Socio-political Space Research Articles

‘They Will Shoot You to a Pulp!’ The Racialisation of Migrant Workers in the Emotive Cyberspace of ptt

Abstract This article analyses how social media users ‘reimagined’ the death of an undocumented Vietnamese migrant worker in 2017 in Taiwan and revealed their views on ethnic hierarchy and the judicial system as a public institution. By conceptualising posting on ptt, a Chinese-language bbs platform likened to Reddit, as a racialising process, this article finds posters’ reimagination of this event being characterised by criminalisation, dehumanisation, and distrust of the judicial system. Laden with emotions, some users displayed racial othering of migrant workers through militant masculinity, whereas others called for intersubjectivity and respect for life and rights. Some users equated being pro-police with being pro-violence, in contrast to others’ demand to regulate the police’s use of firearms. The totality of these views suggests that ptt is a volatile sociopolitical space facilitating antagonistic views. The racialising discourse echoes the exclusionary guest worker system adopted in Taiwan that regards migrant workers as the disposable and inferior other.

Between the Camp and the Makerspace: Commoning Practices, Temporal Autonomy and Care

ABSTRACT The paper explores the chronopolitics of place-making in the refugee makerspace Habibi-Works and the neighbouring Katsikas refugee camp in Ioannina, in Northern Greece. Camps are created to be ephemeral and this ephemerality is reflected in their materiality and conditions the possibilities available to those that inhabit them. Camp temporalities work by way of destabilising the residents' sense of self in the present, severing their connections with the past and limiting their future aspirations. In sheer antithesis to the camp, the makerspace disrupts these (temporal) dynamics: it enables the camp residents to manage time as a common resource (commoning), creating autonomous communities of collective care. Through mundane encounters and practices, the makerspace plays an instrumental role in enacting the residents' autonomy by facilitating access to digital technologies, low-tech manufacturing tools, and skills to reproduce a sense of lost normality. We adopt an ethnographic approach to engage with the makerspace and the camp as well as the various people involved (migrants, volunteers, makers) and understand how migrants narrate their past, negotiate their present and imagine their futures in the context of everyday life. Building on the concepts of peer production, temporal autonomy and radical care, we argue that Habibi-Works opens up a new socio-political space between the camp, the makerspace and the world.

The power of language

Abstract One of the most overlooked areas of study in the post-Arab Spring narrative is the symbiotic relationship between language and politics. Framed by the micro and macro-level approaches to discourse, the paper’s scope is twofold. First, it identifies and discusses how language elements underpin the performative role of language (Austin 1975 [1962]) and considers Searle’s (1969) work on speech-acts and rhetoric through irony and metaphor. Second, it discusses how the study of language, through power and ideology, provides a candid and deeper understanding of Tunisian politics; an ‘internal’ perspective on how participants in these discourses perceive the Tunisian people, society, culture, and politics, reflecting on a decade since the revolution. The paper hinges on various textual genres, such as televised interviews, debates, and rap songs, sampling some emerging new sociopolitical spaces wherein, through discursive themes, participants address Tunisia’s political and economic grievances since the revolution.

English Caricature as a Means of Forming and Reflection of the “Image Of The Enemy” in the Epoch of the Napoleonic Wars

The article is devoted to the topical problem in the scientific and socio-political space associated with the formation of the image of the “enemy”. This issue is considered on the example of the English caricature in the era of the Napoleonic wars. Caricature is still actively used in the information space, which makes it an important part of political discourse. From its inception to the present day, caricature has been an effective mechanism for reflecting the image of the “other” and the image of the “enemy”. English cartoonists managed to create a certain idea about the most popular episodes and personalities of the Napoleonic wars and about the images and stereotypes that existed at that time. The most striking of them were the images of “bloodthirsty sans-culottes” led by the “Corsican monster” in the person of Napoleon. Foreign events were perceived by cartoonists through the prism of British interests. That is why the main attention in these images was given to France, as one of the main opponents. The author of the article, based on the caricatures of one of the most famous cartoonists of the “golden age” J. Gillray and his students, comes to the conclusion that the legacy of English satirical graphics of the mid-18th – early 19th centuries. – a vivid example of the formation of the image of the “enemy”. Thanks to the analysis of the cartoons, the main components of the image of not only the French emperor, but also his Great Army were identified. It was concluded that these components were firmly entrenched in the form of stereotypes not only in the British consciousness, but also in the European one, and continue to exist to this day.

