Egalitarianism: Forms, Processes, Comparisons*

Workshop in Ascona, Switzerland, 08.-15. March 2016

Host: Prof. Angela Hobart, Centro Incontri Umani.

Convenor: Prof. Bruce Kapferer (Project Leader), Egalitarianism Project, Dept. of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen. www.egalitarianism.no

* = This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 340673

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Workshop rationale and background

The ERC-funded research project “Egalitarianism: Forms, Processes, Comparisons” aims at a multi-dimensional critical approach to the issue of Egalitarianism.. The concept of Egalitarianism is extraordinarily broad, as is the no less nebulous ideal of equality, having virtually ontological value in modern Euro-American thought, increasingly so globally. While Egalitarianism is conventionally associated with Equality and its opposite Inequality, this Project takes Egalitarianism as an expansive term including going beyond these relatively more reductive terms. These, nonetheless, but especially that of Egalitarianism, are  open to a continually expanding fan of meaning establishing the horizons of a great variety of often competing discourses in the philosophies and numerous more grounded domains of everyday practice. Egalitarianism is often virtually synonymous with other ideas, such as advancement and progress.  It is quite explicitly the drive behind or the ideological legitimation for the impetus to dynamics of socio-economic and cultural change as well as myriad social and political criticisms and protest.

Workshop aims

Being a project that will be nearing its first two years of existence, the workshop will gather most of its active researchers, as well as a number of those affiliated, on its Advisory Board and relevant external commentators. The overarching aims of the workshop are;

a) to assess the status of the ongoing research within the project,

b) to work actively with presentations and papers presented by all participants within the project,

c) to benefit from comments and discussions from invited guests,

d) to develop new directions for ongoing fieldwork as well as analytical and theoretical directions,

e) to provide a setting for researchers within the project to become familiar with each other’s work and arguments.

Given these aims, the workshop is divided into two parts.

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Summary programme

Part I -- 8-11 March: Fieldwork presentations, research updates and research papers

This part convenes as many active researchers on the project as possible, as well as the project’s administrative support. This first part is dedicated to primarily PhDs and postdocs on the project presenting their ongoing research and the status of their individual projects. This will involve oral presentations and discussions will revolve around fieldwork challenges and findings, as well as discuss how the current fieldwork/research relates to core themes of the egalitarianism project. The presentation – ideally around 15-20 minutes – will have such a form as to open for general discussion and around 1 hour will be set aside for discussing each person’s project. In addition to all participants on the Egalitarianism project, a few external commentators and discussants will be present as well. In addition there will be presentations from researchers on the project.

12 March: Day offWe check out possibilities to go for an outing up the mountains – possibly for skiing and/or lunch. More information will be provided before 12 March.

Part II – 13-14 March: Forums on egalitarianism, discussions and summing up

The second part of the workshop will continue with pre-written papers and invited guests to lead the discussion on this. The four postdocs on the project – Alessandro Zagato, Theo Rakopoulos, Anna Szolucha and Dinesan Vadakkyinil (from January 2016) – have suggested two forums that all in the Egal group will be invited to write a paper addressing. The forums are wholly organized by the postdoc group. In addition to the two for a, there will also be collective discussions in this part on specific themes.

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Detailed programme

Part I – 08-11 March: Fieldwork presentations, research updates and research papers

Tuesday 08.03

Venue: Hotel la Perla, Via Collina 14, Ascona laperla.ch/

Arrival and check-in at hotels before lunch

13:00-14:00 Lunch at Hotel la Perla

14:00-14:15 Welcome to the Centro Incontri UmaniProf. Angela Hobart

14:15-14:30 Welcome and presentation of workshop programmeProf. Bruce Kapferer

14:30-15:30 3-5 minute presentations of ongoing research from all project participants

15:30-15:45 Coffee break

15:45-16:45 Presentation of research paper from Alessandro Zagato

16:45-17:45 Presentation of research paper from Theodoros Rakopoulos:

“Paranoid no more: Conspiracy “theory” in the Greek crisis”

17:45-18:45 Presentation of research paper from Dinesan Vadakkyinil

19:30 Dinner at Grotto Madonna della Fontana, Losone

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Wednesday 09.03

Venue: Hotel la Perla, Via Collina 14, Ascona laperla.ch/

09:00-10:00 Presentation of research paper from Anna Szolucha:

“At the intersections of grassroots resistance and a shale gas democracy: Navigating the politics of knowledge, time and representation in Lancashire, UK”

