Agnes Gagyi
(University of Gothenburg)
Ingo Schröder
(University of Marburg)
Matjaz Pinter
(Maynooth University)
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Format:
Panels
Location:
SO-E397
Sessions:
Friday 17 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Stockholm
Systemic crisis, anti-systemic movements: marxist approaches to capitalist restructuring and social reproduction in contemporary global scenarios of movement and stability.
Panel P136 at conference EASA2018: Staying, Moving, Settling.
Referring back to the tradition of a global systemic anthropology (Wolf, Friedman), the panel focuses on movement and stability within the present reorganizations of the global currents and counter-currents of capital and social reproduction.
Long Abstract:
The global crisis of post-war geopolitical-economic arrangements has put the interconnection of capitalist and social processes back on the agenda of anthropological research. The panel focuses on movement and stability within the present reorganizations of the global currents and counter-currents of capital and social reproduction. It revisits the analytical capacity of concepts like capital and class, and of long-term "total" perspectives, referring back to the long tradition of a global systemic anthropology (Wolf, Friedman) that includes Marxist social history, dependentista, world-systems and Subalternist approaches. This perspective interprets contemporary social relations as part of a larger historical process fueled by capital accumulation and its integrative, yet conflictual relation to social and ecological reproduction, as a dialectical process engendering stability and mobilization alike.
We invite papers that address new articulations of mobility and stability in the context of the present global crisis and reorganization of capital. The panel searches for empirically grounded, yet theoretically and politically enabling insights that address current transformations of "systemic" and "antisystemic" tendencies in the emerging articulations of what seems to be an increasingly intense conflict between social and ecological reproduction, and the reproduction of capital globally. Topics may address various aspects of current reorganizations and conflicts in the "interdependent process of social metabolism" (Marx) - such as labor, infrastructural and reproductive relations, center-periphery aspects of global reorganization, settler colonialism and accumulation by dispossession, or relations between state formation, the agrarian question, and capitalist restructuring.
My paper aims to present how etnhicity (in this case the "Gypssyness" and „Hungarianness”) becomes an important instrument for social and ecological reproduction in a typically semi-peripheral position of the world economy: in Hungarian small towns , where I am currently conducting my fieldwork.
Paper long abstract:
My paper aims to present how etnhicity (in this case the "Gypssyness" and „Hungarianness”) becomes an important instrument for social and ecological reproduction in a typically semi-peripheral position of the world economy: in Hungarian small towns , where I am currently conducting my fieldwork. In the first part of my paper I briefly present how the different cycles of capitalist world economy and the related state policy have shaped the class-based "Gypsy"-"Hungarian" distinctions from the sixties on up to the present. In the second part of my presentation I focus on the current processes. Usually the "Gypsyness" is associated mainly with the "surplus" population while the "Hungarian" position is related to the working-class or lower middle—middle class situation. In my research I study places ( poorer quarters of small towns) where the mentioned distinction has become a crucial factor in the present reorganization of the global current and counter-current of capital and social reproduction. These places can be interpreted as transitions between the stable, permanent wage- work based class position and a precarious situation. We can track this transition within the life trajectories of the agents, from one generation to the next one, but the ethnic distinction can be grasped in most cases. On the local level, encounters of the habitual differences of these class positions appear as etchnic relationships or conflicts. I would like to discuss how the class-based ethnic distintcions can become a stabilizing factor in the present reorganization of capital and social reproduction, as they can give a possibility for movements to emerge by blurring these distinctions, or even through ethnic mobilization.
By looking into the accumulation by dispossession found in gentrification, I extend the rent-gap hypothesis to the production as a totality of the city. The city is thereby taken as a spatial fix for the global crisis that requires a class relation based on the incorporation of anti-systemic groups.
Paper long abstract:
With his proposal of a rent-gap theory, Neil Smith developed a materialist explanation for gentrification that contended with individual consumer preference tenets by focusing on the cycles of capital's disinvestment and reinvestment in the built environment, always mediated by forms of collective social action. By drawing lessons from the class insights found in the oeuvre of Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey, and from my own field research, most of which took place in Majorca, I extend the rent-gap hypothesis from gentrification to the production as a totality of the city. This approach takes the city to be a vehicle of accumulation of capital that works as a spatial fix for the global crisis as well as a conflictive site of social reproduction that requires a class relation of creation and appropriation of value based on the incorporation of distinctive anti-systemic groups for each of the moments of disinvestment and reinvestment. These groups are bearers of particular class interests that are unaware of cooperating in a same value-production chain; one that thanks to what I come to call their «urban labour» generates surplus for others. I contend that for the production as a totality of the city to come to a profitable closure, there is a need to keep as wide open as possible the class gap among the different anti-systemic groups. Against the description of the spatialisation of classes that are already formed, there is a need to explain how spatialisation intervenes in the urban struggle that makes them.
