FOCAAL FORUMS - VIRTUAL ISSUE

Managing Editor: Luisa Steur, University of Copenhagen

Editors: Don Kalb, Central European University and Utrecht University Christopher Krupa, University of Toronto Mathijs Pelkmans, London School of Economics Oscar Salemink, University of Copenhagen Gavin Smith, University of Toronto Oane Visser, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague

A regular feature of Focaal is its Forum section. The Forum features assertive, provocative, and idiosyncratic forms of writing and publishing that do not fit the usual format or style of a research-based article in a regular anthropology journal. Forum contributions can be stand-alone pieces or come in the form of theme-focused collection or discussion.

Introducing: www.FocaalBlog.com, which aims to accelerate and intensify anthropological conversations beyond what a regular academic journal can do, and to make them more widely, globally, and swiftly available. ______

TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Number 69: Mavericks Mavericks: Harvey, Graeber, and the reunification of anarchism and Marxism in world anthropology by Don Kalb

II. Number 66: Forging the Urban Commons Transformative cities: A response to Narotzky, Collins, and Bertho by Ida Susser and Stéphane Tonnelat What kind of commons are the urban commons? by Susana Narotzky The urban public sector as commons: Response to Susser and Tonnelat by Jane Collins Urban commons and urban struggles by Alain Bertho Transformative cities: The three urban commons by Ida Susser and Stéphane Tonnelat

III. Number 62: What makes our projects anthropological? Civilizational analysis for beginners by Chris Hann

IV. Number 61: Wal-Mart, American consumer citizenship, and the 2008 recession Wal-Mart, American consumer citizenship, and the 2008 recession by Jane Collins

V. Number 54: Accumulation by dispossession and Asia's “modernizing“ Left What’s left? Land expropriation, socialist “modernizers,” and peasant resistance in Asia by Luisa Steur and Ritanjan Das The meaning of Nandigram: Corporate land invasion, people’s power, and the Left in India by Tanika Sarkar and Sumit Chowdhury “Communist” dispossession meets “reactionary” resistance: The ironies of the parliamentary Left in West-Bengal by Projit Bihari Mukharji Land expropriation, protest, and impunity in rural China by Bo Zhao Agricultural land conversion and its effects on farmers in contemporary Vietnam by Nguyen Van Suu

VI. Number 49: Exploiting Legal and Illegal Migrants in the New Europe "With calluses on your palms they don't bother you": Illegal Romanian migrants in Italy by Ana Bleahu Strawberry fields forever? Bulgarian and Romanian student workers in the UK by Mariya Ivancheva Indigenous resurgence, anthropological theory, and the cunning of history by Terence Turner

www.journals.berghahnbooks.com/focaal Mavericks Harvey, Graeber, and the reunification of anarchism and Marxism in world anthropology

Don Kalb

New books discussed in this article: Graeber, David. 2011. Debt: The first 5,000 years. New York: Melville House. Graeber, David. 2013. The democracy project: A history, a crisis, a movement. London: Allan Lane. Harvey, David. 2011. The enigma of capital and the crises of capitalism. London: Profile Books. Harvey, David. 2012. Rebel cities: From the right to the city to the urban revolu- tion. London: Verso. Harvey, David. 2013. A companion to Marx’s Capital, volume 2. London: Verso. Lazar, Sian. 2008. El Alto, rebel city: Self and citizenship in Andean Bolivia. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press.

Preamble (by way of an anecdote) have, though we did have a sense of what it came to stand for. De Keizer was located in the I met Theo van der Giessen sometime in Janu- historic center, on the princely Keizersgracht. It ary 1980. The sudden sweep of radical mass was squatted with the intention of turning it lit- squatter movements in several Dutch cities fas- erally into a protomilitary bulwark against the cinated me intensely, as it did so many others of state, and it became a potent symbol of urban my generation. Friends in Amsterdam invited resistance. me to come and see the escalating fight around Squatters’ movements, in particular but not De Grote Keizer (the Great Kaiser). De Keizer only in Amsterdam, had become uniquely co- was a prime urban property owned by a Dutch hesive in the preceding years and surprisingly multinational company with close ties to the politically effective. They appeared ready to state, now thrown onto the emerging market of forcefully defend the democratic right to the city urban gentrification—a concept we didn’t yet against the constitutionally enshrined liberal

Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 69 (2014): 113–134 © Stichting Focaal and Berghahn Books doi:10.3167/fcl.2014.690108 114 | Don Kalb right to property (and hence speculation). action, that the neighborhood-based squatter Dutch squatters’ movements practiced the in- groups, generally of an anarchist bent and obvi- sights of the French Marxist Henri Lefebvre and ously into “direct action”, would be destroyed the then still young (and still Marxist) Manuel one by one if they did not become more overtly Castells—who was fascinated by the Dutch de- political and join their forces for concerted and velopments but, not knowing Dutch, failed to proactive mobilizations. De Keizer and the or- really study them—as well as David Harvey. Not ganization around it was the ultimate embodi- many of us who were directly involved in squat- ment of that radically confrontational prac- ting and “direct actions” had read any of this tice—though much more was soon to come. work. Nor had I. One day in January I happened to be hang- Van der Giessen and his crew had metal- ing around De Keizer as an “outer guard”. We plated the inside of the six majestic seventeenth- got a signal that the police were harassing some century patrician houses that formed the of “our people” a few hundred meters away. The property. Impressive wooden and iron struc- situation had been tense for days and there was tures now supported the walls and windows talk of a pending attack by security forces. I ran from the inside and could supposedly with- toward the designated place, not knowing what stand any “normal” police attack. On the roof, to expect or do. I saw two police cars and a six stories high, were placed scores of old televi- handful of officers running around and pulling sion sets, refrigerators, old bathtubs, and buck- some people toward the cars. I was completely ets with oil, to be used as urban projectiles. Tens inexperienced and paralyzed. But then there of thousands of squatters and sympathizers in was, at once, Van der Giessen. Tall, imposing, Amsterdam and the country at large—some long dark hair, black leather jacket—some- said more than 20,000 in Amsterdam alone, but where between Moses and Che Guevara. He no one knew exactly how many—could be mo- screamed to me from a distance, pointing to bilized within a couple of hours via a “telephone some loose cobblestones on the side of the road. chain” and via Radio de Keizer, an illegal 24/7 With just one big stone upheld in his hand and broadcaster located in the building. These peo- intense eyes, he now moved slowly to the scene ple formed the “outer guard”, which would resist in a menacing fashion, with swift and com- the police on the street. Hundreds of what we manding reactions to any movements around used to call “the hard core” would be inside the him, and with just me as his totally ineffective building, seemingly ready to risk their limbs backup. From a three- or four-meter proximity while defending De Keizer as a squatters’ com- he ordered the officers back into their cars, all mons. From a group of some twenty key people, while holding the big stone above his head, Theo van der Giessen, a tall, charismatic, ener- pointing it now to this agent and then to another. getic man with a Maoist background, had stood His victory over some 6 armed police officers in out in persuading-cum-pushing the tens of thou- not more than 20 seconds was stunning. sands of young squatters in the city into a uni- Aha, I thought in my youthful excitement, so fied political movement. By 1980, squatting in that is how you do this. It seemed an easy thing. Amsterdam was not just about occupying empty But of course it wasn’t. It was not a military vic- buildings both privately and publicly owned— tory but a moral one. It presupposed a history of of which there were many in the late 1970s due increasingly rough fights around the legitimacy to capitalist and urban crises. In the preceding of property speculation, around housing policy years they had learned that, in order to be able and urban politics. It also could not have hap- to do just that, they had to be ready to collec- pened without a clear left-right division in ur- tively confront hard political power, including ban public culture, nor without the gradual tip- the deep legality of property and security struc- ping of the moral and physical balance of power tures in the urban state. Van der Giessen and in the bigger cities, and in particular in Amster- others had explained, and then demonstrated in dam, against the rights of property and the Mavericks: Harvey, Graeber, and the reunification of anarchism and Marxism | 115 state. Dual power, in one way or another, was a tics will be useful in what sort of conjuncture, fact. Crucially, the recently installed right-wing he argues. In contrast to Graeber, he does not government in The Hague, elected by the ex- spend many words on the moralities of political panding suburbs and the suburbanizing prov - resistance, which are in a sense the singular fo- inces, was seeking an open confrontation in the cus of Graeber’s OWS book and of much cur- urban centers with what it perceived as chaos, rent “horizontalist” preoccupations as well. Nor disobedience, and moral degeneracy, not unlike does he dwell on the imagined differences with what Stuart Hall cum suis described in Policing earlier supposedly “hierarchical” strategies for the Crisis (1978) as “authoritarian paternalism”. taking power. Van der Giessen did not throw a stone or cause In earlier work and in Debt: The First 5,000 any injury at that point—though he constantly Years (2011), Graeber emphasizes repeatedly boasted in public about the readiness of the that common people through most of history squatters to do so in self-defense. The action have shunned direct confrontation with their that I observed was commanding because it rulers. They would rather evade their exploiters dramatized a claim to rightful and forceful pop- when the pressure of debt and oppression be- ular resistance against a police corps and a state came too hard to bear. They voted with their that were perceived in the inner cities as in- feet, left the oppressive cities and moved back to creasingly illegitimate. In January 1980 in the the open spaces, the deserts, the forests. Libera- space around De Grote Keizer, his martial ges- tion from corruption is apparently not to be tures were immediately understood. But it took achieved in the heart of civilization, but on the someone like him, who was able to embody all wild frontiers. Conceptually, that is also what of this, self-consciously, to set the symbolic Graeber advocates in The Democracy Project. drama in motion. Resistance will emerge from a “network of lib- What would David Graeber think of a Van erated spaces” brought into the city, of which he der Giessen and the Dutch 1980s squatters’ up- sees Zuccotti Park during OWS as an example. rising? In The Democracy Project (2013), Grae- These liberated spaces are supposedly placed ber’s book on Occupy Wall Street (OWS), he outside the capitalist structures and offer an op- goes out of his way to advocate nonviolence. portunity to escape from oppressive constraints Ghandi is his example, and his focus is entirely while signaling, peacefully and consensually, on “consensual process”, “general assemblies”, the moral bankruptcy of the present order. That and democracy without leadership, as already order will then presumably be left to crumble prefigured in his Fragments of an Anarchist An- from its own inner corruption. thropology (2004). And he celebrates OWS for Harvey is heir to Lefebvre’s “right to the city”. it. No place here for the confrontational cha - No glorious escape from capitalist urbanity in risma and pushy politics of a Van der Giessen— his work, predictably, and no imagined possibil- though assemblies, instead of being something ity of untainted “liberated spaces” destroying new, as so often wrongly claimed these days, the capitalist order from the moral outside. Har - were a common arrangement in the 1970s and vey represents the old European tradition cap- 1980s in Europe, also among the squatters’ move- tured in the German proverb Stadtluft macht ments. David Harvey, in Rebel Cities (2013) and frei. (literally: “city air liberates”) Resistance for The Enigma of Capital (2011), is more agnostic him is by definition urban. It should focus its about “violence”: for Harvey it is not likely that energies on urban governance by confronting a genuine popular democratic shift in power the underlying power structures. The city is the over the state, property, and accumulation will inescapable and potentially liberating site for evolve entirely peacefully, given the overwhelm- common living and working in complex soci- ing security structures and repressive tactics eties, even while it is simultaneously a machine against which this will inevitably have to be for generating inequality, dispossession, and ac- claimed. One cannot prescribe what sort of tac- cumulation. He interlaces his analyses of the 116 | Don Kalb state-finance nexus—key to modern capitalism anthropologists do. He also holds theory in rad- in his view, on which more below—with narra- ically higher esteem than the anthropological tives of historical and contemporary urban re- discipline often does—and not just “grounded volts that directly confronted urban rulers. He theory”. He is therefore routinely and willfully also rejects the obsession in current opposi- placed outside the proper confines of the disci- tional politics with horizontalism and its refusal pline. Graeber, trained as an anthropologist in of leadership, formal organization, and hierar- Chicago, was rejected for jobs in US academia chy. He points at horizontalism’s failure of coor- despite impressive publications, perhaps simi- dination and synchronization, its inability to larly because his work did not strike many as prefigure and experiment with alternative forms properly “anthropological”. But both are also of rule and thus to produce the necessary com- celebrated: Graeber has become nothing less petent personnel. than a global star whose deeply scholarly book And so the tactical and strategic divide be- on debt has sold more than 100,000 copies in tween some of the foremost authors on the (an- the English version alone in two years time and thropological) intellectual left seems complete. was immediately translated into dozens of other Nevertheless, Graeber and Harvey are interested, languages; he has also become one of the most intellectually and practically, in the ongoing re- learned advocates for anarchism in the West. unification of the anarchist and Marxist intel- Harvey’s books and website are among the most lectual traditions. Once agonistically united widely read in the social sciences at large, in- within European left-wing radicalism, they cluding by anthropologists, and represent some were pulled apart by the blowup between Marx of the best that the Marxist tradition, in come- and Bakunin in the aftermath of the Paris Com- back mode, has on offer. mune in 1872 and subsequently baptized in Is it the continued fetishism of bounded blood during the Russian and Spanish civil wars. field-based ethnography that leads to a rejec- Apart from substance there was always also a tion of more philosophical, theoretical, histori- contrast in style of reasoning, living, and action. cal, and synoptical work grappling with the big Graeber, however, speaks noticeably more re- questions? Are big visions and articulate theo- spectfully about Marx in his learned book on retical accounts just not to be called anthropol- debt than in his earlier pamphlet on anarchist ogy because “we” are “myopically preoccupied anthropology. Harvey and Graeber also agree with local complexity,” as Keith Hart recently that we should be inspired by, and have a good wrote (2013: 220)? Are “we” at best interested in look at, populist urban mobilizations such as some “grounded theory”? The history of the those that happened recently in El Alto, Bolivia. field, current, recent, and classical, does not nec - I mention this one in particular—they discuss essarily suggest that this should be so. If any- many more—because both authors analyze it in thing, anthropology seems the disciplinary place some detail and are similarly impressed. Why for a programmatic methodological pluralism this unexpected agreement on El Alto and other and for radical transdisciplinary experiments. recent urban cases? And how do these diverg- The sheer acknowledged relevance and avant- ing ideas of political tactics relate to the broader garde quality of the work of Harvey and Grae- intellectual substance of their work? Finally, ber underlines the intellectual bankruptcy of what insights may the story of the Dutch squat- this knee-jerk response within the discipline. ters’ rebellions around 1980 add to their work, Graeber has written the grandest historical both tactically and analytically? treatise the discipline has produced in the last David Harvey and David Graeber are in fact hundred years, and is now in a way one of the maverick anthropologists. The first may be a most famous anthropologists on earth—pace distinguished professor of anthropology, but as his discipline’s lack of esteem for just that grand a trained geographer he is working on a higher vision that tout le monde was apparently wait- level of abstraction and aggregation than most ing for. Mavericks: Harvey, Graeber, and the reunification of anarchism and Marxism | 117

