Forms Of Repression Research Articles

Amplified Vulnerabilities and Reconfigured Relations: COVID-19, Torture Prevention and Human Rights in the Global South

The COVID-19 pandemic has reconfigured personal, organisational and political landscapes in quite radical ways. This paper reflects on the differentiated impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and responses to it. We unpack some of the effects of the crisis on populations already subject to harassment, persecution and deprivation due to their marginal position in society or their resistance to state power. We illuminate how the current crisis is much more than a health crisis; the ways it exacerbates already existing deprivations; and how it might reveal hitherto unrecognised opportunities through which to make the world a more, rather than less, just and equitable place. Focus is on the way the crisis calls forth amplified forms of repression and consonantly amplified forms of vulnerability as well as reconfigured spaces for the operation of civil society organisations. We forward one key proposition, namely that while securitised responses to the crisis reveal an inherent conservatism, civil society responses reveal an agility and a capacity to innovate. While the inherent conservatism of securitised responses gives cause for serious concern, there is some hope to be found in the potential for innovation of civil society organisations. The revelation of humankind's shared vulnerability that is a feature of the crisis may serve as a springboard for the propagation of progressive change if we keep in mind the fundamentally human, and thus relational, nature of human rights and anti-torture work.

Politicizing flight in Edward Albee’s seascape

In the recent years, scholars and critics have become increasingly interested in the view that art is a means to escape from the existent reality and the difficulties of modern civilization. Accordingly, the literary work becomes emblematic of a voyage of spiritual discovery and the text turns into a virtual journey beyond the normal everyday world. Many writers emphasized in their works the need to be emancipated from the restrictions of modern life and underlined the idea that flight, with its different dimensions, is the ultimate way to avoid the complexities of contemporary life and circumvent the social standards and the political regulations. In the postmodern political thought, there is a similar tendency that valorizes the struggle for the liberation of the individual from all forms of repression and domination exerted by sociopolitical forces. Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari, for instance, criticize the constraints and rules that power authorities use to control the individual and call instead for freeing humans from the authoritarian policies of the social and political institutions.

Politicizing flight in Edward Albee’s seascape

In recent years, scholars and critics have become increasingly interested in the view that art is a means to escape from the existent reality and the difficulties of modern civilization. Many writers emphasized in their literary works the need to be emancipated from the restrictions of modern society and underlined the idea that flight is the ultimate way to avoid the complexities of contemporary life. Edward Albee, for example, addressed the issue of flight in his drama, particularly the sociopolitical and artistic scopes of escape. In his Seascape, Albee presents a multifaceted perception of flight juxtaposing the social with the literary and the political with the artistic. In the postmodern political thought too, there is a similar tendency that valorizes the struggle for the liberation of the individual from all forms of repression and domination exerted by sociopolitical forces. Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari (2005), for instance, criticize the constraints and rules that power authorities use to control the individual and call instead for freeing humans from all authoritarian policies. This paper, then, seeks to examine Albee’s staging of flight from the Deleuzo-Guattarian perspective in an attempt to elucidate his complex yet refined dramatization of escape in his play Seascape.

TEORIJA KOMUNIKATIVNOG DELOVANJA: KONTEKST ZA RAZUMEVANJE PRIRODE ZNANJA U PEDAGOGIJI

U radu se razmatra teorija komunikativnog delovanja Jirgena Habermasa kao kontekst za razumevanje prirode znanja u pedagogiji. Polazeći od ideja Frankfurtske škole kritičke teorije Habermas smatra da je znanje vođeno trima različitim interesima: tehničkim, praktičnim i emancipatorskim. Zagovara komunikativnu racionalnost, neprinudno učešće subjekata u komunikaciji u kojoj ih ujedinjuje snaga argumentativnog govora. Veruje da je konsenzus moguć u situaciji idealnog govora, oslobođenoj od svih vidova spoljne moći, nejednakosti i represije. Jedina moć koja važi i odnosi pobedu u komunikaciji je snaga boljeg argumenta. Znanje koje se ustanovi kroz ovaj intersubjektivni akumulativni proces stalno nadograđujućih, nastajućih konsenzusa u puno različitih situacija idealnog govora je vođeno navedenim interesima, pa je znanje uvek interesno znanje u nekoj od tri paradigme. U radu je dalje razmatrano kakvo značenje za pedagogiju imaju neke od ključnih Habermasovih ideja. Kritike koje različiti autori upućuju teoriji komunikativnog delovanja su diskutovane kroz dovođenje u odnos sa određenim stanovištima u pedagogiji. Shodno tome, naročita pažnja posvećena je razumevanju dijaloga u obrazovanju.

