Gramsci's Concept Research Articles

The Book In Movement: Autonomous Politics and the Lettered City Underground by Magalí Rabasa

Reviewed by: The Book In Movement: Autonomous Politics and the Lettered City Underground by Magalí Rabasa Jane D. Griffin Rabasa, Magalí. The Book In Movement: Autonomous Politics and the Lettered City Underground. The U of Pittsburgh P, 2019. 210 pp. Magalí Rabasa's 2019 monograph, The Book In Movement: Autonomous Politics and the Lettered City Underground, is an exceptional contribution to the field of print culture studies in contemporary Latin America. In this study, Rabasa creates a new vocabulary through which to understand the relationship between what books say and how they exist as material objects. Following Antonio Gramsci's concept of the organic intellectual, Rabasa ingenuously coins the term "organic book," which she describes as a concept, a practice, and also a material object in which there is no difference between materiality and ideas (175). The organic book is also inextricably linked to autonomous politics. Using the Zapatista movement in Mexico as her point of reference, Rabasa explains that autonomy is not achieved by overthrowing oppressive institutions such as capitalism, neoliberalism, patriarchy, colonialism, or the nation-state. Rather, autonomy exists in the never-ending practice of struggling against such institutions through acts of making and re-making everything from ideas to social relations to material objects, such as books. The organic book is both a product of autonomous politics and also a practice through which such politics emerge. Consequently, the organic book and autonomous politics exist in a constant state of becoming and are always in motion. By tracing how organic books are made and remade across Mexico, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile, Rabasa likewise maps autonomous politics across Latin America and ultimately depicts the continent itself in movement and in a never-ending act of becoming. The Book In Movement employs a more interdisciplinary and transnational methodology than is normally found in book studies scholarship. Rabasa describes her methodology as object-oriented ethnography combined with textual analysis, [End Page 815] and she skillfully supports her arguments through research in cultural studies, postcolonial theory, anthropology, science and technology studies and, most importantly, contemporary political theory produced from Latin America and by Latin Americans. The latter is especially important to Rabasa's goal of "provincializing Europe," as called for by subaltern studies scholar Dipesh Chakrabarty. This goal is apropos within the fields of print culture and book studies, where Europe has historically played an outsized role. The Book In Movement understands the organic book as a form of praxis and is therefore organized around specific methods of book production and distribution. Chapters one and two look at forms of book production—writing the text and turning it into a material object—whereas chapters three and four look at forms of productive consumption—specifically re-editing and distribution. Chapter one, "Becoming the Book," examines three organic books: Dispersar el poder (Zibechi 2006), Pensar las autonomías: Alternativas de emancipación al capital y el estado (Jóvenes en Resistencia Alternativa 2011), and Caleidoscopio de rebeldías (Korol 2006). These books document how communities produce new forms of knowledge through collective acts of doing, or what Rabasa refers to as "autonomous knowledge practices" (38). They are organic in that the act of writing them was itself an autonomous knowledge practice that stemmed from the authors' own participation in the kinds of collective action documented in the books. Organic books thus challenge the Western concepts of "authorship" and "knowledge" as tied to the individual and redefine both terms as tied instead to the social collective. Chapter two, "The Workshop Book," analyzes autonomous knowledge practices through the acts of printing, assembling, and binding books in the workshop setting. The workshops Rabasa studies in La Paz and Buenos Aires are spaces of experimentation where books are made to be useful, which means they are cheap and widely accessible. Rabasa uses the concepts of craft and experimentation to describe processes of book production that collapse the distinction between intellectual and manual labor (96). Chapter three, "The Unbounded Book," studies the paratext of organic books—the cover, copyright pages, prologues, forwards, and epilogues—to show how they change materially as books are re-edited by different presses. This chapter analyzes the paratext of Contra el copyright (Stallman et...

A gramscian perspective on field dynamics. The case of the privatization of Italian steel industry

Institutional fields are not static, they undergo times of fragmentation and times of settlement. Neo-institutional research has long explained the settlement of fields as either the effect of political manoeuvring of actors, or of discursive activity influencing cultural codes, narratives and symbols. But can these processes really be considered in isolation? In this paper, we propose to adopt a comprehensive view on fields’ dynamics, one that embraces the interaction of political and discursive manoeuvring to explain how fragmented fields manage to settle. To do so, we build on the Gramscian concept of hegemonic practices as discursive and political processes that integrate cultural equivalence among actors with political alliances based on aligned interests. Hegemonic practices align actors in a new historical bloc (a new settlement). Through this lens, we interpret the case of the Italian State steel privatization (1984–1995) and propose a process model explaining what yields fields’ dynamics from fragmentation to settlement. The model highlights the action of diffused agency in field dynamics, thus overcoming the obsolete challenger/incumbent view, and the need of becoming a historical bloc for alliances to stabilize a field.