These four books by Graeber and Harvey are 5,000 years of global human history, from complementary in interesting ways. This is so Sumer and the Mesopotamian civilizations, for the analysis of the current and ongoing cri- through the Indian, Chinese, and antique Med- sis, for a vision of the miracle year of world iterranean empires, via an original conception rebellions in fragments, 2011 (and in fact ongo- of the “global middle ages”, to the capitalist em- ing), but in particular for the focus and sub- pires of Europe, and then finally the age of stance of their findings and approaches. I will American hegemony. A colleague told me, “It’s concentrate on this latter aspect. Graeber has in like reading the National Geographic,” and it fact not much original to say about the last was meant as a compliment. The traditional decades of financialization and the ensuing cri- nineteenth-century role of the anthropologist, sis of finance capital in the 2000s. Just 10 per- telling systematic and empirically informed sto- cent of the 400 pages of the book (excluding ries about the history of humanity for a wider notes, etc.) are dedicated to it, and it is not public, has been almost totally usurped by pop- where the book’s discoveries or surprises are. ular writers such as Jared Diamond or even Even the capitalist epoch of the last 500 years Robert Kaplan. There is also a thriving new and in a sense the very idea of capitalism do not global history, much of it relevant for anthro- appear as his driving interests, though he cer- pology, with few contributions from anthropol- tainly has interesting things to say about them. ogists among it, Jack Goody being the excep- The two books by Harvey, in contrast, have tion. Graeber’s Debt has at once changed that their actual problematic in the current crisis of picture. It not only tells an even bigger story, financialized capitalism and focus entirely on time-wise and territory-wise. But it also, and si- the history and analysis of speculative capital- multaneously, originates from the political and ism and the politics driving it forward over the public needs of this precise moment of indebt- last 300 years or so. Harvey, not surprisingly, edness, credit crunch, and capitalist crisis in the also offers a firmer grasp of the capitalist state West linked to global transformation. and modern finance. Graeber, then, excels in As you will have heard by now, Graeber’s an- uncovering the “modes of morality” surround- swer is straightforward and radical: Jubilee, a ing money, credit, debt, and markets over the “clean slate”, debt forgiveness, as was common very long run of civilizational history, starting in Sumer and other Mesopotamian societies at around 3000 BC, in which he discovers cyclical the moment of the inauguration of a new king. patterns in a profoundly original way. And Under capitalist rule, however, this will cer- there are the endless complementarities of anar- tainly not happen. Does this imply that Western chism and Marxism as structures of thought society is waiting for a king capable of reinsert- and feeling. ing money and markets into a new cosmologi- cal order and convincing us that debt is not Schuld, as in Sumer? In Debt Graeber’s style re- Graeber: Modes of morality mains academic, though political, throughout, without modes of production even while at times extremely loose. But the very logic of his vision suggests that we are at Debt is an enjoyable and masterful narrative of the end of the capitalist era and underway to the history of credit and money as forms of something else, something that we cannot per- social interaction and sources of moral philoso- ceive well yet, and he draws that conclusion ex- phizing. This is jumbo history. But it is com- plicitly. The Democracy Project, an admittedly posed of myriad small stories that are never different genre of writing, proposes that the irrelevant and often surprisingly illuminating. new king and the new cosmological order, if it They are told in an engaging style and with a emerges, may spring from a “network of liber- readiness to speculate whenever that furthers ated spaces” as exemplified by Occupy. In Grae- the interrogation and the vision. The book spans ber’s view and with a bow to Marcel Mauss—his 118 | Don Kalb ultimate academic inspiration—it is there that money and markets. Money and markets pre- the gift as the basis of social life will be nurtured suppose a different type and scale of society. and claimed; or better, perhaps, as he argues in Second, he dismisses the idea that money Debt, not just the gift but “everyday commu- came before debt. He endorses the early twenti- nism”—a nod to Kropotkin, the anarchist prince, eth-century (German) “state theory of money”, more than to Mauss. in which money is seen as historically closely What is this historical vision, then? And how associated with the emergence of states, taxes, does he arrive at it? Debt joins a lustful eye for and militaries. Money coins emerge historically detail and microhistories with a strong will to when imperial states start to pay their soldiers conceptual-historical jumbo ordering. That or- in pieces of precious metal extracted from the dering happens by way of Graeber’s extensively imperial mines. But before such military em- explained “principles of morality”, which are pires emerged around powerful cities by 500 BC, based on exchange theory, derived, among oth- there had been thousands of years in which ers, from Mauss and Polanyi—who are hardly loans and debts were made, registered, as well as discussed. More than half the book is devoted discussed and politically dealt with by temples to such conceptual construction, amazing for a and courts. Debt, thus, is the urtype of exchange, popular best seller. This is where the master Graeber concludes persuasively. I note that this shows his hand: even his long theoretical exer- is about vertical, complex, and durable social cises rarely become dry or boring. In its best relationships, not horizontal short-term dyadic passages the book deals imaginatively and spec- exchange. It is therefore inevitably about class ulatively precisely with the speculations and relations. At this early point one wonders al- imaginings of the epochs it studies. The reader ready why Graeber should set his cards so ex- is continuously invited to learn a history, to clusively on exchange theory. imagine a situation, to identify with the dilem- Graeber builds in particular on the histori- mas, experiences, and fantasies of fathers, cal/archaeological research of Moses Finley and mothers, traders, kings, small peasants, Adam Michael Hudson—though these key authors Smith, prophets, Chinese mandarins, Islamic are, again, hidden away in endnotes rather than entrepreneurs, Buddhist monks, and so on. But discussed in detail. Why? Is this a concession to it is here, in its conceptual underpinnings—and a broad readership? Finley and Hudson work in how they structure the approach and the ev- from an eclectic mix of Maussian-Polanyian idence—that the deeper tensions and very sub- and Marxian traditions. But Graeber’s next step stantial unresolved issues of the book lie. These is driven exclusively by exchange theory, ex- tensions turn, to put it starkly and curtly, around tending the Maussian line while shedding the the repressed relationship of Graeber’s modes of Marxian one. Thus, modes of morality are on- morality to Marx’s modes of production. tologically severed from modes of production. Graeber starts out by rejecting the historical From here on any meaningful conversation be- primacy of barter as assumed by Adam Smith tween them is stymied. and neoclassical economics. Smith argues that He then introduces three different “moral money, a universal equivalent that has itself no principles of exchange”, which are supposed to use value, was a practical solution for the limi- be exhaustive of the possibilities: (1) “(baseline) tations of barter by making markets function communism”, (2) “exchange” (I will call this more efficiently. Marshaling the existing anthro- “market” because the other two forms are also pological knowledge, Graeber shows that barter supposed to be forms of exchange; I also prefer has historically been limited to small-scale kin- “market” because Graeber’s category of “ex- ship-based communities, where it is part of more change” presupposes the freedom and individu- general reciprocities among people who live in alism that is essential for the possibility of a durable relationships of interdependence. There short-term contract), and (3) “hierarchy”. These is no evolutionary progression from barter to are, I repeat, “moral principles”. Graeber ac- Mavericks: Harvey, Graeber, and the reunification of anarchism and Marxism | 119 knowledges that they do not describe whole moralities that Graeber describes are actually empirical societies: pure forms do not occur. profoundly pervaded by moralities of authority But, he does assume that in a certain time and and obedience. That is true for all the expansive place the one or the other will be dominant and trade empires, from the Roman Empire to the generalized. That dominant principle will then American one, but also for the market morali- be amalgamated with the other two principles, ties nurtured in China, for example. In fact, the which are then submerged and confined to cir- proper relationship between markets and hier- cumscribed spheres of social interaction. archies is what has kept whole academic disci- Graeber says that in one way or another plines like law and economics busy. It has also communist principles operate among all in- kept David Harvey busy (see below). groups. They organize what these groups share “Hierarchy”, for Graeber, is where funda- and what unites them, what makes them dur- mental and juridical inequality reigns, deter- able over time and what strengthens the inter- mined by “custom”. Kings guarantee justice and dependencies between the parts. This is about cosmological order while peasants are supposed mutualism, the basis of sociality, Graeber posits. to labor on the land and pay taxes. Brahmans Communism, Graeber explains, has nothing to maintain the ritual purity of the overall struc- do with the old myth of common property that ture while untouchables deal with the dirt. I supposedly reigned in a golden age of “primi- note that modern bureaucracy and the modern tive communism” before the fall of man, and state is not part of this notion of hierarchy at then again after the socialist revolution; a myth all. Graeber’s hierarchy seems defined by supra - by which Marxism, with its obsession with natural legitimations. It is about theologically property, was fatefully afflicted, he claims. In- grounded authority, or minimally “traditional stead, communism is a form of sociality and authority” in Weber’s sense. All in all, Graeber’s morality that takes the idea of “to each accord- definition of market and of hierarchy seems to ing to their needs and from each according to leave the whole of the modern capitalist state their abilities” seriously (94–102). Paradoxi- out. A puzzling limitation for an intellectual in- cally, this is a very Marxist formulation, and one tervening in the politics of late capitalist popu- cannot but wonder what sort of property struc- lar indebtedness. tures and political formations—modes of pro- Apart from these conceptual concerns, there duction—are required to make that satisfaction are two methodological issues with this ap- of needs according to ability possible. Logically, proach that I need to highlight. The first is that one cannot expect this communist morality to for Graeber these moralities of exchange are not be dominant where robust private property or just the socialities of microinteractions, but also private political control prevails, either de jure the large-scale reigning mythologies of whole or de facto. social formations. There is a regular slip be- Graeber’s “market” moralities of exchange tween these two very different scales in the text. (what he terms “exchange”) assume equality be- The idea of moral principles is quite useful tween people who enter voluntarily into con- when we are dealing with microlevel interac- tracts with each other. Such market contracts tions in which the actors, the motives, the gains, are of limited durability, and all participants and the outcomes can be unambiguously ob- presumably gain from the interaction. This is a served (see, e.g., Zigon 2008). This is well testi- deeply liberal conception (but see below on Is- fied by all the anthropologies of morality that lam). Often, Graeber emphasizes, market moral- have been produced lately—though they deal ities rely on some “baseline communism” for generally with many more possible and more them to work and be trusted. However, just as situated moral modes than Graeber’s three styl- important but not discussed by Graeber, is that ized principles. More abstract moral principles they are always embedded, too, in particular can easily be uncovered in philosophical tracts forms of “hierarchy”. Some of the market and discussions (which offer much of the em- 120 | Don Kalb pirical material for Debt), often in blurred and class rule, capitalist or whatever. And we shift sometimes in pure form. But when discussing accordingly from modes of morality as ideology whole societies and their systematic social rela- to an analysis of modes of production as reality. tionships such as of class, patriarchy, or empire, And we shift from moral dilemmas and para- moral discourses can also literally be the domi- doxes to social and historical contradictions. nant social mythologies that hide more than We can anticipate one line of defense open they reveal about “social reality”. Modes of to Graeber: what I just said obviously describes morality regularly serve as the ideologies of modern capitalism. Capitalism, for Graeber, and modes of production, both obscuring and ex- not for him alone, is a hybrid between hierarchy pressing ruling-class interests by making them and markets. Capitalism is a durable alliance seem universal and self-evident. Indeed, strange between states and capital holders, not the sort for an anarchist, Graeber is not keen on distin- of short-term horizontal market transaction guishing moralities from ruling ideologies. described in Graeber’s definition. But which so- Mauss here clearly prevails over Kropotkin, and ciety is then actually described by that market- indeed over so many Marxists. based definition? And if the whole of capitalism Markets based on “equality”? Not only is not somehow realistically captured in any of Marxists would fall off their chairs. Yes, formal his three modes of morality, do we not miss juridical and civil (liberal) or human (Islam) something quite essential for analysis and poli- equality, as we know. But as Marx famously tics? Are these ideal types not too much up in quipped, “Under equals force decides.” And so the air for them to be useful at all? My sense is equality turns out to be a key ideological trope that Graeber’s modes willingly prelude on the of liberal societies. The proceeds of market- myths to the neglect of the realities. based exchanges between equal citizens (includ- Similar contradictions underlie Graeber’s ing corporations) are in practice systematically “communist” and “hierarchical” moralities. An unequal because the positions of participants to anthropological locus classicus is of course the the transaction are often fundamentally un- struggle within communist tribes and lineages equal and dissimilar, in particular in those between generations and among different clans, market-type societies that are somehow capital- motivated by the notion that the communist ist. There is no “level playing field”. One key pretensions are squandered by the incumbent form of exchange in market societies is the ex- elders or chiefs, who are turning themselves and change of labor power for a wage. Little choice their kin into durable proto state classes or eth- here for those who do not have access to the re- nocapitalists. Next to sharing, kinship remains a sources that are necessary for their daily sur- great vehicle for exploitation in many parts of vival, as Marx taught us: they have to sell and do the world, motivated by “love, honor, and duty”. so immediately, whether they like the current Nor is friendship free of such tendencies. Grae- conditions of the contract or not. This is just as ber would certainly not deny this. He would true for small market-oriented peasants as for probably point to the idealized nature of his small merchants, and indeed for households, as modes. Or perhaps he would point out that such they purchase the goods or hire the shelter they failures of the communist mode of morality are need. This facilitates exploitation within “the the consequence of the “articulation between hidden abode of production”, which is Marx’s modes of production”, the corruptions of mutu- key issue. But it also makes exploitation and ex- alism by capitalist or hierarchical encroach- traction possible outside of production, such as ments. In such replies the lack of realism is through credit, advances, debt, rents, corvée, acknowledged, however. Baseline communism prices, and the public debt. This has increas- remains a desire more than a factual practice. ingly become David Harvey’s point (see below). It was precisely Marx’s goal in the critique of Instead of civil or human equality plus volun- political economy to demystify such mytholo- tary exchange on free markets, we arrive then at gies and discover the class rule and class rela- Mavericks: Harvey, Graeber, and the reunification of anarchism and Marxism | 121 tionships behind and within them. Here, it Middle East, and Europe are more or less syn- seems to me, we are not only back amid the old chronized, albeit with significant empirical discussions around Proudhon, Marx, Bakunin, variations.1 World history is summarized as a Lenin, the Narodniki, and the early reformists sequence of two secular cycles that run from hi- and “social patriots” such as Mauss. We have erarchy to market and back again. The first also arrived at an old discussion in anthropol- phase of hierarchy plays itself out between circa ogy. Graeber’s teacher, Marshall Sahlins, has 3000–500 BC; from 500 BC to circa AD 600 there been criticized for concentrating on “mytho- is a general worldwide breakthrough to mar- practice” to the detriment of unfolding social kets, the proper “axial age”; from AD 600 to 1200 relations, and indeed literally for overlooking human society reverts back to hierarchy; after property relations and power in his early dis- which market principles become gradually cussions of primitive communism (“the domes- dominant again. The last cycle is not completed tic/familial mode of production”) and his later yet, as we are waiting for the third coming of hi- thoughts on capitalism (1974, 1978). The cri- erarchy—the king born from the “liberated tiques came from Marxists such as Friedman spaces” of everyday communism. (1988) and Godelier (1977). Graeber’s moral Recall that moral principles of exchange principles of exchange, similarly, are in fact occur in practice in blurred forms. Indeed, on mytho-practices that obscure the systematic so- closer scrutiny all societies that extol market cial divisions of property and class power. The principles of exchange turn out to be heavily reason why Debt could become such a popular imbued by hierarchy, indeed, imperial hierar- read—the microstories and the macrophilo- chy. In Graeber’s vision markets are historically sophical speculations—may also be the reason first produced by metropolitan, militarized em- why the macro social structures remain so frus- pires driven by the accumulation of metals, tratingly nebulous, and why the relevant theo- slaves, and soldiers. Such metropolitan empires retical discussions with other authors never are massively violent, disruptive of social bonds, happen. and extractive. The classical example is Rome. But these very substantial problems of real- In these imperially driven market phases, in- ism become still further magnified. While he equality grows and debt proliferates. Lenders acknowledges that his three categories of moral are free to indulge in usury, and they take serfs principles—communism, markets, hierarchy— and slaves as collateral. These are slave-amass- are not meant to describe actual societies, Grae- ing urban empires. ber proceeds to deploy them to distinguish Hierarchy re-emerges in response to the up- actual full-blown world-historical epochs from rooting and disembedding associated with each other, both conceptually and in the struc- these violent market-driven phases. Hierarchy is ture of his chapters. Thus, he moves from (1) called in from below by religious movements— moral principles of microexchange to (2) the proliferating from the year zero onward, if not dominant ideologies of whole societies to (3) earlier—and from above in the form of bureau- the dominant mythologies of whole historical cratically and theologically designed legal sys- blocs in human history. This, then, is mytho- tems that re-regulate relations of inequality, in practice in jumbo form. particular the associated usury and slave taking, Which are these epochs? Here, not surpris- starting in Rome with the reign of August. The ingly, Graeber is exceptionally creative and emerging religious hierarchies gradually chan- sweeping. Taking inspiration from Karl Jaspers’s nel metals and accumulation out of the cities, notion of the “axial age”, and using it in a per- the markets, and the militaries back into tem- fectly idiosyncratic way as far as I am aware, he ples and divine orders. And they restore patri- sees one singular world-spanning historical se- archy on a macro scale and on the everyday quence in which the experiences of particular scale of family and kinship as well. They do so world regions such as China, South Asia, the by prohibiting creditors from charging interest 122 | Don Kalb or taking slaves if fathers cannot repay debts measure of unfortunately nontheorized histori- and by subduing women, mothers, and daugh- cal realism must sneak in. ters to a male paternal authority that cannot Crucially, when explaining (somewhat) legally be suspended by creditors or superiors. more precisely the actual historical trajectories The world religions are therefore without ex- of transformation and development in East and ception patriarchal and often misogynic. As South Asia, the Middle East, and Europe during Graeber characteristically quips, they embody the “global middle ages”, Graeber shifts tack and the millennial voices of the male dispossessed accounts for them largely in terms of the vari- begging for honor. Graeber calls this renewed able realist alliances of classes of bureaucrats, epoch of hierarchy the “global middle ages”. merchants, feudal lords, and militarists that China, according to Graeber, is the world lo- drove them—as he does later in his chapter on cation from which this jumbo-historical rhythm the capitalist empires. But he shifts tack in com- is best perceived. China is the only place where plete silence so that these historically realist ac- bureaucrats with preaxial origins were smart counts never invite a re-examination of what and strong enough to prevent the violent ex- the “moral principles of exchange” approach tremes of pure market dominance or pure hier- can and cannot deliver. Sharply stated, there is archy. South Asia, in contrast, is exceptional for an implicit (eclectic) class analysis in the its extreme forms of ruralized hierarchy after an macrohistorical chapters of the book that does initial vibrant urban and apparently uniquely in fact most of the narrative and indeed all of violent market phase. Europe and the Mediter- the explanatory work. That must be so, because ranean, too, are exceptional for their market- the more synchronic perspective on “morali- imperial extremism during the antique period ties”, both of the micro and the jumbo kind, and the modern period, and for the extreme does not offer leverage in explaining actual his- feudal reaction against those violent markets in tories, transitions, social struggles, trajectories, between. The Middle East is where the purest and transformations. Graeber needs Marx (and principles of free market exchange were in- Weber) as soon as synchronic moral philoso- scribed, according to Graeber. This is because phizing and mytho-practice give way to dy- Islam did not favor the classic collusion of bu- namic explanation. But Graeber never organizes reaucrats, militarists, and urban merchants that an appropriate ceremony to call realist class drove market imperialism in South Asia and in analysis back in (one is tempted to say: no gift Europe and the Mediterranean. to the Marxists). And while he leaves his Marx The historical chapters (9–12) are ordered in in sullen subservience to a superinflated Mauss, line with this overarching world-historical he refuses to deploy his analysis of class contra- rhythm. There is a chapter on “the axial age”, one dictions consistently and switches regularly to on the “global middle ages”, one on “the great the ideational dilemmas of mytho-practice. capitalist empires”, and one on “the post-1971 This becomes obvious, for example, in his beginning of something new”. Not surprisingly, discussion of Buddhism and Islam, two religions the “global middle ages” may well be the most that actually originate with smaller merchants exciting chapter; it is where the global phase of and which center, therefore, significantly, like hierarchy and world religion in reaction to im- Graeber’s theory of exchange itself, on the ques- perial market-driven violence is discussed. In a tion of the morality of horizontal transactions, sense the onus of the whole argument rests on on money, credit, debt, and patriarchy. For a this chapter. Graeber has to be very versatile and mytho-practical approach, Buddhism and Islam imaginative with his categories, as obviously have the added advantage that they also pre- there is a lot of regional and religious variation scribe their underlying social forms and inter- to pack under that one rubric of hierarchy. And actions somehow more thoroughly than Chris- indeed, amid all the ideal-typical, jumbo mytho- tianity or Confucianism could ever do. The practical construction, this is where inevitably a latter must utilize more “muddled” moral prin- Mavericks: Harvey, Graeber, and the reunification of anarchism and Marxism | 123 ciples if only for the more complex class rela- transition to other epochs. But David Graeber tionships of the agrarian societies in which they needs actors to set the dramas in motion, actors became accommodated. But more importantly, that do not come out of the blue but act and ex- Graeber does not truly discuss these religions as press themselves within particular social rela- forms of territorial rule. He concentrates on tions. A downplayed version of class theory is their “movement phase”. This is where the brought in regularly when a realist explanation mytho-practical optic surely works best: that is, of a territorial-cum-philosophical outcome like with anarchism itself, as a prefigurative dis- must be accounted for. Marxist anthropology course in which social reality mainly enters in and social history always assumed and tried to the figure of the moral enemy, but not as a se- show that these actors and these relations could ries of hard social constraints or complex his- be made somehow transparent through the lan- torical fields of power in which even their own guage of class. The configuration of classes conditions of possibility are given. As a conse- (which were of course blurred, but not more quence, the discussion of Buddhism and Islam than Graeber’s modes of morality) was imag- feels often like a story about “islands of history”, ined to be anchored in particular historical mythical representations that are sufficient unto modes of production. Such classical Marxist themselves, not yet touched by the corrupting modes of production rested on certain property forces of power and rule. Thus, Islam comes out forms and on the deployment and exploitation unproblematically as “the world’s first popular of labor. Class was the linking concept. Class free market ideology” (2011: 278), and the was what roughly explained how social struc- bazaar as a genuine site of freedom and moral- tures worked and why transitions occurred in ity. No interest charged over loans, only genuine the way they occurred. Marx identified capital- entrepreneurial cunning rewarded. No oligop- ist, feudal, Asiatic, antique, and communist oly here, no corruption, and the state funda- modes of production by the prevalent forms of mentally and suspiciously kept at bay. The ex- the exploitation of labor: wages, rents, corvées, planation of why, despite the copresence at the serfdom, slavery. Eric Wolf (1982) reduced end of the Ottoman Caliphate of very wealthy these five modes to three: kin-based, redistribu- banker-entrepreneur families, deep urban and tive, and capitalist. At first glance this comes regional markets, and extensive long-distance uncannily close to Graeber’s three modes of linkages, there was no internal transition to morality, except that Graeber replaces capital- capitalism: merchants “took their free market ism with market principles (“exchange”, in his ideology seriously,” just a handshake and a glance words). The underlying difference is that Wolf’s at heaven. Surely “this made most of the (capi- modes of production are meant to describe re- talist) finance and insurance that were later to alistic “key social relationships” (ibid.: 72–101) develop in Europe impossible” (2011: 303). No that shape actual territorialized livelihoods, so- discussion of the large-scale cotton and textile cieties, and histories, while Graeber’s modes op- industries in Egypt and India around 1800, and erate on the level of moral mythologies. That is a simple equation of capitalism with state- also why capitalism cannot figure systematically enabled high interest rates and capitalist corpo- in his account: capitalism is not a mythology rations. In the chapter on the European capital- but a historical and relational reality, one that ist empires, predictably, Martin Luther and his does not like to reveal itself too openly to the righteous plea for high interest rates on savings many. It has therefore always come wrapped in and loans similarly plays a key role. a loud mythology: the free market, a key trope Issues of money and debt, including the associated with a series of further tropes such as philosophical speculations to which they give free contract, economic growth, civil society, rise, are the supposed drivers of Graeber’s epochs democracy, development, and the middle classes. of dominant “moral principles” as well as the Marx, Wolf, and Graeber know all of this. Wolf reasons (but not really the “factors”) behind the and Graeber also agree that capitalism emerges 124 | Don Kalb as a peculiar alliance between state bureaucrats class relationships underlying Islam in terms of and capital holders. What they all show is that the balances of power among Berbers, urban capitalism is not as “free” as it says it is. In traders, and imperial rulers in the long arid Wolf’s scheme capitalism only starts in the nine - band stretching from Central Asia to Morocco. teenth century, with the dominance of the fac- For David Graeber this all seems of second- tory system. This has long been recognized as ary importance—“mere history”, perhaps—as a Marxist piety. Graeber, along with Arrighi, compared to his schematized preoccupation Braudel, Friedman, Banaji, and Harvey, makes with mythologies of exchange. Is the neglect of clear that capitalism has a much longer histori- all these theoretical and historical issues the cal reach and that that reach rests, among oth- price you should be willing to pay if you seek to ers, on the historically transformative role of reach a large popular audience? Or is, rather, finance and credit instruments (see below). this scholarly neglect necessary if your real mis- But instead of taking that as his key issue and sion is not the mere writing of a learned treatise concentrating on the historical-cultural class but persuading your native American audience struggles that were and are involved, Graeber that what they have been cherishing throughout gets lost in schematized mythologies that don’t is not so much “communities” or “families”, as fit easily. Interesting mythologies, very engag- the mainstream has it, but in fact “everyday ing accounts, even. There is a lot to learn and a communism”? And that what local mythology lot to enjoy here. But the outcome is a theoreti- has revealed to you as the free market is in fact cal and historical potpourri in which both monopoly rooted in “corporate imperialism”, a Marxism and capitalism disappear as anything monster that is out to enslave us all? Was this more than secondary or tertiary phenomena, not precisely what the American Revolution while the city tends to appear largely as an in- had once sought to thwart and what its sacred evitable inferno of enslavement. Worryingly for Constitution had pictured as the ultimate un- a book about debt in history, there is also little godly enemy? Debt is indeed an intervention in sense of systematic class structures. The accu- American cosmologies that is meant to invert mulation of debt appears almost as the result of and to shock. If so, despite all the theoretical bad luck, the accumulation of property and loss, chapeau! And I mean it. Debt must first wealth as mazzel. There is also little systematic of all be read as an extremely shrewd interven- attention for the actual ways in which people re- tion in the politics of American mythologies. produce themselves in all these societies. There But in that case, “we”, as a world community of are a lot of peasants in the book, quite a few ar- scholars and researchers, have a duty to reclaim tisans, and by the end also some wageworkers, our global theoretical commons—a commons but these categories carry hardly any analytic that apparently had to be sacrificed for a while weight. Everyone seems to be just loosely run- on behalf of a brooding American people’s in- ning around in this book. The only substantial surgency. conclusion is that market-plus-hierarchy is over time not good for popular majorities. In The Democracy Project, too, Graeber shows little pa- David Harvey: Urban “commonist” tience for the daily labor of contemporary US citizens—he tends to wave it away as boring Harvey, in The Enigma of Capital (2011) and wage slavery. Spatialized aspects of class and Rebel Cities (2012), as in his whole work, en- modes of production are also left out of the dis- gages head-on precisely those issues that Grae- cussion. The older explanations of metropolitan ber seeks to evade throughout his world- collapse in Eurasia after AD 500 in terms of the historical flight toward epochal moral modes: growing military power of pastoralists in Cen- capitalism, class, urban process and space, and tral Asia are not discussed; nor are the well- of course Marx. Amid that difference of terrain, known spatial-ecological explanations of the though, Harvey and Graeber do share an impor- Mavericks: Harvey, Graeber, and the reunification of anarchism and Marxism | 125 tant point on their compasses: both argue that state accumulation, including space and time. the notion of “communism” should be extri- This is about rights of use, access, and control, a cated from the overgrowth of classical Marxism. call for radicalizing urban citizenship and As we have seen, for Graeber this wran gling democracy. It is also a struggle over the con- with Marx—about “baseline communism”—is tents and workings of institutions, from labor worth just a short passage, albeit one that goes markets to education, housing, transport, pub- on to shape his entire conceptual framework. lic space, and so on. At first glance this seems Harvey, in contrast, develops this discussion at primarily a radical liberal agenda, but Harvey length in a sustained dialogue with Capital, as time and again explains that this is very much he has done in earlier work. Since Harvey has about class struggle and anticapitalist mobiliza- been writing for four decades now, and has tion. How so? been rather consistent, I assume I will need less It would seem enough to give an empirical detail here than in my discussion of Graeber. answer and say that minimum wages, benefits, Harvey’s communism, like Graeber’s, is an health, leisure, social housing, and all classical everyday communism, not one confined to the labor things are part of this urban commons utopian end phase after the revolution when all and are objects of commoning. But there is a the “theft of private property” has been undone. more fundamental vision behind this, and that Note that this hints at a significant anarchist vision involves a substantial rethinking of the victory over classical Marxism, one that proba- Marxist conceptions of capitalism, class, and bly reflects a stark contemporary structure of the proletariat; an urban rethinking, of course, feeling. It underlines the current predominance in the line of Lefebvre. I will be brief. of prefigurative modes of imagining utopias Recall that for Marx, and for Eric Wolf and rooted in the here and now as against the evolu- the structural Marxists of the 1970s, capitalism tionist nineteenth-century utopias that ex- depended on the historical appearance of “sur- pected relief from suffering and exploitation in plus labor production”. Capitalism was defined a far-away future of freedom. But rather than a by a double emergence: the rise of a “free” pro- code and a sphere of morality, as in Graeber, letariat that was fully dependent on selling its Harvey’s baseline communism is a social force labor power on the market, plus the ensuing that tends to arise, inevitably, within the empir- “penetration of capital into the sphere of pro- ical institutional domains of modern urban duction”. That proletariat was then exploited capitalist society. These are the domains that within what Marx called the “hidden abode of regulate and govern urban life and space. Har- production”—hidden because now enclosed, lit- vey’s communism both animates and springs erally and legally, in between the factory walls— from the actually existing urban commons by not being paid the full equivalent of its around (potentially) collective resources and productivity. The difference between what it got institutions that thrive in cities. Harvey agrees and what it produced was the property of the with Hardt and Negri, who see “the metropolis capitalist, and this went either as investment as a vast commons produced by the collective into further accumulation or into the capitalist’s labor expended on and in the city” (Harvey personal wealth. The part that went into further 2012: 78). But Harvey goes further and turns accumulation inevitably accelerated the “ten- the substantive form into a verb: “commoning”, dency of the rate of profit to fall”, as markets be- the active making and claiming of commons, or came saturated and crises of overaccumulation the protection thereof against enclosures and set in, crises that in Marx’s age were happening appropriations (see also Susser and Tonnelat very frequently. Capitalism was always on the 2013; Kalb 2014). Such commoning takes as its brink of a “realization crisis”: purchasing power targets not only the privileges attached to pri- by definition tended to be lower than the sum vate property, but also those of public property total of its productive capacities. This is the and public capacities if captured for private or “system” that Marx discovered in Capital, a sys- 126 | Don Kalb tem rooted in the contradictory “universalities” the “collective capital” of the capitalist class as a of production. whole. Credit allows for expanded consump- In particular in A Companion to Marx’s Cap- tion (in the short term), thus postponing the ital, Volume 2 (2013), Harvey takes Marx to task imminent realization crisis while “banking on for separating this law-like system from what future growth”. But in the expectation of rents Marx thought were the “particularities and sin- and profits further down the line it also flows, gularities” of distribution, consumption, and speculatively, into the development of new cap- credit. In fact, Marx in the course of writing italist landscapes, new urban forms, new tech- Capital during the 1860s and 1870s began sepa- nologies, new production arrangements, new rating out “universalist production” from the consumption, new forms of everyday life— wider relational whole of a mode of production Hausmann and the Pereire brothers in Paris are that he had first outlined in the Grundrisse the emblems—and, most important of all, into (1857) and the Economic and Philosophical Man- the public debt. To put it simply, the state is uscripts (1844). He did so, in fact, against the deeply involved here from the beginning to the spirit of his analysis of the workday in Capital, end. The public debt is guaranteed by the capi- Volume 1. Marx now sought to ban these par- talist state and by the central bank, as is the ticularities from his overall analysis, just like the value and the availability of the currency and economists he was criticizing. The particulari- the functioning and solvency of the private ties, however, continuously entered into the parts of the banking system. What Harvey calls workings and tendencies of the supposed uni- the “state-finance nexus” may therefore well be versalities, now as then. Moreover, they are per- the key capitalist relationship. Harvey speaks petually the objects of cultural expectations and about the “central nervous system” of capital ac- social struggle and become therefore after cumulation (2011: 52), and about the public Marx’s time ever more the object of state man- debt as its main mechanism. The state-finance agement. Harvey concludes that Marx, in par- nexus is thus of similar momentous importance ticular in Capital, Volume 2, by prioritizing for the development of capitalist societies as the supposed universalities over particularities, direct exploitation of labor in production, and may have been too willing to conform to the closely aligned with it (as I argued in my analy- reigning scientism of his day (as of this day). It sis of the “Anglo-Dutch moment” of 1688 [Kalb is a willingness that led to recurrent impasses in 2013]; see also Wolf’s [1982] and Graeber’s Marx’s argumentation, as well as to dips in his (2011) characterization of capitalism as an al- mood, as Harvey brilliantly demonstrates in his liance of merchants and bureaucrats). The pub- Companion. lic debt at its core is regulative, speculative, and With this fundamental move, Harvey obvi- extractive. It regulates the accumulation of the ously (re)inserts history, politics, and mobiliza- “collective capital of the capitalist class” and tion into the center of the analysis. Not just the projects it speculatively into new social futures politics of labor but those of capital as well. Just and new spaces based on the assumption of re- as important, this lifts the locus of capitalist ex- newed growth and accumulation. The state debt traction out of its solitary confinement within is in fact the floor upon which the whole temple the sphere of production and extends it to the of modern capitalist calculation and expecta- conditions, modalities, and workings of credit, tion is built and where the overall conditions for distribution, and consumption, and in fact to the reproduction of capital are laid down and the circulation of capital as a whole, to the full secured. Eurozone leaders have recently discov- domain of social reproduction. This is where ered this fundamental fact, to their complete classically, in Harvey, the urban process enters, surprise—as good neoliberals, they predictably as well as time and space. The urban process is thought it was “markets”. The public debt is also fundamentally based in credit. Capitalist sur- where rent taking and profit making become pluses are pooled in the credit system. Credit is entirely blurred. Mavericks: Harvey, Graeber, and the reunification of anarchism and Marxism | 127