10:00-11:00 Presentation of research paper from Marina Gold:

“Human rights: Structures and practice”

11:00 Coffee break

11:15-12:15 Presentations and fieldwork updates/findings from Jacob Hjortsberg

12:15-13:00 Lunch at Hotel la Perla

13:00-15:00 Presentations and fieldwork updates/findings from Mohammad Tareq Hasan and Axel Rudi

15:00-15:30 Coffee break

15:30-16:30 Presentations and fieldwork updates/findings from Maria Dyveke Styve

16:30-16:45 Break

16:45-17:45 Afternoon presentation by K. Ravi Raman, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library New Delhi:

“Dalit Feminitude: Corporate-State-Trade Union Hegemony and Struggles for Egalitarian Existence”

17:45-19:30 Individual meetings between individual PhD students and supervisor(s).

20:00 Dinner at Ristorante da Gina, Ascona

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Thursday 10.03

Venue: Hotel la Perla, Via Collina 14, Ascona laperla.ch/

09:00-11:00 General discussion 1: Comparison, methodology, Eurocentrism

What is the relation between anthropological reasoning and fieldwork as a methodology within the Egalitarianism project? Is egalitarianism irredeemably a Eurocentric concept? How can we rethink comparison within such schemes? Which avenues for and forms of comparison are rendered methodologically and analytically possible through the lens of egalitarianism?

Discussion leaders: Bruce Kapferer, Knut Rio, Annelin Eriksen

11:00-11:30 Coffee break

11:00-12:30 General discussion 1: Comparison, methodology, Eurocentrism (cont.)

12:30-13:30 Lunch at Hotel la Perla

13:30-15:30 General discussion 2: Wealth and the Restructuring of Capital, Cosmologies of Wealth

Discussion leaders: Knut Rio, Theodoros Rakopoulos and Bruce Kapferer

15:30-15:45 Coffee break

15:45-16:30 General discussion 2: Wealth and the Restructuring of Capital, Cosmologies of Wealth (cont.)

16:30-17:30: Afternoon presentation by Mark Goodale, University of Lausanne:TBA

17:30-19:00: Individual meetings to sort out administrative and economic issues pertaining to travel, employment and fieldwork – contact Gro Aase and Marianne Soltveit in advance to book time.

20:00 Dinner at Ristorante Osteria Nostrana, Ascona

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Friday 11.03Venue: Sala Eranos, Hotel Monte Verità, Strada Collina 84 - monteverita.org/

09:00-11:00 General discussion 3: Gender, egalitarian possibilities and the unconstraining of identity

Discussion leader: Annelin Eriksen

11:00-11:30 Coffee break

11:30-12:30 General discussion 3: Gender, egalitarian possibilities and the unconstraining of identity (cont.)

12:30-13:30 Lunch at Hotel Monte Verità

13:30-15:30 General discussion 4: The universalization of the urban and the ending of peasant society: New domains of egalitarian struggle

Discussion leaders: Bjørn Enge Bertelsen, Bruce Kapferer, Knut Rio

15:30-15:45 Coffee break

15:45-16:30 General discussion 4: The universalization of the urban and the ending of peasant society: New domains of egalitarian struggle (cont.)

16:30-17:30 Afternoon presentation by Sundar Sarukkai, Manipal Centre for Philosophy and Humanities, Manipal University:

“The sociality of caste and the challenges to egalitarianism”

19:00 Dinner at Monte Verità

20:00- Public event at Sala Eranos, Hotel Monte Verità with Alessandro Zagato:

“The Virgin of Cancuc and Subcomandante Marcos. A parallelism between symbolic constructions in past and current indigenous rebellions in Chiapas.

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Saturday 12.03: Day off – no organized programme and possibilities to make trips in the area and region

Bosco Gurin, 42 kilometres from Ascona -- http://bosco-gurin.ch/de/winter-aktivitaten

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Part II – 13-15 March: Forums on egalitarianism, discussions and summing up

Sunday 13.03

Venue: Sala Eranos, Hotel Monte Verità, Strada Collina 84 - monteverita.org/

09:00-11:00 Forum 1: Egalitarian Paradoxes. Presentations of papers – comments by guests and all other participants

11:00-11:30 Coffee break

11:30-12:30 Forum 1: Egalitarian Paradoxes. Presentations of papers – comments by guests and all other participants (cont.)