Activity of youth movements in Ukraine at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries

The purpose of the study is to analyze the evolution of the youth protest movement in Ukraine in the late 1990s - early 2000s. A comparative historical method and an interdisciplinary approach are applied. The author’s scientific contribution consists in the fact that for the first time in Russian historiography, such problems as the role of Ukrainian youth and students in the Revolution on granite and the “Ukraine without Kuchma” campaign are seriously studied, as well as the history of the creation of the youth organization “Pora”, which was destined to play one of the key roles in the Orange revolution in Ukraine at the end of 2004. The author comes to the conclusion that the genesis of the Ukrainian youth protest movement at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries is distinguished by a significant originality, and its result was the emergence of a phenomenon unique for the Ukrainian socio-political space - the organization “Pora”. It is emphasized that this structure was created on the theoretical and practical basis of previous anti-government campaigns, in which Ukrainian youth took a direct part. At the same time, it was guided by the experience of similar foreign movements that had previously successfully applied the methodology of nonviolent struggle against the ruling regimes developed in the West. Like its European associates, “Pora” has made a significant contribution to the victory of the Color revolution in its own state.

The Role of Attorney’s Request as a Communication Instrument in Advocacy

Abstract Background: The analysis of communication tools used in advocacy is currently a topical research problem in the context of dynamic information communication in the sociopolitical space. Aims and Objectives: The aim of the study was to analyze the attorney’s request as a means of obtaining information by attorneys to carry out their professional activity. Materials and Methods: The research was conducted with the help of numerous methods, the method of expert interviews being the leading one. It was used to single out the procedural characteristics and prospects of the attorney’s request in presentday Ukraine. Results: Attention is drawn to a number of issues that complicate the process of submitting attorney’s request and a proper use of this mechanism and procedure by an attorney. The ratification of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement opens up new prospects not only for Ukrainian and European producers but also provides for interesting objectives for attorneys to consult the private sector in the process of building new markets. Conclusion: In this article, it was suggested to compare and analyze the issue of the attorney’s request in Ukrainian and Polish legal framework. As a result of the research, problems were identified, and proposals were made for a simplified procedure for submitting an attorney’s request as a communication instrument in advocacy.

The Geocultural Image of the Vygovsky Region in the Mikhail Prishvin’s Works: Specifics and Factors of Change

In the article the authors analyze the geocultural image of the Vygovsky region, its transformation in the works by Mikhail M. Prishvin in his early books “In the Land of Fearless Birds”, “Behind the Magic Bun” and in the final novel “Tsar’s Road”. In the first works, the idea of the unique geocultural space in the region is presented through acquaintance with the life style, cultural traditions, values and worldview of people who were born and live in this region all their lives. In the fairy tale novel “Tsar’s Road”, in contrast to the earlier works, deep philosophical reflections on the meaning of Russian history are added to Prishvin’s impression of the special natural and human “content” in the region, so the deciphering of an autonomous geocultural image, a unique complex subculture becomes the context for the writer to comprehend the multi-layered cultural, historical and socio-political space of the Russian North and Russia as a whole. The traditional contradiction of “necessity” and “freedom”, as a result of collision between state power and the original Russian people, according to the writer, on the territory of the Russian North has its own features and gives rise to other forms of compromise. The authors of the article explore these attributes of the transformation of cultural space in specific historical circumstances, its connection with geographical, political and socio-economic conditions, in the way Prishvin saw it, with the aim of further extrapolating conclusions to the historical and modern realities of Russian peoples. Views of Prishvin, which were not objectively assessed during the writer’s lifetime, today again attract the attention of the thinking part of humanity, since they raise to a very high level the problems of preserving the uniquenessof not only the natural-cultural system of the Russian North, but also of any ethnocultural subject.

Language maintenance and shift in a Swiss community on the Black Sea

Abstract This paper explores the dynamics of the linguistic situation in a Swiss colony of Shabo on the Black Sea, created in 1822. Its political belonging changed several times: from the Russian empire to the Kingdom of Romania and the USSR (today Ukraine). Metalinguistic discourse produced by various social actors in different sociopolitical settings is compared here to the use of Francoprovençal, French, and Russian as discovered in archival data. Accordingly, the study is based, on the one hand, on the narratives in manuscripts and publications (from the Archives of Odessa, Bern, and Romainmôtiers), and on the other hand, on a corpus of private letters (from family archives in Vaud), as well as early (socio)linguistic descriptions compared to linguistic data collected in Vaud. This case study aims to shed light on the complex relationship between the linguistic processes and language ideologies in changing socio-political spaces.

