Theorizing the Democratic Crowd: From the Who to the How of Popular Assembly
From the Boundaries of the People to their Enactment: A New Terrain for Democratic Theory
Popular Sovereignty, Aesthetics, and Emancipation
Beyond the Age of Democratic Revolution
This special issue of Boyhood Studies takes two terms—boys and storytelling—and positions them alongside one another. In some ways, we take seriously Charles Dickens's oft-quoted notion that “A boy's story is the best that is ever told.” What does it mean to take the stories of boys and boys’ stories seriously? Are they really among the “best that [are] ever told”? In the space of education, and with declining literacy rates among boys, what does it mean to study storytelling? Or, what might it mean, to borrow a phrase from Carol Mavor (2008), to “read boyishly”? In this special issue, we hoped to bring together scholars working on the relationship between boys and storytelling, to consider the kinds of stories that boys are told, and to also consider the stories that they are not told. Our goal was to consider the importance of storytelling in boys’ lives as well as the importance of the storytelling of boys’ lives. That is, we were interested in boys as both real and embodied, as well as in the fictional boys that populate the literary universe. The issue presented here brings together a host of perspectives that all work to explore and expand the literary and cultural study of boys and storytelling.
The funeral reforms in China condemn widespread burial practices considered “backward” and “uncivilized” while contradicting core grassroots values. Examining collective tomb land expropriation in a former rural township of Fuzhou hosting important military infrastructures, this article highlights issues of accessibility to ancestral land in the context of rapid urbanization and the resulting transition from village commons to state provisioned public goods. How do the original inhabitants of new urban communities make claims on their ancestors’ tomb land? What tactics are deployed to comply with state policies as well as to safeguard a certain sense of collective identity? This article shows how former villagers’ publicizing strategies of militarizing their ancestors allow for some concessions to be made, despite little room for negotiations left by sweeping urbanization.
Public goods have been neglected, if not outright rejected, by the anti-capitalist literature, which favors “commons.” This article argues that equal attention should be given to commons and to public goods—both are essential to social reproduction. Their difference is not one of nature, but of status; it results from the way they are managed and distributed. I offer some conceptual clarifications in the literature on commons, public goods, club goods and private goods, and argue for an approach that looks at the status of goods. This opens up room for examining two ways struggles for social goods are and may be waged: commoning and publicizing. While commoning practices require organization at the community level, publicizing practices make claims on the state as a provider of public goods.
This article explores the challenges faced and practices developed by Taiwanese judges in cases involving Indigenous laws and lands to fulfil the objectives of Taiwan's Indigenous court units. Despite the official establishment of these units, local actors debated their real presences within Taiwan courts. Non-Indigenous actors administered proceedings, state laws and justice practices applied, the language of Han mainstream society dominated legal discourse, training for judges and prosecutors was minimal, and court unit proceedings generally replicated ordinary court procedures, rendering the units ambiguous as distinct institutions. While some judges ignored these ambiguities, other judges endeavoured to integrate Indigenous world views, ontologies and meanings into applications of new laws and procedures through varied strategies. In practice, these exploratory approaches constituted the Indigenous court units in Taiwan courts. While these strategies may, in certain circumstances, create possibilities for improving Indigenous recognition within the national court system, they could also work against Indigenous people in their bids for justice through the courts.
Algerian food has not been codified into one symbolic food for tourists. This article examines the production of Algerian food in diverse climates, the various ingredients featured in Algerian cuisine and the influence of different ancient civilizations — notably Roman, Ottoman, Persian and Andalusian — on cooking. Street food dishes, imported and relished by migrants, have their own particularities. Rural and urban foods are then compared and described for different classes. At various occasions, the types of food consumed and the order of its presentation carry special meaning. Food thus becomes an emblem of class and of ritual, a gift which must be returned, just like any gift, and which gives identity to the hosts and the guests. Medicinal advice for keeping delicate food for a long time is also studied. Algerian food is thus understood not as a series of ingredients, but rather as a cultural entity with an identity which must be explored.
