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- Convenors:
-
Alexander Koensler
(University of Perugia)
Christine Hämmerling (University of Göttingen)
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- Formats:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Knowledge Production
- Sessions:
- Thursday 24 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
The ideal of overcoming formal structures calls for ethnographic and theoretical reflection. We ask: Under which conditions can the "no rules"-ideal unfold its emancipatory potential? Why should rules be avoided? And which hidden power structures can ethnography unearth behind this ideal?
Long Abstract:
The ideal of creating a society that does not follow a certain set of rules, inspires many social movements and forms of activism. In this panel, we invite contributions that offer ethnographic insights and theoretical reflections related to the ideal of overcoming the necessity of rules and formal structures. Papers might deal with an array of forms of mobilization and activism in past and present, spanning from classical anarchism, over community movements to online activism or voluntary work.
Our aim is to situate these cases within the context of two interrelated theoretical perspectives:
First, in critical neoliberal thought, appeals for freedom and individual responsibility can create new forms of social control, especially if combined with uncertainty and flexibility. A decision against formal structures may strengthen less obvious hierarchies, it may foster social structures with hidden norms, feeling rules and power struggles.
Second, the turn from an ideal of absolute autonomy towards contingent practices of becoming in postanarchist theory, opens new possibilities for political practice as well as for the understanding of contradictions and limits of the ideal of non-rules.
Both perspectives invite critical engagements with ethnographic case studies and narrative analyses that situate practices of non-rules between constraints and emancipatory spaces: Under which conditions can the "no rules"-ideal unfold its emancipatory potential? Why should rules be avoided? How then are decisions made and members chosen? Which hidden power structures can ethnography unearth behind the ideal of non-rules?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 24 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
The Romanian communities in Sweden and Denmark reunite more than three generations of migrants. Their stories may speak about breaking the rules of communism and learning freedom in the adoption countries. It is important to study their identity and how they narrate the migration experience.
Paper long abstract:
The Romanian communities in Sweden and Denmark reunite more than three generations of migrants. Their stories may speak about breaking the rules of communism and learning freedom in the adoption countries. It is important to study their identity and how they narrate the migration experience. It is important to document the passing from hard political rules to the freedom characteristic of the new adoption countries, how people – Romanian migrants perceived, felt this passing from rough political, socio-cultural rules to the normality of no specific political rules, the freedom of speech and written words, the freedom of movement, the freedom of thinking, the missing political, socio-cultural rules that were so hard formulated in communist Romania.
Given the chosen topic, objectives, goals and universe of field research, I will choose as a way of approaching triangulation, the reunion of three methodologies for investigating the phenomenon studied in order to have a more detailed analysis of it. I will use, therefore, the sociological questionnaire - quantitative method, non-directive interview and life history or social biography, but also the content analysis of social documents (magazines published by the community, messages of community members investigated on various forums and social networks, letters, e-mails, photos from the personal archives of the respondents).
The creation of the Diocese of Northern Europe and the designation, in July 2008, of the first Bishop of Northern Europe, His Eminence Macarie Drăgoi, led to a more accentuated coagulation of the Romanian community in Sweden around the already existing parishes.
Paper short abstract:
Doing research in Cova da Moura, a neighbourhood in the outskirts of Lisbon, with a poor and mostly black population, to discuss racism in Portugal, led me to go beyond etic and emic perspectives, which was met with challenges and difficulties in fieldwork and in presenting evidence of racism.
Paper long abstract:
Cova da Moura is a neighbourhood built by its own residents, a poor, migrant, and multi-ethnic population mostly of African origin or descent, on the outskirts of Lisbon, the capital city of Portugal, using mutual aid practices which resulted in a strong and active associative network that resists demolition, and relocation and expulsion. It is a highly mediatized space and a tourist area. It is also a centre for blackness. Despite the enormous interest that this neighbourhood has sparked, especially in academic and artistic circles, it remains at risk of demolition and its population at risk of expulsion, and at risk of exclusion and violence from the police. My research aimed to observe the political, social, economic, cultural, and symbolic interactions held between this neighbourhood (and its residents), and various areas of the metropolitan area of Lisbon, seeking to discuss their different integration strategies in society as well as the marginalization traits as they are perceived from inside Cova da Moura as well as from outside. I did fieldwork, which allowed me to have access to the neighbourhood's routine, doing participant observation in a local association and observing moments of mediation between Cova da Moura and local and state authorities, and the city and extended population. I also research media content and conducted interviews. However, I was met with resistance, being denied interviews from the local municipality as from the state police. Also, my research findings were sometimes met with denial when evidence of racism was presented.
Paper short abstract:
Investigating the overcoming of food quality and safety rules in practice, this paper investigates the multifaceted dynamics of a continuously evolving experiment with Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) in a neo-rural micro-economic network, a cornerstone of food sovereignty activism.
Paper long abstract:
Proponents of alter-globalism consider experiments with food sovereignty a prefigurative practice that anticipates broader eco-cultural change. The subversion of food governance is here considered as based on a critique of food safety and quality rules. Critics, however, remain skeptical about the capacity of alternative and more democratic forms of food governance to enhance social change. In anthropological social movement studies, the practical implications of these prefigurative politics have rarely been investigated empirically. Based on an ethnographic analysis, this article illustrates the multifaceted dynamics of a continuously evolving experiment with Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) in a neo-rural micro-economic network, a cornerstone of food sovereignty activism. An ethnographic perspective can grasp the shifting terrain of the political mobilization, frictions and unintended consequences of these types of politics. The article demonstrates the importance of understanding the complexities of prefiguration as not a simple linear, coherent process of overcoming and re-making of rules.
Paper short abstract:
The application of stickers and tags on public surfaces as a ‘no rules’ practice is discussed in respect of their power relations. Slapping stickers goes beyond an emancipatory resistance against a hegemonic system. It also represents a constant “flow” of spatial power within this subculture.
Paper long abstract:
From an activist perspective the ubiquitous ‘no rules’ practice of illegal application of stickers and tags on mostly urban public and private surfaces is not just a contribution to urban aesthetics but also a legitimate and emancipatory answer to the territorial dominance of capitalism (e.g. Drognitz 2019).
However, investigating concrete micro-practices of sticker slapping (as I will do on one example) shows a much more complicated landscape of power. These practices comprise a variety of entangled motives reaching from claiming territory up to commercial interests and thus go beyond an anarchistic and emancipatory resistance against a hegemonic system.
Even more, “wild” sticker tagging shows a second level of overt power structures: As sticker sites at attractive places are constantly pasted, tagged, written or painted over these surfaces themselves are a territory of contested power relations and a constant “flow” of power within this subculture.
Thus, sticker tagging sites are representations of subcultural power hierarchies and ideas of spatial justice or better: legitimacy.