Popular Intellectuals Research Articles

Modernity from Elsewhere: Psychoanalysis, Ethnography, and Speculative Horizons of Self-Assertion

Modernity from Elsewhere: Psychoanalysis, Ethnography, and Speculative Horizons of Self-Assertion

Emily Callaci. Street Archives and City Life: Popular Intellectuals in Postcolonial Tanzania.

Emily Callaci’s Street Archives and City Life: Popular Intellectuals in Postcolonial Tanzania explores a variety of texts—didactic booklets aimed at young women, pulp fiction novellas, and song lyrics—both as the carriers of moral messages and social commentary and as the artifacts manifesting particular ways of making a life in Tanzania’s preeminent city, Dar es Salaam. A notable strength of the book is its treatment of these sources not only as reflective and productive of a particular moral imagination but also as inextricably entangled in the making of material gender positionalities through the material and reputational economies involved in the creation of these texts. The book is shaped by the argument of Andrew Ivaska’s Cultured States: Youth, Gender, and Modern Style in 1960s Dar es Salaam (2011), which shows city life as a crucible of debates about, and struggles over, gender norms and relations. Within the empirical terrain of these struggles mapped out in that treatment, Callaci focuses her lens on new quarters—in particular on the lifeworld of Dar es Salaam’s dancehalls and the city’s milieu of a bohemian set of male pulp fiction writers—while also extending the time frame into the late 1970s and 1980s. This makes Street Archives and City Life a valuable contribution to the historiography of this well-studied city and its inhabitants.

Sounding the Mexican Nation: Intellectuals, Radio Broadcasting, and the Revolutionary State in the 1920s

This essay examines early radio broadcasting in 1920s Mexico. I particularly focus on the competing intellectuals involved in shaping Mexico City broadcasting, and how the incorporation of these varying artists, writers, and technicians shaped business practices, the Mexican state, and nationalism in the revolutionary era. It appeared to some intellectuals that radio would bring about a more open, democratic society that embraced an exciting, globally-connected future. To others, radio represented a static-filled future of cheapened culture and imitation that would remain a knock-off, but perhaps that could assist in the “civilization” of Mexico. Foreshadowing Mexico’s increasingly multicultural future, early radio broadcasters managed to settle on nothing and accommodate all. Likewise, instead of enforcing their own vision for broadcasting, officials of the new revolutionary government embraced the contending perspectives. They pursued this path because of their own inability to enforce their will and, subsequently, as an attempt to incorporate outside forces shaping broadcasting into the state apparatus. Despite the sometimes contradictory projections that resulted, the inclusion of diverse but popular intellectuals ensured that the growth of Mexican broadcasting mirrored and reinforced the new political-economic order.

Sounding the Mexican Nation: Intellectuals, Radio Broadcasting, and the Revolutionary State in the 1920s

This essay examines early radio broadcasting in 1920s Mexico. I particularly focus on the competing intellectuals involved in shaping Mexico City broadcasting, and how the incorporation of these varying artists, writers, and technicians shaped business practices, the Mexican state, and nationalism in the revolutionary era. It appeared to some intellectuals that radio would bring about a more open, democratic society that embraced an exciting, globally-connected future. To others, radio represented a static-filled future of cheapened culture and imitation that would remain a knock-off, but perhaps that could assist in the “civilization” of Mexico. Foreshadowing Mexico's increasingly multicultural future, early radio broadcasters managed to settle on nothing and accommodate all. Likewise, instead of enforcing their own vision for broadcasting, officials of the new revolutionary government embraced the contending perspectives. They pursued this path because of their own inability to enforce their will and, subsequently, as an attempt to incorporate outside forces shaping broadcasting into the state apparatus. Despite the sometimes contradictory projections that resulted, the inclusion of diverse but popular intellectuals ensured that the growth of Mexican broadcasting mirrored and reinforced the new political-economic order.

The Philippines. Panahon at pagsasalaysay ni Pedro Paterno, 1858–1911: Isang pag-aaral sa intelektwalismo [The times and narratives of Pedro Paterno, 1858–1911: A study on intellectualism]. By Portia L. Reyes. Quezon City: Bahay Saliksikan sa Kasaysayan/Bagong Kasaysayan, 2011. Pp. xix + 253. Tables, Endnotes, Bibliography, Index.