O Centenário de Eça de Queirós na Imprensa

This article aims to carry out a non-extensive analysis of what was written in the Portuguese press about Eça de Queirós at the time of its first centenary of birth, in 1945. The analysed texts were written by Portuguese intellectuals and ideologues such as António Ferro, António Eça de Queiroz, Vieira de Almeida and Rocha Martins, and published in newspapers such as Diário de Notícias, A República and As Novidades. The aim of this work is to analyse the extent to which, in the dictatorial context in which the Queirosian centenary took place, the debate about the 19th century author became a substitute for debates banned by the various forms of repression that dominated the Portuguese public sphere.

Political Readings of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in Portugal

The 1956 Hungarian revolution had a resonant echo in Western Europe, gaining large attention and media coverage. This article explores how the small, peripheral Atlantic country of Portugal, on the other side of the European continent (Lisbon lies more than 3,000 kilometers from Budapest), which was under the rightwing conservative dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar’s New State at the time, became interested in the Hungarian events, allowing them to be written about in the most influential newspapers. The article begins with a discussion of the basic context of the Hungarian revolution of 1956 and of the Portuguese political context in the mid-1950s (the Salazarist regime and the bulk of the oppositional forces) and then offers an analysis of articles found in seven important Portuguese newspapers. Essentially, it presents a survey of the coverage of the Hungarian Revolution in the Portuguese press and explores how those events were interpreted and how they had an impact on the ideological readings and positions of the government, the moderate opposition, and the radical opposition of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP). The 1956 revolution merited extensive coverage in the Portuguese papers, with titles, pictures, and news boxes on the front pages sometimes continuing into the next pages of a given paper or on the last page. The stories were narrated, for most part, in a lively, fluid, sentimental, and apologetic language. The New State in particular, but also moderate publications which were oppositional to Salazar, endorsed the Budapest revolutionaries and criticized and denounced orthodox communism in the form of Soviet repression, either in the name of Christendom, national independence, and the Western European safeguard against communism (in the case of Salazarism), or in the name (and hope) of a democratic surge, which would usher in strident calls for civil liberties (in the case of oppositional voices). With the exception of the press organ which voiced the official position of the Portuguese Communist Party, supporting the Soviet response against the Hungarian insurgents (and thus was in sharp contrast with the larger share of public opinion), there was a rare convergence, despite nuances in the language, in the images, narratives, messages, and general tone of the articles in the various organs of the Portuguese press, which tended to show compassion and support for the insurgents in Budapest because their actions targeted communism and tended to decry the final bloody repression, which exposed the Soviet Union as a murderous regime.

Marketisation of Academia and Authoritarian Governments: The Cases of Hungary and Turkey in Critical Perspective

This article analyses the recent political repression of academia in Hungary and Turkey within the critical scholarship on globalisation and neoliberalisation of higher education. We introduce and challenge the hegemonic definitions of academic freedom that sit comfortably with the capitalist logic as well as repressive governing forms and assess the recent attacks on university communities with emphasis on both academic labour and freedom. Adopting a case study approach, we investigate how economic and political forms of repression accompany and reinforce one another within the specificities of both country contexts. We delineate the underlying structural and historical dynamics as well as emergence and evolution of methods of struggle and resistance employed by diverse university communities in their shared and divergent characteristics. Our conclusions include critical reflections on the broader implications of higher education restructuring, authoritarian interventions, and the future of systemic-level resistance.

