The question of how to govern diverse populations has been at the core of political thought from ancient times to the present. The contributors to this volume address this fundamental issue by engaging with the history of ideas regarding democracy, diversity and human nature, from the political thought of Xenophon in ancient Greece to practices of Zapatista governance in modern-day Mexico. Drawn from papers originally presented at the first two meetings of the London Graduate Conference in the History of Political Thought, this volume brings together the innovative contributions of graduate students in the history of political thought and political theory with commentary provided by the fields’ leading scholars to consider this essential question.
Bringing together the expertise of dozens of Latin American scholars, Latin America's Multicultural Movements examines multicultural rights recognition in theory and in practice. The authors move beyond abstract debates common in the literature on multiculturalism to examine indigenous rights recognition in different real-world settings, comparing cases in unitary states (Bolivia, Ecuador) with subnational autonomy regimes in Mexico's federal states (Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Yucat?n).
Located at the intersection of humanities and applied informatics, the fledgling discipline of Digital Humanities is bringing new impulses to the field of (Romance) linguistics. Those are especially productive in the context of migration and heteroglossic practices, which encounter constraining language ideologies in Western societies. The aim of this volume is to critically reflect on both the usefulness and limitations of digitization in different areas and superdiverse contexts of the Spanish-speaking world. Through 11 case studies, it illuminates the digital turn from different theoretical and methodological perspectives, providing a better understanding of the complex interplay between language and digitization.
What are the political economic conditions that have given rise to increasing numbers of social environmental conflicts in Mexico? Why do these conflicts arise in some local and regional contexts and not in others? How are social environmental movements constructed and sustained? And what are the alternatives? These are the questions that this book seeks to address. It is organized into three parts. The first provides a panoramic view of social environmental conflicts in Mexico and of alternatives that are being constructed from below in rural areas. It also provides an analysis of the recent reforms to open the country’s energy sector to private and foreign investment. The second is comprised of local-level case studies of conflict (and no conflict) in diverse geographic locations and cultural settings, particularly in relation to the construction of wind farms, hydraulic infrastructure, industrial water pollution, and groundwater overdraft. The third explores alternatives from below in the form of community-based ecotourism and traditional mezcal production. A concluding chapter engages comparative and global analysis.
An innovative contribution to debates on the internationalization and globalization of the social sciences, this book pays particular attention to their theoretical and epistemological reconfiguration in the light of postcolonial critiques and critiques of Eurocentrism. Bringing together theoretical contributions and empirical case studies from around the world, including India, the Americas, South Africa, Australia and Europe, it engages in debates concerning public sociology and explores South-South research collaborations specific to the social sciences. Contributions transcend established critiques of Eurocentrism to make space for the idea of global social sciences and truly transnational research. Thematically arranged and both international and interdisciplinary in scope, this volume reflects the different theoretical and thematic backgrounds of the contributing authors, who enter into dialogue and debate with one another in the development of a more inclusive, more representative and more theoretically relevant stage for the social sciences. A rigorous critique of the contemporary state of the social sciences as well as an attempt to find another way of doing transnational sociology, Global Knowledge Production in the Social Sciences will appeal to scholars of sociology, political science and social theory with interests in the production of social scientific knowledge, postcolonialism and transnationalism in research.