The paper looks at Nepal's revolution and state formation process in post-agrarian capitalism by examining anti-systemic and systemic elements of class struggle.
Paper long abstract:
The paper aims to analyze the revolution in Nepal along the lines of Wolf's concept of social dislocations and the contradiction between capital accumulation and the organization of political space (Arrighi). By examining the political economic aspects of the People's War in Nepal, the paper looks at the unresolved challenges of the revolution that in terms of class and reorganization of the peasant economy and society failed to address and resolve the contradictions of capitalism at the periphery. The political articulation of the peasant question within the context of late 20th century Nepal has been widely popularized by the Maoists, which have since then undergone a great political and cultural transformation from an anti-systemic party-movement to a systemic one. After more than a decade of post-revolutionary politics, we are yet to examine the historical role of the Nepalese peasantry in the light of the anti-systemic and systemic politics in Nepal and the reproduction of capital on the South Asian periphery. The aim of the paper is thus to explain the legacy of the revolution in its core contradiction: today the agricultural production is not central to the reproduction of capital, but it is still an important factor in the reproduction of power relations. In Nepal, this relation between revolution and state formation is the central antagonism of class struggle that can be observed through two phases: the anti-systemic (the peasant guerrilla movement) and systemic (peace process and state formation).
We argue that the current resistances to neoliberalism remind us to depart from stagnant forms of social analysis. We show the relevance of (Post-) Marxisms put forth by Lacan, Žižek and Deleuze and Guattari to understand social transformation in a world shaped by neoliberal oppression.
Paper long abstract:
Following Balibar, with Marx, theory and practice became intrinsically linked. Dissolving the dichotomy between anthropological theory and practice is now more urgent than ever, if anthropology strives toward holding future social value for those involved. We argue that with the help of (post-)Marxist theoretical currents, anthropology should be reoriented towards progressive social change.
The first of these examples is centered around a critical understanding of the subject along the lines of Lacan and Žižek. An examination of the ethnographic example of Greece after the imposition of harsh austerity measures after the financial crisis of 2010 may show the various ways in which the split subject position is a key factor in understanding modes of capturing a subject under neoliberalism and how progressive resistance may arise from that.
Secondly, ways of resisting neoliberal subjection are reflected on by a reading of the Zapatista movement through Deleuzian political philosophy. Deleuze gives social scientists theoretical tools to understand the deterritorialization of subjectivities in the Zapatista struggle. In forming a political assemblage, Marxist guerrilla members and indigenous people engaged in processes of becoming that made the creation of a flexible, autonomous region possible. In rejecting the subjectivation processes of a neoliberal governmentality, the Zapatistas put forth a shifting process of emancipation trying to create a "world in which many worlds fit".
We conclude that the current resistances to neoliberalism remind us to depart from stagnant forms of social analysis and show the relevance of contemporary Marxisms to understand social transformation in a world of neoliberal oppression.
This presentation discusses the topic of food in armed conflicts within theoretical frameworks of Marxism and poststructuralism. Main focus is placed on changes in food accessibility and strategies of food self-provisioning during the Bosnian war between 1992-95.
Paper long abstract:
In his 'Grundrisse,' Marx famously stated that: 'Hunger is hunger, but the hunger gratified by cooked meat eaten with a knife and fork is a different hunger from that which bolts down raw meat with the aid of hand, nail and tooth' (Marx 1993: 92). By saying this, Marx was attempting to emphasise that 'production creates the consumer' (ibid.). In other words, people are generally satisfied with less in basic material conditions but with increased production it is harder to accommodate their needs and greater elaboration is required. This presentation discusses the role of food and food self-provisioning in the time of dramatic social changes, which arise in the armed conflict. I further contextualise this issue within the political and socio-economic transition from socialism to the capitalist model of neoliberal market-driven economy.
In order to illustrate these complex phenomena, I am using the example of the Bosnian war between 1992-95, which broke out as part of the disintegration process of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The goal of this presentation is to elaborate on the changing everyday eating practices during the last war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and show how the armed conflict impacted dietary preferences of the affected individuals. Majority of the research data are a product of my long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Srebrenica and Sarajevo, BiH between 2013-18. I interpret my research findings namely within Marxist and poststructuralist frameworks with an emphasis on the concept of power.
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