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- Convenors:
-
Emma Crewe
(SOAS, London)
Amir Massoumian (SOAS University)
Mitiku Tesfaye (EHESS and Sciences Po Paris)
Jastinder Kaur (SOAS University of London)
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Short Abstract:
What role can scholarly research, critique and collaboration play in addressing the political unwellness that engulfs us? The Global Research Network on Parliaments and People has been exploring this question for five years and welcomes papers about its challenges and possibilities.
Long Abstract:
Democracies are under chronic strain. The causes and symptoms are entangled: governments flounder in the face of various emergencies; politicians get mired in scandal; representation and elections are endlessly contested; scrutiny tips over into vicious attacks; communication gets stuck in polarised conflict; exclusionary and far right politics are on the rise; and parliamentary engagement remains shallow. Betrayal and chaos are endemic, engendering distrust and despair.
Can the insights that emanate from anthropology take on a new significance in how we think through or even seek to heal the unwellness of our political institutions? Might scholars, and anthropologists in particular - with our focus on relationships, processes, and lived experience - generate space for scrutiny, constructive critique, and collaboration around the issues affecting increasingly poisonous relationships between people and politicians?
We welcome papers on a broad range of manifestations of political unwellness and on political institutions that claim to be part of democracy, whether parliaments, governments, civil society organisations, media corporations, or social movements. We are also interested in the methods of (and relationships in) research, scrutiny, and engagement that might lead us towards understanding, coping and/or recovery.
Authors may be anthropologists, ethnographers, or those who are interested in the discipline, or you may be practitioners involved in research. We particularly encourage contributions from those who do not normally get an opportunity to debate with an international audience. We are also working in association with the Royal Anthropological Institute's Committee on the Anthropology of Policy and Practice.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 12 April, 2023, -Richard Axelby (SOAS University of London)
Paper short abstract:
Charting the efforts of Sheffield City Council to rewrite its governance system, this paper highlights how attending to the culture of the council could help heal democratic relationships and offer fresh solutions to problems of political unwellness in the city.
Paper long abstract:
Sheffield is a city in which the legitimacy of local democratic representation has, in recent years, drifted into the arena of the politically unwell. Between 2016 and 2018 protests erupted over the felling of street trees in the city. The street trees controversy attracted national attention; yet few outside Sheffield appreciated how these protests extended to a deeper sense of democratic disconnect. A pervading sense of political unwellness manifests itself in relationships characterised by mistrust and misunderstanding - citizens complained of being unable to contribute in meaningful ways to decisions impacting on their lives. This crisis of democratic representation culminated in a citizen-led referendum campaign which forced the council, against the wishes of many of its members, to reconsider its ways of working and move to a new governance system.
This paper – drawing on three years of ethnographic research – asks whether it is possible to represent a city as distinct and diverse as Sheffield. It does so by charting the efforts of Sheffield City Council to rewrite its constitution and highlights the accompanying need to reimagine the culture of the council. The paper concludes by forwarding anthropology’s capacity to diagnose democracy’s ongoing ills and suggest possibilities to return to health the relationships that shape politics in the city.
Vidya Venkat (SOAS, University of London)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will use anthropological research to study the model of governance established by the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi and explore the connections forged by legislative members with their electoral constituencies via ‘mohalla sabhas’ (neighbourhood council meetings).
Paper long abstract:
In 2015, after the newly formed Aam Aadmi Party wrested power in the state assembly elections in Delhi, a decentralised model of governance empowering ordinary people in political decision-making processes was established. Known as ‘mohalla sabhas’ or neighbourhood council meetings, this process involved an experimentation in direct democracy, which built upon previous models of citizen engagement. The paper builds upon my PhD thesis research on the right to information movement, which focussed on the grassroots citizen’s movement built around ideas of transparency and accountability in governance. Putting people at the centre of decision-making processes instead of letting the elected representatives and bureaucrats call the shots was very much at the root of activist interventions in the RTI movement. In this paper, I will be employing ethnographic research to explore the connections that AAP legislative members (MLAs) have forged with their voters via neighbourhood meetings, and how this seeks to address the gaps in governance that has been the cause of much unwellness in political institutions. This paper will delineate democracy as a process and how issues such as influence of money and muscle power in politics, which have resulted in the systemic erosion of democratic values, are sought to be addressed by reclaiming democracy from below. The paper will focus on research produced in two urban constituencies – Malviya Nagar and Seemapuri in Delhi – which have seen a strong presence of AAP leaders since 2012, when the party was first formed a decade ago.