12:30-13:30 Lunch at Hotel Monte Verità

13:30-15:30 General discussion 5: Activism and humanitarianism: Resistance, revolution, or connivance with power?

“What tensions exist between political activism, activist anthropology and anthropological research on egalitarianism?”

Discussion leader: Bruce Kapferer, Anna Szolucha, Marina Gold

15:30-16:00 Coffee break

16:00-17:00 Afternoon presentation by Don Kalb, Central European University: “Scale, class, and contestation in postsocialist Europe: explaining the Victory of the new Right”

17:00-19:00: Film session: Science fiction, cosmology, egalitarianismChaired by Rolf Scott and Knut Rio

20:00 Dinner – venue to be announced

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Monday 14.03:

Venue: Sala Eranos, Hotel Monte Verità, Strada Collina 84 - monteverita.org/

09:00-11:00 “Forum 2: Why is egalitarianism just a concept and when is it not?”Presentations of papers – comments by guests and all other participants

11:00-11:30 Coffee break

11:30-12:30 “Forum 2: Why is egalitarianism just a concept and when is it not?”Presentations of papers – comments by guests and all other participants (cont.)

12:30-13:30 Lunch at Hotel Monte Verità

13:30-14:30 Afternoon presentation by Penny Harvey, University of Manchester: “Connectivity and Autonomy: the illicit economies of infrastructural investment”

14:30-15:00 Coffee break

15:00-17:00 General discussion 6: State and Corporate reconfigurations: Syriza, Podemos, Corby and Trump

Discussion leaders: Theodoros Rakopoulos, Bruce Kapferer

17:00-19:00 Individual meetings between individual PhD students and supervisor(s).

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17:00-19:00 Showing of the film “Palio”?

20:00 Dinner – venue to be announced

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Tuesday 15.03: Final day – summing up and looking forward

Venue: Sala Eranos, Hotel Monte Verità, Strada Collina 84 - monteverita.org/

09:00-10:30 Planning upcoming events (workshops, conference participation, collaboration with other projects and intitiatives)Discussion led by Bruce Kapferer

10:30-10:45 Coffee break

10:45-12:00 Programming for individual and collective publications coming out of the ProjectDiscussion led by Bruce Kapferer

12:00- Departure

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Practicalities

TravelAfter confirming your attendance to the contact person, travel arrangements will be worked out and tickets generally bought in Bergen through the contact person. As Ascona is close to Milan (see http://www.rome2rio.com/s/Milan/Ascona ) and Zürich (see http://www.rome2rio.com/s/Z%C3%BCrich/Ascona ), international connections through either of these might be the easiest option, taking a train or bus from there to Ascona. A flight to Locarno is also an option.

AccommodationAll attendees will have received information in advance about their site of accommodation in one of these two places: Centro Incontri Umani/ Centre for Studies of Society and CultureVia Signore in Croce 96612 Asconahttp://www.ciu-ascona.org/secretary@ciu-ascona.orgTelephone : +41-91-791-88-41

Hotel la PerlaVia Collina 146612 Asconahttp://www.laperla.ch/hotel@laperla.chtel.: + 91 791 35 77

Workshop venuesOn 8, 9, and 10 March, the workshop is held at Hotel la Perla. On 11, 13, 14 and 15 the workshop is held at Hotel Monte Verità. The institutional workshop host is Centre for Studies of Society and Culture, Ascona, Switzerland http://www.ciu-ascona.org/

DatesThe full workshop runs from mid-day 8 March 2016 to departure 15 March 2016 in the afternoon.

Contact personsLaura Simona, Centro Incontri Umani. secretary@ciu-ascona.org , +41 91 791 88 41 (office) and +41 79 581 32 41 (mobile).

Bjørn Enge Bertelsen, Egalitarianism Project, Dept. of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen. Bjorn.Bertelsen@uib.no / BjornEBertelsen@gmail.com , +47-55589322 (office), +47-41103883 (mobile)

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Abstracts

Forum 1: Egalitarian paradoxes

In the interest of emphasizing comparative aspects of egalitarian processes, we focus on what can be termed paradoxes, oxymora and contradictions here. Egalitarianism is stranded with paradoxical makings. If egalitarianism is an ideological plain, surely it is inhabited by contradictions, but also the very perception of its bearing contradictions can be a product of its ideological making.