Mckinsey & Company e o jogo da consultocracia em rede na educação básica

Este trabalho buscou evidenciar a disputa pela educação básica no jogo dos empresários no mercado mundial do conhecimento, apreendendo o modus operandi da empresa internacional de consultoria McKinsey & Company na consolidação de vínculos estratégicos com intelectuais orgânicos que protagonizam o movimento mundializado de reforma empresarial da educação básica. Alicerçado no materialismo histórico e, mais especificamente, no conceito gramsciano de intelectual orgânico, verificou-se que uma poderosa indústria especializada em assuntos educacionais impulsiona um processo de mercantilização via consultocracia em rede. Nessa direção, tendo em vista a lógica de reformas empresariais para a educação básica que são exportadas mundialmente, com base na unidade forma e conteúdo que envolve as estratégias de consultocracia em rede e os fundamentos da eficácia gerencialista, identificou-se que a McKinsey divulga sua expertise em assuntos educacionais por meio dos seus relatórios sobre sistemas escolares, buscando criar demanda para a venda dos seus pacotes de soluções educacionais.

Revolution and transition in Tunisia as crises of hegemony

ABSTRACT Some Gramscian concepts proved to be relevant for a better and a worthwhile understanding of the current changes and of the political and social upheavals in Tunisia since winter 2010/2011. In particular, I will approach the ongoing political crisis as a crisis of hegemony. By emphasising the social and economic content in the hegemony of the Tunisian state, the article will focus on its construction during the Habib Bourguiba era, by showing how elites emerged after the independence, through their alliance with the workers’ union (UGTT), won the people’s support by working on two main issues: first, economic growth, second, social recovery thus fairly benefited different social classes, according to meritocracy. I will then look at how President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali tried to apply the same ‘hegemony formula’ and how despite his agreement with the trade unions, he nevertheless lost that hegemony due to two major evolutions during the 2000s: the transformation of Tunisian capitalism into a crony capitalism and the end of meritocracy. Eventually, the article will show that the current political and socio-economic crisis can be read as the consequence of the crisis of hegemony, since old and new elites have not yet succeeded in providing answers to the main social and economic questions raised by the 2011 Revolution.

Between old and new epistemological paradigms: Gramscian readings of revolutionary processes in Egypt and Tunisia

ABSTRACT From a long-term perspective, a Gramscian analytical approach can help us have a better reading of revolutionary processes in MENA countries, expecially if we consider them as the apical moment of a political crisis, originating in the mid-1970s. The most useful Gramscian concepts for this kind of analysis are ‘hegemony’ and ‘civil society’, obviously connected with other categories such as ‘organic/traditional intellectual’ or ‘revolution/passive revolution’, or even ‘modern prince’. Egypt and Tunisia, for their importance in the context of the so called ‘Arab Spring’ but also because they are the first Arab countries in which Gramsci’s knowledge has spread at the beginning of the 1970s, offer very interesting case studies. By comparing by a Gramscian approach some Arab reflections in the 1970s and the ones interpreting 2011 upheavals and their complex and often dramatic consequences, it is possible to demonstrate how a Gramscian analysis can be useful in this ongoing, not yet concluded debate.

The Crisis of the «Agrarian block», the Peasants, and the South in the Interpretation of Italian History

This essay investigates the reflections and political and cultural action of Rosario Villari, starting from his early elaboration of the Gramscian concept of «agrarian block», and ending with the Italian crisis during the 1970s. Between historiographic interpretation and political militancy, Villari looked constantly to Italy’s history and to its present, with particular attention to the South and the role played by the Italian Communist Party, with the aim of giving shape and content to the action of the emerging peasant masses in the Republican state.

