Doing politics by other means: Abdelmalek Sayad and the political sociology of a collective intellectual

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (5) ◽  
pp. 999-1014
Author(s):  
Amín Pérez
Keyword(s):  
International Organizations ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
Host Society ◽  
Intellectual Work ◽  
Academic Fields ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Fields ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The One

This article proposes a new understanding of the constraints and opportunities that lead intellectuals engaged in different political and social fields to create alternative modes of resistance to domination. The study of the Algerian sociologist Abdelmalek Sayad offers insights into the social conditions of this mode of committed scholarship. On the one hand, this article applies Sayad’s theory of immigration to his transnational intellectual engagements. It establishes how immigrants’ intellectual work are conditioned by their trajectories, both before and after leaving their country, and by the stages of emigration (from playing a role in the society of origin to becoming caught up in the reality of the host society). On the other hand, the article illuminates the constraints and the spaces of possible action intellectuals face while moving across national universes and disparate political and academic fields. Sayad’s marginal position within the academy constrained him to work for the French and Algerian governments and international organizations while he was simultaneously engaged with political dissidents, unionists, writers, and social movements. In tracking Sayad’s roles as an academic, expert and public sociologist, the article uncovers the conditions that grounded improbable alliances between those fields and produced new forms of critique and political action. The article concludes by drawing out some reflections that ‘collective intellectual’ engagements elicit to the sociology of intellectuals.

Between the Social and the Political

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 90-98
Author(s):  
Pia Rowe ◽  
David Marsh
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
Conventional Theory ◽  
Important Relationship ◽  
The Social ◽  
Action Language

While Wood and Flinders’ work to broaden the scope of what counts as “politics” in political science is a needed adjustment to conventional theory, it skirts an important relationship between society, the protopolitical sphere, and arena politics. We contend, in particular, that the language of everyday people articulates tensions in society, that such tensions are particularly observable online, and that this language can constitute the beginning of political action. Language can be protopolitical and should, therefore, be included in the authors’ revised theory of what counts as political participation.

scholarly journals Literatura policial y policía: reflexiones a partir de dos intervenciones críticas (José Pablo Feinmann y Carlos Gamerro)

2022 ◽  
Vol 9 (17) ◽  
pp. 197-225
Author(s):  
Hernán Maltz
Keyword(s):  
Detective Fiction ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Crime Fiction ◽  
The Political ◽  
Specific Interest ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Novela Negra ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

I propose a close reading on two critical interventions about crime fiction in Argentina: “Estado policial y novela negra argentina” (1991) by José Pablo Feinmann and “Para una reformulación del género policial argentino” (2006) by Carlos Gamerro. Beyond the time difference between the two, I observe aspects in common. Both texts elaborate a corpus of writers and fictions; propose an interpretative guide between the literary and the political-social series; maintain a specific interest in the relationship between crime fiction and police; and elaborate figures of enunciators who serve both as theorists of the genre and as writers of fiction. Among these four dimensions, the one that particularly interests me here is the third, since it allows me to investigate the link that is assumed between “detective fiction” and “police institution”. My conclusion is twofold: on the one hand, in both essays predominates a reductionist vision of the genre, since a kind of necessity is emphasized in the representation of the social order; on the other, its main objective seems to lie in intervening directly on the definitions of the detective fiction in Argentina (and, on this point, both texts acquire an undoubtedly prescriptive nuance).

scholarly journals Racionalización y poder La cuestión de la legitimidad en Weber como referente de la acción política

2017 ◽  
pp. 215
Author(s):  
Nicolás Fleet
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legitimacy Theory ◽  
General Will ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
Social Interests ◽  
Political Actions

ResumenEste artículo desarrolla, en tres pasos, una perspectiva original de la teoría de la dominación de Max Weber. El primer paso establece un vínculo necesario entre las formas típicas de dominación política y los intereses sociales, de modo que toda acción política debe legitimarse ante el interés general. El segundo paso explica las crisis de legitimación como una respuesta a cambios de identidad en la base social de la dominación política, de tal forma que se introduce un concepto dinámico de legitimidad. El tercer paso establece que los valores que habitan en las formas legitimas de dominación política son usados como orientaciones simbólicas por parte de intereses sociales y acciones políticas particulares, de manera que toda forma de legitimación de la autoridad encierra, en sus propias premisas, los argumentos que justifican luchas políticas hacia la modificación de los esquemas de dominación.Palabras clave: legitimidad, dominación, acción política, democratización.Abstract This article develops, in three steps, an orignal perspective of Weber’s legitimacy theory. The first one, establishes a necessary link that exists between the typical forms of legitimate domination and the social interests, in such a way that every political action that purse the realization of its interests has to legitimate itself before the general will. The second explains the legitimation crises as a response to indentity changes at the social base of the political domination and, in so doing, it introduces a dinamic concept of legitimacy. The third step states that the values that dwell in legitimate forms of political domination are used as symbolic orientations by particular social intersts and political actions, in a way that each form of authority legitimation encapsulate, in its own premises, the arguments that justify political struggles aiming toward the modification of the domination schemes.Key words: legitimacy, domination, political action, democratization.

