory as a foundation, this research leverages a sequential mixed-method approach to evaluate and analyze the ads, bringing together concepts of rhetorical articulation of politics, discourse analysis of media-based rhetoric, and complicity theory related to racism to understand contemporary political framing of Islam. A quantitative study determined one’s religious fundamentalism had an effect on the viewer’s attitude toward the ads. This was followed by a qualitative analysis of the ads based on Stern’s approach to advertisement critique. Triangulated results show that the ads reinforce cultural worldviews that frame Muslims as “other” that could entrench existing attitudes toward Muslim Americans. Suggestions are made for future advertising efforts to reframe the discussion.