THE FUTURE OF THE PAST, OR POLICY OF MEMORY OF HUNGARY: BETWEEN NATIONAL AND UNIVERSAL

The memorial strategies of political actors are related to the strategic course chosen by the political factor, the desired historical image of the socio-political community, and the degree of internal diversity of memory vectors in the context of multicomponent societies. The largest wave of EU enlargement in 2004 not only included Eastern European countries in the Union but also led to radical changes in the position of ensuring pan-European unity when it came to taking into account the historical past of the new members. The EU's post-World War II memory policy framework required new commemorative practices and emphasis to prevent memorial conflicts. A condition for ensuring internal unity within the EU is the gradual weakening of internal symbolic boundaries, especially national ones. This is what has become the most difficult for Eastern European nation- states, which have found themselves in a situation of two different vectors: on the one hand, they continue to develop modern-type national doctrines when the nation defines itself within the historical lands, where national identities are being shaped on the basis of the ethnopolitical interests of the titular nations and their historical narratives; on the other hand, pan-European postmodern processes involve the recognition of universal values and common strategies. An example of an ambivalent memorial policy is Hungary, which is trying to solve various socio-political problems with the help of commemorative practices: remaining in the EU supranational space and constructing a nationally oriented memorial strategy. Finding a balance between these vectors is seen as a condition for the effective development of the national community. Thus, the purpose of this article is to determine the relationship between the new format of Hungary's national doctrine and the commemorative political technologies implemented by the state. The memory policy in Hungary is examined in the context of the changing role of commemoration in global politics and the peculiarities of the formation of the institutional environment of memory policy are identified. The author concludes that Hungary's contemporary memorial policy is developing in the format of organizing a socio-political space for dialogue between the state and related diasporas abroad.

The politics of humanity: On anthropological science fiction in Peru

As a geocultural and temporally defined form of production, science fiction is fully within the scope of anthropological analysis. In this article, I aim to analyze the representation of the notion of humanity in Latin American science fiction. Specifically, I examine four narratives by Peruvian authors that offer a critical political lens on contemporary Peruvian society. As the notion of humanity is a complex and multifaceted concept explored by different disciplines, I seek to contribute to the discussion by providing a case study from social anthropology. Science fiction is a particularly relevant medium for social and political critique, as it allows for exploring real and contemporary situations by constructing possible worlds. Methodologically, I approach these four narratives ethnographically, that is, by contextualizing them within the Peruvian socio-political space. In terms of analysis, this article is framed within the anthropological exploration of colonial relations, the construction of social classifications, the boundaries and borders between the human and the non-human, and human impacts on the planet. I argue that science fiction can offer innovative perspectives that enrich a critical anthropological perspective.

Nursing student activism 1972–1973 in Chile, relating to a case

Unveiling the political and union formalization of the Chilean nursing student movement in the socio political space of 1972-1973 contributes to the historical knowledge of nursing. The situations of need for nursing students in 1972 were formalized through the Federation of Nursing Students, which culminated with the military coup of 1970, where its members dissolved the Federation and were persecuted and expelled from their study centres. Despite reinsertion, the marks of this episode stripped them of their union ideals.

Modern communication technologies as a factor of the formation of institutional trust among students

The subject of the research is the problem of finding the most effective ways of interaction of the existing institutional environment, as a set of state institutions and organizations, with such a part of the young population of the country as students. The purpose of this work is to identify promising communication technologies based on modern information technologies and tools for influencing the formation of institutional trust among students by public authorities, state institutions and their individual representatives in the context of the development of the global information space of the Internet. The following methods are used in the work: observation, analysis, system, structural-functional, synergetic methods. The novelty of this work lies in the formation of a system of methodological recommendations for the development of modern communication technologies as a factor in stimulating institutional trust in authorities on the part of students in the digital space and the real socio-political space. The groups of recommendations have been identified containing specific tools for influencing the formation of institutional trust among students, which can be used in the work of relevant ministries and departments in terms of youth policy, organizations of regional and local authorities and other state institutions. The article was prepared based on the results of research carried out at the expense of budgetary funds under the state assignment of the Financial University on the topic: "Development of methodological recommendations for increasing institutional trust in student authorities in the online information space in the context of global cultural and digital transformations" (VTK-GZ-PI-48-23).