scholarly journals Fundamentos constitucionais da proteção social: continuidades e ruturas

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Rita Ferreira ◽  
Daniel Carolo ◽  
Mariana Trigo Pereira ◽  
Pedro Adão e Silva
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Universal Principles ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Choices ◽  
The Right

This article discusses the ways in which the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic has embodied to the political choices made during the process of creating and defining a democratic welfare state and how the various constitutional principles are reflected in the architecture of the system and have gradually changed over the years. The authors argue that when Portugal transitioned to democracy, unlike other areas of the country’s social policies the social security system retained some of its earlier organising principles. Having said this, this resilience on the part of the Portuguese system’s Bismarckian template has not prevented social protection from expanding here in accordance with universal principles, and has given successive governments manoeuvring room in which to define programmatically distinct policies and implement differentiated reformist strategies. The paper concludes by arguing that while the Constitution has not placed an insurmountable limit on governments’ political action, it has served as a point of veto, namely by means of the way in which the Constitutional Court has defended the right to social protection, be it in the form of social insurance, be it in the imposition of certain social minima.

The Political Science Discipline in Argentina: The Political Scientist's National Association's Role

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (03) ◽  
pp. 616-618
Author(s):  
Diego Mazzoccone ◽  
Mariano Mosquera ◽  
Silvana Espejo ◽  
Mariana Fancio ◽  
Gabriela Gonzalez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Science Discipline ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One

It is very difficult to date the birth of political science in Argentina. Unlike other discipline of the social sciences, in Argentina the first distinction can be made between political thought on the one hand, and political science in another. The debate over political thought—as the reflection of different political questions—emerged in our country in the nineteenth century, especially during the process of constructing the Argentine nation-state. Conversely, political science is defined in a general way as the application of the scientific method to the studies on the power of the state (Fernández 2001).

scholarly journals Reconceptualising Solidarity in the Social Factory: Cultural Work between Economic Needs and Political Desires

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-125
Author(s):  
Anke Strauß ◽  
Alexander Fleischmann
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Cultural Work ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Factory ◽  
Economic Reasoning ◽  
Economic Needs

This article reconceptualises work-based solidarity as political action that is distinct from, yet interlinked with, a socio-economic mode of activity. To extend existing relational approaches to work, this article reads a case study of a cultural initiative through Hannah Arendt’s notions of labour, work and (political) action. With the latter being a form of engagement marked by plurality – the co-presence of equality and difference – the analysis shows how work-based solidarity as political activity is a temporary and precarious phenomenon. It necessitates constant engagement of various material and discursive elements to create its conditions. This article also shows how work-based solidarity is enabled through particular arrangements of activities stretching over both the socio-economic and the political sphere in a way that maintains the political mode of work distinct from socio-economic reasoning without ignoring its economic necessities.

scholarly journals Student/teachers from Turfloop: the propagation of Black Consciousness in South African schools, 1972–76

Africa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 89 (S1) ◽  
pp. S189-S209
Author(s):  
Anne Heffernan
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
The Political ◽  
Black Consciousness ◽  
The North ◽  
The Social ◽  
The University ◽  
New Generation

AbstractThe movement of school teachers to primary and secondary schools around South Africa and its Bantustans in the early and mid-1970s was an intentional part of the project of propagating Black Consciousness to school learners during this period. The movement of these educators played a key role in their ability to spread Black Consciousness philosophy, and in the political forms and methods they chose in teaching it. These were shaped by their own political conscientization and training in ethnically segregated colleges, but also in large part by the social realities of the areas to which they moved. Their efforts not only laid the foundation for Black Consciousness organization in communities across South Africa, they also influenced student and youth mechanisms for political action beyond the scope of Black Consciousness politics. This article explores three case studies of teachers who studied at the University of the North (Turfloop) and their trajectories after leaving university. All of these teachers moved to Turfloop as students, and then away from it thereafter. The article argues that this pattern of movement, which was a direct result of apartheid restrictions on where black South Africans could live, study and work, shaped the knowledge they transmitted in their classrooms, and thus influenced the political consciousness of a new generation.