With the conceptual crux of capital being “the people” (see also Dean 2012), while class shifted from the point of production in the di- formation is both expanded in empirical scope rection of credit and the public debt, indeed to and bolstered as the conceptual bedrock on the circulation of capital as a whole, ideas of which the whole analysis hinges. This concep- class and the proletariat must of course be shift- tual bedrock in particular also includes the for- ing along. The working classes, then, for Har- mation and reformation of capitalist classes and vey, become all those who are working for a class segments, formed in ever-changing and wage and paying taxes, rents, mortgages, prices, “necessary” class struggles from above. The core and so forth, and not just the factory proletariat. question of counterpolitics then becomes what Exploitation and extraction happens at all “the people” think and do as they are time and points of transaction, and not just at the mo- again confronted by class-conscious ruling ment that they sell their labor power. More fun- classes that are pushed by “the system” to aban- damentally, capital formation and exploitation don earlier implicit social contracts around life, are far from epitomized in any of those individ- place, and labor. ual transactions that are the daily bread of econ- Harvey’s urban life-form inevitably gener- omists (as they are in Graeber’s “exchange”). ates the urban commons as it brings people to- They are embedded in the precontractual con- gether in places manifestly sustained by their ditions of social life, the structural conditions collective labor. But the urban commons is not and the strategic relations, if you like. Capital- merely the empirical sum of the shared spatial ism, for Harvey, can best be defined as a state- and institutional resources available to the peo- managed system of private control over the ple. These are “liminal spaces of possibility” production and distribution of the social sur- (2012: xv). In fact, it is a verb rather than a sub- plus. Capital-driven urbanization, including the stantive, as we have seen. Conceptually, the ur- periodic dispossession of populations, the ban commons is Harvey’s equivalent of the class building of new urban spaces, and the decline of capacities of the classic factory proletariat in older ones, is the modern life-form that over Marxism. As with the classic proletariat, the ca- time and beyond any individual transactions pacity for solidary action is given in principle by sustains this system. The urban life-form, and the spatial concentration of people and activi- the key relationships and institutions that un- ties, including the common interests, common- dergird it, comes therefore ontologically before alities, and solidarities that will arise in an any individual transaction. Capitalism in short everyday life that is produced by their collective is a society, not a mere economy. “Capitalist labor. But at the same time, used in a “conscious class domination,” writes Harvey, is exerted “not and concerted way”, these capacities for com- only over the state apparatus but also over whole moning can be enlarged and solidified and used populations—their lifestyles as well as their la- forcefully to make enforceable claims. But there bor power, their cultural and political values as is a crucial difference with Marx’s proletariat. well as their mental conceptions of the world. That proletariat occupied an “objective class po- The city and the urban process that produces sition in a universalist system of production” it are therefore major sites of political, social, expressed by “scientific socialism” as an objec- and class struggles” (2011: 66). While capitalist tive reflection. We can now understand that this classes must struggle for space relations that al- idea was based on the illusion of leaving all the low them to impose growth and extract rents historical “particularities and singularities” out. and profits reliably, subaltern populations in Such an objectivist position makes no sense for manifold ways seek a measure of control over Harvey’s urban commons. The old Hegelian di- their habitats and the sites of extraction as they alectic between class in and for itself is therefore are simultaneously getting bent to the require- fundamentally disabled, at least in its purely ob- ments of capital. Harvey’s urban working class jective and subjective poles. What we get in then comes close in practice to the old idea of Harvey is a much more blurred and very com- 128 | Don Kalb plex set of ongoing historically situated and em- class struggle within and around the various placed class struggles about life, place, and la- capitalist nexuses—above all, perhaps, the state- bor, where the relationships and institutional finance nexus. arrangements themselves generate the possibil- Up to this point, I find Harvey’s argumenta- ities and the insights for counterpolitics. Conse- tion both historically and conceptually rich, co- quently, like in Gramsci’s idea of the subaltern, herent, and persuasive. It also shows exactly Harvey must have a much keener appreciation what space is left empty by Graeber’s anarchism of the complex and indeed contradictory forces and moralities approach—even though the of populism and the possibility that populism mode of production is never fully reinstalled on can be an expression of, a claim within, and a the pedestal that it occupied in the Marxism of weapon for the ongoing commoning against the 1960s and 1970s. The texts also leave no capital’s enclosures. Such claims can be infor- doubts of why it is important for a discipline mal and self-evident, based in “folkways”, “cus- such as anthropology to accept the need for sus- toms”, and “rights”, or, with a bit of help from tained theorization beyond its obsession with the “discontented middle classes”, be made for- local particularisms. However, at the next stage mal and explicit as a collective political pro- in the argument, Harvey starts to write in a gram for struggle and bargaining. Enigma and much looser way. This is where he delves into Rebel Cities describe numerous historical exam- time and space at a level well below his overall ples of this sort of populist commoning in re- theoretical discussion with Marx and capital- sponse to class-conscious capitalist classes, with ism. He allows himself a rather loose narrative Enigma putting the emphasis on the latter and mode that stands in contrast with the robust co- Rebel Cities on the former. herence of his overall approach. In Enigma and Thus, the formal agreements among Har- Rebel Cities it seems almost as if theory can only vey’s and Graeber’s communisms run surpris- operate seriously at a meta level; the rest is ingly deep. Both communisms linger as a basic “mere narrative histories”. Although Harvey has and always already-present property, however never been an avid reader of the sociologies and inarticulate, of everyday life. Both are also im- anthropologies of contentious politics, it occurs manent possibilities, moral and relational coun- to me that this is somehow different from his terpoints to the logics of capital, baselines from earlier work. Perhaps, as in Graeber, a conces- which popular claims can be formulated, soli- sion to a larger public? Or rather, a consequence darities forged, revolutions prefigured and of trying to keep up as a public intellectual— enacted. Both visions picture the rise of a “de- one who happens to maintain a serious aca- mocratic king”, a collective agency that can sub- demic agenda “on the side”—with the recent due the accumulation of capital to the needs of acceleration of time and space around the high humanity (equality and freedom) and the globe tides of the crises (2008–2011) and the hot spots (ecological survival). of the rebellions (2011–2014)? But the substantial differences are not less If the state-finance nexus is where capital is significant. Graeber’s communism is nurtured assembled (chap. 2), Harvey’s seven distinct from the capitalist outside, the uncorrupted “spheres of co-evolution” is where that capital is moral economies of the free spaces. It is a “nat- subsequently set to “evolve” (2011: 123). These ural” dehistoricized carte blanche that seems to spheres comprise (1) techno-organizational express itself primarily in alternations of digni- forms, (2) social relations, (3) institutional and fied small-circle refusal and indignado mass administrative arrangements, (4) production occupation. Harvey’s communism, in contrast, and labor processes, (5) relations to nature, (6) arises from the heart of urban capitalism itself, social reproduction of the species and repro- is not wild or pure but embedded in real histor- duction in everyday life, and (7) mental concep- ical processes and relationships, waxing and tions. The status of these seven spheres is not waning on the rhythm of permanent urban clear, nor is the sequence itself. He also uses dif- Mavericks: Harvey, Graeber, and the reunification of anarchism and Marxism | 129 ferent labels at different moments. Moreover, ments struggling in and with other spheres. Ul- “mental conceptions” and “social relations” timately they need to design not just alternative seem to me inevitably part of any of these arrangements within each and every sphere, but spheres, and vice versa. I would argue that the they also need alternative forms of coherence clue for a genuine relational approach is the re- among them. The power and effectivity of the fusal to separate such basic theoretical dimen- left, according to Harvey, depends on the links sions out from each other as if they were it can develop between these historically diverse empirical domains (Kalb 1997). “Techno-orga- arenas of struggle. He criticizes “historical so- nizational forms”, “institutional and adminis- cialism” for having failed to nurture those links trative arrangements”, and “production and sufficiently—having been largely focused on labor processes”, too, may not always be so clearly production and labor issues—and to design a differentiated, either, empirically as well as con- comprehensive alternative for capitalist society. ceptually, and may actually “express and enact” He similarly points out that anarchist horizon- wider social relations-cum-mental conceptions. talism acts only within one of these spheres, the The seven “spheres of co-evolution” feel a bit sphere of everyday life, and what he calls “soli- like Borges’s “Chinese system of classification”. darity economies”. While Harvey sees a lot of uneven develop- And then, finally, there is the all-important ment among these spheres, it is essential, says spatial aspect. “Socialism in one city” is not Harvey, to see that they do nevertheless form a more conceivable than “socialism in one coun- “totality” or an “ensemble”. His own term for try”, as Harvey points out. Capitalism creates that is “structured coherence” (2011: 123), a no- new debt-funded space relations all the time. It tion stemming from his more strictly urban generates new urban landscapes, restructures work in the 1980s. We clearly come close to the its existing spatial fixes, and is by now running “structural articulation” of Althusser and Gode- a practically globe-spanning value regime. Each lier here. But “structured coherence” operates local ensemble is multiply articulated with dif- on levels well below the mode of production as ferently constituted and differentially special- a whole, often referring to relationships within ized ensembles elsewhere. Here again a nod to urban regions rather than at the country or state the structural Marxism of the 1970s—“articula- level. It also has a distinctly more flexible and tion of modes of production”—and to world historical touch than the earlier concepts of “to- systems theory, though Harvey’s vision of capi- tality” and “articulation” and seems to leave talist space is much more dynamic and differen- more space for contradictions within the en- tiated, and indeed more urban-based, than semble, not least because of its programmatic these older anti-imperial perspectives on un- openness to multiscalar visions. even and combined development. Any serious These “spheres of co-evolution” are the fields alternative to capitalism will therefore need to through which capital develops its rule and come up with a sophisticated “foreign policy”, a dominance, but they also form the conditions vision of global coordination that can substitute as well as the targets for processes of common- for capitalist coordination and “undermine and ing. The social effectivity of capital requires eventually overthrow the capitalist laws of value crucial parts of them to be enclosed and geared on the world market” (2012: 153). Any alterna- to accumulation. But they inevitably also be- tive must be internationalist. In this regard, too, come common domains, as well as domains are most contemporary movements failing us, that offer the resources for further commoning. according to Harvey. OWS, the indignado up- Harvey explains that any alternative to capital- risings, and the antiausterity mobilizations in ism, and any movements that are dedicated to Europe lately have often been disappointingly developing such alternatives, need to grapple localist and nationalist, even as compared to the with and struggle within each of these spheres. preceding wave of alterglobalist movements of They also need to find alliances with move- the early 2000s. Perhaps this is a corollary of the 130 | Don Kalb dominant anarchism and horizontalism within histories within an ongoing confrontation with them, forsaking (like anthropology itself) global a neoliberal and transnationalized capitalist visions in favor of a preoccupation with every- state, that produced this radically subversive day life. This also connects to the absence of outcome. In that confrontation its location vis- space relations in Graeber’s anarchism. Outside à-vis all transport routes from the altiplano to the old West, one can hardly congratulate the La Paz played an important tactical role. Harvey Arab uprisings or the Bulgarian (2013), Roman- compares the radical populism of El Alto with ian (2012–2013), and Bosnian (2014) mobili- Paris before the Paris Commune; another com- zations, let alone the spectacular Ukrainian parison would be St. Petersburg in 1917–1920. insurgency, with a sophisticated anticapitalist The overlap of neighborhood associations and internationalism. labor organizations was essential, as was the in- Harvey, in Rebel Cities, shows great interest corporation of these organizations into a whole in El Alto, Bolivia, as an example of the sort of folk economy of informal work and petty com- commoning that he sees as the future of urban modity production. In El Alto’s context, a vi- class struggle. He also lauds the anthropologies brant ethnopopulism was produced that defines of that city by Lesley Gill (2000) and Sian Lazar itself in ongoing cultural confrontation with the (2008), on which he bases himself. What can we bourgeois mestizo state, whose capital lies liter- learn from El Alto, and why is Graeber just as ally down the cliff at its feet. enchanted as Harvey is? In what sense does El Graeber, in his short description of the rebel- Alto prefigure the reunification of Marxism and lion, seems to overlook a crucial point that anarchism in anthropology? The answer to the Lazar makes and Harvey highlights: there are a latter question is in fact straightforward: per- lot of nested hierarchies that link the “spheres” manent dual power based on a radical populist and levels with each other and that allow coor- mobilization that connects work, life, and terri- dinated counterforce. Leaders and leadership tory and claims genuine anticapitalist cultural experiences are essential to make those hierar- alterity. A nested set of corporate, territorial/ chies work and allow factually existing and cul- neighborhood, and labor/trade organizations in turally articulated dual power to be durable and El Alto serve to keep up almost continuous mo- focused. This is no horizontalism, nor “consen- bilization through assemblies, demonstrations, sual process”. Ghandi would have abhorred it, processions, festivals, and folk happenings. preferring to drink tea with the English. Nor is They are exerting uninterrupted pressure on it about everyone being equal—on the contrary. their democratically elected delegates, many of Lazar and Gill also show that the insurgent whom can be replaced easily if the “base” “identities” that make El Alto what it is were not wishes so. This includes in a sense even “their” produced outside of the struggles around liveli- own president of Bolivia, Evo Morales—former hoods, dispossession, and citizenship, in the head of the former tin miners’ union. The story Graeberian “open spaces of communist sur- of its emergence as a rebel city is too complex to vivals”, so to speak. They were forged amid the tell here, but it cannot be divorced from El Alto’s “blood and fire” that Marx would expect with very recent history as an informal suburban set- primitive accumulation (see also Kasmir and tlement zone for two distinct groups: dispos- Carbonella 2014). What Harvey, in his turn, sessed peasants from the altiplano with ethno- does not fully realize is that the ethnographies corporate traditions and former tin miners with of El Alto show so well how methodologically strong Trotskyist-cum-anarchosyndicalist tra- spurious it is to approach theoretical notions of ditions from Potosi. Nor can it be disconnected social relations and “mental conceptions” as if from the hardships both groups faced in losing they are different empirical boxes that can be livelihoods in the hinterlands and building up opened independently from each other. I exag- new lives near La Paz. It is the alliance between gerate, of course, to make a point. Good eth - these groups, including the alignment of their nography, if it wants to discover anything, must Mavericks: Harvey, Graeber, and the reunification of anarchism and Marxism | 131 avoid the “violence of abstraction”, even when it radio amateurs hidden in De Keizer had dis- desires to theorize beyond the local case. Lazar rupted the communications and logistics of the and Gill are indeed stark examples of what I thousands of special security forces that had would call historical and relational realism. been brought into the city with much aplomb. Both feature mid-range theorizations of class After the winter victories of the security forces, and populist processes for which both Harvey authorities and commanders had totally under- and Graeber in these very different books seem estimated the lust of the rebels for another to have equally little patience. Was this sacrifice fight—they thought they had been crushed. necessary? The rebels knew they would lose again against tanks, but they also knew that tanks on Queen’s Day to save the coronation of the queen under Coda: Fragility and durability in the watchful eyes of the international television confrontational commoning (once cameras were beyond the temerity of the Dutch more by way of an anecdote) right. Equally so would be a shoot-out. How- ever, with the spectacular humiliation of the The Dutch secret service wrote in its annual re- state on Queen’s Day—until this day a hot po- port of 1980 that the country and the monarchy tato for Dutch social memory because of the had never since 1918 been so deeply shaken by painful involvement of the House of Orange— mass opposition. In the early months of 1980, the irreversible decline of what had been the tens of thousands of squatters and their sympa- most forcefully confrontational mass move- thizers had been fighting tanks and tear gas in ment in Europe between Paris in 1968 and the the cities of Amsterdam and Nijmegen. After Kievan Maidan of 2013–2014 had started. these urban wars had predictably been lost mil- As Harvey would anticipate and David Grae- itarily—but not ideologically—Van der Giessen ber knows, squatting had turned out to be an and his crew had a poster distributed all over excellent facilitator for other struggles. Major the country that called for a “Demonstration squats were social and cultural centers that had with Effects” against the ceremonial crowning formed the informal grid for a subversive urban of Queen Beatrix on Queen’s Day, 30 April, in commons that connected movements against the center of Amsterdam. The new right-wing nuclear energy, nuclear rearmament, student government, emerging from a decade of left- movements, feminists, radical artistic scenes, wing electoral victories, sought to reclaim the antidraft organizers, antiwar and anticolonial capital as a traditional national festive site for activists, pro-Nicaragua organizers, Solidarnosc its own suburban and provincial constituencies. supporters, and so forth. Squats were not essen- It sought once more a public confrontation tial for that, but they did facilitate the coming with the “rotten” inner cities, now on symbolic together of all these movements, sometimes di- ground of its own choosing. Squatters every- rectly on a personal level, sometimes just on where in the country were happy to reciprocate: style and substance. Squatting also radicalized 50,000 people, many masked and helmed and the experience and practice of activists more with ample “weapons of the weak” in hand, than any of the other struggles because of the fought their way violently, as an urban peasant direct confrontations with public and private army, from the Waterlooplein through numer- security structures. People would share in the ous crumbling police lines close to the New physical defense of a squat and in the drawn- Church in the heart of the city. There, digni- out preparations against violent attacks. They taries from all over the world were attending the would learn the bodily lessons of forceful con- coronation and, solemnly huddled together, frontation. And they would get to know each were gradually losing their nerves under a other within those practices. At general assem- steadily growing hurricane of noises from the blies at occupied universities or antinuclear tent approaching civil war outside. A small team of camps you would always recognize faces that 132 | Don Kalb had shared the same spaces and experiences. It radicals legally. And while unemployment was made for “strong ties” that would not at once peeking, the first budget cuts started to hit the give way under police assault, such as happened welfare state, a downward pressure that would in New York the night that OWS was disman- not relent for another generation at least. Fi- tled. People would stand together because they nance was on strike, refusing to further fund knew or imagined they knew each other, and the escalating state debt and demanding sky- they had a reasonable expectation of reciprocal high interest rates (stimulated to do so by the support in high-risk situations. There was no Volcker shock of 1981). Hegemony was now Facebook, Twitter, or text messages to generate leaking away toward the anxious suburbs and mobilizations, but there was a large and varied the provinces and toward capital, the propertied critical press (that is nowadays largely online), middle classes, and the resurgent right. Domes- there was an “urban underground”, we had the tic security forces would be beefed up, year after universities, there were the illegal radio broad- year, allowing a rapid and dirty crackdown on casters to which everyone was listening, and the rebel milieus, which immediately split into a there were the telephone chains. And indeed, small group of local red gangsters, a larger there was bonding through the continuous group of chosen exiles, and a large majority of physical meetings and events, political, social, toned-down but not yet fully passive dissenters and cultural. Ultimately, everyone felt that (I was in between groups two and three, came “their laws are not our laws”, as a popular slogan back from “exile”, and started Focaal; Van der at the time had it: a nonambiguous way to un- Giessen was in groups one and two, if I’m well- derline what we would now somewhat esoteri- informed). Universities would be cut and disci- cally call “cultural alterity”. Until today, the left plined; study programs and the right to study in once-rebellious places such as Amsterdam would be limited in duration; and students and Nijmegen has continued to dominate mu- would be forced to focus on their results or lose nicipal governments. The drawn-out experi- their grants. Many squats were legalized and ence of dual power lingered on as a strong local turned into rental housing of sorts. Part-time memory and as a claim for possible futures, de- work combined with wage moderation emerged spite an increasingly right-wing and neoliberal as the Dutch solution par excellence against un- environment. employment and against the urban rebel milieu Two crucial absences served to unravel that as well, which was gradually “put to work” strong and organized left-wing urban commons in the late 1980s and 1990s. The 1980s in this in the Netherlands—and this is where the hori- country were a massive exercise in “responsibi- zontalists still have a lot to learn and where the lization”, putting the Netherlands first in the de- urbanists will need to think again: labor and the velopment of the Third Way, combining well- (transnationalizing) state. Labor in the Nether- designed and targeted welfare state supervision lands had already been decidedly disciplined by with strict overall neoliberal management, and the time of the squatters’ rebellions. The trade putting it among the first in Europe in security unions had lost several big factory occupations and zero tolerance. By the early 1990s the “re- in the early 1970s. From 1975 onward the world sponsibilized” and increasingly ruthlessly com- crisis was hitting Dutch manufacturing excep- petitive nation that had coauthored the neo- tionally hard. The first massive hike in unem- liberal rules of the emerging European Union ployment hit in 1976–1978. In 1980 unemploy- on behalf of its capitalist class (the “Maastricht ment was exploding further to hit a postwar Treaty” of 1991) was ready for a long wave record in 1985. This deeply affected the Labor of annoyed obsession with cultural difference, Party, which was far from keen to support the foreigners, immigrants, and assimilation. The urban struggles of the 1980s and felt it had to moral majority was rejoicing at the booming consolidate itself in the electoral middle—ad- real estate market into which the financial sur- mittedly while continuing to shield the urban pluses of its winning capitalism were recycled Mavericks: Harvey, Graeber, and the reunification of anarchism and Marxism | 133

(the part that was not exported). Segregation Herman Tak; Berghahn Books, 2005); Head- (in schools and neighborhoods) and gentrifica- lines of Nation, Subtexts of Class: Working Class tion were driven up to standards hardly known Populism and the Return of the Repressed in Ne- elsewhere on the continent. By 2008 it began to oliberal Europe (with Gabor Halmai; Berghahn occur to some that private debts had been esca- Books, 2011). lating, while the discrepancy between average Email: [email protected]. housing costs and average incomes had become larger than anywhere else in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Notes The nation was also forced, almost without warning, it seemed, to bail out its bankers and 1. African examples in Debt serve exclusively to push up the public debt once more to 1980s lev- discuss “communism”, which thus remains, els. Predictably, there were no Dutch Graebers rather problematically, somehow an “original” or Harveys in sight to explain the wider histor- prehistorical phase, even while its communist ical context. properties continue on as “baseline commu- One significant detail ought not to be over- nism” within the later phases; the Americas looked at the end of this tale: in the 1980s Theo only appear at the end of the book. van der Giessen had sought refuge in the Caribbean, a not uncommon path for Dutch pi- rates. He has finally resurfaced in the Nether- References lands. And he has begun, bit by bit, to rescue the memory of the 1980s rebellions for a future, Dean, Jodi. 2012. The communist horizon. London: more confrontational Dutch left. He must be Verso. around 65 now. But he appears sufficiently fit to Friedman, Jonathan. 1988. No history is an island. face down, almost singlehandedly and in a Critique of Anthropology 8(3): 7–39. straightforward way, the roaring indignation of Gill, Lesley. 2000. Teetering on the rim: Global re- the reigning new right, which will have Geert structuring, daily life, and the armed retreat of the Wilders for president, a right that has long been Bolivian state. New York: Columbia University on a witch hunt to reveal the “historical crimes” Press. Godelier, Maurice. 1977. Perspectives in Marxist of the 1980s radical left. I seem to see that Van anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University der Giessen’s unassuming radical posture has Press. given some in the silent and cowed circles of the Graeber, David. 2004. Fragments of an anarchist an- Dutch left a bit of courage. I am happy to know thropology. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press. he is around. As I imagine Graeber and Harvey Hall, Stuart, Chass Critcher, Tony Jefferson, John would be if they knew about him. Clarke. 1978. Policing the crisis: Mugging, the state and law and order. London: Palgrave McMillan. Don Kalb is founding editor of Focaal. He is Hart, Keith. 2013. Economic anthropology. In Jon professor of sociology and social anthropology McGee and Richard Warms, eds., Theory in so- at the Central European University, Budapest, cial and cultural anthropology: An encyclopedia, and a senior researcher at Utrecht University. vol. 1, pp. 219–223. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. His work has consistently focused on the revi- Kalb, Don. 1997. Expanding class: Power and every- day politics in industrial communities, the talization of class approaches in anthropology Netherlands 1850–1950. Durham, NC, and and history, with books as Expanding Class: London: Duke University Press. Power and Everyday Politics in Dutch Industrial Kalb, Don. 2013. Financialization and the capitalist Communities, 1850-1950 (Duke University moment: Marx versus Weber in the anthropol- Press, 1997); Critical Junctions: Anthropology ogy of global systems. American Ethnologist and History beyond the Cultural Turn (with 40(2): 258–266. 134 | Don Kalb

Kalb, Don. 2014. The “empty sign” of the middle Sahlins, Marshall. 1974. Stone Age economics. Lon- class: Class and the urban commons in the don: Routledge. 21st century. In Don Nonini, ed., The Blackwell Susser, Ida, and Stephane Tonnelat. 2013. “Transfor- companion in urban anthropology. Oxford: mative cities: The three urban commons. Focaal: Blackwell. Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 66: Kasmir, Sharryn, and Gus Carbonella, eds. 2014. 105–22. Blood and fire: Toward a global anthropology of Wolf, Eric. 1982. Europe and the people without his- labor. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books. tory. Berkeley: University of California Press. Sahlins, Marshall. 1978. Culture and practical rea- Zigon, Jarett. 2008. Morality: An anthropological son. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. perspective. Oxford and New York: Berg. Transformative cities: A response to Narotzky, Collins, and Bertho

Ida Susser and Stéphane Tonnelat

When our article was first written, the Occupy tion of public services, has historical parallels in movement was in full swing and we were clearly the welfare rights movement of the 1960s. As in optimistic mode. However, as all studies of Cloward and Piven (1971) argued, the welfare social movements have shown, from the antia- rights movement for a moment united the pub- partheid struggles of South Africa to the rebel- lic workers with the city dwellers demanding lious nineteenth century in France or Britain, adequate assistance, although public sector the road of mobilization is never straightfor- workers of that era did not yet have the legal ward. Nor did we assume that “Occupy” in the right to collective bargaining and affirmative United States or even the popular rebellions of action laws, which opened the civil service to the Arab Spring would lead to a blossoming of minority workers, were not yet in place (The democratic nations. We take these understand- Rank and Filer 2012). In 1965 in New York City, ings from writers such as Eric Hobsbawm before the 1967 Taylor Law that allowed public (1996), who understood the French Revolution employees collective bargaining rights, the wel- and the British industrial revolution as comple- fare workers struck for 28 days. They demanded mentary processes that set the stage for the im- not only workers’ rights but also services for perfect and unequal nation-states of France and their clients, and particularly a winter clothing Britain today. In South Africa (to pick one his- allowance, which they won. In 1967, the welfare toric moment), after the high school students workers struck again, this time for three days, who took to the streets in protest in Soweto but abandoned the winter clothing allowance were mowed down by South African army and included no other client services in their tanks, the streets were virtually quiescent for a demands. Over the next decades, while public decade. However, over 40 years of fascism in sector unions became powerful actors in New South Africa, the 1950s bus boycotts, the 1960s York City, worker-client alliances all but disap- Sharpeville massacre, the famous trials of Man- peared. On a cold day just before Christmas dela and others, the Soweto school children, 2005, when Stéphane Tonnelat, along with wife and finally the union mobilization in a United and two children, brought coffee to the Trans- Front and international sanctions led to the end port Workers Union picketers at the 126th of apartheid. But, as we are all now aware, these street depot, the subway and bus workers were battles did not end inequality or neoliberalism. surprised at such an unexpected show of sup- However, we do not mean to invent a teleo- port by a regular user (who was himself con- logical story of progress through mobilization. ducting fieldwork on subway users). Indeed, the The Wisconsin mobilization discussed by Jane whole city, including the Straphangers Cam- Collins, based on the production and consump- paign, seemed to be siding with the mayor and

Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 66 (2013): 130–132 © Stichting Focaal and Berghahn Books doi:10.3167/fcl.2010.660116 Transformative cities: A response to Narotzky, Collins, and Bertho | 131 governor, who were accusing the union of mak- Narotzky takes a definition of the commons ing the city and its inhabitants lose millions of as exclusive and regulated. The exclusion means dollars everyday. For lack of an alliance, pres- that nonmembers of the community are barred sured by courts acting upon the provisions of from using the resource while regulations pre- the Taylor Law that denied public service em- vent overuse and underinvestment by mem- ployees the right to strike, the workers lost. bers. As much as we agree with the necessary Only recently in Wisconsin has a public service regulatory aspects of the management of com- movement achieved success, thanks to a renewed mon resource, we do not find Ostrom’s theory alliance with users, showing how important a to be exclusive or linked to a definite commu- consideration of the commons provided by nity (Ostrom and Field 1999). On the contrary, these amenities is to effective mobilization. the resilience of the commons, on which Os- What we suggest in our article is, as Bertho trom (1990) bases her theory, is premised on an argues, that the city has become a major site and inclusion of all people affected by the resource. the focus of class struggle. As social historians This means that each common resource, from long ago noted, class issues are broader than the local pasture to the atmosphere that we labor and involve transportation, housing, breath, works at a specific ecological scale and women’s community demands, the price of that each person included in that scale should meat and bread, air pollution, access to clean have a stake in the common resource. When it water, and leisure (Gutman 1973). Indeed, we is a pasture, users may indeed form a closed and cannot forget the importance of women’s bread tight-knit community. But even then, they may riots and the celebration of International have to accept new members, for example, Women’s Day in precipitating the uprisings in when strangers settle in the village. Of course, Russia in 1905 and 1917, among other historic the larger the resource, the more difficult it be- transformations. To strengthen the point that comes to define the appropriate ecological scale cultural workers and women are crucial partic- and to devise the right mix of local and larger ipants in progressive transformation in 2012, institutional controls. This is one challenge for we see that the sacrilegious performance in a the urban commons that we identify in our ar- cathedral by women’s punk rock group Pussy ticle and we do not, any more than Harvey Riot has highlighted the many grassroots youth (2012) and Ostrom (Dietz et al. 2003), have a protests in Russia today. As the gap between the ready-made solution. Like these authors, we can richest and the rest has become so large, we can only look closely at what different groups of perhaps understand the three urban commons people are inventing in many places. We wish to we outline as crucial to most working- and mid- understand the multiple ways in which they are dle-class people. We do not mean to include in contesting the appropriation and impoverish- our argument the richest fraction, who can re- ment of their public services, homes, and work, move themselves from most problems. We and of their public spaces by capital markets know from many recent studies that the 99 per- and by free riders. In this process we wish to cent, even when they are not the poorest, are highlight emerging alternative visions of urban subject to greater health problems, more crime, society. and more gendered violence the more unequal In this regard, Collins is right when she the society (Wilkinson and Picket 2009). The 99 doubts that many of the really rich will cooper- percent, not just the precariat, are subject to ate in cross-class alliances, because they can much greater risk as well (Beck 1992). In the era simply opt out of the commons all together with of flexible accumulation, the middle and work- their private neighborhoods, private schools, ing classes suffer unpredictable losses, through private health system, etc. But the city makes it loss of employment, downsizing, exportation impossible to completely opt out, if only be- and automation of professional skills, and as- cause the maintenance of these private ameni- sembly line work, and to this we add the in- ties involves many workers whose livelihood, creasingly extreme weather produced by global just like other urbanites, depends on the public warming. structures and collective amenities of the city What kind of commons are the urban commons?

