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- Convenors:
-
Anthony Howarth
(University of Oxford)
Freya Hope (University of Oxford)
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- Formats:
- Panel Roundtable
- Stream:
- Politics and Power
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 23 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
This panel aims to conceptually, theoretically, and ethnographically examine cases where conformity in one social sphere is perceived as rule-breaking in another.
Long Abstract:
Since Emile Durkheim's foundational work, we have come to think of social life as being shaped by rules and norms, either through conformity or transgression. Indeed, membership of many social groups does, to a major degree, involve adhering to its rules. However, in some cases, abiding by such internal rules may involve transgressing the moral, legal, and/or cultural rules of the wider society in which these groups live. Therefore, this panel aims to conceptually, theoretically, and ethnographically examine cases where conformity in one social sphere is perceived as rule-breaking in another.
It invites papers that explore how rule-breaking within and between marginal and dominant groups shapes power relations, ordinary lives, and each other's social norms, while extending dichotomies such as structure/agency, mainstream/marginal, and power/resistance. Questions for consideration include, but are not limited to: How is rule-breaking mediated by groups for whom practices, such as those pertaining to economy, kinship, land use, conflict resolution, and child-rearing, differ from those of the mainstream? What new vocabularies can be deployed to conceptualise this kind of rule-breaking and adherence? In what ways are transgressions world-making? What kinds of sanctions exist for transgressors, why are these in place, and how are they mediated?
In particular, this panel seeks to address topics relating to the operations of power, boundary making/breaking, and transgressions of the mainstream as norms for the marginal, in the context of Gypsies, Travellers, and Roma, anarchists/societies against states, indigenous people, and subcultural groups. However, we also welcome papers that extend this scope.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 23 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
This paper examines how Communist elites in the Czechoslovak countryside responded when rural inhabitants violated the new behavioral norms that were ushered in after the coup d’état of 1948.
Paper long abstract:
The deep changes that were sparked by the 1948 Communist coup d’état in Czechoslovakia affected all parts of the country, including the countryside. The rural economy was heavily impacted by the nationalization of small businesses, agricultural collectivization, and the prioritization of industry. The social structure of rural communities was thoroughly transformed as new local elites replaced the old ones. The new changes also affected culture. The Communists introduced new moral norms and declared that society would be officially restructured. Great pressure was put on religious people to secularize. The economy was dominated by the focus on building socialism. All these changes, implemented as part of the program of “socializing the village”, gave birth to new behavioral norms, which in some respects followed in the footsteps of traditional rural morals, but in others radically transformed them. This paper examines how local communities and authorities responded to situations in which the new moral norms were violated. The strict penalties and direct pressure that characterized the period immediately after the 1948 coup eventually gave way to the authorities’ looking the other way, or at the most expressing only verbal criticism. This type of reaction could be described as “situational ignorance”. Another aim of the paper is to explore whether keeping or breaking the new rules of behavior led to the creation of two distinct groups in rural communities.
This paper is based mainly on historical sources produced in 1945–1980 in different parts of today’s Czech Republic.
Paper short abstract:
Based on ongoing fieldwork with Romanians in London, this paper unpacks the material practices and moral decisions that go into circumventing regulations during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. It asks how these decisions affect migrants’ ordinary lives and how they relate to one another.
Paper long abstract:
In the wake of summer with reduced regulations, the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic saw cases steadily rising in most of the United Kingdom, notably the capital. What started as a tiered system of regional restrictions soon turned into a national lockdown, curtailing both local and international mobilities. Based on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork, this paper analyses the changes in patterns of relatedness between Romanian migrants in London during these periods of heightened restrictions. It interrogates how Romanians engage with and at times transgress the legal and social norms related to the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK. This paper follows the intersections of class, gender, and processes of racialisation reflected in migrants’ rule transgressions. It unpacks how racialised and gendered bodies navigate regulations to avoid detection and fulfill social expectations. Rule-breaking follows and at times reshapes kinship and gender norms for Romanians in London, posing a strain on migrants’ ties with family and friends. Deciding who to visit, engaging in new forms of reciprocity, and avoiding physical contact significantly alter how migrants relate to one another. In turn, the pandemic impacts the broader landscape of migrant belonging by relating to their rule transgressions. In my interlocutors’ eyes, the sliding scale of respecting regulations becomes intertwined with class and race to evaluate who constitutes a 'good' Romanian. Overall, by focusing on migrants’ experiences of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, this paper outlines how rule transgressions contribute to changes in relatedness between Romanians in London.