Pour les touristes, la cuisine de l'Algérie n'est pas codifiée comme celle des autres pays voisins. Conscient de la variation climatique et la diversité des productions agro-pastorales, ainsi que de l'histoire du contact avec les anciennes civilisations de Rome à Ottomane, Abbasside, Perse et Andalus l'auteur montre l'importance et la richesse de la nourriture. Dans les milieux urbains, les aliments des migrants rappellent leurs origines. Des plats comme «dolma» et «kefta», des sauces de tomate ou l'utilisation du cumin en sont témoins et l'auteur souligne bien les relations historiques et toutes les adaptations locales. Un autre sujet abordé par l'auteur c'est l'ordre et la manière de la présentation des repas, différents selon les situations : une fête, une occasion particulière ou bien un repas quotidien et de tous les jours. Autrement dit, les repas sont considérés comme un cadeau impliquant un rituel ou une continuation des relations. La nourriture identifie les classes sociales et explique les relations entre les gens. Elle n'est pas donc la simple compilation d'ingrédients, mais une donne culturelle ayant une identité à la fois sociale, économique et historique explorée historiquement par l'auteur.
Formal work is essential to gain legal residence in Chile and the reason why Latin American and Caribbean migrants purchase fake contracts on the black market. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with migrant Haitian women applying for work visas in Santiago, this article explores the effects of desired formality and its promises of a good life on contemporary statehood in Chile. The analysis shows how Haitian women's efforts to become formal workers transform their experiences as racialized and gendered migrants in Chile, and impact how state institutions manage and control migration. Desired formality reveals the paradoxical character of state policies that help create a racialized and precarious labor force within its legal frameworks and explain why migrants attach themselves to fragile good-life projects in new countries.
This study conceptually develops and analytically examines the role and function of diasporas as audiences in the securitization process by examining the American Jewish Diaspora in Israel's securitization of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS). It argues that Israel's use of antisemitism as a metanarrative for the securitization of the BDS movement incorporates diasporic Jews as internal audiences in the securitization process. Audiences, however, are not monolithic. While homeland Jews, including both elites and the public, tend to support Israel's securitization process, American Jews are split; the elite support the process but public opinion is far less sympathetic to Israeli constructions of BDS as a threat. The disparity between audiences’ reactions weakens the support for Israel's counter-BDS policies and undermines its securitization process.
This article argues that the duties to protest and to listen to protest are central democratic obligations required for active citizenship. Section 1 sketches protest as communicative resistance. Section 2 argues that we always have a duty to listen to felicitous protests against injustice and that, under conditions of social uprising, we also have a duty to protest. Section 3 defends a view of protest participation that takes into account subjects’ positionality with respect to the injustice being protested, arguing for the special prerogatives of victims and the duties to defer and yield of non-victims within protest movements. Finally, Section 4 elucidates the notion of giving proper uptake to protest and what I call echoing a protest, that is, expressing communicative solidarity with that protest.
This article explores the relationship between a specific political economy and its developmental impacts by analyzing how the Zona Bananera in the north of the Department of Magdalena, Colombia, was configured by the emergence of an agro-exportation model between 1850 and 1930. The review of gubernatorial reports and statistical data highlights how the development deriving from this model concentrated benefits to a small landowning class, which magnified the unequal distribution of land in the area. Therefore, this article documents the negative social consequences deriving from this type of development, particularly in frontier societies like the one in Magdalena at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century.
El artículo explora la relación entre una economía política particular y sus efectos en términos de desarrollo a través del análisis de la configuración de la Zona Bananera en el departamento del Magdalena, Colombia, a partir del surgimiento de una economía política que definió para este un modelo agroexportador en el periodo de 1850 a 1930. La revisión de informes de gobernadores del Magdalena, en conjunto con datos estadísticos resalta cómo el desarrollo derivado de este modelo concentró beneficios en una pequeña clase terrateniente, magnificando la distribución desigual de la tierra. Por lo tanto, este artículo documenta las consecuencias sociales negativas de este tipo de desarrollo, particularmente en sociedades de frontera, como la del Magdalena a finales del XIX principios del XX.
Cet article explore les effets d'une économie politique particulière en termes de développement, dans le nord du département du Magdalena, en Colombie, configuré à partir de l'émergence d'un modèle agricole exportateur de 1850 à 1930. L'analyse des rapports rédigés par les gouverneurs du département, ainsi que des données statistiques, montrent comment le modèle concentra des bénéfices en faveur de quelques familles de propriétaires fonciers, et accentua l'inégale répartition des terres. Ainsi, l'article met en évidence les conséquences sociales négatives de ce modèle de développement dans les sociétés de frontière, à la fin du XIXe siècle et au début du XXe siècle.