Susana Narotzky

Optimism of the will permeates this article, issue that needs elaboration is how/why the which builds on Lefebvre’s idea of The Right to concept of “urban commons” is accurate and/or the City ([1968] 2009) and its more recent re- useful for explaining the contemporary social vival by Harvey, specially in his last work where, movements and their political economic trans- after a period of scepticism regarding recent ur- formative relevance. Lefebvre constituted the ban social movements as potentially politically urban as the form (the concrete abstraction) of transformative, he seems to vindicate their po- the reproduction of social relations of produc- tential as part of a class understanding of these tion in late capitalism. The production of space movements (2012). in its contemporary urban form expressed the Starting by reminding us about social move- contradictions of present-day capitalism: the ments around the world in the post-2007 pe- increased centrality of power versus the in- riod, two main arguments are made: First, that creased segregation of the powerless to the pe- cities are “transformative forces.” Second, that ripheries, the technical homogenization of the three-dimensional “right to the city” that space versus its commercial fragmentation. Lefebvre proposed (everyday life, sharing space, Space, then, becomes the element that envelops and creative activity) is enacted through the other forms of differentiation that sustain the creation and/or reclaiming of three forms of social reproduction of capitalism. It becomes “commons”: urban commons around produc- the key to the transformation of social relations tion and consumption (the claim to public goods of production. This transformation needs the and services and a “decent everyday life”), ur- collective production, management, and appro- ban commons around public spaces of mobility priation of space (Lefebvre [1972] 2000). There and encounter, and urban commons around are not many concrete examples in Lefebvre’s creativity and collective visions designing imag- writing on what this process entails. Harvey ined communities. The hypothesis presented is (2012) takes the issue of the commons in a much that “when brought together, these three urban more accurate perspective and his book tries to commons set the conditions for a renewed right evaluate the implications and complexities of to the city in all the dimensions elaborated by the “urban commons” concept quite thoroughly Lefebvre and, we argue, set the stage for social from a theoretical perspective. movements.” The present article could have used detailed Although this is an exciting prospect, I want ethnographic accounts of the actual practices in to argue that we need a stronger analytical argu- the recent urban social mobilizations and pub- ment in order to embrace this proposition as lic space settlements in order to foreground the more than an optimistic prediction. The main practice of “commoning” (ibid.: 73). In my un-

Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 66 (2013): 122–124 © Stichting Focaal and Berghahn Books doi:10.3167/fcl.2013.660113 What kind of commons are the urban commons? | 123 derstanding, this means: what commons are be- agement (McCay and Acheson 1987; Acheson ing defined as resources, which communities of 1989; Arguedas 1987). In most cases, a plurality people are being designed as holding rights to of regimes of appropriation coexist, often over- them, how are regulations developed, what lap, and produce particular forms of commons, modes of enforcement are set in place? Because particular social relations of production, and commons are about resources and how they are particular conflicts. Historically, modes of ap- appropriated in particular social relations that propriation and regulation often shift or express contribute to reproducing or, instead, to trans- disjuncture between de jure norms and de facto forming existing social relations of production, practices. So “real existing commons”, from the concept should not be treated lightly or which the theoretical concept derives, are com- overextended in such a way that it becomes a plex processes that are not quite exempt of vague metaphor. The reference to scholarship on struggle. so-called traditional commons is pretty scant So, to get back to the article, what does and no reference is made to the considerable claiming or producing (public) urban spaces as anthropological literature on the subject. As a “commons” around production and consump- result, the selected definition of the concept tion, around mobility and encounter, and feels superficial and possibly misleading: “com- around creativity mean? Do the commons mon property is an individual’s right not to be stand for a reconfigured and better form of excluded from the uses or benefits of resources” “public good”? And if so, what social relations (Blackmar 2006). Compare this to the classical do they help to produce and reproduce over anthropological definition (Feeny et al. 1990; time? What are, empirically, the observable see also Ostrom et al. 1999) that defines com- processes of “commoning” and what bound- mon property regimes as one where “property aries, exclusions, and regulations produce ur- is held by an identifiable community of interde- ban space as an equitably accessed resource? pendent users. Users exclude outsiders while What kinds of entanglements with local, politi- regulating use by members of the local commu- cal, and administrative institutions such as re- nity” (Feeny et al. 1990: 5). This “common” sys- gional or municipal governments are created in tem is clearly different from “open access” (what these processes?1 Hardin misinterpreted as commons), where ac- Using the commons and its inevitable corol- cess is free and open to everyone and unregu- lary, the community, as a theoretical concept for lated. As has been extensively demonstrated in explaining present-day urban social movements the literature, exclusion and regulation are two against capitalism becomes problematic if the central aspects of the commons. Unfortunately, concept is not used in a rigorous manner. It in this article we have no way to know how the therefore ought to be based on thorough ethno- boundaries and the rules are organized and graphic analyses. It is a concept that has often what kinds of tensions these processes produce been used in slippery ways in politics, with in the case of urban commons. Sometimes there many different and often contradictory mes- almost seems to be confusion between open ac- sages. This article fails to provide sufficient an- cess and communal access. alytic ethnographic specificity about the actual Moreover, the authors follow Harvey’s idea processes of producing these “commons” through that “a common shall be both collective and collective mobilization in the urban space. non-commodified—off limits to the logic of market exchange and market valuations” (2012: 73). While this is a very commendable political Susana Narotzky is a professor of anthropology project, in the historical and ethnographic liter- at the University of Barcelona. Her main focus ature “the logic of market exchange and market has been on the anthropology of work, with valuations” is often entangled in complex ways particular attention to unregulated production with the commons, as is the logic of state man- and care practices within and across genera- 124 | Susana Narotzky tions. She has recently published “Europe in nomic anthropology, pp. 351–378. Palo Alto, CA: Crisis: Grassroots Economies and the Anthro- Stanford University Press. pological Turn,” 2012, Etnográfica 16(3): 627– Arguedas, José María 1987. Las comunidades de Es- 638; “Alternatives to Expanded Accumulation paña y del Perú. Madrid: Ministerio de Agricul- and the Anthropological Imagination: Turning tura, Pesca y Alimentación. Blackmar, Elizabeth. 2006. Appropriating “the Necessity into a Challenge to Capitalism?” in commons”: The tragedy of property right dis- Confronting Capital: Critique and Engagement course. In Setha Low and Neil Smith, eds., The in Anthropology, 2012, London: Routledge; and politics of public space, pp. 49–80. New York: “Memories of Conflict and Present-day Strug- Routledge. gles in Europe: New Tensions between Corpo- Feeny, David, Fikret Berkes, Bonnie McCay, and ratism, Class, and Social Movements,” 2011, James Acheson. 1990. The tragedy of the com- Identities 18(2): 97–112. mons: Twenty-two years latter. Human Ecology [email protected]. 18(1): 1–19. Harvey, David. 2012. Rebel cities: From the right to the city to the urban revolution. London: Verso. Notes Lefebvre, Henri. [1972] 2000. Espace et politique. Paris: Anthropos. Lefebvre, Henri. [1968] 2009. Le droit à la ville, 1. We should remember that the French Paris Paris: Economica/Anthropos. Commune of 1871, which is often used as a ref- McCay, Bonnie, and James Acheson. 1987. The erent of the urban commons, refers to munici- question of the commons: The culture and ecology pal autonomy as well as to a different form of of communal resources. Tucson: University of access, production, and distribution of re- Arizona Press. sources (Rougerie [1971] 2004). Rougerie, Jacques. [1971] 2004. Paris libre 1871. Paris: Seuil. Ostrom, Elinor, Joanna Burger, Christopher B. References Field, Richard B. Norgaard, and David Policansky. 1999. Revisiting the commons: Acheson, James 1989. Management of common- Local lessons, global challenges. Science 284: property resources. In Stuart Plattner, ed., Eco- 278–282. The urban public sector as commons: Response to Susser and Tonnelat

Jane Collins

Susser and Tonnelat’s article on the three urban creates common problems and interests, but commons is both visionary and heartening. Its does not necessarily create a stable community counterpastoral polemic glorifies urban modes of shared ends, mutual identification, and reci- of sociality and the forms of common property procity (2011: 237–238). I doubt that Susser and fostered by urban life. The authors find in cities Tonnelat want to suggest that urbanism breeds communities of experience that cross class lines progressive social change in and of itself. There and create inadvertent coalitions around shared are simply too many counterexamples, includ- problems. They argue that specific components ing some drawn from the “wounded cities” that of what has been called “the right to the city” Susser has previously catalogued. Rather, the need to be understood as “commons”—collec- burning questions for progressives are: Which tive property that is neither fully public nor pri- aspects of urban life foster virtuous kinds of vate but shared by individuals as they go about connectedness? Under what circumstances can everyday life in urban settings. these forms of urbanism generate stable political Praise for urban life has a long history, from community and positive social transformation? Aristotle’s claim that the city-state was the high- Susser and Tonnelat point toward something est form of community to St. Augustine’s por- new here. Their framing of the three urban trayal of heaven as a city. One of the most com- commons posits three specific forms of shared pelling recent examples is Iris Marion Young’s experience that may generate collective social- Justice and the Politics of Difference (2011). In it, ity: common reliance on public services; use of Young proposes a normative ideal of city life “as shared public space; and collective artistic mo- an alternative to both the ideal of community bilization. My background prepares me poorly and the liberal individualism it criticizes” (2011: to comment on the last two phenomena, but the 237). Defining city life as “the being together of production and consumption of public services strangers,” she claims that in cities we situate has recently emerged as a central theme in my our identity and activity in relation to a vast hori- research on labor. In 2011, this issue was pro- zon of other activity. City dwellers, she claims, pelled into the public domain in the United “depend on the mediation of thousands of other States (and into my research) by legislative at- people and vast organizational resources in or- tacks on public workers in a dozen states—as- der to accomplish their individual ends,” and saults in which state workers not only lost are thus uniquely bound together. But even in benefits and bargaining rights but were reviled as this most enthusiastic endorsement of urban “welfare queens” whose labor contributed noth- life, Young throws in a caveat: being together ing to the economy. In 2012, the right-wing

Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 66 (2013): 125–127 © Stichting Focaal and Berghahn Books doi:10.3167/fcl.2013.660114 126 | Jane Collins frenzy that followed President Obama’s com- propinquity can foil attempts to buy one’s way ment that business owners had not built their out of the indignities of urban life: having a pri- enterprises alone, but had relied on government- vate car in Manhattan may not be more conven- provided infrastructure like roads, bridges, and ient than taking the subway and retaining a public educational systems, underscored the private garbage service is not much of a remedy continuing controversy. In these debates in the if the streets are piled with the waste of others. United States, and in European debt reduction It seems reasonable to expect that rubbing el- negotiations, we have seen battle lines drawn bows in dense urban areas does generate sup- over the public sector’s role in supporting the port for many public projects. economy and the citizenry. Cities are not immune, however, to skyrock- Since the 1970s, the global political right has eting inequality and projects of class secession. been honing the argument that public services Saskia Sassen (1998) has delineated the unique do not contribute to economic growth, but are a ways that labor market polarization in the serv- net drain on the economy. At the same time, in- ice sector plays out in global cities, generating equality has increased to unprecedented levels, new forms of employment-centered inequality. and wealthy citizens have engaged in what some Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, a new bipo- have called “class secession”. In the words of one larity in urban labor markets emerged—a de- US senator: “America’s top tier has grown infi- mand for highly specialized and educated nitely richer and more removed over the past 25 “knowledge workers” alongside demand for years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally low-wage nannies and food service, retail, and living in a different country. Few among them sanitation workers. When and how individuals send their children to our public schools” (James of such diverse life circumstances come to see Webb [D-VA], quoted in Perucci 2008: 66). themselves as collectively reliant on the public Just as the rich eschew public schools, they sector is an intriguing—and unanswered— do not require public parks (they have country question. It seems reasonable to expect that ur- clubs), public transportation (private cars and ban neighborhoods will create greater oppor- planes), and health maintenance organizations tunities for cross-class consciousness of the (personalized medical services). Michael Lind public good than gated suburban communities. (2010) has argued that members of the business But the very wealthy often have homes in both, class increasingly earn their fortunes with over- as well as a variety of rural retreats. Clearly pub- seas labor, selling to overseas consumers and lic services will have a different meaning for managing financial transactions that have little these part-time urban denizens than for the ur- to do with the rest of the United States. Given ban multitude. More significantly however, if this fact, he argues that “it is hardly surprising economic elites have restructured their class that so many of them should be hostile to pay- practices around “spaces of flows” rather than ing taxes to support the infrastructure and the “spaces of place” (to quote Castells 2008), is ur- social programs that help the majority of the banity really a sufficient condition for organiz- American people.” ing in response to them? Susser and Tonnelat suggest that urban Susser and Tonnelat are right to suggest that dwellers are particularly reliant on and support- the most radical urban visions of collective ive of public goods and services. As evidence, ownership of public services occur when public they point to the ubiquity of public transporta- sector workers join hands with citizens who rely tion, reliance on public amenities, and recent on their labor in new community-based move- struggles in some cities to resist privatization of ments. These movements, which resist neolib- public services. There is clearly nothing like ur- eral assault on the public sector, call for a criti- ban garbage strikes or failed snow removal to cal re-evaluation of the division of labor among generate collective indignation. And density and market, state, and civil society. They highlight The urban public sector as commons: Response to Susser and Tonnelat | 127 the social reproductive work that sustains the portunities for urban (and other) social move- current generation and socializes the next. Since ments to cohere. the 1970s, this labor has increasingly shifted from family to the public sphere, as women work Jane Collins is a professor of community and more hours outside the home and public teach- environmental sociology and gender and ers, day care workers, and health aides paid for women’s studies at the University of Wisconsin. by state medical assistance fill the gap, as does She is the author of Both Hands Tied: Welfare the historically important social reproductive Reform and the Race to the Bottom in the Low- work of garbage collectors, snowplow drivers, Wage Labor Market (2010, with Victoria crossing guards, fire fighters, and police offi- Mayer); Threads: Gender, Labor and Power in cers. Social movements that protect this sphere the Global Apparel Industry (2003); and Reading draw on collective interests that include but ex- National Geographic (1993, with Catherine ceed traditional labor movements. They draw Lutz). in citizens bound together by their common re- liance on the state to provide services they can- not organize for themselves. This consciousness is not uniquely urban—the hinterland sup- References ported rural electrification and interstate high- Castells, Manuel. 2008. Space of flows, space of ways. More recently, in Wisconsin, the depen- places: Materials for a theory of urbanism in the dence of both urban poor and farm families on information age. In Tigran Haas, ed., New ur- state medical assistance led to a rural-urban banism and beyond: Designing urbanism for the coalition not seen since the Progressive Era future, pp. 314–321. New York: Rizzoli. Farmer-Labor Party. It is also not inevitable that Lind, Michael. 2010. Are the American people ob- such coalitions will emerge in urban settings— solete? Salon, 27 July, http://www.salon.com/ where the wealthiest still create enclaves of pri- 2010/07/27/american_people_obsolete/ (ac- vate privilege. Susser and Tonnelat are correct cessed 15 May 2011). in suggesting that cities provide fertile ground Perucci, Robert. 2008. New class society: Goodbye American dream? Lanham, MD: Rowman and for such movements, but we need to probe Littlefield. more deeply to establish when and how such Sassen, Saskia. 1998. Globalization and its discon- coalitions emerge. In short, we need to trace the tents. New York: New Press. shifts in the strategies of global capitalist actors, Young, Iris Marion. 2011. Justice and the politics of and the transformations in class relationships difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University they are working, to correctly perceive the op- Press. Urban commons and urban struggles

Alain Bertho

Ida Susser and Stéphane Tonnelat are right to If you talk about the financial accounting of view the question of the urban commons in the urban commons, you talk about speculative global cities as a crucial issue. It has precipitated and financial capital. You talk about the finan- massive urban and often violent struggles. We cial and global exploitation of the city of the fac- know that the ideological basis of these fights is tories, the city of the inhabitants, and the city of very similar from one continent to another. the informal economy. Between these two fig- Within the global space there is a global reper- ures of the city, that of the common creativity tory of urban mobilizations and urban riots. and that of the “law and money”, the state is no Global cities can also be analyzed through the longer in a third position. It no longer guaran- clashes that occur there. Where is this car burn- tees an institutional and public commons, but ing? Beijing, Dakar, Buenos Aires, Tunis, or generally is fighting in fact against the creative Mumbai? Where is the “southern world” and city in the name of law and safety. where is the “northern one”? When the riot Under these conditions, all over the world, erupts, who can distinguish the political re- urban and social movements can take four di- gimes of the country? Against which govern- rections: the impossible common and commu- ment is this Molotov cocktail thrown? Against a nal riot, the clash with power, looting, and the democratic power or against a dictatorship? All alternative expertise and proposal. that remains are the national peculiarities of the urban context. Why? First, because residents of 1. What urban common can we find in the nu- global cities are faced with national states, na- merous confrontations of people against peo- tional laws, national polices, in historical con- ple? Almost daily communal riots in India, texts. Second, because urban residents are in bloody persecution of Muslims in Burma, charge of the question of the people as a nation, bloody anti-Christian riots in Zanzibar, man- as a collective subject in the heart of the cities. hunts against Mozambicans in South Africa Indeed, what is the root of these fights? (the revolt of the townships in 2008) or against Producing a commons does not mean the Chinese in Algiers, Bolivians in Buenos Aires, same thing in two cases. If you talk about pro- gypsies in France or Bulgaria, Africans in Italy ducing the commons in immaterial produc- … It is more than the “fear of the small num- tion (including street art), you talk about a bers,” in the words of Arjun Appadurai (2006), population often persecuted by the law and the much more local and urban than the alleged police: the informal life, informal work, infor- and mythical “clash of civilizations”. It means mal trading, informal housing, informal right the urban territory does not spontaneously pro- to the city. duce a subjective commons. The collapse of the

Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 66 (2013): 128–129 © Stichting Focaal and Berghahn Books doi:10.3167/fcl.2013.660115 Urban commons and urban struggles | 129 political strategies of communal representation Common subjectivity and popular expertise explains the difficulty in gathering the urban are the only way to stop, perhaps, the logic of residents together to act as a united people. land speculation, and that of “law and money”, 2. The second direction that mobilization can which threaten their districts and are planning take is to clash with power and to riot on all their expulsion “for the future of the city” and fronts of the urban collective life. In every con- “for their safety”. This subjective and cognitive tinent we can see “power riots” (against electric mobilization generally builds a self-conscious outage), “price riots”, “informal trade riots”, people not only as a city’s people, but also as a “housing riots” against expulsion from the pop- national people, conscious of the popular power. ular districts, particularly in the case of infor- The city is indeed a “strategic territory,” as mal housing (slums and favelas), ecological Saskia Sassen (2006) said, because it combines riots against urban structures or factories, riots the productive issue, the territorial power issue, against corruption and land speculation … and the subjective issue, which are the three di- Hundreds every year … In all cases, the gap be- mensions of the urban commons suggested by tween the common need and politics is the root Ida Susser and Stéphane Tonnelat. But these ur- of the mob’s anger. Victorious revolts are rare. ban commons are only urban possibilities. Col- lective mobilization can make them an urban 3. The third direction is urban looting, which is reality. The future is not written in the con- the threat of the “primitive revolt” of Eric J. frontation between the city of people and the Hobsbawm (1960). This is a new direction of territory of “law and money”. The city is today mobilization in this century. We saw its advent the new terrain of “class struggle”: the city is in London in August 2011. In December 2012, now at the same time the field of material and Argentinian supermarkets were looted in several immaterial production, the field of control, and towns over several days, causing some deaths. the field of liberty and democracy. “Occupy” 4. The fourth and last direction that mobiliza- this place? This slogan is not trivial. tion can take may make it possible to leave the violence of the clash and to enter into commu- nication with the state. Indeed, some mobiliza- Alain Bertho is a professor of anthropology at tions adopt a strategy of resistance and, in the the Laboratoire Architecture Ville Urbanisme name of their own expertise, make alternative Environnement at the Maison des Sciences de proposals about urban governance. This fourth l’Homme Paris Nord. His research interests in- direction requires certain conditions. First, mo- clude relationships between youth and the law, bilizations they need a common subjectivity. intercommunal forms of governance, and ur- The mobilization takes on board the general in- ban mobilizations around housing. terest and therefore takes the place of the state, E-mail: [email protected]. speaks instead of the state. These mobilizations become a rival/partner of the state in producing the commons. References Second, these mobilizations have to produce Appadurai, Arjun. 2006. Fear of small numbers: A an expertise on the situation against the state’s geography of anger. Durham, NC: Duke Univer- expertise. The inhabitants of the favela Vila sity Press. Autódromo in Rio de Janeiro, when they were Hobsbawm, Eric J. 1960. Primitive rebels: Studies in threatened with expulsion by the urban plan- archaic forms of social movement in the 19th and ning for the Olympics, produced an alternative 20th centuries. Manchester, UK: Manchester urban project. The movements that every year University Press. fight against the floods in the suburbs of Dakar Sassen, Saskia. 2006. Territory, authority, rights: are currently writing a “White Paper” gathering From medieval to global assemblages. Princeton, emergency proposals and structural proposals. NJ: Princeton University Press. Transformative cities: The three urban commons

Ida Susser and Stéphane Tonnelat

Abstract: Drawing on Lefebvre and others, this article considers contemporary urban social movements with a selective review of urban research and suggestions for future ethnographic, cultural, and sociological questions. Under a generalized post-Fordist regime of capital accumulation, cultural workers and laborers, ser- vice workers, and community activists have all participated in urban movements. We consider such collective action, generated in the crucible of urban life, as a re- flection of three urban commons: labor, consumption, and public services; public space (including mass communications and the virtual); and art, including all forms of creative expression. We suggest that the three urban commons outlined here are not necessarily perceived everywhere, but as they momentarily come to- gether in cities around the world, they give us a glimpse of a city built on the so- cial needs of a population. That is the point when cities become transformative. Keywords: art, city, commons, public service, public space, social movement

Social movements and the tersburg to the streets of New York City. These transformative city concepts have been revisited by Harvey (2003) in his understandings of Paris as the capital of As we watch social movements travel from Tu- modernity and adopted as a rallying cry in the nis to Cairo to Bahrain to Tripoli to Madrid to global social movement for the “right to the New York, we might almost be reminded of the city”. What makes cities the foyers of contests student movements of 1968, from New York to and uprisings (Harvey 2012)? Aren’t cities in- Paris to Prague, Mexico City, Lusaka, and else- stead the realm of an advanced capitalism exac- where. We might remember descriptions of 1848 erbating inequalities worldwide? in cities across Europe, from Paris to Prague to Clearly, global capitalism and neoliberal de- Budapest to Vienna. We need once again to un- velopment have indomitably shaped contempo- derstand the transformative forces of cities, cap- rary cities (Sassen 1991; N. Smith 2002; Castells tured by Lefebvre (2003) in his idea of the 1989). However, cities are both political/eco- urban revolution, by Castells (1977) in the Ur- nomic entities and cultural/social constructs, ban Question, and by Marshall Berman (1983) with each underlying the other. City centers as in his humanistic recreations of transformative loci for the accumulation of resources are cen- inspirations from the Nevsky Prospect of St. Pe- ters of cultural development, communication,

Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 66 (2013): 105–132 © Stichting Focaal and Berghahn Books doi:10.3167/fcl.2013.660110 106 | Ida Susser and Stéphane Tonnelat commerce, and spectacle. In addition, cities we have previously called the wounded cities of have become home to a larger and larger pro- the neoliberal era (Schneider and Susser 2003) portion of the world’s poor, the new labor force leads us to focus on the centrality of the urban of sweatshops, building construction, retailing, commons in transformative social movements and international manufacturing. Cities have of today. We see this as a possible route out of become spaces of political inequity, social and neoliberalism. economic deprivation, and sources of environ- The uneven structuring of places, the mu- mental damage. Poor populations, huddled to- nicipalities, the organization of infrastructure, gether, make up the immense “reserve army of the zoning, the transportation and the pollution labor” of globalized regimes striving to keep are politically determined characteristics that wages at a minimum (Harvey 2007). vary with the governance of the city. Struggles Here, we ask whether the massive popula- over these collective interests of urban popula- tions streaming into cities in many parts of the tions in ecological decisions, such as water use world (UN-Habitat 2011; United Nations Cen- and water level, frame the lives of inhabitants in tre for Human Settlements 2003) may indeed be the new cities (McDonogh 1999; Susser 2002; transformed by the urban environment, and, Khan and Pappas 2011). Will dams be strength- more importantly, may themselves find ways to ened or will the disaster of Katrina in New Or- transform these cities in new ways. Since the leans be repeated, as the lives of millions of early implementations of neoliberal policy, fol- people in Pakistan have been disrupted by wa- lowing the fiscal crisis in New York City in 1975 ter levels rising to flood cities? Will govern- and then more systematically by Thatcher in the ments provide the infrastructure to fight fires or United Kingdom and internationally by Reagan will, as threatened for Moscow in 2011, cities through the Washington Consensus at the burn in the worsening drought conditions, with World Bank and the International Monetary the added danger of burning nuclear waste Fund (IMF) in the 1980s, industrial work has thrown in? Will the residents of Japanese cities been relocated to the Global South (Harvey rethink their use of energy in the effort to pro- 2007; Susser 2012). As a result of such policies, tect themselves from a repeat of their 2011 nu- accompanied by the information age, the wages clear reactor catastrophes? Such decisions with of workers in the Global North have stagnated respect to collective interests will determine the while elites have grown up in the Global South health and survival of the millions who now in- linked with the elites of the Global North. Thus, habit the increasing number of cities of this era. questions of class have indeed become interna- Rather than outline the destructiveness of ne- tional. The widening gap between rich and poor oliberal governance in wounded cities (Schnei- the world over, accompanied by the shrinking der and Susser 2003), this article points, instead, of the middle classes, has allowed for the emer- to the ever-more crucial emergence of social gence of claims for the 99 percent by Occupy movements, based, we suggest, on collective Wall Street protesters in New York City and everyday experiences, at work and at home, in protesters with different names in other cities public spaces and through creative arts, which internationally. While major differences exist make up the urban commons. between those in professional or unionized We are thus looking now not at a more “just service or industrial employment and those in city” (Fainstein 2010) but at a transformative the precariat, in a privatizing world most of the city where inequalities, social conflicts, and mo- population are still crucially dependent on pub- bilizations may be perceived and expressed dif- lic services for health, transportation, and edu- ferently than in less publicly exposed environ- cation. We argue that this has remade collective ments (see Low 2003, on gated communities). interests and reconfigured our understandings For example, world urban summits like the In- of class and possible alliances over the past ternational AIDS Conferences or the World So- three decades. Such rethinking of class in what cial Forums seek exposure in cities. In contrast, Transformative cities: The three urban commons | 107 financial summits, such as those of the World The lived experience within the spatial or- Trade Organization in Davos, or elsewhere, ganization of cities transforms social relation- seek invisibility in mountains, small towns, or ships among the inhabitants and can contribute remotely accessible places, directly as a result of to particular social formations. Membership in the outpourings of protesters who most effec- such cities is largely constituted by pragmatic tively and surprisingly took over the streets of economic considerations and modes of liveli- Seattle in 1998 and later Genoa and elsewhere hood (Anderson and O’Gorman 1998). The city (Della Porta 2008). We recognize an echo here thus brings urbanites a community of experi- of the necessary publicity of justice. Movements ence that not only crosses class lines, but also with a “just cause” do not fear public exposure, can, in fact, rework them. This produces a dif- whereas those with less avowable or expressible ferent kind of city belonging based on recogni- aims will seek secrecy. tion and interaction and civic responsibility for But the visibility of social contrast does not one’s environment, creating scores of inadver- necessarily precipitate understanding or resist- tent political communities organized around ance. Although inequalities may be more strik- shared problems. Such urban protomovements ing in the city, their underlying cause or are grounded in city neighborhoods, rural co- systemic production may be confusing or too operatives, and historical collective action complex to grasp. This often makes for an easy across multiple issues. We suggest such move- indignation but more difficult mobilization, a ments are better described in terms of a theory disempowering of the disadvantaged (Auyero of “commons”, “common property”, collective and Swistun 2009). Nevertheless, we suggest that consumption, or collective needs and a grounded social movements are transformed as they pass culture of common experiences such as Castells through cities. They become more exposed, more (1983) developed in The City and the Grass- collective, and, we would argue, more common. roots, than by superimposed ideas of identity politics (Castells 1997) or its derivative, ethno- scapes (Appadurai 1996) (these points are elab- The three urban commons orated further in Susser [2006]). In broad terms and the right to the city we might perceive the contemporary city as an essential, if narrow and class-defined, door to In this article, we draw on the idea of an urban the commons. vision developed by Benjamin and Lefebvre, The commons is an old term describing a present in the Chicago school and even the specific regime of property management for work of J. C. Mitchell (1959) in the early cop- spaces such as grasslands, fisheries, and other perbelt studies. All of these theorists suggest in natural resources collectively held by a commu- different ways that the urban generates diverse nity. As historian Elizabeth Blackmar (2006: 51) forms of communal values and new visions. As defines it, “common property is an individual’s people experience their everyday urban lives, right not to be excluded from the uses or bene- they begin to collectively recognize and de- fits of resources.” Traditionally located within mand a “right to the city” and the streets be- the bounds of a given community, it manifests come the sites of social struggle. In these ways, the belonging of its members through a sharing we can understand the city as transformative. principle, which is neither private nor public. Today, as global cities undermine the local Widespread all around the world until the practices, daily lives, and health of the citizens twentieth century (Ostrom 1990), the com- (Khan and Pappas 2011), urban settings con- mons have suffered from the joint rise of both tinue to generate resistance, critique, and trans- the private and the public domains, which have formation. As Rogers and Gumuchdjian (1997) laid the ground for the marketization of nearly argued, cities have the potential both to brutal- all objects and resources. There have been con- ize and to civilize. tinuous charges of inefficiency, which Hardin 108 | Ida Susser and Stéphane Tonnelat identified as the “tragedy of the commons” urban commons revolves around issues of pro- (Hardin 1968). He argued that, rather than limit duction, consumption, and use of public serv- their use, agents would behave as “free riders” ices and public goods reframed as a common and selfishly exhaust resources. Nevertheless, means for a decent everyday life. The second practices that might be interpreted as constitut- urban commons comprises the public spaces of ing a commons have survived in many little- mobility and encounter collectively used and known places, thanks to long tested and ad hoc claimed by citizens, such as streets, subways, mechanisms of social regulation, as Elinor Os- cafés, public gardens, and even the World Wide trom (1990), a scholar who devoted her career Web. Next, we contend that the city can also of- to the study of the resilience of the commons, fer a third type of urban commons under the has shown. In 2009, the economic validity of the form of collective visions within which each in- commons and the ability of regular people to dividual may find a place. This is illustrated by self-organize was indisputably recognized when, the work of artists in mobilizing communities, in the midst of global financial turmoil, Ostrom and redefining the conditions of perception of was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. their social and spatial environment. This “re- With the renewed interest in this concept, the distribution of the sensible” (Rancière 2000) idea of the commons has been adapted to en- makes up the last ingredient of the right to compass a new scale of resources, such as open the city, creativity. It helps urbanites to conceive systems of knowledge for scholarly communica- of the city as a collectively produced living tion or public infrastructures, like water distribu- place. Finally, when brought together, these tion systems (Bond 2008), public transportation three urban commons set the conditions for a networks, and even the earth’s atmosphere (Ra- renewed right to the city in all the dimensions binowitz 2010). The difference between knowl- elaborated by Lefebvre and, we argue, set the edge and, say, a cooperative fishery is the non- stage for social movements. Following these depletability of the resource and the size of the concepts, this article is organized into three group of users. But what matters really, to quote parts: an introduction, a discussion of each of David Bollier (2007: 29), is that “[t]o talk about the three urban commons and a conclusion on the commons is to say that citizens (or user their effects. communities) are the primary stakeholders, Of course, the commons as we outline them over and above investors, and that these com- here are not usually directly perceived as such. munity interests are not for sale.” Of course, the However, we believe precisely that it is by creat- mechanisms of regulation preventing monopo- ing and recognizing commonalities that urban- listic appropriation of the resource and overex- ites and their city are brought together. In this ploitation, two different forms of free riding, regard, public services and public goods, such become more complex to figure out as the scale as social housing or schools, are only potential of a commons reaches wider communities of urban commons. In the same way, public spaces users (Dietz et al. 2003). And one of the practi- need to be reclaimed and reframed as collec- cal as well as theoretical challenges is to invent, tively managed before they can become com- for each commons, the right mix of institutional mon space (Tonnelat 2013), a social practice and community controls and their reach (Har- that Harvey calls “commoning”: vey 2012). Here, we argue that the commons help delin- At the heart of the practice of commoning lies eate three specific components of the right to the principle that the relation between the so- the city as advocated by Lefebvre (1968) and de- cial group and that aspect of the environment veloped by others (Purcell 2002; Stanek 2011): being treated as a common shall be both collec- the right to urban everyday life, the right to si- tive and non-commodified—off limits to the multaneity and encounters, and the right to cre- logic of market exchange and market valua- ative activity (or the city as Oeuvre). The first tions. (2012: 73) Transformative cities: The three urban commons | 109

As we will see below, the passage from public, or mobilize until they too were subject to the pri- private, to common is not automatic. In fact, it vations of wage labor (Engels and Hunt 2010). is precisely at this junction, we argue, that cur- As with the peasants, here we see again a neg- rent social struggles are the most crucial be- lect of other forms of organizing that historical tween the more established forces of capitalist experience has led many to rethink. Women’s extraction and the growing but still unorgan- community and informal labor as well as their ized aspirations to a different way of sharing role as the providers of food in the household collective resources and rights. But as public led to many city uprisings in the nineteenth and goods, public services, and public spaces are twentieth centuries and to battles over health numerous in the cities, they represent a strong care and housing in the twentieth and twenty- potential toward the commons. If recognized first (Bookman and Morgen 1988; Kaplan and worked upon, as is already the case in many 2004). Some communities, as in China and unknown ways, these aspects of urban life could other industrializing cities of the world, are become the commons of tomorrow. newly brought together on the shop floor of fac- tories, and there we have seen a rising aware- ness of labor power and struggles. In other Urban social movements: Labor places, indeed most of them, labor structures and public services as commons and workplaces may be shifting too fast for such struggles to take on issues of labor and produc- One issue that arises from this conceptualiza- tion (Aronowitz and Cutler 1998). Hardt and tion of the three commons is, where does the Negri (2004) are more optimistic and still be- traditional concept of labor mobilization fit in? lieve that labor is a door to a common built by a In recent decades social movement literature multitude of workers now more engaged than has revolved partially around debates with re- ever in a service industry, which pushes them to spect to the mobilization of labor and issues of exchange, thus building a new communication collective consumption, framed as working shared across the planet. If this is accurate, ob- class movements or urban social movements stacles are still many. In many urban areas shift- (USM), and what has sometimes been labeled ing from an industrial to service economy, the new social movements (NSM)—those that are stability of employment has been eroding, di- defined in terms of collective consumption or viding the work force into categories differenti- identity issues (Edelman 2001). We see women ated by their contractual relationship to their at the forefront of the contemporary combina- employer (Collins 2012). As Bridget Kenny tion of labor and consumption. Here, we recog- (2004) shows well, there is not much solidarity nize that labor movements are an important between regularly employed workers and more form of mobilization (Kasmir and Carbonella casual employees who have a hard time assert- 2008). In fact, we understand Marx’s original ing their belonging to the workplace as a pro- formulation, about working class consciousness ductive workforce. What is common, however, emerging on the shop floor, as a spatial concept. is the workplace as part of an increasingly urban Working-class trade unions of the nineteenth ecosystem also encompassing the home and century confirmed the power of factory work- many other places of exchange and services. ers uniting in the workplace. Marx offhandedly Although works such as Katznelson’s City dismissed the peasantry as a sack of potatoes Trenches (1981) and many a study in Europe scattered across the countryside; he saw them as long demonstrated the interrelationships of unable to come together to fight for progressive home and community, a resurgent relationship transformation. However, the history of peasant between home and work may enable new col- rebellions (Wolf 1969; Moore 1993; Goodwin lective visions organized not just around issues and Skocpol 2000) leads us to doubt this con- of labor and production but also of labor and clusion. Engels argued that women would not consumption. As much production in the new 110 | Ida Susser and Stéphane Tonnelat global cities takes place in small family shops, ganized labor, public services, reproduction of where people live and work in the same room, neighborhoods, domestic care, and consump- one of the central issues may be not so much tion (Bookman and Morgen 1998; Buechler how many rights workers can claim but what 2004; Kaplan 2004; Susser 2012; Collins 2012). kind of life they can aspire to, or in other words, Public services are the closest to the tradi- what process of social reproduction they have tional commons of the rural United States and access to, as a member of a given urban society. Europe, such as grazing lands and lakes, albeit Thus, many urban social movements cohere at a much larger scale. Not only do they fulfill around issues not only of production, but also collective needs, but they also bring people to- of collective consumption (Castells 1983), or as gether as a possibly concerned public. Schools, we would rather put it, of collective use and hospitals, and buses, especially in dense cities, needs. We would differentiate this from the remain among the most resilient forms of com- forces of individual consumption, outlined by mons collectively used and cared for in the city. Daniel Miller (1998) and Sharon Zukin (2004), Public services are ubiquitous in the city and re- which also bring city residents together through emerge under different forms in different re- coffee shops, shopping, and privatized con- gions of the world. Indeed, there is something sumption and may, in fact, also precipitate shop- urban about the idea of collective use, needs, ping boycotts and other events with respect to and management. According to Isin and Wood social issues (see Nash’s 2001 description of the (Isin and Wood 1999; Isin 2007), the “rights to Citarella boycott in New York City). the city,” which urbanites are claiming as a basic We suggest here that struggles over labor “renewed right to urban life” (Lefebvre 1968), and consumption are a crucial form of social meaning “a right to an equitable usufruct of movement, which become significant at certain cities within the principles of sustainability, moments of capitalism. But in the light of the democracy, equity, and social justice” (Lefebvre, deindustrialization of the United States and quoted by Busà 2009) is intimately tied to a parts of Western Europe, the organization of la- “right of the city” (emphasis added), in other bor, while still powerful, as we saw in 2011 in words, rights granted to the city by the state and Wisconsin, has to be considered in the context extended to urbanites by virtue of their of other forms of social movement that have re- dwelling within the city limits. These rights, cently precipitated major transformations (see from the antique city of Greece to the Middle the debate around G. Smith’s article in Identities Ages merchant town of the Hanseatic League, in 2011). In the organizing in Wisconsin, or to the contemporary incorporated territories of Oakland, California, where the port was shut the United States, have been under constant down by the cooperation of Occupy and the threat and negotiation between city govern- unions, or in France where the unions cooper- ments and states regarding issues such as legis- ated with broader demonstrations against the lation, justice, taxation, and local currency, raising of ages for pensions, unions joined with military power, and property (Frug 1980). To- other protesters. In Wisconsin, service pro vid - day, as cities’ legal independence has largely ers such as teachers, firefighters, and nurses been reigned in by national ruling powers, their joined with the users of services, often members economic resurgence as the seats of transna- of the same families, to maintain the right to tional corporate and diasporic powers and as collective bargaining (Collins 2012). In order to demographic heavyweights opens up a new take account of these collaborative social move- worldwide round of bargaining where cities ments, we suggest a broader approach that would tend to regain political independence. bring labor organizing together with the redis- Many cities indeed are struggling to regain tribution of resources through collective con- municipal control over such common resources sumption and public services as the first form of like water, transportation, or even housing. urban commons. Women are central to this for- Cities in the United States also approved the Ky- mulation, as they are involved on all fronts: or- oto Protocol independently of the federal gov- Transformative cities: The three urban commons | 111 ernment, recognizing the ecosystem as a com- of space where urbanites can rub shoulders and mons that needs to be collectively used and gather. To this we must add the increasingly sig- cared for in order to protect its heritage. At a nificant and unpredictable virtual world of smaller scale, following the example of Porto the press and all networked technology, such as Allegre, many cities now give an emerging role cell phones, Internet, and its ever-multiplying to local councils of inhabitants who provide facets. These are typical open (or limited) access opinions or even take decisions regarding the resources, not resources for which people must local budget (Cabannes 2004) and the design compete for access. They seem nondepletable and management of public facilities such as and easily sharable as a public good. However, schools (Bacqué et al. 2005). This step toward a they are not easily made common. more participative democracy finds in the fields Much has been written about public space or of local planning and design a privileged terrain public culture—here we take the meaning of of experimentation (Bacqué et al. 2010). public sphere outlined in Low and Smith (2006) Despite regular attacks attempting to incor- and look for the ways in which the streets and porate them in the market, these public ameni- collective usages of the city create and trans- ties are bitterly defended by inhabitants caring form the public sphere and provide social ben- for their collective quality of life (see Susser efits, however difficult to measure. Here too, [(1982) 2012] for the case of an NYC fire sta- however, just as for the more traditional com- tion). They are also invented on a need basis, es- mons, users strive to limit the rise of access pecially in times of scarcity. New systems of price in the face of regular attempts to com- exchange and bartering with alternative cur- moditize public amenities or to make them fi- rency (Schraven 2001; North 2007), workers nancially self-sufficient, managed by semi- taking collective ownership of their workplace public authorities. Urban public space, the only (Dietz et al. 2003), neighborhood gardeners in totally free-access resource in the city, is also fallow lands (Schmelzkopf 1995; Linn 1999; subjected to a trend of privatization, under the Eizenberg 2011), or parents organizing commu- form of community control through gates, cor- nity day care are phenomena that testify to the porate control, aggressive policing (McArdle possibility of reframing large chunks of the ur- and Erzen 2001; Lippert and Walby 2013), or ban economic system as a commons guaran- new forms of pollution and bridge tolls (Cal- teeing any urbanite the possibility of living a de- deira 2001; Low 2003). cent life for herself and her kin in a sustainable The privatizing of public space has been social organization. Thus, what is considered a nowhere more visible than in the realm of ur- right to a decent life by most urbanites usually ban design. Everywhere cities are rebuilding encompasses not only access to work, housing, their spatial image both for their residents and and collective consumption, included under the for sought-after investors. In these images, city label “urban social movements” (Pickvance centers are remodeled as urban mixes of work 2003; Clarke and Newman 2009), but also to a and leisure where urbanites mingle happily, series of public services, which make produc- basking in the social enjoyment that urban tion and consumption possible in a collective economy is lavishing upon them. City brand- fashion. ing, of course, is highly exclusive of the poor and immigrant classes, at least in its imagery (Greenberg 2008). In addition, policing and ex- The urban dimensions of new social clusion of the poor in cities has a long and well- movements: Public space and public documented history, from Dickens onward sphere as commons (Susser 1996; Low 2000; D. Mitchell 2003). But despite heavy surveillance and control, city cen- The second commons includes public space, the ters also develop as ecological niches where rich public infrastructure, such as streets and squares, and poor, locals and visitors share in right of ac- train stations, cafés, public gardens, and all forms cess, if not of sustainability, equity, and social 112 | Ida Susser and Stéphane Tonnelat justice (Ng 2010). Despite numerous renova- leans, largely destroyed by the waters of Hurri- tions and reconstruction, the iconic Union cane Katrina, a small viewing platform over a Square, the platform for the renowned progres- hidden bayou helped the inhabitants under- sive speakers since the nineteenth century, stand their situation in the Mississippi Delta served as the center for New Yorkers to come and reclaim their natural surroundings as a com- together after 9/11 (Susser 2004; Low and Smith mons to be protected (Tonnelat 2011, 2012). In 2006). In 2012, after further incursions, corpo- these cases, the space was used both as a place rate planning, and securitization of the square, to give materiality to a specific problem and to the hip-hop poets and Bread and Puppet The- bring it to the attention of a larger public (Ive- ater festival preliminary to demonstrations for son 2011). Occupy Wall Street met there once again. Even Here we see a rediscovered right, wrestled Times Square, given to corporate Disneyifica- from state and corporate powers, to the city as a tion (Sorkin 1992), was until recently a selling common space (Whyte 1998). To be sure, ven- ground for underground peddling of tourist dors and other street-level workers do not have goods (Tonnelat 2007). Today, more than a an easy time defending their right, but as they family-friendly riskless thrilling environment assert it day after day, much in the same way (Hannigan 1998), it is also the meeting grounds that rural poachers have always resisted the for scores of teenagers from all over the metro- power of landed bourgeoisie (Scott 1990), ur- politan area (Tonnelat 1999; Cahill and Katz ban public space does acquire the quality of a 1998). commons, not unlike the central pasture of It is also through contacts in different ven- New England towns before they were privatized ues, many public or semipublic spaces, that ac- (Blackmar 2006). The only difference from the tivists and organizers of many origins can meet first commons is its open access, both physically and learn about their respective struggles. In and remotely through the media. Thus, rather this regard, as Nicholls (2008) argued, the city than immediately concerned communities in- and its many public spaces of encounter con- voked by the first urban commons, the second tribute to reinforcing the weak ties that allow commons of public space calls for a larger pub- cooperation and sharing of resources across lic, parts of which are only indirectly involved groups. Recent mobilizations such as the Oc- in the original space (Dewey 1927). cupy movement have indeed shown a remark- But public space does more than allow for able array of activists originating from different the expression of a right of the city and its in- causes, regrouped in public spaces and made habitants to a self-management of common visible through sheer aggregation. In this re- space and common issues. It also brings forth gard, social movements can be accelerated by another point that we want to make about cities the density of urban settings, which multiply being transformative: exposure. Ulf Hannerz the occasions of contacts, an old theme of urban (1980) insists, in his landmark book about a studies (Simmel and Wolff 1950). search for an anthropology of the city, on a very Finally, public space can also serve as a point specific effect of a social realm unique to the of view where inhabitants and visitors can visu- city, that of traffic. The streets, he argues, are the alize a problematic situation, make it more per- territory of serendipity, unforeseen encounters ceptible and communicable to larger publics, and discoveries, which can have a determining notably through the help of the press and other influence on individual life trajectories. He alternative media. This is what happened on the builds on Simmel’s (1950) idea of the reserve af- NYC Hudson waterfront when residents re- fecting urbanites, as a filtering device that al- claimed an abandoned pier and saved it from lows each individual to protect their integrity commercial development as one of the only for unsolicited attention, but which also helps routes to the river for all New Yorkers (Tonnelat them stay attentive to details pertaining to indi- 2003). In the Lower Ninth Ward of New Or- vidual and collective interests. This is how Transformative cities: The three urban commons | 113 groups interested in specific ways of life are able We argue that as urbanites have to deal with to form, and render themselves recognizable a diversity of others on a daily basis, on the through categorical signs. Thus, gay men and street, in the subway, or at work, they develop a artists, but also street vendors and stockbrokers, form of “street commonalism” which is not are able to establish “moral regions,” as de- predicated on abandoning one’s culture at the scribed by many early studies of the Chicago door for a worldlier view but tied to a set of school (Park et al. 1967). But the Manchester skills needed to navigate one’s way. As these anthropologists of the copperbelt, also recalled daily interactions manifest each individual’s by Hannerz, complicate this observation. In the practical integration in the shared territories of city of Luanshya, J. C. Mitchell’s (1959) study of the city, people also develop sentiments of affil- the Kalela dance by the Bisa people showed how iation to a largely anonymous collective at the traditional distinctions such as the tribe were scale of the city. Becoming a New Yorker, or a reworked by urban living conditions to become Parisian, is not only a generational effect, as re- part of an open-ended system of categorization, cent literature has offered (Kasinitz et al. 2004), which allowed urbanites to relate to one an- but also the ongoing and demanding work of other within the context of the mining town. rubbing shoulders with strangers, no matter Following Gluckman’s (1960) principle that “An how we may like it. Indeed, the routine habits of African Townsman is a townsman, an African going places in the city, produced and repro- miner is a miner,” Mitchell also proposed the duced in interaction with others (Dewey 1922), idea of “situational change” to explain, differ- carry with them specific codes laden with ently from the Chicago School idea of adapta- strong, implicit, taken-for-granted moral values tion, that people who move to the city see their of equality, justice, and cooperation (Milliot behavior and perspective transformed not be- and Tonnelat 2013). Interestingly, these values cause they are losing ties to their traditional val- are the same as those advanced by many partic- ues (although that may also happen), but ipants in new social movements (NSM) claim- because they adjust in practical ways to the ur- ing recognition and equality for specific ban condition. Thus, urban notions of tribes or segments of society. But they are also consis- other imported categorizations leave the struc- tent with the demands of international protest- tural realm to become categorical and used as ers such as environmentalists and antiglobaliza- resources to navigate the city. Indeed, the Kalela tion activists, which Rauch et al. (2007) have dance, performed in public spaces, involved con- labeled cosmopolitan NSMs. In addition to testation over class position. This recognition of offering public spaces as a commons, the city class complicated ethnic identities and may have would thus also contribute toward the trans- helped to organize the miners’ social move- formation of a “commonally oriented urban- ments for better work conditions across tribal ite”, whose form of life is consistent with the divisions. In this perspective, the urban does demands of many contemporary social move- not erase already-existing divisions, but it re- ments. works them with a practical layer of interpreta- But movements also traditionally labeled ur- tion that puts them on a par with new emerging ban social movements, which we have linked to ones. This contradicts both the detribalization the first urban commons of labor and public and the acculturation respectively attributed to service, also use public space to make their the Manchester school and the Chicago school, claims public, through picketing and demon- by now well disproved by the development of strations. The challenge, it seems, is to build a cities worldwide. But it points, in addition to the vision that allows these two commons to merge continuing importance of traditional, ethnic, and their movements to meet (Pickvance 2003). cul tural, or religious ties, to a situational rework- This, we believe, requires the work of yet an- ing of these categories, which become useful in other commons, that of collective visions, cities’ traffic and work spaces. which art can help foster. 114 | Ida Susser and Stéphane Tonnelat