O gerencialismo e a educação no Espírito Santo

Este artigo é parte de uma dissertação de mestrado e problematiza a política de Educação Básica e Profissional do Estado do Espírito Santo, com foco na função do programa “Escola Viva” no direito à educação. Fundamenta-se na concepção marxiana, entendendo o homem como sujeito histórico, cuja ontologia se revela na categoria trabalho e na luta de classes como possibilidade de transformação social e na concepção gramsciana que analisa o conceito de Estado ampliado e de hegemonia. Fundamentada no materialismo histórico-dialético, a análise documental e as entrevistas apontam as contradições que emergem esse objeto de análise. Há três resultados em relação à implantação do programa “Escola viva”: o processo de desmonte da oferta pública de Ensino Médio Integrado; a hegemonização da “Escola Viva”; e o fortalecimento das relações entre público-privado.
 

Gramsci in the Postcolony: Hegemony and Anticolonialism in Nasserist Egypt

This article traces Gramsci's concept of hegemony as it travels from Southern Italy to Egypt, arguing that the concept ‘stretches’, following Fanon, through an encounter with the nexus of capitalism and (post-)colonialism. I explore a reading of Gramsci's concepts in a postcolonial context, paying special attention to colonialism and anticolonialism as constitutive of the absence or presence of hegemony. Through an exploration of the Nasserist project in Egypt – the only instance of hegemony in modern Egyptian history – I show how colonialism and anticolonialism were central to the formation of Nasserist hegemony. Drawing on Edward Said, I look at two particular aspects of hegemony as a traveling theory to bring to light some theoretical entanglements that arise when Gramsci travels, in turn highlighting the continuing theoretical potential thinking through such entanglements, as well as of thinking with Gramsci in Egypt and the broader postcolonial world.

Brazil and its regional projection: perspectives on hegemony and regionalism in South America in the post-Cold War era

A projeção brasileira sobre a América do Sul foi destaque desde sua redemocratização, ocorrida na década de 1980. Ainda assim, seu comportamento não pode ser considerado hegemônico em seu sentido realista, exercido pelo poder duro. Nem liberal, já que optou pela multiplicidade de iniciativas, de baixa grau de institucionalização. Propomos a aplicação do conceito gramsciano de hegemonia para analisar se o Brasil exerce a sua na América do Sul por meio de um ativismo nos processos de integração regional. Para isto, utilizamos o método qualitativo com um estudo de caso único típico para desenvolver uma ilustração preliminar de teoria, baseado em uma revisão bibliográfica da história da política externa Brasileira (fontes primárias e secundárias). Esta análise nos leva a argumentar que há dubiedade na atuação brasileira regional, já que optou por não aprofundar o grau de institucionalização das organizações regionais e por não exercer poder coercitivo durante crises regionais. Ainda que o comportamento brasileiro não representa um caso típico de hegemonia, tendo os achados pouca validade externa para além deste caso, há evidências sua atuação em diversos arranjos regionais como líder e construtor de consensos é uma forma de exercer hegemonia (gramsciana) na região.

Scientific Hegemony and the Field of Autism

Autism is one of the twenty-first century’s most contested illnesses. Early controversies around vaccine harm have irrevocably structured the field of autism science. Despite incredible investment in genetic research on autism over the past 30 years, scientists have failed to identify a set of “genes for” autism, and genomic causality has become more complex. Yet, orthodox genetic explanations for autism have retained dominance over a vociferous field of heterodox experts pointing to a series of environmental insults (vaccines, heavy metal exposure, overuse of antibiotics, toxic pollution) as the main causes of autism. To make sense of this puzzling trend, we develop a novel theoretical synthesis combining a Bourdieusian field analysis with a Gramscian conception of hegemony, centered around the concept of “subsumptive orthodoxy.” Analyzing multiple years of archival data from the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, we argue that when faced with heterodox challenges, dominant members of the field shore up hegemony by incorporating environmental causal factors into the genome, thus engaging in subsumptive orthodoxy. This move gives rhetorical space to environmental explanations without providing them substantive causal weight, which renders particular environmental causes (like vaccines) impossible. This article traces the strategies dominant members of the field use to retain control over the definition and etiology of autism. We develop the broader implications of the study within autism science and beyond.

