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- Convenors:
-
Heike Drotbohm
(University of Mainz)
Olaf Zenker (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg)
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- Format:
- Workshop
- Transfers:
- Closed for transfers
- Working groups:
- Political and Legal Anthropology
Short Abstract:
In the spirit of an anthropology of conflict, this panel explores how diverse political communities navigate contradictory positions and diverging political values through exemplary types of commoning practices.
Long Abstract:
Extensive research into the common good reveals that the real challenge lies not in the idea itself, but in the practices of commoning—everyday interactions aimed at re-regulating the sharing of resources, emphasizing cooperation, sustainability, and mutual benefit. Commoning is embedded in a complex world of interpersonal interactions where community spirit, solidarity, and equality are sought, while organizational questions and value conflicts simultaneously expose social lines of difference. In this panel, we focus on the solidarity-based practices of the common good, which is not only sought after but also created, redistributed, managed, and controlled. In the spirit of an anthropology of conflict, our PraPla workshop seeks anthropological studies that have explored examples of commoning beyond differences. Cases would be environmental, social, feminist, mobile, knowledge, housing or infrastructure commons and others. We are particularly interested in ethnographic studies that demonstrate how diverse political communities navigate contradictory positions and diverging political values through exemplary types of conflicts as well as the anthropological position therein.
Accepted contributions:
Session 1Contribution short abstract:
By analyzing commoning and uncommoning practices against Terricide undertaken by the Mapuche-Tewelche people in northern Patagonia (Argentina), this presentation argues that the challenge lies not merely in avoiding the violation of Human Rights but rather in seeking their reformulation.
Contribution long abstract:
Through processes of territorial recovery, opposition to mega-extractive industries or campaigns against Terricide, the Mapuche-Tewelche people of northern Patagonia in Argentina have been denouncing not simply the violation of their differentiated rights, but fundamentally broader and more worrying risks arising from situations of hydric emergency and climate crisis. While governments blame “Mapuche terrorism” for the exacerbation of forest fires that rather bear witness to what the Mapuche-Tewelche communities and organizations denounce, environmental movements warn about the effects of environmental inequalities and injustices that these and other catastrophes bring with them. Against such a backdrop, the purpose of this presentation is to analyze the ideological, epistemological and ontological frictions brought to light by the conflicts with indigenous people that have been activated in the region, to evaluate whether indigenous commoning and uncommoning practices should be seen as demanding solely again
Contribution short abstract:
Rethinking identity politics through the conceptual lens of political solidarity, this paper discusses the ambivalent role that the “right to political self-determination” has played in forging cross-identity solidarities with/in the transnational Kashmiri freedom movement in British politics.
Contribution long abstract:
In this paper, I use the concept of political solidarity to rethink the ethnographic case study of the transnational Kashmiri freedom movement beyond questions of identity politics. Given the social, political, cultural and religious differences of the people and groups belonging to the disputed and divided state of Jammu and Kashmir (Kashmir for short) between Pakistan and India, the Kashmiri freedom struggle has long been driven by the aim of forging political solidarities across different identities and positionalities and between Kashmiri and non-Kashmiri groups in Kashmir and transnationally. These solidarities are intricately linked to identity politics and the Kashmir conflict. While Kashmiri political activism draws on contradictory notions of Kashmiri identity, activists also mobilise around Islamic and leftist notions of “common humanity” for what they see as the inalienable right of Kashmiris to political self-determination.
In this paper, I draw on my ongoing research with Kashmiri activists and their allies in Britain to show how the notion of the “right to political self-determination” has become a critical means of commoning solidarities with and within the Kashmiri freedom movement. This notion has not only enabled British Kashmiris to mobilise public protests, forge alliances with local and national politicians, and call on the British government to support the Kashmiri freedom struggle, but has also played an important ambivalent role in bridging differences between Kashmiri groups and navigating their contradictory political aspirations for freedom, such as Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan or India, greater autonomy within these states, or complete independence from both states.
Contribution short abstract:
This ethnographic study explores the precarious commoning between Bangladeshi migrants and Italian leftist groups in Rome’s Banglatown. Despite cultural and ideological differences, moments of solidarity emerge in collective struggles for social justice, revealing both unity and underlying tensions.
Contribution long abstract:
Focusing on the complex political landscape of the Tor Pignattara neighborhood—informally known as "Banglatown"—this research examines how Bangladeshi migrants engage in fragmented practices of solidarity, shaped by both internal tensions and external cultural differences with Italian society. While the community appears unified through shared cultural and religious practices, deeper fault lines emerge around class exploitation, gender roles, and varying degrees of religious conservatism. This paper explores the contested alliances between Bangladeshi migrants and Italian leftist and anarchist groups in the neighborhood. While both groups share common struggles against exploitation and marginalization, their solidarity is often strained by cultural, religious, and ideological differences. Bangladeshi migrants, driven by economic survival and community obligations, sometimes find it difficult to fully align with the progressive, secular values of their leftist neighbors. Conversely, Italian activists often grapple with the migrants' conservative social norms and internal hierarchies. However, these tensions are momentarily set aside through practices of commoning during demonstrations for Palestine, workers' rights, migrant protections, and against border controls—where shared political goals foster moments of collective action. This ethnographic study examines how these fragile yet strategic collaborations reveal both the possibilities and limits of cross-cultural solidarity in urban spaces marked by inequality and exclusion. The study seeks to offer insights into how migrant communities, devoid of linguistic, religious, cultural, and geographical ties to their new homes in Europe, leverage political activism as a strategy for survival and as a dynamic venue for negotiating their identity and asserting their presence in society.