Collective urban visions: the Mexican city of Oaxaca and helped them re- Art as a commons claim the city. As we know, the option of privatization is Finally, the last urban commons is made out of limited to the very wealthy. Although the the visions that urbanites, both individually and wealthy may build gated sections of the ever- collectively, generate with respect to their own widening urban conglomerations, the streets of city as an environment shared among all. Fol- major cities are not limited to the wealthy. Even lowing Hannah Arendt, the commonality of the in the face of urban policing (Mitchell and Stae- public domain, the Greek polis or the Roman heli 2006), the mass of urban residents are still res publica is always at risk of privatization in a represented by the moderately well off, artists mass society, especially one governed by large and poets, as well as the working class, diverse commercial interests. In this case, the multiplic- immigrant populations, and the very poor. In ity of individual perspectives on the city as a re- order to illuminate the importance of cultural source to be managed are replaced by a unified workers to alternative urban visions, we draw vision falling from the top down, “when all peo- heavily here on Susser’s (2012) fieldwork among ple suddenly behave as though they were mem- the artists and actors who moved to Brooklyn to bers of one family, each multiplying and escape the gentrification of the Lower East Side prolonging the perspective of his neighbor” in New York City. Here, we see that processes of (Arendt 1958: 58). Fortunately, writers, musi- destruction and reconstruction not only de- cians, and other artists, among many others in stroy affordable housing, but also undermine the city, try to offer urbanites new ways to per- the development of creative work. In order for ceive their environment (Auyeung 2008; Pugh art to emerge, it must be generated by many in- 2008; Byrd 2012). The new “distribution of the novative groups able to support themselves at sensible” (Rancière 2000) that some artists pro- the margins of society. In Neil Smith’s ground- pose contributes to contest existing and taken- breaking work, the collaboration he docu- for-granted urban imaginaries in favor of mented in the 1990s battle for Tompkins Square “emancipated spectators” (Rancière 2008) able Park between anarchists, artists, and homeless to form alternate visions in which they can pro- people is often taken as paradigmatic of the ject themselves as unique individuals belong- fight against the gentrification of the Lower East ing to an imagined community. Side (N. Smith 1996; Marcus 2006). Smith em- A crucial focus of such questions is the inter- phasized the ways in which the cultural workers face between the urban and the creative: street acted as the pioneers of gentrification, but his art, wall paintings, community plays, and con- documentation of the artists who occupied the certs. As Frank Kermode has recently argued last buildings around the park also demon- for fifteenth-century England, it was the (some- strates the ways in which cultural workers what religious) street plays that prefigured the joined with the precariat to fight for their rights marginal public plays that became the estab- to the city. lished theaters such as the Globe over 100 years In Greenpoint and Williamsburg, where of social and political change in London (2005). Susser has conducted fieldwork intermittently In eighteenth-century Paris, as Robert Darnton since 1975, in the 2000s the activists who (1985, 2010) also argued, it was the libellés, worked on the community plans for redevelop- these pamphlets of public poetry distributed on ment included some of the established working the streets, that, in addition to the bourgeois sa- class population as well as young professionals, lon and the prose of Rousseau and Diderot, pre- artists, students, and others, some of whom also pared the ground for the French Revolution. owned homes in the neighborhood. These mid- Today, as Arenas (2011) argues, yet another dle class in-migrants had moved to the neigh- form of street art, graffiti and wall frescoes, fed borhood as they were displaced from Man- the social movement started by the teachers of hattan as part of the gentrification there. Where Transformative cities: The three urban commons | 115 buildings were in transition to demolition or oretically misleading to hold artists responsible renovation, innovative artists and young people for this development. In Greenpoint and turned them into concert halls, galleries, bars, Williamsburg (and elsewhere), corporate devel- and even shop-front museums. Such endeavors, opers were subsidized to follow the displaced like the community garden movement (Eizen- artists as they moved to new affordable areas. berg 2011; Ikeda 2009), while often forced out When municipal governments fail to require af- by real estate development, testify to the poten- fordable housing or other public investment tial for community-led activism. From the from developers while they subsidize corporate 1980s to the 2000s warehouses and abandoned investment, both the marginal artists and the facilities provided the venues for performers of working class residents are displaced. For these all kinds, as well as allowing artists and local reasons, we can understand the broad urban vi- residents to reclaim public space and in the sion, including environmental, landmark, and process develop new public spheres for commu- other concerns, expressed through the coopera- nity engagement (Susser 2012). According to tion of many different groups in the opposition, the participants in these creative endeavors, which has been illustrated in growing move- many had themselves been evicted or simply ments of “the right to the city”. priced out of other neighborhoods of New York Artistic efforts are writ large in neighbor- City. Many of them recognized common cause hoods where people can afford to live near each with the movements for affordable housing. other, “put on plays in their back yards, com- They supported the efforts of the Community pete in poetry slams, chalk street paintings, col- Planning District to build a neighborhood that lect junk in shop fronts, join bands to create served both the working class and middle- new forms of music and survive on the margins income New Yorkers (Susser 2012). while they pay attention to something other In 2008, Danny Hoch, a well-regarded per- than money” (Susser 2012: 53). In describing formance artist and a Williamsburg resident the unionization of jazz musicians as adjunct from the 1990s, wrote and performed a one- professors, Andrew Ross has argued that, not man play, Taking Over, which was lauded on the only did they organize for cultural workers to front page of the New York Times Arts section. be adequately paid, but that such performers Before it was scheduled to open commercially were in the forefront of organizing adjuncts in at the nationally known venue of the Public general as well as university faculty (Ross 2000). Theater, Danny Hoch arranged free perform- In addition, artists may see themselves as part ances in the Bronx and Brooklyn. These perform- of a wider progressive movement and work with ances were packed with community residents neighborhood groups to develop “community and organizers, contributing to the ongoing cri- art” (Crehan 2011). tiques of gentrification throughout New York As first lower Manhattan and then Williams- City. As Susser (2012) argues in her ethnogra- burg priced creative communities out of the phy, Danny Hoch’s performance captured the market, places such as Red Hook in Brooklyn, tensions in the new Williamsburg and was parts of Philadelphia, and areas in other cities clearly an example of activism in art. At the around the United States have temporarily gen- same time, Danny Hoch himself represented erated similar vital settings. The old European the artists that had come to Brooklyn and, in cities such as Barcelona, Berlin, Prague, and Neil Smith’s terms, pioneered gentrification. We elsewhere, and Hanoi, Johannesburg, and other argue that part of the energy and vitality of ur- cities of the Global South also have thriving ban social movements derives from such artis- communities of this kind. Artists make visible tic activism. Although, in one sense, we have to the destruction of urban environments, as illus- accept Neil Smith’s (1996) characterization of trated vividly by Auyeung (2008) in her re- artists as the pioneers of gentrification, “cow- search on Beijing. She describes powerful boys” taming the Wild West of poverty, it is the- transient art created in ruined edifices at the 116 | Ida Susser and Stéphane Tonnelat very moment of destruction. Artists and youth and to a more transparent and democratic man- in general may disrupt the boundaries of urban agement of urban resources. They contest the neighborhoods in their own search for afford- selling out of many sectors of the urban econ- able housing, and in so doing they often pro- omy by posing them as filling essential and voke a change in the perception of these areas, shared needs of the population as a whole. In so which can shift alliances in ways contrary to the doing, these protests and uprisings also reclaim widely accepted and often advocated idea (as the most symbolic city squares and the streets of exemplified by the political use of the concept their neighborhood as commons. In fact, this of the “creative city”) that artists are at the fore- process also works simultaneously the other front of capital. This, in turn, may transform the way around. It is indeed through the use of eco- way residents conceive of the production of logical resources such as university campuses space in their own neighborhood and give them (Zhao 1998), central city squares, and housing a better grasp of how they can claim it as collec- projects (Hmed 2008) that new perspectives tively built and held. emerge, again often with the help of art, and new claims and new communities coalesce. “They form enunciative collectives that call into Uprisings or the effect of the three question the distribution of roles, territories, commons coming together and languages. In short, they contribute to the formation of political subjects that challenge We suggest that the three urban commons out- the given distribution of the sensible” (Rancière lined here are not necessarily perceived every- 2000: 39–40). It is thus when the three urban where, but as they momentarily come together in commons are recognized and built as such that cities over the world, they give us a glimpse of a movements emerge. Today, as we have seen city built on the social needs of a population. from Iran on to Cairo and elsewhere, the Inter- That is the point when cities become transforma- net is a new crucial public sphere. However, we tive. The most obvious manifestation of this so- would suggest that as people come out, embod- cial tendency can be seen in the many uprisings ied as one might stress, and put their bodies on appearing seemingly unexpectedly in many the line in the public squares, daily but also cities, from the Arab world to sub-Saharan eruptively, from Peterloo in Manchester in Africa, from China to Europe. Of course, the 1819, through Tiananmen in 1989, to Tahrir motives of anger, dissatisfaction, and indigna- Square in Cairo in 2011, that is the point when tion are specific to each country. They also vary transformation starts. However, the long-term within a given city according to social status, work to institutionalize such a vision and the age, ethnicity, etc. However, for cities that have memories of this collective moment must per- been reshaped worldwide by neoliberal policies, force be a contested, erratic, and long-term some common themes are emerging, all the process. more strikingly because they appear similar across societies that the pervasive discourse on the clash of civilizations suggested were irre- Acknowledgments deemably different from each other. Corruption and misappropriation of riches by an oligarchy, This articled resulted from a year-long seminar, youth unemployment, personal indebtedness Transformative Cities, chaired by Ida Susser at and indentured labor, information censorship the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at or blackout, degradation of public infrastruc- CUNY; Neil Smith was the director and many ture and services, and poor housing conditions other faculty and doctoral students partici- are the recurring complaints heard from many pated. The seminar generated so many exciting protesters. Social movements announce the insights with respect to the questions discussed claim of urbanites to better living conditions, here that Janet Ng, Ida Susser, and Stéphane Transformative cities: The three urban commons | 117

Tonnelat initially planned to edit a volume on tural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: the topic. In the end, Stéphane Tonnelat and Ida University of Minnesota Press. Susser wrote this preliminary article. Perhaps Arenas, Ivàn. 2011. Rearticulating the social: Spatial this can be seen as the first publication of a se- practices, collective subjects, and Oaxaca’s art of ries. We wish to honor the memory of Neil protest. PhD diss., University of California Berkeley. Smith and to thank all the members of the sem- Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The human condition. inar for their inspiring contributions to these Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ideas. We also thank the editors at Focaal for Aronowitz, Stanley, and Jonathan Cutler. 1998. their help and support. Post-work: The wages of cybernation. New York: Routledge. Auyero, Javier, and Deborah A Swistun. 2009. Flam- Ida Susser is a professor of anthropology at mable: Environmental suffering in an Argentine Hunter College and the doctoral program at shantytown. New York: Oxford University Press. CUNY Graduate Center and has conducted Auyeung, Poyin. 2008. Art, urbanism, and public ethnographic research in New York City, Puerto space: Critical spatial responses to urban redeve- lopment in Beijing (1976–2000). PhD diss., City Rico, and southern Africa on working-class University of New York. politics, gender, and health. Her most recent Bacqué, Marie-Hélène, Henri Rey, and Yves Sin- books are Updated Norman Street: Poverty and tomer. 2005. Gestion de proximité et démocratie Politics in an Urban Neighborhood (Oxford participative: Une perspective comparative. Paris: [1982] 2012), AIDS, Sex and Culture: Global La Découverte. Politics and Survival in Southern Africa (Wiley- Bacqué, Marie-Hélène, Yves Sintomer, Amélie Fla- Blackwell 2009), and a coedited book, Rethink- mand, and Héloise Nez. 2010. La démocratie ing America (Paradigm Press). Her publications participative inachevée: Genèse, adaptations et include Wounded Cities: Destruction and Recon- diffusions. Paris: Adels; Gap: Yves Michel. struction in a Globalized World (coeditor); The Berman, Marshall. 1983. All that is solid melts into Castells Reader on the Cities and Social Theory air: The experience of modernity. New York: Verso. (editor); Cultural Diversity in the United States Blackmar, Elizabeth. 2006. Appropriating “the com- (coeditor); and Medical Anthropology in the mons”: The tragedy of property right discourse. World System (coauthored). In Setha Low and Neil Smith, eds., The politics of [email protected] public space, pp. 49–80. New York: Routledge. Bollier, David. 2007. The growth of the commons Stéphane Tonnelat is a CNRS research fellow at paradigm. In Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom, the CRH-LAVUE research center in Paris, eds., Understanding knowledge as a commons: France. He conducts ethnographic research on From theory to practice, pp. 27–40. Cambridge, various types of urban public spaces in Paris MA: MIT Press. and New York City. His main fields of investiga- Bond, Patrick. 2008. Macrodynamics of globaliza- tion lie in urban interstices (wastelands, empty tion, uneven urban development and the com- lots, construction sites), parks and gardens, and modification of water. Law, Social Justice and Global Development 10(2). subways and ferries. Bookman, Ann, and Sandra Morgen. 1988. Women [email protected] and the politics of empowerment. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Buechler, Simone. 2004. Sweating it in the Brazilian References garment industry: Korean and Bolivian immi- grants and global economic forces in São Paulo. Anderson, Benedict, and Richard O’Gorman. 1998. Latin American Perspectives 31(3): 99–119. The spectre of comparisons: Nationalism, South- Busà, Alessandro. 2009. The right to the city: The east Asia, and the world. New York: Verso. entitled and the excluded—editorial. The Urban Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at large: Cul- Reiventors. http://urbanreinventors.net/ 118 | Ida Susser and Stéphane Tonnelat

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Chris Hann

The concept of civilization has not prospered in “civilization” to the lexicon and we have poured socio-cultural anthropology. Its origins lie in scorn on both singular and plural usages in other Enlightenment France, where it was used in disciplines. For example, Jack Goody (2006) has both singular and plural forms, the universalist critiqued Norbert Elias’s use of “civilizing proc- singular eventually prevailing in the decades ess” for its Eurocentrism. Political scientist Sam- leading up to the Revolution. Our discipline uel Huntington’s account of the “clash of civi- came to prefer pluralizing counter-currents of lizations” has attracted far more opprobrium this universalism such as that associated with due to this scholar’s impassioned commitment Johann Gottfried Herder. The key term in Ger- to the values of his own “Western civilization.” man was Kultur, though it was not widely used Huntington’s civilizations are “cultures writ in the plural until the twentieth century, while large,” neatly bounded and closed entities. He is Zivilisation referred to technological progress. adamant that “the West was the West long be- For Edward Burnett Tylor in England, culture fore it was modern” (cited in Arnason 2003: 12). and civilization were synonymous. But even be- For all the justified critique it has attracted, fore the demise of the European colonial em- Huntington’s book in the wake of the Cold War pires, most socio-cultural anthropologists were has provoked scholars to revisit the concept of uncomfortable with the normative connota- civilization with the aim of developing new and tions of the latter. They preferred to carry out more productive usages. For example, engaging ethnographic studies within paradigms that explicitly with Huntington, archeologist David represented the world as composed of more or Wengrow has emphasized “camouflaged bor- less bounded societies with their more or less rowings” rather than clashes between the an- incommensurable cultures. With the abandon- cient civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt. ment of evolutionist paradigms, analyses of the According to Wengrow (2010: xviii): “Civiliza- emergence of civilization from primitive cul- tion, if we are to retain that term, should then tures were rendered redundant and repugnant. refer to the historical outcomes of exchanges Both society and culture proved susceptible and borrowings between societies, rather than to the disease now known as “methodological to processes or attributes that set one society nationalism.” They are no longer uncontested apart from another.” This cautious formulation master concepts. Terms such as ethnic group emphasizes connectivity and retains society as and identity have become popular alternatives the basic unit. But Wengrow does not challenge in denoting the central objects or units of an- received knowledge that civilization, under- thropological investigation. Few modern an- stood as the growth of more complex societies thropologists have been tempted to re-integrate based on agricultural intensification and new

Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 62 (2012): 113–121 doi:10.3167/fcl.2012.620109 114 | Chris Hann technologies of communication, developed with analysis is liable to leave anthropologists gasp- a high degree of independence in different parts ing for breath and wondering how they might of the world. He and others have drawn theoret- possibly operationalize the concept. In the first ical inspiration for a plural concept of civiliza- part of this contribution I outline the efforts of tion from Marcel Mauss, who drew in turn on a few anthropologists to promote analysis at this the late work of his uncle Émile Durkheim level, whether or not they made use of the term (Schlanger 2006). This strand has been neglected civilization. I then present two brief case studies by anthropologists, who associate the Durk - to show how micro investigations making use of heim ian tradition with the analysis of closed so- ethnographic methods can be reconciled with cieties and are unaware that the masters clearly the analysis of inter- and intra-civilizational dy- saw the need for a meso-level of analysis be- namics, and how we can distinguish between tween the societal and the universal. However, the latter. Durkheim and Mauss did not develop new con- cepts to implement this agenda, and the gaunt- let laid down by Huntington has not been Anthropological contributions picked up by socio-cultural anthropologists. We have a gut resistance to his rhetoric of “clash”— The anthropologists discussed most carefully but might there be circumstances in which this by Arnason are Claude Lévi-Strauss and Pierre diagnosis is warranted? Clastres. Their appreciation of the post-Neolithic If anthropologists today have to re-acquaint but pre-state condition constitutes for Arnason themselves with the concept of civilization as it a kind of baseline for all civilizational analysis. were from scratch, a good place to start is the Arnason also acknowledges the efforts of Louis magisterial survey of historical sociologist Jo- Dumont (another student of Mauss) to grasp hann P. Arnason (2003). Arnason too rejects Indian civilization in terms of a basic structur- Huntington’s culturalism. He is equally critical ing relationship between the political and the of all forms of economic and geographical de- religious. But while his teacher’s vision of civi- terminism. He finds much of value in Elias, but lization had emphasized encounters, the endless also in the historical sociology of Max Weber give and take between civilizations, Dumont (though Weber preferred to use the term Kul- opted to contrast homo hierarchicus in India with turwelt) and its contemporary offshoot, the an equally reified ideal type of homo aequalis in “multiple modernities” paradigm of Shmuel distant Western Europe. Eisen stadt. Like Wengrow, Arnason eschews a By the 1950s the US was the hegemonic neat definition of civilization. He concentrates power and modernization and decolonializa- on preindustrial Eurasia, where he favors com- tion were keywords in the social sciences. Fol- parative approaches “grounded in interciviliza- lowing Franz Boas, his first doctoral student tional encounters” (2003: 62). For example, he Alfred Kroeber had helped to transmit impulses notes the development of successive Russian from German humanities traditions into the states as a result of encounters between Slavs, paradigms of North American anthropology, pagan Scandinavians, Byzantine Christians, and including the notion of “culture area.” In the Mongolian nomads as “an eminently instructive 1950s culture solidified as the master concept. case of unfolding multi-civilizational dynamics” Kroeber also used civilization, distinguishing it (ibid.: 33f). from culture primarily in terms of scale (as did As this example shows, a world of multiple Huntington later). Both culture and civilization civilizations, contiguous and overlapping tem- were open systems, which, however, could con- porally and spatially, is radically different from geal to form “patterns” that varied in intensity at that of the early post-Neolithic societies ex- different locations and had nothing to do with plored by archeologists. Arnason’s synthetic, utilitarian adaptations. They were based ulti- meta-theoretical panorama of civilizational mately on a common style or “value culture.” Civilizational analysis for beginners | 115

