Crisis Of Representation Research Articles

Why Medieval Allegory?

Why Medieval Allegory?

The Political Representation Crisis in Central Africa

Abstract The crisis of political representation in Central Africa is structural. It is intrinsically linked to the failure of democracy in the region. All states of Central Africa are states of law in which the people have a major role to play as the holders of national sovereignty. In fact, the presidential regime allows the president of the republic to concentrate all powers. At each constitutional revision, the chief executive affirms his supremacy over the nation. Such a situation combined with the absence of political alternation in Central Africa is leading to a rejection of political representation by an ever growing segment of the population.

Sortition-infused democracy: Empowering citizens in the age of climate emergency

This article addresses two great global challenges of the 2020s. On one hand, the accelerating climate crisis and, on the other, the deepening crisis of representation within liberal democracies. As temperatures and water levels rise, rates of popular confidence in existing democratic institutions decline. So, what is to be done? This article discusses whether sortition – the ancient Greek practice of selecting individuals for political office through lottery – could serve to mitigate both crises simultaneously. Since the 2000s, sortition has attracted growing interest among activists and academics. Recently it has been identified in countries like the UK and France as a mechanism for producing legitimate political answers to the climate challenge. However, few theoretical reflections on the potentials and perils of sortition-based climate governance have yet emerged. This article contributes to filling the gap. Based on a critique of the first successful case of sortition used to enhance national environmental policy – in Ireland in 2017–18 – we argue that sortition-based deliberation could indeed speed up meaningful climate action whilst improving the health of democratic systems. However, this positive outcome is not preordained. Success depends not only on green social movements getting behind climate sortition but also on developing flexible, context-specific designs that identify adequate solutions to a number of problems, including those of power (providing citizens’ assemblies with clear agenda-setting prerogatives beyond non-binding consultation); expertise (allowing assembly participants to influence which stakeholders and experts to solicit inputs from); and participation (engaging wider parts of the citizenry in the deliberative process).

Democracias incompletas: El caso de Brasil

The article aims to analyze whether, after 30 years of current Brazilian democracy, political institutions will be resilient enough to deal with the consequences of an authoritarian government elected in the middle of a deep representation crisis. In other words, would this be a turn to an illiberal democracy? From an analysis of the situation, we traced a chronology of circumstances – transition from the authoritarian regime, popular dissatisfaction, critical elections of 2018 as a time of exhaustion for the New Republic, dynamics of the party dispute – that converged to the rise of ultra-right forces, elected through a democratic regime. Data referring to public perception concerning institutions, electoral results, and performance of traditional parties in recent electoral cycles (general election of 2018 and municipal election of 2020) are analyzed. We conclude that the growth of center-right parties in the 2020 municipal elections indicate that – despite the analytical correctness of the literature on the possibility of internal corrosion of democracies by nationalist neopopulism – the thesis regarding incidental rulers has strong evidence visible in Brazil.

From Economic Crisis to a Crisis of Representation? The Relationship Among Economic Conditions, Ideological Congruence, and Electoral Participation

Research indicates that ideological congruence between citizens and political parties increases the likelihood of turning out to vote. But does this relationship also hold in times of economic crisis? In this study, I investigate whether economic conditions moderate the effect of voter–party representation on turnout. I argue that ideological congruence has significant effects on electoral participation during “normal” times, but these are even more relevant when citizens face economic hardship. Thus, in times of crisis, citizens are more likely to vote if they have a party that represents their position. I empirically test this argument by analyzing large-scale cross-national survey data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES). Findings bear important implications for the relationship between economic conditions and the functioning of modern democracies.

Cultural Policies as a Driver For A Participatory Transformation of Democracy in the European Union

Across Europe, culture is acquiring an increasing constitutional relevance by fostering experiments of bottom-up reflexive and self-organised participation able to bring policymakers closer to citizens. This paper adopts a European Union (EU) standpoint, observing how the EU could use cultural programs to support these practices and promote democracy and inclusion in the wake of the ‘crisis of political representation’. The objective is to draw recommendations for EU institutions to connect with local communities by multiplying the opportunities of equality and inclusion without interfering with local democracy. The investigation starts from an analysis – also through the case study of Italian constitutional transformations – of how the ‘distrust’ towards representation transformed the constitutional settlements of democratic participation. The study emphasises the need for new participatory forms and the relevance of spontaneous bottom-up initiatives in that direction, especially in the cultural field. Against this backdrop, the article will explore how EU cultural policies could be more inclusive so as to improve their social approach and trigger a direct dialogue with grassroots experiences.