Panahon at pagsasalaysay ni Pedro Paterno, 1858-1911: Isang pag-aaral sa intelektwalismo [The times and narratives of Pedro Paterno, 1858-1911: A study on intellectualism] By PORTIA L. REYES Quezon City: Bahay Saliksikan sa Kasaysayan/Bagong Kasaysayan, 2011. Pp. xix + 253. Tables, Endnotes, Bibliography, Index. doi: 10.1017/S0022463413000714 Intellectual history and the history of ideas are gaining momentum in Philippine historiography. As organising principles for understanding human experience, these enterprises seek to locate processual aspects of the movement of ideas across time. This however presents a daunting task for the historian, especially in an academic scene where the secondary sources eclipse the primary, the typical generalist narratives outweigh the specifics and the familiar and popular intellectuals and ideas overshadow the less known. It also does not help when historians themselves are ambivalent in engaging contested topics. Portia Reyes, in her pioneering research on one of the most colourful Filipino personalities of the nineteenth century, braves these challenges. Her choice of intellectuals is the controversial Pedro Paterno. Born in the Philippines of mixed parentage, trained in colonial institutions, and adjudged as political opportunist and traitor of the revolution against Spain and the United States, Paterno ingloriously stands out in the nationalist emplotment of the Filipino saga. Reyes' central argument in her book is thus equally controversial: there is more to Paterno than just his politics. In support of this contention, Reyes structures her narrative according to layers of textuality. Its definitive aim is to reconstitute Paterno's potential as an intellectual whose scholarly stature is obviously silenced by his rather infamous politics. Towards this, Reyes lays down the neglected intellectual's context as an explanatory model within which his scholarship can be situated. She cites two complementary milieus for the development of Paterno's intellectualism, the nineteenth century and Paterno's own life history. The nineteenth century was an extremely important conjuncture with respect to the rise of an exceptional coterie of intellectuals-propogandists, who would, in the diaspora, outline the concept of nacion (nation). The material and ideational transformations of the period were necessary causes to the intellectual and political activities of this network of intelligentsia, Paterno included. To level the sufficient cause in this equation, Reyes fittingly turns to his biography. The resulting interface is revealing: Paterno embodies the contradictions in the elite consciousness of the period in the way he straddles both his nationalist temperament and colonial affections. The book's intertextuality offers refreshing insights to the breadth of Paterno's legacy as a scholar. Spanning the social movements from Propaganda to Katipunan, and generations of academic historians from Leandro Fernandez to Zeus Salazar, Reyes follows Paterno's trail and maps out his lasting discursive imprint which, she further argues, steered Filipino scholarship to professionalisation. This claim is not without basis, as evidenced by the voluminous texts Paterno produced throughout his lifetime. Reyes effectively marshals these primary sources and applies her adept interpretive skills in providing depth to an otherwise obscured intellectualism. Paterno, the intellectual, is therefore well established in the book. Reyes portrays him as no underdog; he was in league with the best and brightest of the 'modern' thinkers at a time when modernity was still struggling as an ideological expression. Using a distinct periodisation for Paterno's knowledge production, Reyes succeeds in surfacing his contributions to historiography in particular and the social sciences in general. He for instance antedates the positivist tradition of historical writing in the Philippines in his Historia de Filipinas (probably the first Filipino-written national history) and the culturalist approach in his Historia Critica de Filipinas. …

Popular Politics, the New State and the Birth of the Iranian Working Class: The 1929 Abadan Oil Refinery Strike

Popular Politics, the New State and the Birth of the Iranian Working Class: The 1929 Abadan Oil Refinery Strike

Popular intellectuals and social movements. Framing protest in Asia, Africa, and Latin America edited by Baud, Michiel and Rosanne Rutten

Popular intellectuals and social movements. Framing protest in Asia, Africa, and Latin America edited by Baud, Michiel and Rosanne Rutten

Framing Jihad: Intramovement Framing Contests and al-Qaeda's Struggle for Sacred Authority