There are egalitarian processes leading to inegalitarian effects, as, most unambiguously, the modern system itself, where liberal institutions reflect political representation with nominal equality, while capitalism is itself premised on stratifying systems of political economy. There are also surprising reverses, as for instance cases where the otherwise inegalitarian institution of caste becoming a potentiality to challenge continuing inequality. If egalitarianism is an ideological plain embodied of contradictions, are the contradictions a product of its ideological making? Is the very making of the paradox, questioning whether encountering “contradictions” an outcome of a certain normativity of egalitarianist ideologies that pertains our own analytical inquiry?

But when we say paradox of egalitarianism, do we assume that egalitarianism must be something having some definite structures/attributes wherein a deviation from it leads to a paradoxical situation? If egalitarianism is more than equality, and indeed comprises an array of institutions and practices that extend into and unsettle the idea of idealised non-stratification, then how do we account for the very notion of paradox?

This forum would invite explorations of the above overlapping problematics. On the one hand, we aim to tackle how the dialectics of egalitarianism lead to unexpected occasions. On the other, we shall debate, in a reflective turn, that very making of the paradox, questioning whether encountering “contradictions” is an outcome of a certain normativity of egalitarianist ideologies that pertains our own analytical inquiry.

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Forum 2: Why is egalitarianism just a concept and when is it not?

Aporia of egalitarianism: it is just a concept – a theoretically complex and excessively or vaguely normative invention that is largely ignorant of or separate from messy empirical realities. Yet, it is a concept that one can't do without and the question this forum poses is why? 

Why do so many radically different social actors and thinkers come back to this idea so often and for so many divergent reasons? Egalitarianism (in its different guises: equality, solidarity etc.) has an expedient political/ideological and practical value. As an ideal or an essentially contested concept, it could be used and abused in virtually all shapes or forms for a particular strategic gain (that is readily apparent or not by being an indirect effect of a technological innovation, for example). Generally speaking, material expressions of egalitarianism could always be seen as somehow betraying the purity of the abstract concept, and therefore tending to its opposite – inequality and domination. Consequently, this type of critical approach may be employed in an ideological way to work against any egalitarian aspirations.

The problem is, however, that seeing egalitarianism in this way, making this kind of (unkind) judgements about egalitarianism itself presupposes a privileged position of somebody outside of the power play. The position that is often embodied by the figure of the academic, who, as a researcher tends (in the current ideology) to analyse phenomena from a seemingly “neutral” point of view, one that is materially, ideologically, and emotionally separated from concrete situations, perhaps even somewhat cynical. Such an attitude leads the academic to approach concrete expressions of egalitarianism as curious aberrations – similarly to the way the “occidental subject” sees cultures from her peculiar position.

Certainly egalitarianism is just a concept but it isn't just that for a lot of people in a lot of places and a lot of the time. How do we deal with this disjuncture? Do we cautiously suspend our judgement? Positing an actor's equality and solidarity as 'true', 'real' etc. is usually what treating egalitarianism as more than a concept means in practice. Should we then dismiss all claims to 'real' equality, freedom or solidarity as spurious or ignorant of other historical and spatial contexts since we 'know' that this cannot be 'egalitarianism'? Or do we (consciously or unconsciously) take these claims at their face value, embrace manifestations of 'real' egalitarianism with wide eyes, get overwhelmed, lulled into self-justified satisfaction or become involved in political activism? Or should we consider egalitarianism as a praxis, as a concept necessarily related to concrete situations, to singular forms of thought, and therefore exposed to contradiction and openendedness? How are social movements, state formations and various other forms of social and political initiative negotiating and dealing with this aporia? What can their experience contribute to the theoretical legacy of the idea of egalitarianism?

This forum aims to bring together a rigorous investigation of this conceptual aporia with a critical re-thinking of one's own position (as a researcher in our case) in relation to egalitarianism as a concept and as a real practice.

In order to do that, we are calling for papers/presentations dealing with ethnographic cases where this aporia of egalitarianism becomes tangible – situations where the researcher has to deal with the concrete, ambiguous and contradictory outcomes of a necessary idea.