Contribution short abstract:
This paper explores the frictions inside transnational political movements as “productive gaps” that allow for a critical lens on the anthropology of solidarity to demonstrate how solidarity can be a possibility but also a shortcoming, especially when engaging with conflict settings from a distance.
Contribution long abstract:
This paper challenges the common portrayal of transnational solidarity as a supportive political bond, especially within leftist movements, by arguing that solidarity often emerges not from similarity but from “productive gaps.” Focusing on the "Free Nicaragua movement" in Berlin, it examines the negotiations between recent Nicaraguan political exiles, the local Nicaraguan diaspora, and elderly (former West-) German solidarity brigades following the state-led crackdown on protesters in Nicaragua in 2018. While the Berlin-based group advocated for both the claim and practice of “solidarity with Nicaragua” and managed to operate across difference, activists consistently drew on divergent political visions and convictions to define and enact this position, ranging from queer feminism over pro-Trump intervention policies to Cold War-informed Marxism.
The paper explores how these productive gaps—shaped by political, cultural, and historical contexts—lead to varying interpretations and contradictions within transnational solidarity and reinforces the understanding that political solidarity is a practice as much a political relation as a process that needs to be constantly renegotiated and reworked.
Contribution short abstract:
Based on ethnographic research, this paper analyses the social engagement of “Russian Germans” in Bavaria in relation to the war in Ukraine. This engagement, which is articulated and practiced in everyday life, changes the positioning of the group of “Russian Germans” in different respects.
Contribution long abstract:
Based on ethnographic research, this article analyses the social engagement of “Russian Germans” in Bavaria in relation to the war in Ukraine. It is not uncommon for this group to be negatively emphasized in the social media: as “AfD voters” or “Putin supporters.” I would like to break down the homogenizing negative image of this group and instead offer a differentiated picture. I argue that the everyday full-time or voluntary work of “Russian Germans” in the field of integration with Ukrainian refugees and in political education programs with different migrant groups can be seen as a form of active commitment. This engagement, which is articulated and practiced in everyday life, changes the positioning of the group of “Russian Germans” in different respects. It expands the participation of this group in social processes that are important for the country. And it broadens the political field of action of the individual “Russian-German” citizens in the form of participation, shaping “integration policy” in Germany. Such active commitment contributes to the common good of German society.
Keywords: Russian Germans; Ukrainian refugees; counselling; active commitment; citizenship
Contribution short abstract:
Commoning and solidarity practices are among the protection strategies of rural peace communities in Latin America during conflict and post-conflict periods. The paper explores the modification of these strategies in the transition process using two ethnographic examples from Colombia and Guatemala.
Contribution long abstract:
Commoning and solidarity practices - communal land use, collective food production or trade cooperatives - are among the central security and peacebuilding strategies of rural peace communities in violent conflicts of Colombia and Guatemala. During the post-conflict transformations, the socio-economic and political context in which these relatively homogeneous communities have developed their strategies changes drastically: armed groups demobilize, ex-combatants resettle, displaced people return and reclaim land, state programs and agribusiness or mining companies appear. The diversification of political actors and economic interests as well as the heterogenization of moral values and social differences in these (former) conflict regions lead to a modification of the protection strategies of these communities: Some are abandoned over time, others are adapted, new ones are added. Thus, different and contradictory developments of (un)commoning and (dis)solidarization happen simultaneously.
Drawing on multi-temporal ethnographic research in the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó in Colombia and the Community of Primavera del Ixcán in Guatemala, this paper explores the (un)commoning and (dis)solidarization developments during post-conflict transformations. Given this context, in which different political and economic actors, with contradictory positions and divergent political values, encounter and interact anew, the paper addresses the following questions: Which practices and strategies, in which political and economic fields are being abandoned, continued or developed? What exactly do these changes look like, what are their causes and what consequences are evident? What do these changes reveal about the conditions and possibilities for commoning and solidarity in complex (post-)conflict contexts, beyond these ethnographic cases?
Contribution short abstract:
This ethnographic paper draws the picture of the tension between two divergent humanitarian practices that strategically chose to coordinate and explores the potential of this conflictual encounter to foster political solidarity.
Contribution long abstract:
In December 2023, I was on the other side of the border for the first time, in the Croatian city of Rijeka. As two women activists from a politically engaged activist movement, we found ourselves working with Caritas uniforms—a well-known Catholic humanitarian organization. This was a strategic decision of a criminalized grassroots NGO to coordinate with a legitimized structure in order to legally exist and monitor the dynamics of migration mobility in Croatian territory. In practice, it turned into an alienating experience, both politically and emotionally. Living in a monastery and working within a hierarchy that reproduced structural inequalities during the encounters with people on the move amplified this dissonance. At the same time, we had to navigate this conflict and ambiguity to maintain our activist practices under cover. We were the last activists working in this humanitarian alliance before it reached a boiling point, leaving us with a whirlwind of complex emotions: Was it a failure? Was it a mistake from the beginning? What did we learn anything from it?
Drawing from this ethnographic experience, this paper aims to see the potential of these convergent yet conflictual bodily encounters between seemingly irreconcilable humanitarian approaches on the other side of the border, where we don’t feel belong. Following critical discussions on humanitarianism(s), I ask if conflictual bodily encounters could provide a generative terrain to forge political activism.