Anthropocene Under Paris? Rethinking the Quarries and Catacombs

ABSTRACT This essay takes the Paris underground as a ‘naturalcultural contact zone’ that allows us to consider what current eco-critical discussions of the Anthropocene might contribute to nineteenth-century French studies. Although the origin-point of the anthropocene era continues to be debated, some scholars point to late eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century geological theories of deep time as causing a crisis of representation; the Paris basin emerges as a stratigraphic site that makes visible the incommensurability of human and Earth timescales. I put recent critical work on non-human agency of la terre into dialogue with writings by Nadar, Simonin, and Balzac.

Parliaments Facing the Virtual Challenge: A Conceptual Approach for New Models of Representation

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically accelerated digital transformations in all spheres of public and private life, providing a strong incentive also for parliaments to adopt digital and remote working methods. The entry of the virtual paradigm into parliamentary work is part of a scenario already marked by a crisis of the traditional political representation model, also as a consequence of the disintermediation phenomena induced by the digital revolution. This article aims at investigating some conceptual links between the crisis of parliamentary representation and the digital transition and at analysing pros and cons of virtual/hybrid parliamentary proceedings and investigating with a non-empirical approach some potential systemic effects that could derive from maintaining them even after the current pandemic is over. Finally, the article suggests that the virtual challenge could encourage the evolution of parliaments towards new hybrid and network-based representation models which might help in providing a new centrality to legislatures in 21st century democratic systems.

THE FOURTH HISTORICAL MOMENT IN SOCIAL RESEARCH ‘THE CRISIS OF REPRESENTATION’: A CHAPTER REVIEW

The historical moments of qualitative research reflect socially constructed quasi-historic conventions that remain crosscut and overlapping till the present. This progressive narrative is well represented and assessed in a historical overview by Denzin & Lincoln (2018) in their book “The Sage handbook of qualitative research” in the introduction “The discipline and practice of qualitative research”. Through a chapter review, this article particularly discusses the fourth moment of Quantitative research coined as “The crisis of representation”, which is believed to be the crossroads where social scientists remain entangled between the science and humanity perspective while conducting social research in order to forward social realities. This period of confusion simultaneously forwarded the multi-paradigm (positivism, postpositivism, and interpretivism), all of which have unique characteristics that are suitable for specific research. Thus, this paper sheds light on the overview of the crisis of representation and further explains the types of crises that occurred during this historical moment, including the crisis of representation, the crisis of legitimation, and a crisis of praxis. It is expected that apart from extending current literature this paper would support social scientists for selecting appropriate methods and paradigms as well as to justify their selection.

‘So what’s arts got to do with it?’: An autoethnography of navigating researcher positionality while co-creating knowledge

In this autoethnography, I share about my journey navigating multiple researcher positionalities. I commence with a reflection on how one of my positionalities as an ‘outsider-within’ influences my onto-epistemological stance and approach to the research. Through my shared case, where I am a ‘marginal intellectual’ with an intersectional researcher positionality, I highlight the complexities of negotiating power in co-creating knowledge with participants whilst navigating the insider/outsider/in-between researcher positions. I illustrate how a reflexive methodology incorporating Arts-Based processes (ABP) facilitated navigation of power dynamics in order to mitigate the ‘representation crisis’ often resulting from researcher positionalities.

Chile’s perfect storm: social upheaval, COVID-19 and the constitutional referendum

ABSTRACT Why did one of Latin America’s most stable democracies experience a social upheaval that forced the political class to organise a referendum to rewrite the current constitution? To what degree did the COVID-19 pandemic influence the development of the constitutional referendum of October 2020? What institutional paths will open for Chile when the new constitution comes into force? In this article, it is suggested, first, that Chile successfully reduced poverty levels but inequality was reduced more slowly, which contributed to generating discontent with democracy. Second, that Chile has had a long-term crisis of representation, with a rigid party system which partially changed in 2017 due to the implementation of a new electoral system. Third, that in the 2020 constitutional referendum the lower-income sectors – whose COVID 19 infection rates were higher than the rest of the population – surprisingly turned out to vote in greater numbers than in previous elections. Fourth, that Chile is beginning a constitutional process blighted by uncertainty, polarisation and political instability, which will culminate only with the referendum in mid-2022 to approve or reject the new constitution.