Let's talk about the interregnum: Gramsci and the crisis of the liberal world order

Abstract The liberal international order (LIO) is in crisis. Numerous publications, debates and events have time and again made it clear that we are in the midst of a grand transformation of world order. While most contributions focus on either what is slowly dying (the LIO) or what might come next (China, multipolarity, chaos?), there is less analytical engagement with what lies in between those two phases of world order. Under the assumption that this period could last years or even decades, a set of analytical tools to understand this interregnum is urgently needed. This article proposes an analytical framework that builds on Gramscian concepts of crisis that will help us understand the current crisis of the LIO in a more systematic way. It addresses a gap in the literature on changing world order by elaborating three Gramsci-inspired crisis characteristics—processuality, organicity and morbidity—that sketch the current crisis landscape in a systematic way. Building on this framework, the article suggests different empirical entry points to the study of the crisis of the LIO and calls for a research agenda that takes this crisis seriously as a distinct period of changing world orders.

Civil Society in ‘Politics’ and ‘Development’ in African Hybrid Regimes: The Kenyan Case

Civil society in Gramscian conception is an arena of hegemonic contestations and therefore essentially political. Development is also a political process inasmuch as it involves power in the allocation of resources and values. Yet, some African states as elsewhere globally, attempt to create and reproduce a legal–policy environment that favours an ‘apolitical’ ‘development’-oriented civil society while disabling those perceived ‘political’. This article argues the state–civil society relationship ambivalence is a product of competing visions of what constitutes ‘politics’ and ‘development’ and their governmentalities. Drawing on existing literature, primary interviews and media articles, the paper attempts to bring into conversation discourses on the political and development roles of civil society and how these have shaped state–civil society relationships from colonial period to the present day Kenya. Reflecting on manifestations of assumed role dichotomy and implications for state–civil society relations, the paper argues that the dual roles are complimentary and mutually reinforcing. The dual roles have also resulted in multiple relationships between state and civil society.

Reconceptualizing hegemony in a global American century

The concept of hegemony has been a mainstay in academic discourse since Greek writers coined the term during the conflicts between city states in ancient times. However, it was not until Antonio Gramsci produced his unfinished, seminal work, the Prison Notebooks, that the concept became a topic of intense discussion in the political sphere. Hegemony has been applied to the international global system relatively unchanged from Gramsci's social application of the concept. Whilst the underlying principles of Gramsci's conception can be applied in international relations without issue, some aspects are not so forthcoming. It is the intention of this paper to attempt to fill the void in international relations theory and provide a succinct and robust re-conception of Hegemony, how to attain it and maintain it. There will be no reinvention of the wheel; Hegemony will still mean dominance over all. Only now there will be a specific conception that can be applied to the current globalized liberal system. The Four Waves of Hegemony are presented here as an alternative to the current conception. Whilst there are inherent limitations mainly being the scope and size of the work presented, these are addressed and signposted for further research.

“The Distant Early Warning System”: The Online Public Sphere and the Contemporary Artistic Movement in Saudi Arabia

Abstract“Social media,” Saudi artist Abdullah al-Shehri (known as Shaweesh) observes, is the “best tool we have available to showcase and express our art,” because it allows millions of Saudis to share and comment on a given work of art simultaneously. Building on this insight, this essay argues that Saudi artists, who have among the largest followings on the country's social media, have used the online public sphere to build a new social movement. They have adopted a role akin to Antonio Gramsci's concept of organic intellectuals – namely, men and women who are not part of the traditional intellectual elite, but who, through the language of culture, articulate feelings and experiences the masses cannot easily express. To paraphrase Ezra Pound, Saudi artists are the “antennae” of the kingdom's society, whose work is not “mere self-expression,” but, in the words of Marshall McLuhan, the “distant early warning system that can always be relied upon to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.” As a leading Saudi artist Abdulnasser Gharem observed in June 2019, “people need to listen to the artist.”

A regra e o jogo: identidade, hegemonia e politicas públicas para as culturas populares no Brasil contemporâneo

Este trabalho tem como objetivo pesquisar a relação entre as dinâmicas das culturas populares de tradição oral, particularmente as de matriz africana, e as políticas culturais implementadas no Brasil a partir dos anos 2000, as quais trazem para a agenda pública este importante segmento. A partir da abordagem psicopolítica da consciência e participação política e da visão crítica sobre os discursos contemporâneos em torno da cultura como produto, desenvolvimento econômico, da prática tecnicista e gerencial no campo da gestão cultural, assim como por meio de pesquisa exploratória teórica e conceitual aplicada aos referenciais teóricos dos direitos culturais, conceito gramsciano de hegemonia e das teorias da reprodução cultural e pesquisa empírica entre os integrantes da Rede das Culturas Populares e Tradicionais, analisaremos o impacto de tais políticas, construídas no bojo do Estado burguês - marcadas, portanto, pela lógica do mercado e pela burocracia no acesso ao fomento - na organização e na construção da subjetividade de indivíduos e comunidades de tradição oral. Aborda-se, por fim, o problema dos critérios de avaliação de políticas culturais, profundamente marcados pela instrumentalização, refletindo-se sobre a adequação das categorias analíticas utilizadas para avaliar os processos culturais.

