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- Convenors:
-
Petra Kelemen
(University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences)
Sanja Durin (Institute of ethnology and folklore research)
Iva Krtalic-Muiesan (University of Zadar / WDR)
- Stream:
- History, politics and urban studies
- Location:
- A107
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 23 June, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Zagreb
Short Abstract:
This panel calls for the participation of all those who are trying to ethnographically grasp discourses on cultural differences and various everyday practices of living those differences.
Long Abstract:
Although in public discourse cultural differences often appear as a desirable category, their inclusion into public policies and everyday life does not go without problems. Despite the utopian idea and desire for a harmonious co-existence of different religious, national, gender, ethnic and other groups, in reality we witness various occurrences of "neorasicm" and constant divisions and social stratification on those grounds. Moreover, cultural differences per se, although in principle seen as present and favourable, are nonetheless insufficiently problematised and scientifically dealt with.
This panel calls for the participation of all those who are trying to ethnographically grasp discourses on cultural differences and various everyday practices of living those differences. How are multiculturality and multiculturalism discursively constructed? In which situations are cultural differences described as positive and in which are they seen as a threat? How do experiences of social exclusion and marginalisation relate to differences in the sphere of public policies? Do public policies provide an emancipatory potential? How do cities, stratified along numerous lines, shape their policies in regard to differences, how does civil society treat differences and how do various groups inscribe the (self)attributed differences into the fabric of the city? How do individuals construct, live and think about their religious, gender, racial, national, ethnic and other differences?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 23 June, 2015, -Paper short abstract:
The aim of this paper is to address the implications of post-gramscian thought on the concept of state - through the work of authors such as Laclau and Mouffe on the one hand, and the theoretical legacy of Carl Schmitt and Lacanian psychoanalysis on the other hand.
Paper long abstract:
The aim of this paper is to address the implications of post-gramscian thought on the concept of state. Through the work of poststructuralist authors such as Laclau and Mouffe on the one hand, and the theoretical legacy of Carl Schmitt and Lacanian psychoanalysis on the other, it is possible to think the State beyond focusing on the dichotomy sovereign centre Vs. de-centralized, fragmented power relations. Through transcending both Hobbes and Foucault, I explore the complex dialectics between the impossibility and the necessity of condensating power into a hegemonical centre, always already penetrated by incommensurable lack. Due to this lack the uneven distribution of power creates the "ontological" possibility of politics as such.
I start with the Gramscian gesture of re-defining the epiphenomenal notion of the State. Then I deconstruct the Marxist topography of structure-superstructure which inverts the "hierarchical" opposition between the political and the economic. Elevating the political to ontological primacy doesn't come without theoretical impasses, but I will argue that only by holding to this un-decidability between necessity and impossibility of hegemonical power-construction it is possible to engage in emancipatory political struggle.
Paper short abstract:
Analyzing the German public service broadcasters' thematic week dedicated to tolerance in 2014, the paper seeks to identify ways in which this concept is constructed and how it functions as a tool of governmentality in the media and public policies concerning cultural diversity in Germany.
Paper long abstract:
Since 2006, the German association of public service broadcasters, the ARD, has been organizing so-called thematic weeks (ARD-Themenwoche), during which the ARD radio and television broadcasters dedicate various formats, shows and programs to the given theme. After those dedicated to topics such as happiness, demographic change or food, in November 2014 the thematic week was focused on tolerance. The proposed paper offers an ethnographic look at the genesis of the ARD-"tolerance week" from the point of view from within the coordinators' team. It analyzes the ways various media makers "translated" the concept of tolerance into radio or TV-forms, the discussions of the concept during the editors' meetings, the marketing campaign accompanying it, as well as casual conversations with editors and the audience about the thematic week. The paper looks at the ways of how the term tolerance circulates within the discourse of German national identity (as well as European identity) and how it is filled (and refilled) with various meanings (what counts as tolerance and what are the presumed values from which a community is marked as being tolerant). It draws on work by Sara Ahmed (politics of emotions), Ghassan Hage (ungovernable others) and Wendy Brown (processes of culturalization of politics and de-politicizing effects).
Paper short abstract:
An ethnographic account of how the constant redrawing of the boundaries between art, activism and ethnicity ensure the continuing viability of a utopian project in a Roman squat.