Cartografías subjetivas en las novelas La mujer desnuda (1950) y Viaje al corazón del día (1986) de Armonía Somers (1914-1994))

En este artículo me propongo explorar la construcción de subjetividades literarias en la primera y en la anteúltima novela de la escritora uruguaya Armonía Somers (1914-1994), a partir del trazado de cartografías subjetivas de carácter contingente que articulen el lenguaje visual y el lingüístico. Se trata de ver cómo las “subjetividades delirantes” (Guattari, 1986) que fabrica Somers portan un potencial de minar la subjetividad dominante en cada uno de sus universos narrativos y, por otra parte, considerar en qué medida la plasticidad de los personajes elabora un mapa identitario móvil, que se transforma junto con ellos, ensayando nuevos posicionamientos en relación al género, al deseo, a la moral y a la religión. De este modo, y a partir de la idea de Judith Butler de “replantear lo posible en cuanto tal” (1990 [2007: 24]), consideraré cómo se reconfiguran y ensayan nuevas formas de identidad(es) posibles que escapen (al menos momentáneamente) a las mallas represivas del poder.

Desaparición y gubernamentalidad en México

Los mecanismos y dispositivos que se utilizan en la desaparición forzada se modifican según las formas del Estado y el tipo de gubernamentalidad. En México, durante los años 70 del siglo XX, esta práctica se articuló a una gubernamentalidad populista, con un Estado fuerte, centralizado y autoritario, que utilizó políticas diferenciales para el tratamiento de las disidencias, desde formas legales e ilegales de represión, hasta la cooptación e incluso la creación de consensos. A partir de 2008, la desaparición forzada se inscribió en una gubernamentalidad neoliberal donde el Estado, penetrado por grandes corporativos legales e ilegales pasó a ser una estructura fragmentaria, con poderes locales relativamente autónomos, que pueden estar fuertemente penetrados por las redes criminales de alcance global. La articulación estatal-criminal hace que, en ese contexto, violencias que aparecen como privadas deban pensarse como público privadas y que la distinción entre las prácticas de desaparición y desaparición forzada resulten difusas.

Agrochemical Exposure & Environmental Illness: Legal Repression of Latin American Banana Workers

ABSTRACT Prior research on legal repression shows how elites use criminal law to demobilize collective challenges, yet social control efforts based in civil law have received inadequate attention. In this study, we develop the concept of elite legal framing to examine how corporations deploy “soft” forms of repression within the civil justice system. Drawing on court, government, and media documents, we analyze a series of transnational civil litigation cases over pesticide exposure on Dole-contracted banana plantations in Nicaragua. Results highlight how the corporate defendants promoted a corruption narrative that diffused through the media and legal system to successfully discredit farmworker claims.

Political geography 1: Extractions

This progress report incorporates the concept of extraction as an umbrella term for political and geopolitical analyses of the spaces, sites, settings, and scales of power, authority, influence, and resistance. The political geographies of extraction discussed in this report include an assemblage of human-and-nonhuman actors across divergent epistemologies and ontologies, as well as forms of recognition, representation, and repression within and across states, borders, and spatial scales. The research surveyed here covers both state and non-state actors to address national and corporate methods commensurate with ongoing and new conflicts over resources, how they are extracted, conserved, distributed, shared, and hoarded.

Perlindungan Hukum Karyawan PT. Arta Sedana Retailindo yang Terkena Pemutusan Hubungan Kerja atas Klaim BPJS Ketenagakerjaan