Gwen Burnyeat (University of Oxford)
Paper short abstract:
The 2016 peace referendum in Colombia created a widespread narrative that the country was polarised. I combine storytelling with commentary to explore how people experience politics through stories, using the Colombian case, and I propose storytelling as a political intervention by anthropologists.
Paper long abstract:
In 2016, Colombia voted “No” to a peace agreement that sought to end 50 years of war, by just 50.2%. Subsequently, it has become common to say that Colombia is “polarised” and that this has been a major factor in spiralling violence in the wake of the peace process. This is a widespread emic story, which I call the “polarisation narrative”. This narrative, which resonates far beyond Colombia amid global concerns about polarisation, tends to simplify the divisions common to any society, and produces the very rift it describes, shaping how people live together with difference. Drawing on long-term fieldwork with diverse sectors of Colombian society, this presentation explores the ways that people experience and narrate macro-level politics and political divisions in their everyday lives through stories: stories told by politicians and institutions, the media, stories shared around the family dinner table, and via social media. It also considers storytelling as a political intervention that anthropologists are particularly well suited to, given our practices of both story collecting and telling, and suggests it can be used as a tool to contribute to bridge-building in politically divided societies. The presentation combines performative storytelling with theoretical commentary in an experimental creative format that seeks to exemplify the argument very argument it makes.
Tirthankar Chakraborty (Freie Universität Berlin)
Paper short abstract:
Do democratic states use fear to govern and make citizens 'fall in line'? This paper explores this question through an ethnohistorical study in India, by looking at how a nascent democracy weaponises the fear of an unwell future (of the dissenters) to curb protest and dissent.
Paper long abstract:
Democracy has been touted as an essential condition for development. Yet, the tremors of undemocratic practices, including the routinisation of violence and fear, can be felt in the functioning of democracies across the globe. While dissent and debate have been celebrated as the pillars of democracy, the erosion of both has not gone unnoticed, especially in the case of India as it slides towards soft authoritarianism. By framing the concept of 'fear of the future', this paper explores how fear can be operationalised to dissuade young students from exercising dissent and be 'good' citizens with 'bright futures'. I argue that the notion of 'success' prompts the newly-minted citizens to stay away from protests as there can be potential harm that can befall the individual. While Butler's 'grievable bodies' as a framework helps to engender the epistemological capacity of the state to make examples of dissenters to subjectify (Foucault 1983) the mass and draw the contours of what falls within and beyond the norms defined by the state, I use Massumi's theory of 'preemption' to chart the affective plain that results in the institutionalisation of university students.
Mitiku Tesfaye (EHESS and Sciences Po Paris)
Paper short abstract:
In 2019, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia won a Nobel Peace Prize. The following year, he led the most brutal war and did it with the Parliament's approval. As the prime minister pulled resources from allies to subjugate the Tigrayan resistance, the Parliament's role remained obscure.
Paper long abstract:
The focus of this presentation is to explore the role and place of the Ethiopian Parliament in the Tigray war. After the election of Abiy Ahmed as the Prime minister of Ethiopia on April 2, 2018, there was hope for a healthy political engagement and widening democracy. Since then, things have changed dramatically. In 2019, the Prime Minster got a Nobel Peace Prize in 'anticipation' of peace with Eritrea. In 2020, the Prime Minister led one of the most brutal wars in recent memories and did it with the Parliament's approval. As the prime minister pulled resources from allies to subjugate the Tigrayan resistance, the Parliament's role remained obscure. Evidence shows that the Parliament was in the shadow dictated by the Prime Minister and kept appeasing Abiy Ahmed.