Political Transformation of Social Conflicts in the Context of Global Political Risks and Threats (Theoretical View)

Relevance. The phenomena and processes observed in the social system in the modern objectively conditioned conditions of dynamization and politicization have a stable tendency to the formation and accumulation of transformational potential. In this sense, social conflicts at the present stage are often transformed into political conflicts within the framework of an unprecedentedly developing and increasingly complex socio-political space. Of particular research interest is the identification of key features and patterns of political transformation of social conflicts in the focus of global political risks and threats. It also seems appropriate to formulate specific practical measures of approximating specifics in the direction of managing the political and transformational potential of modern social conflicts.Purpose. The main purpose of this article is to present a theoretical overview of the transformation of social conflicts in the context of global political risks and threats.Objectives: formulation of global political risks and threats at the ideological-conceptual, activity-functional, structural and institutional, resource and interactive levels, identification of key features and patterns of political transformation of social conflicts.Methodology. The author mainly used the following group of methods in the process of writing the article: information analysis, content analysis, event analysis, sociological analysis.Results. Taking into account the stated research issues, it seems appropriate to formulate specific practical measures of approximating specifics in the direction of managing the political and transformational potential of modern social conflicts.Conclusion. Within the framework of the modern global socio-political reality, generating and reproducing a huge number of social and other conflicts, it is necessary to pay more attention to the phenomenology of social conflict as such, implying, firstly, a positive and naturalistic perception of the conflictogenic nature of political phenomena and processes, and secondly, the implementation of targeted monitoring of political and conflict dynamics, thirdly, the organization of discussions on open and verified platforms, and fourthly, improving the effectiveness of existing regulatory and legal regulations and formal procedures.

Territorial Inequality Driven by Tourism: A Queer Mapping of Urban Space in Acapulco, Mexico

Drawing on the life stories of nine LGBTTTIQ-identified people who have lived in Acapulco (Guerrero, Mexico), this article provides a queer mapping of this city, peripherally situated in the Global South yet with longstanding entangled transnational connections. The frame for this analysis is the concept of “territorial inequality,” a term coined by urbanism scholar Óscar Torres Arroyo, whose seminal work examined the emergence of this southern Mexican city as an urban space formed through a process of socioeconomic segregation driven by tourism. This article also responds to the call of queer urban scholars to look beyond the metropole for spaces of the political theorized on their own terms. In Acapulco, class, race, and nationality intersect with sexuality in ways that have made it a destination for some queers while also dangerous and unpredictable for others, a segregated sociopolitical space where norms of masculinity have collided with multiversal expressions of sexuality imbued with patterns of exploitation. A key destination during the 20th-century rise of international tourism and a place now securitized as “violent,” this urban space is also the site of evolving LGBTTTIQ movements, communities, and shifting patterns of queer life and queer tourism. This article reconsiders proposals made by queer theorists such as Lionel Cantú and Jasbir Puar regarding the complicated role of tourism in shaping sexualities, urbanization patterns, and state practices structured through colonial, neoliberal, and liberational processes, to theorize queer dimensions of the development of this city.

Porous bunker: Private security contractors and the plasticity of Mogadishu’s international ‘green zone’

From Baghdad’s ‘Emerald City’ to Kabul’s ‘Kabubble’, international green zones have been characterized as ‘bunkerized’ and temporary. Despite efforts to make these spaces appear sealed, they are more porous than we assume. Drawing on fieldwork in Mogadishu and research with private security contractors, this article reconceptualizes international enclaves in terms of their inherent plasticity, moulded by the mobilities, intentions and bureaucracies of those within. The article illustrates the heterogenous sociospatial relations within Mogadishu’s green zone, arguing that it is sustained through internal frictions and transgressive spatial practices that are not captured by the bunkerization motif. The limits of bunkerization are revealed most starkly through the work of security contractors who enjoy greater mobility and access to information than many of the green zone’s transient international workers. They assume the gatekeeper role, sustaining conditions of manageable insecurity by ordering the messy sociopolitical space of the city into bounded zones. Beyond the façade of the enclave, however, their mobility is reliant on ‘local’ Somali partners navigating the complexities of Mogadishu on their behalf. As an interface between the secure inside and the dangerous outside, some contractors have emerged as opportunistic power-brokers connecting Somali entrepreneurs on the outside to the resources within.