Labor protection laws should provide a sense of security for workers at work, or in other words, workers may no more need to worry about working. One of the problems with workers regarding their rights contained in Social Security Administration Body for Manpower (BPJS Ketenagakerjaan) is when a termination of employment (PHK) occurs. In this regard, the research examines two issues: the form of legal protection for employees of PT. ASR imposed PHK related to BPJS Ketenagakerjaan claims and law enforcement that could be taken by the laid-off employees in question. This study aims to examine the form of legal protection and law enforcement efforts taken by employees who have been laid off due to BPJS Ketenagakerjaan claims. This research is an empirical legal research with a sociological approach. The research was conducted at PT. ASR and data were obtained from interviews and statutory studies. The results showed the legal protection for laid-off workers is set forth in the work contract and the labor participation in the BPJS Ketenagakerjaan refers to Law No. 13 of 2003 Article 156 paragraphs (1), (2), (3) and (4), Law No. 24 of 2011 of BPJS Ketenagakerjaan and law enforcement efforts undertaken are in the form of preventive and repressive forms. The corporates employing workers, in terminating the employment of employees, should absolutely not override their obligations which are the rights of their employees.

Capacitismo y neorepresión: tabuización del tacto y agresión sobre las sensibilidades

El artículo indaga las formas en que el tacto es tabuizado, lo que representa el inicio de una escalada que normaliza las formas de represión, cuya expresión más álgida es castigar a quienes hacen uso de este sentido: niños y personas ciegas. De ahí que plantee la intersección entre discapacidad y necropolítica como formas de neorrepresión que estructuran la cotidianidad de sociedades capacitistas. Entre las conclusiones encuentra cómo el imperativo “¡no toques!” deviene una orden acatada a lo largo de la vida.

Unwed mothers and their illegitimate children in 18th-century Geneva

ABSTRACT The civil authorities and poor relief institution (hôpital général) exerted a tight control over extramarital sexuality in early modern Geneva. All unwed pregnant women were supposed to self-denounce and those who did not were actively sought for. From this resulted 3420 criminal trials between 1670 and 1794. This phenomenon has been interpreted has a form of strict repression against single mothers. However, shedding light on the attitude towards illegitimacy, this paper claims that repression was not the only aim at which the authorities and the hôpital général were striving; rather, they endeavoured to ensure that someone, usually the father, would provide for the child. Furthermore, it aspires to underline pauper’s agency by studying the unwed mothers’ resistance strategies before the City Council and the hospital: it argues that some women, in the particular context of the Protestant city, not only managed to cope with the precarious situation of rearing an illegitimate child but actually chose it over enforcing a marriage with the alleged father legally.

Movement of the people: Violence and internal displacement

Individuals internally displaced by conflict are a prominent feature of wars, political violence and other forms of repression. We suggest that a subnational analysis of internally displaced person (IDP) generation can help us determine the extent to which more specific flight-precipitating factors can account for individuals’ behaviors. In particular, we are interested in how different conflict actors and the interactions of these actors affect the production of internally displaced persons. We suggest that some types of conflict actors are more likely to be responsible for greater numbers of internally displaced persons because of their political strategies. We focus on one of the most complex and yet data-rich environments in which the problem of internal displacement has been profound—Colombia. Using extensive data on internally displaced persons in Colombia among its over 1100 municipalities, we examine our expectations using negative binomial analyses to better understand the dynamics of conflict actors, the violence they perpetrate and internal displacement. We find that the identity of the conflict actor does make a difference in producing more internally displaced persons and that conflict between certain conflict actors is especially likely to produce more displaced persons.

Unconscious Emotion and Free-Energy: A Philosophical and Neuroscientific Exploration.

Unconscious emotions are of central importance to psychoanalysis. They do, however, raise conceptual problems. The most pertinent concerns the intuition, shared by Freud, that consciousness is essential to emotion, which makes the idea of unconscious emotion seem paradoxical. In this paper, I address this paradox from the perspective of the philosopher R. C. Roberts’ account of emotions as concern-based construals. I provide an interpretation of this account in the context of affective neuroscience and explore the form of Freudian repression that emotions may be subject to under such an interpretation. This exploration draws on evidence from research on alexithymia and utilises ideas from free-energy neuroscience. The free-energy framework, moreover, facilitates an account of repression that avoids the homunculus objection and coheres with recent work on hysteria.