The Oslo People-to-People Program and the Limits of Hegemony

Reconciliation-based initiatives evoke a substantive and meaningful vision of peace and suggest a form of peace building that is intimately engaged at the personal and social level. This article critically engages with a specific reconciliation initiative, the People-to-People Program (P2PP) that was applied to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It uses Gramscian concepts of hegemony, consent, and war of position, with the intention of illustrating that the program functioned as a disciplinary or regulatory device that structured and realigned the agency of its Palestinian participants. In highlighting the different features and dimensions of Palestinian subversion and resistance, it brings out the limits of hegemony.

A Gramscian Conjuncture in Latin America? Reflections on Violence, Hegemony, and Geographical Difference

AbstractThis article addresses whether the concepts of Antonio Gramsci still “travel” to Latin America. During the 20th century, Gramsci was one of the most important social theorists invoked to understand forms of social order in Latin America, as well as providing resources to reflect upon subaltern culture, resistance and the construction of alternatives. However, over the past two decades there have been several theoretical and practical challenges to the hegemony of Gramsci. These challenges are multifarious, but can be reduced to several important contentions that are explored in this article. These include the enduring role of violence, the alleged decline of ideology and finally the challenge of state‐centrism in the face of geographical difference. In the current regional conjuncture, marked by the return to power of right‐wing social forces, I therefore examine whether Gramscian concepts are still apposite for understanding the political economy of Latin America in the 21st century.

Momentos de Hegemonia – raízes históricas do capitalismo autoritário e a política educacional: o caso da Hungria

Este artigo apresenta uma breve análise da reviravolta nacionalista antiliberal na Hungria após a década de 1990 à luz do conceito gramsciano de hegemonia, destacando, no plano político, o papel da produção discursiva na formação da classe de transição e, no plano econômico e social, o papel da política educacional.

Apontamentos para a formação de professores na perspectiva ético-política e da filosofia da práxis

O presente texto discute a formação de professores na perspectiva ético-política e da filosofia da práxis. Aborda a concepção de educação gramsciana articulada aos conceitos de sociedade, homem, conhecimento, política e apresenta alguns desdobramentos que esse norteamento teórico pode trazer para a formação de professores. Para a consecução do objetivo foi realizada uma pesquisa bibliográfica, que possibilitou reflexões acerca do entendimento de Estado ampliado, ideologia, filosofia da práxis, educação, escola e apontamentos sobre a formação de professores na lógica da escola unitária ativa e criativa. Ao final, analisa-se a concepção gramsciana de educação superior e sua função fundamental de criação e organização cultural na sociedade, dando unidade ao processo de formação dos intelectuais de diversos níveis, incluindo os professores.

Gramsci and the root of passiveness in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution 1906–1911

Culture is frequently used to explain socio-political underdevelopment in the Peripheral countries, including Iran. In particular, national culture is viewed as retarding modernisation of the political and economic systems and the society generally. This paper regards such approaches as being essentially Orientalist. Instead, it suggests, Iranian underdevelopment is best analysed through the Core–Periphery lens adopted by critical theorists. Accordingly, the case of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906–1911 is examined through this lens, via Gramsci's concept of ‘passive revolution’. The paper also uses Trotsky’s insights regarding combined and uneven development. It argues that the Iranian constitutionalists were able to establish an ‘historic bloc’, as identified by Gramsci, but this bloc was unable to become hegemonic and modernise and develop Iran's economy and society. This failure was due to the power of the Anglo-Russian imperial forces that dominated Iran for over a century and a half and the concomitant weakness of the kind of bourgeoisie and allied social layers that had led democratic, modernising revolutions in what are now First World or Core countries. Underdevelopment in Iran is therefore the product of the impact of imperialism rather than the product of Iranian culture.