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Marina Gold, University of Bergen:“Human Rights: Structures and Practice”

Key terms within the Western world tend to be assumed as self-explanatory: freedom, equality, humanity – more generally, human rights – are some such terms. An essential instrument of egalitarianism within the west is the discourse of human rights. After all, by the mere virtue of being human, we have rights. The perpetual humanitarian crises, continuous human rights violations and increasingly escalating conflicts point to a contradiction. If human rights are so self-evident, why are they always steeped in conflict? My project looks at the discourse of Human Rights, from an anthropologically critical perspective, as an ideological discourse of the Western world that rests on Egalitarian principles. The project has two aspects: a theoretical one, which considers the literature on human rights and interrogates the main tendencies underlying human rights theories; and a analysis of human rights as applied in practice. This second element of the project has, in turn, two aspects: the analysis of the refugee crisis in Europe as an event that highlights the crisis of human rights institutions and ideologies within Europe; and an analysis of those institutions that articulate humanitarian assistance in the name of human rights. This presentation will focus on this last element of the project. After briefly outlining the theoretical implications of human rights discourse, I will focus mostly on my recent fieldwork within humanitarian international NGOs in order to present a brief glimpse at articulations between humanitarian projects, the discourse of human rights and the emergence of new state formations of a corporate kind.

Penelope Harvey, University of Manchester:“Connectivity and Autonomy: the illicit economies of infrastructural investment”

The common articulation of economic growth and infrastructural investment is an expression of a basic understanding of how value accrues through the unimpeded flows of persons, products, resources, information and money. Investments in public infrastructures are routinely justified in these same terms. Infrastructural projects for social development (such as roads, water, sanitation and refuse disposal systems) are widely assumed to be generative of both social welfare and economic growth. However it is also the case that despite popular support, infrastructural interventions are also routinely assumed to involve the illicit generation of wealth for some at the expense of others. Such assumptions, often articulated as accusations of corruption and foul play, or suspicions of hidden agencies and interests, do not necessarily undermine a more diffuse faith in the generative capacity of infrastructural systems, but they do draw attention to negative externalities, including their differential and differentiating effects. Indeed it is especially in relation to their unrealised economic promise that public infrastructures comprise a deeply ambiguous public ‘good’. This tension is heightened by the neoliberal insistence on privatization and the emergence of infrastructures as capital assets that can be traded as financial objects with no concern for their specific uses as material substrates supporting complex livelihood practices. Furthermore the pervasive sense of global financial and environmental crisis, exacerbated by the threat to existing infrastructural provision, provokes a paradoxical desire for further infrastructural investment and securitization as the optimum way to ensure a sustainable and socially

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inclusive future. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the Peruvian Andes this paper explores how dynamics of connectivity and autonomy characterize an attempt to bring a new sanitation infrastructure into being.

Don Kalb, Central European University/Utrecht University:“Scale, class, and contestation in postsocialist Europe: explaining the victory of the new Right”

I consider scale-making as the provisional spatio-temporal outcome of the antagonisms of the governance of accumulation, on the one hand, and Gramscian wars of position and maneuver within and against that on the other. I also submit that the context in which this must be understood is the context of the perpetually shifting social and territorial relationships of combined and uneven capitalist development. Thus, I freely combine Trotsky, Gramsci, Wolf, Smith and Harvey, in looking at the contentious scale making processes of the capitalist transition in postsocialist Central and Eastern Europe. My ultimate claim is twofold: understanding the politics of scale is essential for understanding the (silenced but momentous) contestations of and around class in CEE; moreover, it is a key to analyzing the rapid shift towards a new national-socialist/Darwinian Right in that region after 2008.

Theodoros Rakopoulos, University of Bergen:

“Paranoid no more: Conspiracy ‘theory’ in the Greek crisis”

The production of “theory” in the social sciences is mitigated through data drawn from synchronic and historical inquiry and thus concern history and culture. The proliferation of conspiracy theory, a strand of intellectual practice very popular in Greece, and exacerbated by the recent crisis, calls for a prism to review the “culture” and the “history” of such “theory”. Reviewing ethnographic material related to a spectrum of different sources, branded as conspiracist by their exponents, the press and the relevant scholarship in mainstream political science and political history, this article aims to revisit the idea of “paranoid” politics. Steering clear from these approaches, I compare different ethnographic cases of self-styled “conspiratorial” thinking from Greece to show how the mobilization of affect in crisis opens areas of both hyperrationality and truth-activism, often with violent results. Such data include narratives on the introduction as well as the exodus from crisis, alien agent formations, and even party politics or terrorist bombings. As the evidence suggest, rather than a comparison between the epistemologies of scientism and conspiracism, I take conspiracy theory in its own terms. This allows investigating how claims to both science and fiction inspire both Greek conspiracists and parts of the lay public in their coming to terms with crisis. Discussing such diverse case studies, I trace their internal rationality and attempt an integrated comparison on the grounds of conspiracy as a political cosmology

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of crisis, set on the investigations of “the truth”. Its engaged political underpinnings often take Greek conspiracists to direct engagement with political action, in both institutional and violent ways.