Paper long abstract:
A former salami factory in the outskirts of Rome, Metropoliz was squatted by B.P.M. (blocchi precari metropolitani) activists in 2009. It is currently home to a multi-ethnic population of about 200 people. Since 2012 Metropoliz is also an art museum (Maam) where avant-garde artists can exhibit their work and in the process contribute to its ongoing renovation.
Hence, Metropoliz is a multi-dimensional space where migrants, artists and activists are daily experiencing the challenges of cultural translation. Though all parties involved explicitly frame their respective engagement with each other in terms of meticciato (cultural hybridity), they are constantly confronted with the daunting task of negotiating their potentially diverging life projects: the inhabitants', for whom Metropoliz is their home (the haven of intimacy) and the site of their empowerment; the activists', for whom the squat represents their enduring struggle against neo-liberalism and the site where their militant practice is questioned by what they feel to be an elitist intrusion on the part of the artists; the Maam's "curators", whose project to collapse the boundaries separating art and everyday life needs to be constantly renegotiated to accommodate the residents' intimacy and the activists' militancy.
Based on my on-going ethnographic fieldwork, my paper draws from Pierre Bourdieu and interprets such three-party conversation as the coming together of three fields. With reference to Jacques Rancière notion of disagreement, I argue that the continuing viability of Metropoliz as utopian experiment is ensured by the tensions, misunderstandings and ambiguities that haunt it.
Paper short abstract:
Since a few years there has been a remarkable development in both the local heritage industry and the contemporary art world in the Arab Gulf. The proposed paper looks at the relationship between the two in the United Arab Emirates to understand how cultural differences are negotiated in a place shared by many different languages, ethnicities, and nationalities.
Paper long abstract:
The nation-states in the Arab Gulf, and the United Arab Emirates specifically have focused intensively in their ongoing nation-building projects on the idea of local tangible and intangible heritages. Public policies by the state feature a national identity concept that caters exclusively to Emiratis. In a country that is internally divided and contested by differences of ethnicity, class, citizenship and gender, and in which more than ¾ of the population are not citizens, questions of belonging are omnipresent. Interestingly, the contemporary art world in the UAE has emerged as one of the main critics and negotiators to deal with these dialectics. This paper will thus investigate some of the arenas in which negotiations of identity take effect in the art world.
It will focus specifically on the big art fairs taking place in the UAE and how they actively construct discourses that either navigate around, or also feed into the pre-dominating narratives of nationalism disseminated by the state. The philosophical background to this ethnographic investigation lies in asking about the role that the arts take in negotiating identities, and its role in creating or disrupting the differences between people encountered.
Paper short abstract:
My paper focuses on the ethno-political mobilization of Roma as a trans-national diaspora in Central and Eastern Europe, the mechanisms of ghetto-formation and the role of EU in institutionalizing a specific model of ethnic identity based on human rights and minority protection programs.
Paper long abstract:
My paper focuses on the ethno-political mobilization of Roma as a trans-national Diaspora which aimed at creating a common 'imagined community' and political networks capable of obtaining international recognition for Roma as a stateless nation and a non-territorial ethnic group. This process of post-communist ethnic activism was vital for a community dealing with marginalization and racism and it strived for generating political means for fighting the mechanisms which produced second-class citizenship and social discrimination in most CEE countries. My paper focuses on the role European Union has played in institutionalizing a specific model of ethnic identity which was embedded in the pre-accession Copenhagen criteria centered on human rights for minorities and later in post-accession EU communitarian policies regarding national minorities. My aim is to critically analyze the limits of the ethnic model based on the idea of a trans-national Diaspora by exploring on the ground level the way it is appropriated and contested by the Roma living in ghettos. My research question is to what extent has the language of trans-national identity and human rights activism succeeded in mobilizing Roma at the local level when facing brutal displacements and gradual ghettoization? My goal is to analyze the institutionalization of the Roma ethno-politics in the context of the expansion of European Union towards East, the creation of a European Single Market and the implementation of neo-liberal policies (deregulation of economy, extensive privatizations, budgetary discipline, austerity measurements) which have produced new forms of peripherialization of poverty among the Roma.