This article emphasizes the credibility of popular intellectuals as a point of contention in framing contests. A movement group – a faction, clique, submovement, network cluster, organization, etc. – asserts its authority to speak on behalf of an issue or constituency by emphasizing the perceived knowledge, character, and logic of its popular intellectuals while attacking those of rivals. Four basic framing strategies relevant to the credibility of popular intellectuals are identified: (1) vilification – demonizing competing popular intellectuals; (2) exaltation – praising ingroup popular intellectuals; (3) credentialing – emphasizing the expertise of the ingroup intellectuals; and (4) decredentialing – raising questions about the expertise of rivals. Al-Qaeda's intramovement framing struggle with nonviolent Islamic fundamentalists over the permissibility of violence is used as a case study. In an attempt to assert its right to sacred authority, the movement portrays scholars who support its jihad as logical, religious experts of good repute while characterizing opposing clerical popular intellectuals as emotional, corrupt, naive, and ill-informed about politics.

Indigenous Communists and Urban Intellectuals in Cayambe, Ecuador (1926–1944)

This case study provides an example of how people from two fundamentally different cultures (one rural, indigenous, Kichua-speaking and peasant, and the other urban, white, Spanish-speaking and professional) overcame their differences to struggle together to fight social injustices. Rather than relating to each other on a seemingly unequal basis, the activists recognized their common interests in fighting against the imposition of an international capitalist system on Ecuador's agrarian economy. Emerging out of that context, activists framed collective interests, identities, ideas, and demands as they worked together to realize common goals. Their actions challenge commonly held assumptions that leftist activists did not understand indigenous struggles, or that indigenous peoples remained distant from the goals of leftist political parties. Rather, it points to how the two struggles became intimately intertwined. In the process, it complicates traditional understandings of the role of “popular intellectuals”, and how they interact with other activists, the dominant culture, and the state.

Critics and Experts, Activists and Academics: Intellectuals in the Fight for Social and Ecological Justice in the Narmada Valley, India

The following article examines the role of popular intellectuals in the rise of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, a mass-based movement opposed to the building of large dams in the Narmada Valley of central India. In particular, it focuses on two of this struggle's most prominent public figures and spokespersons, Medha Patkar and Arundhati Roy. The article examines the relationship between these individuals and the movement itself – how issues have been framed by Patkar and Roy for local, national, and international audiences, how support for the anti-dam struggle has been mobilized, and how each of these figures are themselves perceived and portrayed. The article will also examine some of the challenges faced by the movement and its leaders, not only from proponents of the dam projects, but also from other social activists and intellectuals. The latter have raised questions about representation, voice and strategy, as well as insider/outsider authenticity and legitimacy in the anti-dam movement, issues that this paper considers in some detail. Finally, the article draws on the Narmada case to ask some broader questions regarding popular intellectuals and social movement organizing and strategy.

Concluding Remarks: Framing Protest in Asia, Africa, and Latin America

This volume has presented eight case studies of popular intellectuals on different continents who reflected on society in order to change it. They cover a broad range of people whose activist intellectual work has made a difference: from college-educated environmentalists to autodidact revolutionaries, from indigenous activists to Islamic fundamentalists. We believe there are good reasons to bring together these different historical actors, precisely because there is gain in this diversity: each article highlights specific themes that provide valuable insight in the social dynamics of ideological work. Here, we bring together a selection of these insights and explore, at the same time, how a focus on popular intellectuals allows us to better understand some salient aspects of social contention.

Unemployed Intellectuals in the Sahara: The Teshumara Nationalist Movement and the Revolutions in Tuareg Society

In the past four decades the Tuareg, a people inhabiting the central Sahara, experienced dramatic socioeconomic upheaval caused by the national independence of the countries they inhabit, two droughts in the 1970s and 1980s, and prolonged rebellion against the state in Mali and Niger in the 1990s. This article discusses these major upheavals and their results from the viewpoint of three groups of Tuareg intellectuals: the “organic intellectuals” or traditional tribal leaders and Muslim religious specialists; the “traditional intellectuals” who came into being from the 1950s onwards; and the “popular intellectuals” of the teshumara movement, which found its origins in the drought-provoked economic emigration to the Maghreb, and which actively prepared the rebellions of the 1990s. By focusing on the debates between these intellectuals on the nature of Tuareg society, its organization, and the direction its future should take, the major changes in a society often described as guarding its traditions will be exposed.