The Blue Beret

The Blue Beret

Discursive and Narrative Practices of the Scottish Authorities in the Framework of the Implementation of the Agenda of National and Territorial Self-Determination of Scotland

The article analyzes the narrative and discursive practices of political forces aimed at achieving national-territorial sovereignty on the example of Scotland. The authors emphasize the relevance of the task of analyzing the reasons that allow some regions and peoples to be ficult to achieve sovereignty. According to the authors, it is precisely this context that suggests the need for a scientific understanding of the narrative and discursive practices of those political forces that implement the agenda of national-territorial self-determination in the real political process. The purpose of the study is to analyze the narrative and discursive practices of the Scottish Government and the Scottish National Party, the strategy and tactics of which are determined by the peculiarities of Scottish nationalism and the specifics of the identity of the Scots. Research methodology : to achieve this goal, the authors used a set of methods, among which the socio-cultural approach should be particularly noted, which makes it possible in the process of political analysis to consider the socio-political space through the prism of modern world and local civilizational processes, where the political sphere is influenced by socio-cultural factors. As a result of the analysis , the authors came to the conclusion that the discursive and narrative practices of Scottish nationalists contribute to the awareness of indigenous Scots of their own national specifics, which does not conflict with the identities of ethno-confessional minorities living in Scotland.

Demolition and Discontent: Governing the Authoritarian City

AbstractThe presence of large cities increases the probability of authoritarian breakdown, but the literature has offered little empirical insight as to how challenges to authoritarian rule develop in urban space. I develop a theory of cities as complex sociopolitical spaces that are difficult to govern, particularly in the absence of democratic institutions. This complexity makes both co‐optation and coercion difficult, meaning the very tactics that authoritarian cities use to control discontent can become its proximate cause. Using a large, city‐financed housing project in Moscow targeted at rewarding regime supporters, I utilize a Bayesian semi‐parametric model to demonstrate that even a seemingly well‐targeted co‐optive exchange contributed to a surprising defeat for the regime in a subsequent municipal election. My results suggest that the relative illegibility of cities plays an important part in the development of opposition to authoritarian rule.

О КОЛОНИАЛЬНЫХ ПРЕДПОСЫЛКАХ ФЕДЕРАЛИЗМА В НИГЕРИИ

The article considers those elements of federal statehood that in the early 1960s went to the newly independent Nigeria from the outgoing British colonialists. It follows from the analysis undertaken by the author that this legacy was twofold. On the one hand, thanks to the federal scheme developed and implemented by the ex-metropolis, it is still possible to maintain the integrity of the once conditional socio-political space, now called Nigeria; on the other hand, the federation created by London turned out to be nationalterritorial, that is, initially burdened with a lot of congenital defects and potential risks. By endowing each of the three dominant ethnic groups in Nigeria – Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo – with their own federating entity in the face of the Northern, Western and Eastern regions and thereby fusing together the ethnos and territory, the former metropolis built into the foundations of the federal building being built prerequisites for a powerful ethnic conflict. After independence, which took place in 1960, this conflict broke to the surface; it destabilized Nigeria throughout the existence of the First Republic of 1960- 1966, almost destroying the federation, provoking the secession of Biafra and the bloody civil war that followed. To the full extent, the consequences of the British federal experiment of Nigeria have not been overcome so far; that is why their study is important

Theology of Land: Reflections and Dialogue from a South African Socio-Political Perspective

This paper examines the current situation of land possession in the South African socio-political space. Land possession in South Africa is an emotive issue that receives different political responses based on historical constitutional land laws and declarations, such as the Freedom Charter of 1954. African views on land are elaborated, together with South African current political debates regarding land. Negative politics of the land leave the dispossessed humiliated, experiencing feelings of indignity and insentience. Being robbed of the land is humiliating, but the dialogue about regaining it should occur in the spirit of eschatological hope with one goal in mind: inheriting the land. The paper further elaborates a theology of the land and extensively explains its historical and biblical evolvement from the Abrahamic era to the period of exile. In the midst of tensions between colonial views of land and cultural clashes, eschatological hope is the route to take. Citizens are to be granted the rights and promises that lead to eschatological peace, which creates coexistence where life is fully experienced. Eschatological hope should not be read as opium with a calming effect or a soothing balm for people to endure injustice. It should be a message of hope for the restoration of quality of untrammelled joy on the fruitfulness of the land. All this is achievable through dialogue by and with all stakeholders regarding land issues. The contribution made by this article is the acknowledgement of the imbalances regarding the land issue, and it attempts to bring forth a theological understanding of land and how to apply it in the current South Africa.