Innovation of the director's vocabulario of Oskaras Korshunovas

The purpose of the article is to reveal the peculiarities of the theatrical direction of O. Korsunovas and analyze the innovation of his director's vocabulary. Methodology. Comparative and structural methods were applied, which contributed to the identification of the originality and diversity of innovative directorial vocabulary; the method of art history analysis, the typological-structural method, and the method of artistic-compositional analysis of stage works, thanks to which the director's "toolbox" has been studied and structured, etc. Scientific novelty. The directorial activity of Oskaras Koršunovas is investigated in the context of the leading strategies of modern European theater; based on the art historical analysis of the performances "There to be here", "Old" by D. Kharms, "Hello Sonya, New Year" by A. Vvedensky, "P.S. case OK "S. Parulskis," Roberto Zucco "B.-M. Colts, “Hamlet” by W. Shakespeare and others, the innovative ways of representation applied by the director were revealed and analyzed; the characteristic features of the director's vocabulary were determined and it was proved that it is an open and dynamic system that develops under the influence of urgent problems of modern society; previously unknown factual material was introduced into scientific circulation. Conclusions. The art of directing by O. Korsunovas is one of the most striking examples of contemporary theater, which deals with the problems of a modern person, and the specificity of its content and form emphasizes the crisis of representation of the late 20th - early 21st centuries, manifests itself through deep changes in relation to action, feelings, scene perception, fragmentation, the crisis of bodily mediation and invariant supports of representation, both at the level of setting and at the level of reception. Directing by O. Korsunovas is distinguished by a fundamental innovation of views, a desire to destroy the ideological, artistic, and methodological limitations of theatrical direction, a unique interpretation of classical plays as modern ones, with an emphasis on contemporary moments, an experimental development on the basis of a theatrical laboratory of unique metaphor and imagery. The research revealed that the characteristic features of O. Korsunovas' directorial vocabulary are: application of the principle of deformation, contrast, and transformation, which take the form of a tragic grotesque; coding in elements of presentation of principles related to the specifics of drama; using the subject as an abstract construction; the use of the chorus - an element of classical Greek theater - in the performances of works of modern drama, etc.

Symmetry, Violence, and The Handmaiden's Queer Colonial Intimacies

Abstract The Japanese annexation of Korea (1910–45) implicates a crisis of representation in South Korean national history. Both the traumatic wounds and complex intimacies of Japan's rule over its Korean subjects were met with postcolonial suppression, censorship, and disavowal. This article examines Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden (Ah-ga-ssi, South Korea, 2016), a period film set in 1930s Korea under Japanese rule, in relation to the two nations’ fraught but interconnected colonial and postcolonial histories. By analyzing the film's explicit sexual depiction through discourses of ethnicity, gender, and nation, it argues that the lesbian sex scenes encode and eroticize latent anxieties and tensions surrounding Japan-Korea relations, making explicit the ambivalent longing and lingering identification shared between the colonizers and the colonized. Furthermore, through intertextual reference to the intertwined and imitative relations between the national cinemas of Japan and Korea—relations mediated and elided by a long history of state censorship—Park's film repudiates an essentialist South Korean identity propped up by both nationalist narratives and market liberalization policies. Through palimpsestic projection of the colonial era onto South Korea's neoliberal present, the film invites parallels between colonialism's unresolved legacy and contemporary modes of cultural production. Simultaneously, the film offers a utopian vision of a national self that surfaces—rather than suppresses—the violence and pleasure incurred in confrontations with the colonial or transnational other.