Gentlemen Dissenters: The Social and Political Meanings of Rational Dissent in the 1770s and 1780s

1985 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Seed
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Dissent ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Radicalism

Conventional wisdom has long maintained that eighteenth-century religious dissent was a significant source of opposition to the Hanoverian status quo. For Trevelyan, for instance, dissenters were ‘vigilant champions of liberty and critics of government’. The high political visibility of rational dissenters in oppositional movements in the 1770s and 1780s – in opposition to the American war, the Test and Corporation Acts, slavery and the slave trade, the existing electoral system – has been particularly noted. However in recent years the political significance of religious dissent has been questioned. Roy Porter warns that the zeal for reform among dissenters should not be overestimated: ‘Not till the 1780s, and then only amongst a hothead minority, did Nonconformity show a potential for political radicalism.’ John Brewer has argued that the dissenting group associated with Hollis, Price, Priestley and ‘the small, snug, dissenting coterie of Newington Green’ marks one tradition of political opposition in the eighteenth century. But, largely confined to intellectual critique, remarkably uninvolved in the day-to-day cut-and-thrust of political action even evincing a patrician alarm at popular direct action, its contribution to political change was far less significant than the Wilkite movement.

scholarly journals Cacophony of Contestation: Forms of Voice and the Warsaw Taxi Market as a Field of Struggles

2016 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcin Serafin
Keyword(s):  
Field Theory ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Market Institutions ◽  
Political Field ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
Social Fields ◽  
Taxi Market ◽  
Different Levels

AbstractThis article analyses the political struggles in and around the Warsaw taxi market. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social fields and incorporating Albert Hirschman’s metaphor of political action as voice, I capture the position-taking of members of the taxi field, highlighting the different levels of involvement in the struggles. By distinguishing between different forms of voice—murmuring, jeering, whispering, hissing, grunting, and shouting—I show that the struggles that shape the Warsaw taxi market take the form of struggles over classifications and struggles over opportunities for exchange. I describe how market institutions are established and contested within the political field; enforced and contested within the bureaucratic field; and interpreted and contested within the juridical field. I thus contribute a field theory that investigates the links between fields and especially between economic fields and the state. This article draws on fieldwork conducted in Warsaw between November 2012 and June 2013.

scholarly journals AKAR-AKAR TRADISI POLITIK SUNNI DI INDONESIA

ALQALAM ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 171
Author(s):  
Muhammad Iqbal
Keyword(s):  
Great Influence ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Great Role ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government ◽  
The One ◽  
Dutch Colonial

The Sunni doctrine plays an important role in the government. Its accommodative characteristic is something important that makes Sunni doctrine to be a device of the legitimation of the authority. The Muslim thinkers of classical Sunni such as al-Mawardi (975-1058 M), al-Ghazali (1058-1111 M) and lbn Taimiyah(1263-1329 M) have a great role in formulating the political doctrine of Sunni. In spite of the different nuance, all of these three classical Sunni thinkers develop the moderate political doctrine of Sunni. On the one hand, it is, of course, significant in situating the harmonious relation between the ruler and community. Therefore, the social and political stabilities will be well-maintained On the other hand, such a thought for a certain extent evokes stagnancy. Because there is no radical thought which is critical and opposite against the authority, the Sunni idea is frequently made use for the instantaneous interests of power. On evenlttally, the mutual interrelationship between the Sunni ulama and the ruler often happens. While ulama feel obtaining the patronage from the authority, the ruler gains religious justification from ulama. In this context, Indonesia as the country with the majority of Sunni Muslims, as a matter of fact, applies the political doctrine of Sunni. It is because Sunni has had a long and establishei root since. the period of Islamic kingdoms in the archipelago, before Dutch-Colonial period. The archipelago ulama also formulated the harmonious relation between Islam and authority as formulated by the ulama of classical Sunni. The polotical tradition of Sunni was becoming stronger in line with the great influence of ulama in the archipelago kingdoms. This article tries to elaborate the relation between the Sunni ulama with the power of the kings in the archipelago and the patronage of the archipelago rulers toward them.

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