The title of this book, Traditional Wisdom and Modern Knowledge for the Earth’s Future, is from the theme of the 2013 Kyoto Regional Conference of the International Geographical Union. Over the past few decades, globalization has strengthened connections among countries and regions of the world and has greatly changed existing geographies. However, this trend has also fostered various problems on a regional or global scale, such as economic imbalance, social fragmentation, political conflicts, and environmental crises. While acknowledging the world’s diversity, geography as a discipline must endeavor to resolve these problems by devising plans for cooperation and symbiotic existence of the different peoples of the world. An old Japanese proverb, On-ko chi-shin, taken from a Chinese one, Wengu Zhixin, says that only by exploring the old can one understand the new. People should first understand how traditional ideas, linked to interaction between society/culture and the environment, were formed in different countries and regions. Traditional wisdom, in harmony with the environment, remains prevalent. This book examines how we can mold the earth’s future through such traditional wisdom and modern knowledge from the nine keynote speeches of the Kyoto Regional Conference focusing on three topics: traditional wisdom, the environment, and the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Over the past two decades, Zapatista indigenous community members have asserted their autonomy and self-determination by using everyday practices as part of their struggle for lekil kuxlejal, a dignified collective life connected to a specific territory. This in-depth ethnography summarizes Mariana Mora’s more than ten years of extended research and solidarity work in Chiapas, with Tseltal and Tojolabal community members helping to design and evaluate her fieldwork. The result of that collaboration—a work of activist anthropology—reveals how Zapatista kuxlejal (or life) politics unsettle key racialized effects of the Mexican neoliberal state. Through detailed narratives, thick descriptions, and testimonies, Kuxlejal Politics focuses on central spheres of Zapatista indigenous autonomy, particularly governing practices, agrarian reform, women’s collective work, and the implementation of justice, as well as health and education projects. Mora situates the proposals, possibilities, and challenges associated with these decolonializing cultural politics in relation to the racialized restructuring that has characterized the Mexican state over the past twenty years. She demonstrates how, despite official multicultural policies designed to offset the historical exclusion of indigenous people, the Mexican state actually refueled racialized subordination through ostensibly color-blind policies, including neoliberal land reform and poverty alleviation programs. Mora’s findings allow her to critically analyze the deeply complex and often contradictory ways in which the Zapatistas have reconceptualized the political and contested the ordering of Mexican society along lines of gender, race, ethnicity, and class.
This book examines translanguaging as a resource which can disrupt the privileging of particular voices, and a social practice which enables collaboration within and across groups of people. Addressing the themes of collaboration and transformation, the chapters critically examine how people work together to catalyse change in diverse global contexts, experiences and traditions. The authors suggest an epistemological and methodological turn to the study of translanguaging, which is particularly reflected in the collaborative, arts-based and action research/activist approaches followed in the chapters. The book will be of particular interest to scholars using ethnographic, critical and collaborative action and activist research approaches to the study of multilingualism in educational and creative arts contexts.
Over the past decade, there has been an unprecedented mobilization of street protests worldwide, from the demonstrations that helped bring progressive governments to power in Latin America, to the Arab Spring, to Occupy movements in the United States and Europe, to democracy protests in China. This edited volume investigates the current status, nature and dynamics of the new politics that characterizes social movements from around the world that are part of this revolutionary wave. Spanning case studies from Latin America, North and South Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and North America, this volume examines the varied manifestations of the current cycle of protest, which emerged from the Global South and spread to the North and highlights their interconnections – the globalized nature of these social movements. Analytically converging around Sidney Tarrow’s emphasis on protest cycles, political opportunity structures and identity, the individual chapters investigate processes such as global framing, internationalization, diffusion, scale shifts, externalizations and transnational coalition building to provide an analytic cartography of the current state of social movements as they are simultaneously globalizing while still being embedded in their respective localities. Looking at new ways of thinking and new forms of challenging power, this comprehensive volume will be of great interest to graduates and scholars in the fields of globalization, social movements and international politics.
Critical Medical Anthropology presents inspiring work from scholars doing and engaging with ethnographic research in or from Latin America, addressing themes that are central to contemporary Critical Medical Anthropology (CMA). This includes issues of inequality, embodiment of history, indigeneity, non-communicable diseases, gendered violence, migration, substance abuse, reproductive politics and judicialisation, as these relate to health. The collection of ethnographically informed research, including original theoretical contributions, reconsiders the broader relevance of CMA perspectives for addressing current global healthcare challenges from and of Latin America. It includes work spanning four countries in Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala and Peru) as well as the trans-migratory contexts they connect and are defined by. By drawing on diverse social practices, it addresses challenges of central relevance to medical anthropology and global health, including reproduction and maternal health, sex work, rare and chronic diseases, the pharmaceutical industry and questions of agency, political economy, identity, ethnicity, and human rights.
