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- Convenors:
-
Matt Wilde
(University of Leicester)
Mariya Ivancheva (University of Strathclyde)
- Discussant:
-
Lucia Michelutti
(University College London)
- Location:
- Malet 624
- Start time:
- 3 April, 2014 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
This panel uses ethnographic insights to explore the potential direction of political thought and action in contemporary Venezuela. It draws on case studies covering polarisation and class, grassroots community organisations, higher education institutions, hip-hop collectives and labour movements.
Long Abstract:
In his 14 years in power, the late Hugo Chávez bestrode a political movement that dramatically changed the face of Venezuela and Latin America. Internationally, he cultivated new alliances and promoted the compelling but often confused political project known as "twenty-first century socialism". Domestically, his government used the country's lucrative oil rents to launch innovative social programmes, establish a new constitution and promote its own brand of participatory democracy.
One year after Chavez's death, this panel draws on ethnographic insights to examine the past, present and future of the Bolivarian project. Analysing the everyday experience of life in the Chávez and post-Chávez eras, our aim is to explore the potential direction of political thought and action in contemporary Venezuela. Drawing on case studies covering polarisation and class, grassroots community organisations, higher education institutions, hip-hop collectives and labour movements, we aim to offer critical analysis on the political visions that gained traction over the past decade, their successes and struggles, and their prospects in the coming era.
Since Chavez's project incited divergent opinions among the academic community, we want to explore new ways to account for Bolivarianism, recognising its advancements and shortcomings, and probing its changes and continuities. In a climate characterised by chronic insecurity, rising inflation and mutually hostile ideological projects, we hope to grasp the current state of what Fernando Coronil termed the "present-day future imaginary" of political practice in the country.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
This paper analyses the impact of the communal councils (CCs) on everyday political practice in a Venezuelan barrio. It goes on to discuss the future prospects for grassroots activism in the post-Chávez era.
Paper long abstract:
When they were launched in 2006, the communal councils (CCs) were heralded as the first step towards the establishment of a radical, participatory democracy in Venezuela. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in a working-class barrio (shantytown) of Valencia, this paper analyses the impact of the CCs on everyday political practice among local residents. It proposes that they should be understood as "contested spaces", showing how different members of the community perceive and make use of the bodies in a variety of ways, producing a multiplicity of tensions and ambiguities in the process. It goes on to discuss the future prospects for grassroots political practice in the post-Chávez era.
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on extracts from a forthcoming film on 'Hip-hop Revolucion', this paper looks at the influence of hip-hop collectives on collective political agency in contemporary Venezuela.
Paper long abstract:
Since its inception in 1970s New York, hip-hop has grown into a multilingual, global yet localised and regional collection of cultural expressions based around the four elements of rapping, break dancing, djing and graffiti. Descendants of Latin American immigrants in the United States were instrumental in the foundations of hip-hop's four elements, adapting some of the cultural traditions of their ancestor's homelands to a different environment and time.
Hip-hop in Latina America has grown to the point where Latin American artists are now major influences for some US Latino and non-Latino artists. In Venezuela a political hip-hop collective 'Hip-hop Revolucion' (HHR) emerged in 2003 and has grown to the point that by the end of 2011 they had created 31 hip-hop schools around the country and had become a focal point for the political hip hop scene in Latin America. While sympathetic to the Bolivarian government and process of change underway in Venezuela, HHR have been uncompromising in their denunciations of the problems they see within Chavismo.
Drawing on extracts from a forthcoming film on HHR, this paper looks at the influence of hip-hop collectives on collective political agency in contemporary Venezuela.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the first ten years of Bolivarian reform of higher education (1999-2009). Focusing on the establishment and development of the Bolivarian University of Venezuela, it shows how a number of contingent choices led to the reproduction of old stratifications at yet a new level.
Paper long abstract:
This paper follows the shifts of higher education reform of the Bolivarian government in the period 1999-2009. Based on interviews with key academic intellectuals and ethnographies from the main campus of the Bolivarian University of Venezuela in Caracas, I show how the attempts to extend university access to poor Venezuelans have worked on the ground. After traditional academics mobilized university autonomy against government intervention and supported the attempted coup d'etat against Chávez, the government created a parallel university system. Establishing the vanguard institution of the higher education reform, the Bolivarian University, radical academics from the former student movements tried to kill two birds with one bullet: to provide higher education and job placements to the majority of Venezuelans formerly excluded from higher education, and to carry out profound reform of the institution of the university. The paper outlines some of the advancements of the government of late President Chavez, and some possible reasons for the persisting stratification, which the next governments will have to address.