Paper short abstract:
An activist reports on the mediation process in a christian parish, where a young man changed the discourse (and practice!) by reminding all of them on taking altruism seriously. In the case of "church asylum", the Christian morality is demanding rule-breaking activities of the parishioners.
Paper long abstract:
Religions are not static. They depend on legal and cultural contexts and on the historical constellations of power and tradition. Their metaphors, symbols and styles are embedded in larger structural settings. Simultaneously, their representations are an expression of the conditioning contexts. I am interested in the cultural work, in the everyday practices of (religious) people, which conforms and confronts these settings. Believers constantly have to negotiate their convictions and actions - e.g. by asking themselves: "What would be right to do considering being a good christian/muslim/jew etc.?"
Besides these moments of justifying one's decisions towards a transcendent being, religious people are also part of a community and have to discuss questions of morality with each other. Situations like the refugee movement to Germany in 2015/16 challenged their positions, their actions and the discussions among them. I would like to analyse one of these negotiation processes by focusing on an example of church asylum in Germany (which implies a helping system for refugees, who are threatened by deportation). The story is reported by an affiliate of an independent christian association, supporting parishes in the process of becoming a refugee shelter.
I would like to consider the narratives and moralities that lead ordinary churchgoers to doubt state decisions and even stand up against police order. This affects the question of different rules in different spheres. I want to discuss to what extent these activities could change the wider society and if these transgressions could be understood as rule-breaking in multiple respects.
Paper short abstract:
Based on ethnographic research of alternative medicine practice in the Czech Republic I look at how people deal with the incommensurability between Ayurveda ideas of living a healthy and happy life and the everyday reality of the social fields (family, work) they are used to function within.
Paper long abstract:
Based on the four years long ethnographic research among Ayurveda students and practitioners in the Czech Republic I look at how people deal with the incommensurability between Ayurveda ideas of living a healthy and happy life and the everyday reality of the social fields they are used to and ought to function within.
Ayurveda practitioners in my research were often experiencing enormous clashes emerging from the situations created by the difficulties to accommodate newly defined ideas of how the healthy and happy life should be maintained with the kinds of family, work, and leisure life they were used to live before the got to study of Ayurveda. These clashes often subsequently produced fatal changes in their lives as the establishment of the different vocation, divorce/ finding a new partner, abandonment of the previous biomedical care for their illnesses, or a total change of the hobbies or friends circles and activities of spending time together with their close ones.
In my paper, I look at how people handle the limited commensurability among the ideal Ayurveda life encompassing living across social fields, all governed by the rule of self-sustaining based on the assumption of profound interconnection and interdependence between their being and the bio-social environment around and the real world obligations given by their functioning in the neoliberal capitalist societies governing by the profit and self-efficiency ideology.
Paper short abstract:
Depicted as flouting the rules of fair play, Travellers are considered transgressors par excellence. Nowhere is this more apparent than in how they conduct their economic transactions. By examining these transactions, I show how Traveller notions of fair play contrast with those of outsiders.
Paper long abstract:
Frequently depicted as flouting the rules of fair play, Irish Travellers are considered as transgressors par excellence. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the way they conduct their economic transactions. From the perspective of non-Travellers, Travellers are predatory, inducing their customers to contract their services by any means necessary. Conversely, Travellers' notions of fair play revolve around attributions of 'cleverness', ideologies of manhood, and practices of competitive one-upmanship. Economic relations, therefore, are synonymous with hunting, with those 'clever' enough to procure resources from 'country people' (non-Travellers), esteemed as real Traveller men. Not only does this afford them a livelihood but also inverts asymmetrical power relations between Travellers and non-Travellers.
Through a case study of men's economic transactions, this article not only demonstrates that Traveller notions of fair play markedly contrast with those of non-Travellers, but destabilises conventional anthropological approaches which suggest that socially disembedded economic exchanges are intrinsically alienating. In order to demonstrate this, I examine how, rather than shaping social relations with their customers, Travellers' economic transactions operate in the opposite direction, drawing a boundary instead of forming a bond. Far from being alienating this separation acts to reproduce the Traveller social order.