Linkage to the West and Electoral Manipulation

The relationship between linkage to the West and the survival of political regimes has gained increasing attention in recent years. Despite this attention, one aspect of this linkage remains poorly understood, and that is the effect of linkage to the West on electoral manipulation. Scholars have suggested that linkage to the West raises the cost of government abuse because it increases the probability of Western governments taking action in response to reported abuse. This assumption then suggests that incumbents should choose the forms of repression more wisely. Consequently, in cases of the higher level of linkage to the West incumbents are less likely to use the more visible forms of repression and manipulation. I test the aforementioned assumptions on time series, cross-national data set with observations of 147 elections in competitive authoritarian regimes between 1990 and 2010. I find that extensive international relations to the West have only minimal and statistically non-significant effect on visible forms of repression and manipulation. These results contribute to our understanding of international linkage as they show that linkage to the West does not provide sufficient protection to opposition leaders and groups.

Against austerity and repression: Historical and contemporary manifestations of progressive politicisation in Turkey

This paper aims to explore the growing and deepening trend of politics of repression coupled with prolonged crisis and austerity politics, reflecting on the potentials as well as limitations of progressive politics in such a constrained context. Austerity policies continue pushing for anti-labour and reactionary politics in a variety of forms reflecting the unresolved crisis conditions of contemporary capitalism. While the liberal democratic state-form remains relatively intact in particular contexts, in others, it gradually evolves into repressive forms. The growing repression risks conceiving the anti-authoritarian struggles and the anti-capitalist and labour movements separate and/or mutually exclusive. This review article draws on the recent insights of (de)politicization, labour geography and history and political economy scholarships with specific reference to the case of Turkey while cautioning against the binary thinking of ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in leftist and labour mobilisations. It proposes a historical perspective in order to appreciate the diversity and multiplicity of struggles against the intersecting nodes of austerity, capitalism and repression in the complex geographies of periphery.

The Effects of Selective and Indiscriminate Repression on the 2013 Gezi Park Nonviolent Resistance Campaign

We investigate the differential effects of selective and indiscriminate repression on the rate of protest actions during the nonviolent resistance campaign in Gezi Park, Turkey, in 2013. After deriving theoretical expectations about how and why these forms of repression will influence protest actions, we test them with protest event data that were collected from a major local newspaper and subsequently validated through a comparison with two other independent Twitter datasets. Utilizing a Poisson autoregressive estimation model, we find that selective repression, as measured by the number of arrested activists who were detained while they were not demonstrating, decreased the rate of protest actions. Meanwhile, indiscriminate repression, as measured by the frequency of the government’s use of lethal and nonlethal violence against protesters during demonstrations, increased the rate of protest actions. Our findings support prior research on the influence of indiscriminate repression on backfire outcomes. They also provide evidence for the impact of selective repression on movement demobilization through the removal of opposition activists. Finally, the targeted arrest strategy of selective repression that was employed in the Gezi campaign has implications for the feasibility of the strategic incapacitation model of protest policing.

Tracing power in transdisciplinary sustainability research: an exploration

Power is involved when researchers and practitioners work together in transdisciplinary sustainability research. Among other things, this has implications regarding who gets to decide which research questions are dealt with and which partners are involved, and may impede or foster joint knowledge production.We propose empirical questions that allow for the power dynamics to be rendered visible, thus providing a first step towards tackling them.While transdisciplinary (TD) sustainability research is closely tied to ideas of societal change, critical enquiries into power dynamics both within and stemming from these practices have been scant. In this article, we operationalise theories of power for an exploration of the multiple ways in which power relations pervade interactions between researchers and practitioners in these knowledge production processes. By combining theories of power over, power to and power with, we propose a set of empirical questions to systematically study both productive and repressive forms of power. Using empirical examples, we illustrate how the proposed approach makes it possible to trace power throughout TD processes: in 1. developing the project and framing the research problem, 2. co-producing knowledge, and 3. bringing results to fruition. The power perspective proposed here can guide the thinking of those actors involved in TD processes as well as meta-analyses by third parties. An enhanced understanding of the workings of power can help improve process design and facilitate reflexive TD practice.