Following the challenges of democracy in shallow democracies (Crewe, 2018) and the culture of setting political differences in Ethiopia (Tadesse et al., 2021), an ethnographic inquiry into the role of the Parliament during the war is crucial. After the Prime Minister's abrupt rebranding of the coalition party Ethiopian Revolutionary Democratic Front ( EPRDF) to the Prosperity Party (PP) in 2019, regional states' autonomy was at stake. Exploring the interplay between the lawmakers and the executive branches of government and how each navigated would yield a better understanding of the Tigray War and the healing process that is desperately needed.
Keywords
Parliamentary democracy, Ethiopian Parliament, Abiy Ahmed, Tigray National Regional State
Jastinder Kaur (SOAS University of London)
Paper short abstract:
This paper draws on ethnographic research on Fiji to challenge assumptions about the relationship between coups and political unwellness.
Paper long abstract:
Coup d'etats lend themselves readily to diagnoses of political unwellness, assaulting the principles, processes, and practices entailed in democracy (the USA and Myanmar being recent examples). Political science research with its focus on how to coup-proof states and overcome democratic deficits can therefore be seen as doing important healing work in respect of this unwellness. But what of other perspectives and lived experiences of coups - those which regard them as methods of hope and wellness? Drawing on the case study of Fiji, I argue for a pluralist reimagining and analysis of coups which is able to take account of the ways in which they both rupture and resonate.
Sophia Hoffinger (University of Edinburgh)
Paper short abstract:
This paper presents ethnographic and archival material from two legal trials against German political institutions: one against the city of West Berlin in 1972 and one against the German parliament in 2021. The trials reveal how activism around ‘Palestine’ is negotiated and struggled over.
Paper long abstract:
In 1972, the General Union of Palestinian Workers and Students (GUPW and GUPS) were banned by West German minister of interior Genscher overnight, and known and speculated members were deported. The radical German left at the time, circulated pamphlets calling the ban “a ban against us all” and a sign for the erosion of West German liberal democracy. Resulting in a trial against the city of West Berlin, activist mobilisations sought make a case that the ban fit in with wider racist and discriminatory sentiments, particularly against “progressive” forces. The trial that unfolded provides and insight into how political institutions as well as activists made claims about belonging, racialisation, and democracy at the time.
In 2021, then, three years after the German parliament issued a resolution condemning the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as antisemitic and extremist, three activists started a trial against the parliament, arguing the resolution is in breach of their fundamental right to freedom of speech. Again, albeit differently, the three activists (one anti fascist white German, one Jewish-German, one Palestinian-German) reckoned with the politics of power that shape inclusion into Germany’s liberal democracy today. In particular, they asked: whose histories can and should shape our notions of morality and justice today?
This presentation will present materials (documents, ethnographic observations from fieldwork) from both of these trials to ask about the state of German liberal democracy and particularly its legal institutions: how liberal is this liberal democracy, given an increasing erosion of activist spaces and criminalisation of pro Palestine activism in particular?
Amir Massoumian (SOAS University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will grapple with questions of ‘post-truth politics’ by detailing interviews conducted in a pub in Barking. I will highlight how interlocutors share sentiments of being ‘spoken down to’ by experts and how this affects trust in political institutions.
Paper long abstract:
In Hannah Arendt’s account of the dissolution of democracy, the ideal subject of authoritarian rule is described as individuals for whom the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist. In lieu of the Trump election and the Brexit vote, terms such as ‘alternative facts’ and ‘fake news’ have given rise to the concept of ‘post-truth’ politics, where ‘appeals to emotion and personal belief’ shape public opinion in conjunction to a ‘blatant disregard for truth.’ In such a narrative, audiences are portrayed as purely passive, falling victim to untruths because they lack the proper information and skills to discern the truth. However, explaining post-truth in terms of a fragmentation of authority, cognitive biases, apathy and so on ignores the extent to which the acceptance of post-truth representations may depend on specific forms of knowledge. By discussing ethnographic findings during my fieldwork amongst Brexit voters in a pub in Barking, London, this paper will grapple with the question of how Brexit worked to validate specific forms of knowledge linked to the lived experiences on my interlocutors.