Exhibition Review: Every Day. Art. Solidarity. Resistance

Exhibition Review: <i>Every Day. Art. Solidarity. Resistance</i>

Gender Mimet(h)ics and Singular Subjectivities versus the Representational Crisis of Phallocratic Reappropriation in Postmodern Thought

Gender Mimet(h)ics and Singular Subjectivities versus the Representational Crisis of Phallocratic Reappropriation in Postmodern Thought

‘Thinking with Kaipara’: A decolonising methodological strategy to illuminate social heterogenous nature–culture relations in place

Decolonising methodologies continue to be critically developed to disrupt the marginalising approaches to knowledge production. By privileging Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing, relations with nature are a more-than-human entanglement and a relational pursuit. Ecosystems such as estuaries and rivers are connected through kin-based relationships and treated as (or are) ancestors and family members. Such embodiment connects the body–mind–spirit to maintain relations with the mauri of ancestral beings and Deities. Within this ontology, nature is indistinguishable from culture. Our research responds to the call of how method might proceed to de-centre the human and make bodily and material encounters with the nonhuman matter. ‘Thinking with Kaipara’ is a methodological strategy that is a deliberate attempt to pursue embodied ways of producing knowledge. To work with situated knowledges, place and social difference to address the crisis of representation of such in ecosystem-based management, the problematising of ecosystem degradation and restoration practices. Research data produced is founded on human and nonhuman collaboration, an ethic of care, diverse epistemic nature–culture relations, social/nature/gender justice and equality, which makes for empirical evidence not enjoyed by scientific and technocratic methods utilised to inform and shape ecosystem-based management decisions and policy. Geo-creative practices are used by co-researchers/co-participants to recount their lived experiences and knowledges of ecosystem degradation and restoration. Storytelling, poetics, and painting, sculpting, whaikorero, waiata and writing were practices used. We argue that such geo-creative practices challenge the normative spaces and practices of disciplinary knowledge-making and enable the examination of social heterogeneous nature–culture relations in settler-colonial societies.

Crises and/of representations

This article focuses on the Athens Polytechnic, an emblematic site that has been the epicentre of historical ruptures during which it has been extensively graffitied. It is based on a corpus consisting of graffiti writings on this particular building during three key crises moments in Greece's modern history. It critically examines an architectural drawing of graffiti writings on the edifice and reflects on the methods followed to produce this drawing of writings. The article develops in four parts each of which gradually unfolds the relationship between crisis and representation. Crises and representations are seen as opportunities for criticality and, by extension, sites of critique. By studying key moments of crises of representation in the public domain, as these are expressed in graffiti writing, the Polytechnic becomes the site of writing that registers the various responses to the overwhelming forces of crises. As a representation of these crises, the site of drawing is turned into a montage table—an ‘atlas’ in Warburg's terms—where these crises are resituated, or rather recomposed, thus forging relations and producing new nexuses of meaning. Ultimately, the article aims to show how representations and/of crises have the capacity to operate as sites of knowledge production whilst introducing an architectural design research method to study urban phenomena.

The Silent Electoral Earthquake in Cyprus: A Crisis of Political Representation

ABSTRACT The 2021 legislative elections exacerbated the crisis of political representation in the Republic of Cyprus, with important changes in voter behaviour yet to materialise in party systemic change. Corruption and, to a lesser extent, the pandemic dominated the political campaign and added to voter disaffection with traditional political parties, including the opposition. The growing appetite for political protest was largely scattered among various new parties and platforms, which failed to win electoral representation. Traditional parties scored their worst results ever and the far-right ELAM nearly doubled its electorate, while abstention stabilised at record high levels.

An Introduction to Reading the Past Critically

An Introduction to Reading the Past Critically

Rui Nunes, ou a pequena história dos gestos

Na literatura portuguesa contemporânea, Rui Nunes (n. 1945) destaca-se pela singularidade inclassificável da sua escrita, na qual a crise da representação do humano, da identidade, do corpo, é levada a uma zona limite que torna indiscerníveis, porque mutuamente implicados, uma radical crise genológica e as fragilidades físicas do próprio autor: uma miopia progressiva leva-o a exacerbar a monstruosidade do pormenor, do descontínuo e do fragmento, em detrimento das “grandes coesões” textuais, orgânicas ou metafísicas. Desfazendo o mundo, dos objectos às personagens, em “escombros” e “ruínas”, o humano é reconduzido ao absurdo da “carne”, esvaziada de qualquer fundamento ontológico. É essa escrita-olhar que está no âmago deste ensaio, articulando-se, para o efeito, com o “momento qualquer” na literatura segundo Jacques Rancière, o poeta Henri Lefebvre, um poema de Rilke e o problema do “corpo paliativo” segundo Byung-Chul Han.