K. Ravi Raman, Senior Fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library: “Dalit Feminitude: Corporate-State-Trade Union Hegemony and Struggles for Egalitarian Existence”

The paper explores how the emergent dalit feminitude in the Kanan Devan tea plantations in Kerala-Tamil Nadu border challenges the raditional understanding that the subalterns are not self-representable but rather, must be represented and how their challenging confronted the capitalist and patriarchal forms of exploitation/ oppression. It is  argued that – Pombilai Orumai - the new “destituent power” first challenges its   own masculine trade unions   by peeling away from them to open up a new politics of becoming,  while simultaneously taking on the multinational-controlled corporation; the move also opened new possibilities of democratic politics. The paper explains why claims made by the Company for its refusal to offer higher bonus and wages do not stand up under scrutiny, instead implicating corporate capital to be incapable of sharing prosperity; though readily transferring crisis to the workers.  After narrating the lessons and non-lessons from the struggle, the paper concludes that the right to have rights in the plantations has been eroded; but the present struggle brings hope through self-assertion, in a climate where the trade unions have depoliticised themselves and corporate capital intensifies its exploitation/ oppression with a State in absence.  The papers further make reflections on how crisis in representation subsumed under political, how power and 'performativity' produces liberatory epistemology and how multiple identities act as sources of counter ontology in hegemonised conditions.  

Sundar Sarukkai, Manipal Centre for Philosophy and Humanities, Manipal University:

“The sociality of caste and the challenges to egalitarianism”

There seems to be something special to the operation of caste in Indian society. One might argue that today in India there is a greater consolidation of caste identity in spite of decades of various forms of social resistance against caste hierarchies. The resistance of caste to attempts to eradicate it has two interesting aspects to it - one is the process of naturalization and the other is the way social authority gets constructed. I will discuss these two processes which are deeply related to the specific way in which caste experiences coalesce together - what we could call as the sociality of caste - and illustrate how these concepts pose a challenge to any notion of egalitarianism.  

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Anna Szolucha, University of Bergen:

“At the intersections of grassroots resistance and a shale gas democracy: Navigating the politics of knowledge, time and representation in Lancashire, UK”

Shale gas development in the UK is a highly contested issue, which is articulated most strongly in the resistance and civil disobedience of local residents across the country. Many grassroots groups are forced to fight the government and gas corporations on technocratic or scientific grounds, questioning the potential benefits and highlighting possible harms from gas extraction. They engage in the complex politics of time by juxtaposing the temporal and political nature of decision-making related to fracking to permanent effects of shale gas activities. They are also addressing the bypassed issues of democracy and social justice that are excluded from the planning process and hence, they are inadvertently reorganising political life away from the dynamics of shale gas democracy that evades different forms of popular contestation. At the same time, all of these complex processes are being played out in a highly “mediatised” context which may quite easily render itself to a dynamic of a spectacle. Speeches and representations are made, experts are cross-examined and arguments brought forward, mistakes are used ruthlessly against opponents and slip-ups – mocked. Appearances are carefully managed and scrutinised. Spaces of internal and public debate are opened up or locked down in subtle ways for strategic advantages of the players. This may create the appearance of a spectacle because actors seem to be reluctant to engage directly with the issue that requires a democratic judgement. Instead, they participate in the process via a proxy: expert and legal knowledge or media representations. Are grassroots groups really substituting expertise and media images for democratic experience, at the same time questioning the loss of local control over their immediate environments? Or are they using the tactics of their opponents strategically and simultaneously, developing a radical political subjectivity? I argue that these questions are significant because they may be revealing an emerging structural shift in the liberal representative model of democracy as well as the changing social position of the groups that have so far been regarded as the foundation of that model.

Alessandro Zagato, University of Bergen:

“The Virgin of Cancuc and Subcomandante Marcos. A parallelism between symbolic constructions in past and current indigenous rebellions in Chiapas”

Through a parallelism between the indigenous uprising of 1712 in Highlands Chiapas where a coalition of groups proclaimed the “Republic of Cancuc” and the ongoing Zapatista rebellion inaugurated by the uprising of 1994 I will propose an insight on the organic role that aesthetics and poetics play in the political strategy of this revolutionary movement. 

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