Kroeber negotiated a division of labor with so- tion” (Kroeber’s terms) that we might wish to ciologist Talcott Parsons, confirming fieldwork call a civilization had to be accounted for socio- as the dominant method of the anthropologists logically, distinguishing internal and external and granting them the leading role in the study factors, but Wolf insisted on paying equal atten- of culture in this idealist sense, particularly the tion to what he termed cognitive and ideologi- “value culture” of people very different from cal dimensions. Unfortunately he seems at this ourselves. This reached its apotheosis in the point to have lost interest in civilization: neither Geertzian paradigm of “the interpretation of in Europe and the People without History (1982), cultures.” with its focus on the rise of the North Atlantic This work also reflected the impact of mod- countries from the sixteenth century on, nor in ernization theory, in an era in which studies of his later investigations of the internal dynamics exotic “tribesmen” were gradually being dis- of “culture and power” in cases such as the placed by close-up investigations of “peasants.” Aztecs and Nazi Germany did he make signifi- Whether studied in East or South Asia, the cant use of this concept. This is unfortunate, Mediterranean or Latin America, peasant com- because it might have helped him find that elu- munities were evidently embedded in wider sive world-historical balance between what we systems that could be extensively documented simplistically distinguish as the social and the historically. Robert Redfield, building on Kroe- cultural. ber’s ideas, argued that peasant communities In Britain the only figure with comparable were “part societies,” whose “little tradition” range and stature is Jack Goody, who has pur- had to be analyzed in dynamic interaction with sued comparative analysis in even longer time the “great tradition” to which it belonged. He frames than Wolf. Goody’s (2010) narrative of was the main inspiration behind a project on Eurasian breakthrough begins, following Gor- “comparative civilizations” at the University of don Childe, with the urban revolution of the Chicago (Arjomand 2010). Redfield and his late Bronze Age. He has been more concerned colleagues recognized the emerging domina- to redress a long history of Eurocentrism in the tion of the West over what was about to be writing of global history than to address any termed the Third World, but alongside this new particular civilizations within Eurasia. Goody’s inter-civilizational encounter, they also drew at- principal actors are the “merchant cultures,” tention to intra-civilizational dynamics. These which transmitted ideas as well as commodities were obviously influenced by new global inter- by land and by sea along the trade routes of the dependencies, yet they remained partially au- Old World. This is consistent with the Maussian tonomous. India provided the richest illustra- approach to civilizational encounters, but tions: Sanskritization proceeded in accordance Goody does not make this connection and has with the logic of a distinctive South Asian, pri- not contributed to the reinvigoration of this marily Hindu civilization, even as new inter- concept. civilizational encounters had resulted in the rise of the English language in an independent de- velopmental state, influenced also by Soviet Case study I: East-Central Europe models. Eric Wolf (1967) appreciated Redfield’s con- The reasons why even those anthropologists who ceptualization of the “social organization of tra- explicitly engage in long-term historical analy- dition” as a corrective to the culturalist positi- sis are reluctant to adopt the concept of civiliza- vism of Kroeber, while criticizing the work of tion are plain enough. While comparative anthropologists and archeologists who in his sociologists are willing to debate the models of view exaggerated the importance of socio-eco- a political scientist such as Huntington or histo- nomic relationships and underplayed ideas and rians such as Spengler and Toynbee, we are more ideologies. Every “coagulation” or “crystalliza- fundamentally reluctant to endorse any notion 116 | Chris Hann that smacks of a “higher” form of human com- Nonetheless in the following centuries these munity. But setting aside our disciplinary spe- “Greek Catholics,” as they were later called by cialization in the “cold” societies, how exactly is Empress Maria Theresa, borrowed extensively one to recognize civilizational crystallizations from Western ritual practices, architecture, and in the hot flux of Eurasian history? Does every sacred art. The movement of cultural traits was ephemeral empire constitute a civilization? Are shaped by unequal power relations, as stressed the Eastern and Western strands of Christianity by Eric Wolf. But there was also traffic in the separate civilizations? Or do they form a single other direction. The national icon of the Black great tradition alongside those of Judaism and Madonna, Queen of Poland, the largest Western Islam? Or should we recognize the Abrahamic Slav nation, visited by millions of pilgrims every religions as together constituting a single mono- year at her shrine in Częstochowa, has undeni- theistic civilization? Did European civilization ably Eastern, Byzantine features. This may be collapse with the fall of the Roman Empire to another case of camouflaged borrowing, but of re-emerge in new forms after the Renaissance, course all of these styles had a common origin or should we pluralize Renaissance and con- in the eastern Mediterranean. sider medieval Europe as a civilization in its own This East-West encounter within Christian- right? Such problems of periodization and clas- ity took on a new form in the nineteenth cen- sification are endemic to historiography. An- tury when clergy of both variants of Catholi- thropologists, having opted for micro-level eth- cism helped to disseminate a national identity nography as their hallmark, have preferred to to their peasant congregations in what was then ignore them. the multiethnic Habsburg province of Galicia. Civilizational analysis was certainly not on The disintegration of the Habsburg Monarchy my agenda when I began fieldwork in Poland in in 1918 was marked by violent conflicts be- 1978. My aim was to conduct a socio-economic tween Polish Roman Catholics and Ukrainian study of non-collectivized villagers, following Greek Catholics. The Poles won and controlled an earlier study of collectivized villagers in Hun - the region for the next two decades. Although gary. Thus the units of comparison were “na- their elites now proclaimed them to be radically tional” variants of socialism. Chance led me to different kinds of people, in the diocese of Prze- the Carpathian village of Wisłok in the south- myśl the rates of intermarriage between ordi- east corner of the country, near the borders with nary Eastern and Western Christians actually Slovakia and what was then Soviet Ukraine. increased; the languages were so close that mu- During fieldwork I learned a little about the tual comprehension had never been an issue; ethnic and religious histories of the various the two kinds of Christian had different calen- Slavic groups of the region, but I only began to dars but they continued to respect each others’ study this complexity in greater depth when, rituals and joined forces in boycotting Jewish following the collapse of socialism, the past shops in the 1930s. After the Holocaust and suddenly became salient in contemporary life in mutual ethnic cleansing sprees by both Poles the form of highly visible ethno-religious con- and Ukrainians, Stalin imposed a new state bor- flicts (e.g. concerning the ownership of sacred der. By mid-century the old cosmopolitan civi- property). lization had vanished: to the west, the People’s Eastern and Western Christians and Jews Republic of Poland was overwhelmingly Polish had mingled in this region since the Middle and Roman Catholic, while to the east the So- Ages. The city of Przemyśl was the center of viet Ukraine was overwhelmingly Ukrainian both a Roman Catholic and an Orthodox dio- and Orthodox. Communist power holders in cese. With the Union of Brest (1596), some east- Ukraine formally merged the Greek Catholics ern Bishops acquiesced to political pressure and into the Orthodox Church in 1946, though in recognized the authority of the Pope. They were practice its priests were able to maintain consid- not required to change their Byzantine liturgy. erable regional autonomy, while others went Civilizational analysis for beginners | 117 underground. There were minor convulsions on the polyglot civilization destroyed by the “un- both sides of the border when Ukraine achieved mixing” of the 1940s. Some Jewish survivors independence and the Greek Catholics re- later formed associations in Israel and are proud emerged in the 1990s. I documented these in today to recall their origins in Galicia. Back in several articles based on ethnographic observa- the homeland, the replacement of capitalism by tion. I found that the basic pattern set in the socialism seems almost insignificant in compar- 1940s had not changed further. Nowadays this ison to the imposition of the new state boundary Polish-Ukrainian border is a “Schengen” exter- and the violence of ethnic cleansing in the nal boundary of the EU; despite the continued 1940s. After the collapse of socialism, Habsburg presence of small minorities on both sides, in Galicia became the object of intellectual and en- national imaginations it represents a sharp eth- trepreneurial nostalgia on both sides of the bor- nic and religious boundary. der. But the old cosmopolitanism has gone for- How can civilizational analysis help us make ever. The eventual accession of Ukraine to the sense of this transformation of cosmopolitan EU will have little bearing on the nationaliza- Eastern Galicia into a zone of sharply bounded tion that has taken place within European, Chris- nation states? Samuel Huntington’s take might tian civilization, in East and West alike. at first sight surprise. Four centuries of affilia- tion to the Vatican suffice for him to classify East Slav Greek Catholics with the civilization Case study II: East-Central Asia of the West. This is indeed how many Greek Catholics see themselves, in opposition to Or- My later project in the Xinjiang Uyghur Au- thodox, less nationally conscious Ukrainians in tonomous Region (XUAR), in northwest China, the eastern half of their country. But in the eyes was similarly innocent of a civilizational agenda of most Polish Roman Catholics, Greek Catho - in its inception. But, twenty-five years after my lics are an Eastern anomaly, whose true home is first visit, increased conflict between Uyghurs on the other side of a sharp, civilizational boun - and Chinese leads me in this case to diagnose a dary. Recent Vatican policy has reaffirmed this problematic inter-civilizational encounter. The difference by proclaiming the value of the pure Chinese are well known, one of the earliest and Eastern rite; but Greek Catholic congregations most significant of Eurasian civilizations and are often reluctant to give up the camouflaged widely perceived as the new global hegemon borrowings of recent centuries. of the twenty-first century. But who are the Whereas Huntington views the Greek Cath - Uyghurs? If they do not belong under the olics as the fulcrum of an inter-civilizational Chinese civilizational canopy, where do they clash between East and West, my interpretation belong? differs from both his and the various emic ac- The history of the vast territory between the counts. I prefer to read this history in terms of eastern European steppe and the Great Wall of intra-civilizational dynamics and the rise of the China is commonly told as a history of separate nation-state. The historical division of Christi- civilizations that replaced each other succes- anity into Eastern and Western streams, each sively, the superseded literally disappearing into subsuming enormous diversity, preceded state the sand. Closer inspection of the lands tra- formation in this region of Central Europe. The versed by the multiple routes of the Silk Road East-West boundary has never disappeared; reveals continuous contacts, borrowings, and even Greek Catholicism falls far short of a real overlapping civilizational influences. The lines hybrid. But Eastern and Western Slavs could al- of demarcation are often indistinct. Neverthe- ways understand each other’s dialects, inter- les, from a modern perspective the administra- marry and share each other’s food. Jews were tive entity officially designated (since 1955) as more distinct, but they spoke the languages of the XUAR can be reasonably classified as the their neighbors and formed an integral part of easternmost segment of the belt of Turkic 118 | Chris Hann speakers that extends through the Caucasus into religionists (with whom few were capable of Anatolia, and which reached deep into the Bal - communicating). kan peninsular until the post-imperial unmix- The third civilizational force shaping the ing of the twentieth century. Today’s Uyghurs modern history of Eastern Turkestan was thus speak an eastern Turkic that is unintelligible on that of Manchu Chinese imperialism. In 1949 the streets of Istanbul; but language and litera- this Chinese world was proclaimed to be a so- ture are nonetheless a prime unifying civiliza- cialist world. During the following decades the tional characteristic, and many prefer Eastern demographic composition of the region was Turkestan to the Chinese term Xinjiang as the transformed. Han Chinese probably now out- name of their homeland. number Uyghurs in their designated “autono- These Turkic speakers, including Kazakh mous region.” Yet in addition to radical political and Kyrgyz pastoralists as well as the sedentary and economic transformation, socialist rule oasis-dwelling agriculturalists who gave rise to also brought a new consciousness of being Uyghur today’s Uyghur, were gradually Islamized in a to a disparate population whose identities were process that began in Kashgar in the tenth cen- previously linked largely to their particular oa- tury and was completed in Qumul (Hami) in sis and to their religion. Chinese socialist poli- the sixteenth. Buddhist and Nestorian Christian cies of nationality (minzu) recognition, like the practices yielded to Sunni Islam, within which Soviet policies on which they were based, were powerful Sufi orders, notably the Nakshbandi, instrumental in forging strong ethno-national played a key role. The second unifying civiliza- identities. They included the standardization of tional factor is therefore religion. Even if East- the language and its use in educational institu- ern Turkestan lacked centers of learning com- tions at all levels. In the Soviet case, the princi- parable to Samarkand and Bukhara, from the ple of federalism led to the emergence of inde- sixteenth century on we can speak of an inten- pendent Turkic republics following the collapse sifying Turkic-Islamic congruence in this zone of the USSR. In China, by contrast, Mao opted of Inner Asia. to preserve the historic political ideology of a The political history of this territory was unitary state. The XUAR has thus from its in- increasingly shaped by the expansive continen- ception formed an integral component of a sin- tal empires of the Romanov and Qing dynasties. gle centralized state. In the neo-Confucian rhet- The boundaries specified in the wake of mili- oric of recent decades it is proclaimed that this tary campaigns in the middle of the eighteenth state embraces multiple civilizations, notably century do not diverge greatly from the western those of Islam, Buddhist Tibet, and the Mongo- frontier of the PRC today. Under the Manchu lian grasslands. Qing and the republic that succeeded their em- The vast territory of the XUAR is thus con- pire in 1911, Eastern Turkestan was at first at- tested, pulled in different directions by compet- tached and then gradually incorporated into ing civilizational influences. Despite some Chinese civilization (despite periods of warlord efforts from Ankara, the Turkic component has rule and brief spasms of autonomy). There were not been easy to mobilize. Islam has experi- plenty of borrowings, as there always had been enced a significant revival since Maoist repres- along the Silk Road, for example noodles are sion and scripture-based currents have become nowadays central to Uyghur cuisine, and no popular. The socialist authorities have alleged one suspects a Chinese origin; but language dif- that a “fundamentalist” impulse emerging from ferences were deep, dietary rules held firm, and the Islamic civilizational sphere is working in there was very little intermarriage between Han tandem with a secularist “splittist” movement colonists and the Muslim-Turkic population. rooted in the principles of minority recognition Chinese Muslims (the contemporary Hui) (which they themselves introduced). But there complicated the picture; they usually had sepa- is no significant evidence that religion can be rate mosques and little contact with their co- mobilized to support separatist politics. Civilizational analysis for beginners | 119

Arguably, the “reformed socialism” of the ritorial vantage point of today’s XUAR is also past three decades, which in the eyes of some questionable. Perhaps I have yet to escape from observers amounts to “neoliberalism with Chi- two pitfalls: the fetishism of the local and the nese characteristics,” deserves to be classified as tyranny of the present. In a different frame, the a further distinct civilizational influence in the case of East Central Asia might be analysed in present conjuncture. Certainly many Uyghurs terms of intra-civilizational dynamics. For ex- are attracted by the goods available in the new ample, in terms of a Muslim religious canopy a shopping malls and mediatized glimpses of a text-based orientation seems to be on the rise in globalized consumerism. However, socialist po- contemporary Eastern Turkestan, a trend very litical and administrative controls remain similar to that documented in other parts of the firmly in place, such that neither rural nor ur- Muslim world. That would be to privilege reli- ban Uyghurs are able to participate as equals in gion, but one might equally well privilege the the new market society. The best jobs are effec- political or some other aspect of social organi- tively reserved for Chinese, who continue to zation. From the political angle, the Chinese pour into the region. The state proposes to con- state has subsumed multiple civilizations for solidate this mixing by means of educational re- thousands of years in the vast expanse of its forms designed to weaken provision in Uyghur western territories, and today’s policies of mix- and make all Uyghurs fluent in Mandarin. Un- ing represent the culmination of that continuity. fortunately the evidence indicates that discrim- But the term civilization, as Wolf saw but failed ination against Uyghurs is largely independent to follow up, forces us to historicize actual com- of their linguistic competence. At present the binations of the cultural and the socio-political, minkaohan—Uyghurs educated in Chinese-lan- rather than artificially unmix them. When, de- guage schools—are the object of suspicion on spite enforced intensified interaction in all areas both sides. They are no more able to forge a of social life, population groups refuse to inter- genuine hybrid than the Chinese Muslims. Lan- marry and instead assert radical differences, guage, religion, and dietary rules continue to sometimes phrased as differences in ultimate mitigate against intermarriage between Uyghur values, then there is a strong prima facie case, at and Han. Far from Uyghur integration/assimi- this moment in time and space, for assigning lation being fostered by the new market econ- these distinct socio-cultural groups to separate, omy, the loss of almost 200 lives in the ethnic clashing civilizations. Following gradual incor- rioting that took place on 5 July 2009 in Urum- poration over two centuries, socialist ideology chi, capital of the XUAR, suggests an explosive in the second half of the twentieth century clash between two civilizations. Two kinds of aimed to bring Xinjiang and the Uyghurs as its population transfer played a direct role in this dominant socio-cultural group under a single conflagration: in addition to the increased im- Chinese canopy; but ironically these very poli- migration of Chinese into the XUAR, signifi- cies, implemented with the standardization of cant numbers of unemployed Uyghur have been the modern Uyghur language and disseminated relocated to the east to alleviate labor shortages through Uyghur schools and mass media, led to in China’s booming coastal provinces (see Hann the emergence of a strong secular Uyghur iden- 2011). tity that now poses a serious threat to the in- tegrity of the PRC. It is still possible that the “civilization” of Discussion and analysis of the cases global capitalism will succeed where that of Maoist socialism failed. Like other intra- and I presented the case studies as examples of inter-civilizational phenomena, this encounter intra- and inter-civilizational dynamics respec- can be illuminated by the micro-level work of tively, but of course this very distinction is the ethnographer. Rather than see the clash be- problematic. Looking back in time from the ter- tween Chinese and Uyghurs in terms of sepa- 120 | Chris Hann ratism or fundamentalism based on a unique the term is that it welds together the social and society or culture, the current crisis in the the cultural, an unhelpful bifurcation in the An- XUAR must be studied in all its multiple longue glophone traditions of the discipline. The study durée civilizational dimensions. The category of civilizations in Eurasia draws our attention to minkaohan will lose its significance if Uyghur functional adaptations of many kinds, but also educational institutions are effectively abol- to the persistence of values that cannot be re- ished; as even more Chinese enter the labor duced to any materialist calculus. Under the markets of the XUAR, eventually the nomencla- canopy of a civilization we can expect to find a ture of the territory may have to be changed. At diversity of what we might term socio-cultural that point we would have to conclude that the groups. The terms society and culture are best mixing of peoples in Central Asia has led not to used adjectivally; each component and the civilizational pluralism within the Chinese na- com posite may be broken up for specialized tion-state, as proclaimed by its ideologists, but analysis, but a satisfying account of a human to the definitive absorption by one civilization, group or community at any level will require at- the Chinese, of a large segment of another, the tention to both. Turkic-Islamic. This Chinese superstate would But is the noun form of civilization any more be a sharp contrast to the fragmented nation- defensible? I have suggested tentatively that it is, states of East-Central Europe, which were pro- at least in Eurasia, but I do not deny the difficul- duced in large measure through the elimination ties. Like other contested terms, this one too has and unmixing of peoples. A fuller historical problematic normative associations. My case analysis of this outcome would trace this de- studies highlighted a few of the problems that nouement back at least as far as the decline of arise. When the political entity lacks congru- Rome, after which Europe’s religious canopy was ence with the religious, and the latter is deeply able to expand without the political core that segmented or layered, how do we avoid arbi- survived all dynastic vicissitudes in the continu- trariness in identifying civilizations? How are ous history of Chinese civilization. we to maintain a general concept while simulta- neously delving into the particular semantics and taking seriously people’s own declared views Conclusion: Whither anthropology? about the boundaries that separate them from other civilizations? Must we modify the princi- The editors of this journal (and also those of ple of openness with equal attention to closure, other leading journals such as American Anthro- in order to account for the complex realities of pologist and Current Anthropology) evidently resistance, unexpected adaptations, long-term think it timely to re-open the perennial issue of resilience of both tangible institutions and in- anthropology’s future. I have used my opportu- tangible styles, and even, in some cases, civiliza- nity to argue for a renewed engagement with tional clash? These are not new problems, but global history and historical sociology. Looking they are as pertinent for anthropologists today back at my own work in two regions of Eurasia, as they ever were, perhaps even more so, if one I find that much of it exemplifies two pitfalls of takes the view that contemporary globalization twentieth-century anthropology: parochialism is a serious threat to civilizational pluralism. and presentism. I have suggested that to revisit the concept of civilization might offer a way be- yond these limitations and allow anthropolo- Chris Hann is a director of the Max Planck In- gists to join historical sociologists and archeol- stitute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale. His ogists in exciting interdisciplinary debates. recent publications include (ed) Market and So- Civilization poses a considerable theoretical ciety; The Great Transformation today (2009) challenge to anthropologists, but the potential and Economic Anthropology: History, Ethnogra- rewards are great. For me the main attraction of phy, Critique (2011), both with Keith Hart. Civilizational analysis for beginners | 121

References lence in Xinjiang, 1759–2009. Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 60: 108–123. Arjomand, Saïd Amir. 2010. Three generations of Schlanger, Nathan ed. 2006. Marcel Mauss: Tech- comparative sociologies. Archives européennes de niques, technology and civilization. Oxford: sociologie 52(3): 363–399. Berghahn Books. Arnason, Johann P. 2003. Civilizations in dispute: Wengrow, David 2010 What makes civilization? Historical questions and theoretical traditions. The ancient Near East and the future of the West. Leiden: Brill. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goody, Jack 2006 The theft of history. Cambridge: Wolf, Eric R. 1967. Understanding civilizations: A Cambridge University Press. review article. Comparative Studies in Society ———. 2010. The Eurasian Miracle. Cambridge: and History 9(4): 446–465. Polity Press. ———. 1982. Europe and the people without history. Hann, Chris. 2011. Smith in Beijing, Stalin in Berkeley: University of California Press. Urumchi: Ethnicity, political economy, and vio- Wal-Mart, American consumer citizenship, and the 2008 recession

Jane Collins

Abstract: This article explores dominant ideological framings of the economic cri- sis that began in 2008, by examining shifting meanings of consumer citizenship in the US. The consumer citizen was a central figure in Keynesian ideology—one that encapsulated important assumptions about the proper relationship between production and consumption and the appropriate arenas for citizen engagement with the economy. Taking Wal-Mart as a case-study example, the article analyzes the way that corporate actors have flattened and reconfigured the concept of con- sumer citizenship in the US—promoting the “consumer” over the “citizen” and the “worker,” which had previously been important aspects of the concept—and have replaced Keynesian-era conversations about the proper balance between produc- tion and consumption with a rhetoric of choice between low prices and high wages. Keywords: consumer citizenship, Fordism, Keynesianism, labor, Wal-Mart

The late twentieth century was a time of global a new perspective. As Lizabeth Cohen (2003) economic change, as corporations and their al- and others have shown, consumer citizenship in lies worked to dismantle the Keynesian frame- the US encapsulates a dense set of relationships works that had been designed to stabilize among citizens, the state, and employers, as well employment and balance production and con- as a complex set of ideas about “the market.” Ex- sumption within the economy. This disman- amining the fate of the consumer citizen thus tling was accompanied by struggle over such provides a window into the reconfiguration of fundamental issues as the role of the state in the these relationships and ideas in key periods. economy, the responsibilities of employers to One corporate actor has played a greater role workers, and the meaning of citizenship. While than any other in shaping consumer citizenship academics and policymakers have debated in the US since the 1980s—the giant retailer these changes at length, I would like to focus on Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is the leading retailer in recent shifts in the meaning and practice of the US, where it serves 20 percent of demand in consumer citizenship in the US, as reflected in the sector. With over 2 million workers world- the corporate practices of Wal-Mart, to suggest wide (1.4 million in the US), it is moreover the

Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 61 (2011): 107–116 doi:10.3167/fcl.2011.610108 108 | Jane Collins largest employer not just in the US but in the individual greed, eroded social norms and val- world. Through its emphasis on low prices, ues, and declining social responsibility, a cer- Wal-Mart has arguably elevated the importance tain strand has explored the social benefits and of the consumer citizen. The firm’s retailing even the liberating potential of some kinds of strategy and advertising campaigns suggest that consumption. Key among this work is Lizabeth market consumption is the most important way Cohen’s account of the rise of the idea of the that a citizen can pursue his or her economic in- consumer citizen in the US in the mid-twenti- terests. It offers the strategy of seeking the low- eth century. In her 2003 book A consumer’s re- est price as an alternative route to prosperity public, Cohen charts the emergence of two and inclusion—a “win-win” scenario that en- versions of consumer citizenship that competed tails less conflict than seeking a union contract for ascendancy in the public sphere during this or a living wage. At the same time, through its period. The first was the vigilant “consumer cit- efforts to keep down pay and benefits and to izen,” who prodded government to protect the erode worker rights, Wal-Mart has undermined rights, safety, and fair treatment of purchasers the capacity of low-wage workers in the US to (and also, at times, of the workers who pro- act effectively as consumers. duced goods). The second was the “purchaser The recession that began in 2008 deepened consumer,” whose retail prowess was the motor this contradiction, as sharply declining con- of the economy—“individuals who contributed sumer demand in the US led to the unraveling to society more by exercising purchasing power of Wal-Mart’s “Always Low Price” strategy. Ex- than by asserting themselves politically” (Co- ploring this moment in the firm’s history reveals hen 2003:19). not only the fragility, and perhaps hypocrisy, Drawing on forms of public participation of its commitment to economic empowerment with roots in the Progressive Era,2 consumer through cheap goods. It also makes visible the citizenship in the first sense found expression in damage done by the firm’s rhetorical and mate- grassroots struggles for pure food and drugs, rial reshaping of the terrain of the consumer cit- antitrust laws, fair prices, minimum wages, and izen. The story told here is historically and just labor standards. It had roots in the early geographically specific, reflecting the unique twentieth-century National Consumers’ League, version of consumer citizenship that arose in whose “ethical consumption” initiatives sought the US context and the particular retailing strate- to pressure employers and the government to gies and labor practices that Wal-Mart uses in improve wages and working conditions, as well that country.1 But as a variation on a broader set as to insure wholesome and sanitary products. of neoliberal corporate practices that under- Unions also promoted this sort of ethical con- mine worker rights by appealing to the need for sumption through “union label” campaigns and low pricing and that reinterpret citizenship as boycotts and exposés of unscrupulous employ- market participation, the insights it generates ers. As these campaigns and associated “rights” are potentially of great relevance to a wider found expression in the programs and policies range of contexts. of the New Deal, Cohen argues that consumers arose as a “self-conscious, identifiable interest group on a par with labor and business whose The American consumer citizen well-being required attention for American from Fordism to neoliberalism capitalism and democracy to prosper” (Cohen 2003: 23). A long stream of radical scholarship focuses Consumer citizenship in the second sense— on mass consumption, from Thorstein Veblen’s “the purchaser consumer”—referred to the role Theory of the leisure class (1899) to Sharon consumers played in creating demand within Zukin’s Point of purchase (2004). While much of the economy as a whole. Cohen cites the exam- it has decried consumerism as tied to inequality, ple of a public-relations film produced by Gen- Wal-Mart, American consumer citizenship, and the 2008 recession | 109 eral Motors in 1937 that portrayed workers adherence to price controls, and planted Vic- picking up their paychecks and then, accompa- tory Gardens. But at war’s end, Cohen argues nied by wives and children (and a triumphal that the consumer citizen and purchaser con- soundtrack), spending them in downtown sumer merged into a singular “purchaser as cit- stores on bicycles, furniture, and household ap- izen,” whose house in the suburbs and modern pliances. “Because America has a ready purse appliances fueled the nation’s economic growth, and gives eager acceptance to what the men of even as they bolstered existing relations of fam- motors have built,” the film proclaims, the ily, race, and class. In the wake of World War II, United States will enjoy “a prosperity greater both corporations and government praised the than history has ever known” (From dawn to good consumer as a patriotic citizen, one who sunset, in Cohen 2003: 20). Economic regula- fostered the recovery of the nation’s economy. tion theorists, referencing Antonio Gramsci (cf. The Nixon-Khrushchev “kitchen debates” of Gramsci [1937] 1971), called this virtuous rela- the 1950s featured the American housewife as tionship between production and consumption the appliance-rich author and beneficiary of the Fordism—in recognition of the Ford Motor prosperity that capitalist free markets could Company’s famous consumption-boosting in- bring. Media scholar Sheila Webb summarizes novation: the five-dollar-a-day wage . the moment: “In the postwar years, as mass pro- Insiders in Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s ad- duction expanded, corporations grew and liv- ministration debated the degree to which efforts ing standards rose. Advertising and communi- to recover from the Great Depression should put cations networks worked to sustain the rate of the worker or the consumer at the center. Key- consumption, and public opinion polling began nesianism offered a strong argument for deficit to assess not only political views but consump- spending to fuel consumer demand, with advo- tion patterns.” Major media outlets, such as Life cates declaring that “the future of this nation is magazine, “strove to create a community of cit- built upon spending, not saving” (Ernest Erber, izens who, with the proper training and knowl- cited in Cohen 2003: 55). Keynes and his fol- edge, could thrive in this new society” (Webb lowers argued that fostering a wide distribution 2006: 3). Cohen calls this convergence of the of purchasing power also enhanced economic two earlier modes of consumer citizenship an equality (ibid.). Franklin Roosevelt summed up “alluring compromise,” which promised that the the case: “If the average citizen is guaranteed pursuit of individual satisfaction could serve equal opportunity in the polling place, he must society as a whole. have equal opportunity in the marketplace” (cited By the 1970s, Keynesianism had fallen out of ibid.: 56). US economist John Kenneth Gal- favor in the US, but the concept of the “pur- braith ([1952] 1993) argued later that these ideas chaser as citizen” had not. In the 1970s and institutionalized for the first time the concept of 1980s, as more women moved into the US work- the consumer as a “countervailing power” to force, the media portrayed them as learning to balance more powerful interests such as big balance their traditional role as consumer with business. While the New Deal’s critics have cor- a new one as wage earner. Paraphrasing the rectly emphasized that it did not extend benefits song “I’m a Woman,” ads proclaimed women’s equally to women or people of color, and that its new ability “to bring home the bacon and fry it policies sometimes marginalized more progres- up in the pan.” The purchaser citizen rode the sive projects, its vision of government’s role in credit boom of the 1990s, and in the immediate guiding and regulating the economy opened aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade new spaces for social mobilization, including Center in September 2001 was called out by around the identity of the consumer. President George Bush to demonstrate patriot- During World War II, the vigilant American ism by spending. Cohen notes that the perva- consumer citizen participated in rationing pro- sive neoliberalism of the late twentieth century grams, deferred spending, monitored stores for reworked consumer citizenship once again, as it 110 | Jane Collins recast activities of government and political firms have to follow if they hope to compete.… participation in market terms. She calls this new- It is setting standards for the nation as a whole. est configuration the “consumer/citizen/tax- It’s almost legislating social policy, not in terms payer/voter”—highlighting the way neoliberal of votes and lobbying, but when it does some- discourse encourages citizens to view taxes, vot- thing, it’s so large, it’s so influential, others fol- ing, and other political activities as market trans - low it” (2004). actions and to judge them by “how well-served As the story of Wal-Mart’s rise is told, it is they feel personally” (Cohen 2003: 9). clear that it not only represented, but drove, a Cohen’s account might be criticized for flat- whole new paradigm of consumerism in the tening a multitude of dimensions of American US—one focused on the car, one-stop shopping, working-class and middle-class life at mid-cen- and price as the main dimension of competition tury—its labor activism, gender relationships, (Fishman 2006, Lichtenstein 2006, 2009, More- and community ties. To some extent, this is to ton 2009, Strasser 1989, Zukin 2004). Bolstering be expected, since the object of her study is the that paradigm was Wal-Mart’s folksy, southern emergence of a paradigm of civic participation “hometown” self-presentation, which as these that itself relies on such a flattening—that cre- authors suggest was laden with messages about ates a mode of citizenship consistent with a so- how one should labor, act in relation to state ciety mediated largely by market relationships. and market, and organize intimate relationships. Nevertheless, in tracing the emergence of this And behind the scenes of the firm’s success lay paradigm, she consistently downplays what it the latest in supply-chain management tech- displaces—the modes of civic and political en- nologies, the world’s biggest global sourcing gagement that are lost as a result. Focusing on network, and astonishingly low manufacturing the case of Wal-Mart as a key actor highlights wages. the loss of these alternative modes of citizen- Wal-Mart has habitually justified its stingy ship, as well as the active corporate labor re- wages in the US and abroad by reference to an quired to undermine and replace them. attenuated notion of the “purchaser as citizen.” Like the postwar version that Cohen refers to, it encourages people to think of their interests Wal-Mart reconfigures primarily in relation to consumption through the consumer citizen the market, and to see that approach as respon- sible and patriotic. In contrast, however, it explic- For anyone studying low-wage work, Wal-Mart itly silences other assertions of rights or interests is in one sense a metonym—a part of the con- as workers, community members, or citizens. sumer economy that can stand in for the US The firm organizes this argument about the ap- economy as a whole. But in another sense, be- propriate way to pursue one’s interests around cause of its size and the role it plays in setting the concept of low prices and how they serve the parameters for competition in the retail society. sector—and the low-wage labor market more The company’s corporate Web site provides generally—it merits study in its own right. Soci- an illustration of this logic. It declares “we know ologists Gary Gereffi and Michelle Christian that price matters to our consumers, whether call the firm “a driver and organizer of global they live in the United States, the United King- processes” (2009: 574). Gereffi claims that dom, Argentina or Japan.” It explains that sav- “whatever Wal-Mart does in terms of the labor ing money is connected to living better because market, all other businesses have to follow.… it can help the consumer “afford something a Wal-Mart is really determining the direction in little extra.” It offers the examples of a grand- which the US labor market is moving” (Gereffi mother who can buy her grandchildren a spe- 2004). Historian Nelson Lichtenstein concurs: cial gift because she saved money on her pre- “Wal-Mart is setting a new standard that other scriptions, or a young couple who can use the Wal-Mart, American consumer citizenship, and the 2008 recession | 111 savings to pay for a new home (Wal-Mart Cor- that have relied heavily on its business to close porate 2011). (Gereffi 2004). To support these rhetorical claims, in 2005 Wal-Mart also unleashes a race to the bot- and 2007 Wal-Mart paid economists at a con- tom in local labor markets in the US, by setting sulting firm to come up with an estimate of the in motion competitive forces that are vicious amount it had saved US consumers. The firm, rather than virtuous, in the sense that they are Global Insight, suggested a cumulative figure of structured around cost-cutting rather than 287 billion USD by 2006, and Wal-Mart widely technological or labor-process improvements. disseminated this information on its Web site, When it moves into a community as a retailer, in news releases, in corporate interviews, and in economists have shown that it depresses the circulars with titles like “Wal-Mart’s effect on prevailing wage rate, unleashing a vicious cycle grocery prices fact sheet” and “Wal-Mart saves in which profits, lower consumer prices, and Americans money fact sheet.” Based on these poverty-level wages are intertwined (Dube and studies, Wal-Mart’s corporate officials argue Jacobs 2004). Goetz and Swaminathan (2006) that the firm saves working families an average studied the relationship between Wal-Mart and of over 2300 USD per household per year, and county poverty rates. Controlling for other fac- lowers the grocery bills of families who shop tors that could influence impoverishment, they there by 20 percent over competitors’ prices. It found that counties with more Wal-Mart stores claims that its low prices contributed to a 3.1 had higher rates of poverty than those with percent decline in consumer prices across the fewer or no Wal-Mart stores. They calculated nation as a whole. Former CEO Lee Scott called that the opening of a new Wal-Mart store in- this “a wage increase” for the working poor in creases the average poverty rate in a county, and America. While independent economists have that an additional 20,000 US families were in challenged these estimates on all fronts—data poverty in 1999 as a result of Wal-Mart’s pres- used, assumptions made, soundness of econo- ence in their communities. The mechanisms by metric analysis, logic of argument (Bernstein which poverty is transmitted are primarily and Bivens 2006)—the company continues to competitive—by offering jobs at a low wage, the circulate the reports’ conclusions. Its insistent company drives down competitors’ wages, or at rhetoric about low prices as a social benefit that least keeps them from rising. But antiunion tac- trumps all others led one anticorporate activist tics and driving firms with unionized or higher- to comment: “Every time we try to talk about paid workforces out of business also play a role. quality of life, they bring up the price of under- At mid-twentieth century, the conventional pants” (Greenwald 2005). wisdom would have criticized such an approach Critics of Wal-Mart have argued that it hurts as “killing the goose that lays the golden egg”— US workers in two ways: by pushing other US that is, as eroding the buying power of the cus- retailers and the firm’s own US suppliers out of tomer base. But a very different logic informs business, thus destroying jobs, and by eroding Wal-Mart’s corporate strategy. Wal-Mart knows conditions in the remaining jobs in the low- that the poor are its most important custom- wage labor market. The claim that Wal-Mart ers—it locates its stores near them, researches drives out local businesses by undercutting their habits and preferences, and targets them them on price wherever it sets up a store has in advertising. Liza Featherstone quotes one of been well vetted. But Wal-Mart also places pres- the women she interviewed for her research as sure on its US suppliers’ factories, demanding saying, “They plant themselves right in the supply-chain innovations, quality improve- middle of Poorville” (Featherstone 2005). Wal- ments, and price reductions. When these com- Mart’s corporate strategy—its discourse and panies cannot afford to innovate or cannot practice—inverts the relationship between pro- continue to push their price points down, Wal- duction and consumption that policymakers of Mart turns to offshore suppliers, leading firms the Keynesian era tried to protect and that the 112 | Jane Collins era’s concept of citizenship embodied. A num- the shopping aisle, Wal-Mart’s discourse of low ber of scholars have shown that Wal-Mart’s low prices reworks the idea of the consumer citizen. prices and its low wages are perversely related— Just as the purchaser as citizen left behind the bound together in a way that inverts Henry idea of the citizen as a watchdog for unfair or Ford’s bargain (Collins 2010, Featherstone unsafe practices, Wal-Mart’s version leaves be- 2004, Gereffi 2004). As Liza Featherstone says, hind the idea of consuming to support the na- “In a chilling reversal of Henry Ford’s strategy tional economy. Despite its brief “Buy Ameri- … to pay workers amply so they could buy Ford can” campaign in the 1980s, the firm has always cars, Wal-Mart’s stingy compensation policies been an aggressive importer, and its competitive contribute to an economy where workers can strategy is based on perfecting ways to import only afford to shop at Wal-Mart” (Featherstone cheaply and efficiently (Gereffi and Christian 2004:219). In the words of Gary Gereffi, “Wal- 2009: 577). Wal-Mart’s consumer citizen exer- Mart is pushing wages down to a level where the cises her citizenship through consuming, not in people that work in Wal-Mart stores are going order to keep factories humming and employ- to be forced to buy in Wal-Mart stores, because ment rates low, but simply because that is the they can’t make enough money to buy goods best way to pursue her own interests and those elsewhere in the economy” (Gereffi 2004). of her family. Wal-Mart’s iconic shopper does While Wal-Mart plays a material role in un- not ask whether a toy contains lead or cadmium, dermining wages and working conditions in the or if the girls sewing her blue jeans (or the clerks low-wage labor market, it is also important to selling them) are paid a living wage. She does not notice what is forced out of the public conversa- think about the effect that buying from Wal- tion by the company’s rhetoric of consumer Mart will have on the small grocery store down economizing. While New Deal–era formula- the street, or whether her purchases will con- tions of consumer citizenship saw purchasing as tribute to the health and strength of her local or only one of the roles a citizen could play in the national economy. She simply compares prices. economy, and emphasized a virtuous connec- Following a path that Cohen describes in her tion between high wages and the ability to con- book, Wal-Mart’s version of the consumer citi- sume, in Wal-Mart’s rhetoric the consumer role zen coincides with a neoliberal political ration- trumps all other aspects of citizenship, includ- ality that portrays citizens as entrepreneurs of ing the economic citizenship of the worker and the self, all of whose relations, attachments, and the voice of the rights-bearing participant in the endeavors are construed in market terms. public sphere. In claiming that society gains Wendy Brown has argued that this attenuated more from lower prices than from fair wages, version of consumer citizenship is a key compo- Wal-Mart implies that workers’ hard-won rights nent of what she calls “neoliberal de-democrati- and protections are rendered unnecessary by its zation,” and that it works through devaluing pricing policies. Of course, unlike money in a political autonomy and by transforming politi- paycheck that can be used for any purpose, the cal problems into individual dilemmas with benefits of low prices can only be realized by market solutions (Brown 2006). The collective shopping at Wal-Mart. This formulation does power of grassroots consumer movements and not consider the worker to be an autonomous the state-supported rights of workers are both being, who might choose to save rather than rendered “superfluous” by this vision of the con- consume immediately, or to invest in a home, sumer citizen. education, or health care rather than Wal-Mart’s wares. The company’s energetic and preemptive antiunion strategies speak to another aspect of Wal-Mart’s consumer citizen citizenship it would rather not confront (see in the economic crisis Featherstone 2005, Lichtenstein 2009). By shifting the conversation from rights at How did this revamped version of the con- work or rights in the public sphere to rights in sumer citizen, whose new image was fostered Wal-Mart, American consumer citizenship, and the 2008 recession | 113 and groomed by Wal-Mart, fare during the ers’ use of food stamps was up significantly, and recession that began in the US in 2008? Spe- that they were spending according to a “pay- cifically, how did a consumer citizen whose check cycle”—making their largest purchases well-being had been conflated with—and re- when their salaries first come in and cutting duced to—access to low prices fare in a context back as that money runs out (New York Times of increased unemployment? In the early days 2010b, 2010c). In an article entitled “Watching of the recession, it should come as no surprise us save, one cart at a time,” Newsweek noted that that Wal-Mart thrived. For all of the reasons Wal-Mart managers had observed the following just outlined, Wal-Mart is what has been called recession-related behaviors among their cus- a “counter-cyclical firm”—one whose fate tomers: more discarded items near cash regis- moves in the opposite direction to the overall ters, greater use of grocery lists, increased economic cycle and whose profits rise when the purchase of generics, fewer discretionary pur- economy is weakening. Other examples include chases, increased consumption of take-and- fast-food firms like McDonald’s and Burger bake pizzas (presumably substituting for more King, some kinds of gardening and home-re- expensive pizza delivery), asking questions of pair lines, craft stores, frozen yogurt, and most pharmacists that might normally be part of a sadly, hand guns. As the Huffington Post put it, doctor’s visit, more requests to hit the subtotal “Wal-Mart was in the sweet spot of the Great key when checking out, fewer purchases per Recession. As shoppers traded down to cheaper trip, more shopping on payday (Newsweek stores, Wal-Mart gained market share” (2010). 2009). A Wall Street Journal article hinted at the The New York Times declared the company “a desperation that underlay this pattern: winner amid the downturn” (2010a). Former Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott put it bluntly: “I feel “At midnight on the first of the month, a scene we are well positioned for an economic down- unfolds at many Wal-Mart Stores … that under- turn. Our low prices and low-cost business scores the deep financial strains that many low- model should give us an advantage over other income American consumers still face. Parking retailers if things get more difficult for con- lots come to life after 11 p.m. as customers start sumers” (CNN Money 2007). The company’s to stream into the stores, cramming their shop- sales in 2009, according to its own estimates, ping carts full of milk, infant formula and other were up 7.2 percent over 2008, reaching 401 bil- necessities.Then at midnight, when the govern- lion USD. ment replenishes their electronic-benefit ac- By the beginning of 2010, however, as con- counts with their monthly allotments of food tinuing unemployment and underemployment stamps, nutritional grants for mothers with ba- took their toll, even Wal-Mart’s low-priced mer- bies or other aid for needy families, they head chandise was no longer a bargain that its poor- for the registers. ‘We’re not starving or any- est customers could afford. In 2009, 43.6 mil- thing, but we come every month at 11:55,’ said lion people (1 in 6) were living in poverty. The Tyrel Fogle, 26 years old, early Friday morning figure was 1 in 5 for children. Nearly 15 percent as he loaded a cart with frozen food at a Wal- of families were living below the federal poverty Mart here on the northwestern edge of the na- line (Economic Policy Institute 2010). By 2010, tion’s fourth largest city [Houston]. Mr. Fogle Wal-Mart was struggling to hold on to its cus- said he had just found work as a washer at a tomers, as they turned to dollar stores and thrift glass company after months of fruitless search- shops for their needs or simply stopped buying ing. ‘We have enough to survive,’ volunteered all but the most essential items. Wal-Mart took his pregnant girlfriend, Brittany Cummings, 21. a look at its data. “Spending patterns … suggest ‘But not much more.’” that [our] customers have been hit particularly hard by the recession,” its Chief Financial Offi- The Journal concluded with a quote from Bill cer said. “The low income consumer appears to Simon, Wal-Mart’s President and CEO: “If you be the last coming out.” He noted that custom- really think about it, the only reason someone 114 | Jane Collins gets out there in the middle of the night and courts around the nation (Bernstein and Bivens buys baby formula is that they need it, and they 2006, Featherstone 2004, Walmartwatch.com). have been waiting for it” (Wall Street Journal But in another sense, Wal-Mart’s claims about 2010). its benefits to consumers did significant cultural The mega-retailer’s first response to its de- and political work. As it wove together long- clining sales revenues was to cut prices, a strat- standing cultural themes of consumer citizen- egy it avidly pursued from the beginning of the ship with new ones from neoliberalism, Wal- recession to June, 2010. After its shareholder Mart convinced a sizeable section of the US meeting that month, when some stock analysts public to engage in a national conversation about declared the company a “little bit lost in navi- the “trade-off” between low prices and low gating the economic downturn,” it began to re- wages. It convened seminars and commissioned consider its options (New York Times 2010c). studies on the topic. Its framing of the debate Without much fanfare, the “Always Low Prices” was adopted by independent scholars who tried firm began to resticker its goods. Unable to to assess its impact (see, for example, Irwin and compete by undercutting its competitors, it be- Clark 2006). Just as the firm’s business model gan to raise prices. In August 2010, J. P. Morgan inverted Fordism, this conversation replaced noted a near 6 percent increase in the average Keynesian insights about the virtuous connec- price of a market basket of groceries at Wal- tion between production and consumption Mart. In October, the firm found that the price with a seemingly stark either/or choice: if you of the same basket had risen 2.7 percent in Sep- want low prices, wages must also be low. Calling tember; seven of its items were up 10 percent or this a “false choice,” economist Jared Bernstein more since August, and overall prices at the has argued that Wal-Mart could raise wages rollback retailer were at their highest level in 21 13 percent—to the level of its key competitor months (Reuters 2010, Time 2010). At the same Costco—without raising its prices, and still time, Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club stores announced have higher profit margins than a main com- 11,000 layoffs in 2010. And many Wal-Mart petitor (Bernstein and Bivens 2006). Wal-Mart workers who received health insurance and doesn’t encourage this kind of discussion about benefits through state programs saw those ben- what constitutes a fair wage in its conferences or efits disappear as a result of state budget cuts. the media, and it need not negotiate such issues These actions illustrate that Wal-Mart’s ver- with its nonunion employees. sion of the consumer citizen was not about citi- Rehabilitating a politically useful concept of zenship at all. There is obviously no right to low consumer citizenship in the US therefore re- prices that can be invoked at the checkout quires undoing a series of ideological tricks that counter, no democratically agreed-upon crite- are entailed in Wal-Mart’s hijacking of the con- rion for what a fair price might be. It was in one cept. It requires recovering the figure of the sense a fabrication—a screen behind which real worker and linked notions of economic citizen- rights were being dismantled. Maintaining low ship, fair wages, and just conditions of work. It prices became the justification for hourly start- requires dusting off the citizen—the rights- ing wages of just over 7.00 USD, yielding be- bearing participant in civil society, whose labor tween 12,000 USD and 14,000 USD a year for a is protected in the US context by the National full-time worker, far below the federal poverty Labor Relations Act and the Equal Employment line, and making the worker eligible for food Opportunity Commission and who enjoys the stamps. It became the rationale for the fact that right to engage in collective action on behalf of 46 percent of Wal-Mart workers’ children are her interests. Wal-Mart’s flattened version of the uninsured or on Medicaid. It was the reasoning consumer citizen is not going to be able to shop that lay behind the lack of compliance with her way out of economic crises like the one that workers’ compensation policies, labor laws, and began in 2008. But restoring a more robust no- antidiscrimination laws that led to litigation in tion of consumer citizenship may help lay the Wal-Mart, American consumer citizenship, and the 2008 recession | 115 groundwork both for community-based labor Catherine Besteman, 97–112. Berkeley and Los movements, by tracing new arenas for citizen Angeles: University of California Press. engagement with the economy, and for new Dube, Arindrajit, and Kenneth Jacobs. 2004. Hidden forms of democratic governance in pursuit of a cost of Wal-Mart jobs: Use of safety net programs just and sustainable relationship between pro- by Wal-Mart workers in California. University of California at Berkeley Labor Center. http:// duction and consumption. laborcenter.berkeley.edu/retail/walmart.pdf. Economic Policy Institute. 2010. “Prolonged eco- Jane Collins is Evjue Bascom Professor of nomic downturn pushes more people into Community and Environmental Sociology and poverty.” 23 September, news report, http:// Gender and Women’s Studies at the University www.epi.org/publications/entry/ib223/ Featherstone, Liza. 2004. Selling women short: The of Wisconsin, Madison. She is the author of landmark battle for workers’ rights at Wal-Mart. Threads: Gender, labor and power in the global New York: Basic Books. apparel industry (University of Chicago, 2003), ———. 2005. “Down and out in discount America.” and recently coauthored, with Victoria Mayer, The Nation, January 3. http://www.thenation Both hands tied: Welfare reform and the race to .com/article/down-and-out-discount-america. the bottom in the low wage labor market (Uni- Fishman, Charles. 2006. The Wal-Mart effect. New versity of Chicago Press, 2010). York: Penguin. E-mail: [email protected] Galbraith, John Kenneth. [1952] 1993. 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New York: International Bernstein, Jared, and Josh Bivens. 2006. The Wal- Publishers. Mart debate: A false choice between prices and Greenwald, Robert. 2005. Wal-Mart: The high cost wages. Washington: Economic Policy Institute of low price. New York: Brave New Films. Report. www.epi.org/publications/entry/ib223/. Huffington Post. 2010. “Wal-Mart plans to hire Brown, Wendy. 2006. “American nightmare: Neolib- 500K in the next five years.” 4 June 2010. eralism, neoconservatism, and de-democratiza- Irwin, Elena G., and Jill Clark. 2006. “Wall Street vs. tion.” Political Theory 34: 690–714. Main Street: What are the benefits and costs of CNN Money. 2007. “Wal-Mart CEO excited about Wal-Mart to local communities?” Choices: A holidays.” 24 October 2007. http://money.cnn Publication of the American Agricultural Eco- .com/2007/10/24/news/companies/lee_scott/ nomics Association 21 (2): 117–22. ?postversoin=2007102417. Lichtenstein, Nelson. 2004. “Interview: Is Wal-Mart Cohen, Lizabeth. 2003. A consumer’s republic: The good for America?” “Frontline,” 16 November politics of mass consumption in post-war Amer- 16, 2004. www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ ica. New York: Random House. shows/walmart/interviews/lichtenstein.html. Collins, Jane. 2010. “The age of Wal-Mart.” In The ———. 2009. The retail revolution: How Wal-Mart insecure American: How we got here and what we created a brave new world of business. New York: should do about it, ed. by Hugh Gusterson and Metropolitan Books. 116 | Jane Collins

Lichtenstein, Nelson, ed. 2006. Wal-Mart: The face NOT the same all over the world.” Connecticut of twenty-first century capitalism. New York: Law Review 39 (4): 1805–23. New Press. Time. 2010. “Has Wal-Mart’s price chopping come Moreton, Bethany E. 2009. To serve God and Wal- to an end?” 5 October. Mart: The making of Christian free enterprise. Veblen, Thorstein. 1899. Theory of the leisure class. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. New York: Macmillan. New York Times. 2010a. “Wal-Mart posts slower Wall Street Journal. 2010. “These families shop growth as luxury and home goods rebound.” 19 when aid arrives.” 2 October. http://online.wsj May. .com/article/SB1000142405274870402930457552 ———. 2010b. “With a backdrop of glitz, Wal-Mart 6120920214834.html. stresses its global growth.” 5 June. Wal-Mart Corporate. 2011. About Us. http://wal ———. 2010c. “In Wal-Mart and Home Depot re- martstores.com/AboutUs/8123.aspx. (Accessed sults, a worried consumer.” 17 August. May 17, 2011). Newsweek. 2009. “Watching us save, one cart at a Walmartwatch.com. 2010. http://walmartwatch.org/ time.” 2 May 2009. http://www.newsweek.com/ blog/archives/category/working-at-walmart/ 2009/05/01/watching-us-save-one-cart-at-a- wages/ (Accessed November 11, 2010). time.html (accessed 17 May 2011). Webb, Sheila. 2006. “The tale of advancement: Life Reuters. 2010. “Wal-Mart prices on the rise: J. P. magazine’s construction of the modern Ameri- Morgan study.” 10 August. can success story.” Journalism History 32 (1): Strasser, Susan. 1989. Satisfaction guaranteed: The 2–12. making of the American mass market. Washing- Zukin, Sharon. 2004. Point of purchase: How shop- ton: Smithsonian Institution Press. ping changed American culture. New York: Tilly, Christoper. 2007. “Wal-Mart and its workers: Routledge. What’s left? Land expropriation, socialist “modernizers,” and peasant resistance in Asia

Luisa Steur and Ritanjan Das

With the victory of capitalism and the end of (2005) conceptualizes as the shift in emphasis the Cold War, almost all countries in the global from expanded reproduction to accumulation south, including those still calling themselves by dispossession. “communist,” have become “transition” coun- A comparative perspective on these cases tries, competing to attract foreign direct invest- raises several questions. To begin with, is commu- ment and reform according to the strictures of nism in these states simply the window-dressing global capitalism. Particularly interesting cases of a capitalist accumulation drive? On the one of “transition” are those states that explicitly le- hand, there are strong indications to answering gitimize their rule in terms of communist ideals, this question in the affirmative. Projit Mukharji the general alliance of peasants and workers shows how in subtle ways the Communist Party toward an egalitarian society, and whose ideo- rhetoric that used to incite class struggle in West logical pillars historically include a pro-poor re- Bengal has transformed into a discourse legit- distributive land reform. This forum debate imizing ruthless capitalist expansion. He also ar- focuses on three such states in Asia: the world’s gues that communist ideology and politics do longest-running democratically elected com- not play a part in the day-to-day operations of munist state of West Bengal (part of the Indian the party any longer. Tanika Sarkar and Sumit federation), the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Chowdhury state that the international Left need and the People’s Republic of China. It focuses, not look at the Communist Party of West Ben- more precisely, on the land struggles taking place gal for inspiration as it has totally deviated from in these states that have not embraced neo-lib- socialism—it is instead the peasant and people’s eralism ideologically but all see rural unrest in- movements that the party violently suppresses creasing as peasant land is cleared for Special that embody the true legacy of the Left. More- Economic Zones and other capitalist invest- over, we know from Naomi Klein (2007) and can ment—usually purportedly aimed at “industri- see in Bo Zhao’s contribution to this forum, that alization” and consequent employment creation communism in China nowadays serves prima- but often driven by real estate speculation and rily as the mechanism through which political elite consumption, accompanied by the creation dissent against a dramatic shift toward free mar- of a huge reserve army of labor (Banerjee-Guha ket policies is being suppressed. What is usually 2008). Even modernizing “communist” coun- interpreted in the West—and is represented to tries, where land expropriation is the order of it as such by many Chinese dissidents—as re- the day, thus seem to be following the trend sistance against communism, may more likely in contemporary capitalism that David Harvey be seen as resistance against neo-liberalism cyn-

Focaal—European Journal of Anthropology 54 (2009): 67–72 doi:10.3167/fcl.2009.540105 68 | Luisa Steur and Ritanjan Das ically dressed up as communism. Zhao does not than, in the case of for example the United States, go so far as to claim this but does argue that since primarily serving to promote “freedom and de- “the terminal crisis of international communism mocracy.” The official communist rhetoric em- in late 1980s, what glues party members together ployed in these three states allows citizens to is no longer so much communist ideology as stake their claims to economic rights, and par- mere pursuit of individual interest.” What we ticularly land, in accordance with the dominant see from Vietnam, meanwhile, is that though discourse, potentially increasing the legitimacy the official figures of land expropriated for spe- and power of such claims. But the opposite is also cial economic zones—and golf courses!—are tre- imaginable. Though Sarkar and Chowdhury as mendous, the communist state discourse that well as Mukherji criticize the communist “class” labels such processes the “transfer of land use discourse of the government of West Bengal for rights” functions mainly to euphemize a process not being genuinely communist, a different re- that the opposition in liberal-capitalist property action—seen more in Zhao’s article—is to in- regimes would simply have called dispossession. stead find inspiration in the dominant ideals of Still, there seem to be certain distinctions be- global civil society and criticize government tween land expropriation struggles in commu- policy in a totally different register—that of nist China, Vietnam, and West Bengal and the liberal democracy. An important question this larger phenomenon of economic adjustment forum raises—though does not conclusively an- across the developing world. The stories told here swer—is to what extent a fundamental under- would find parallels in the tenacious struggles standing and critique of capitalist accumulation raging both inside governments and between processes is either helped or hindered by the governments and various interest groups in historical presence of a strong local Marxist tra- “transition” countries over issues such as “trade dition, now appropriated by the ruling class. liberalization, reallocation of government ex- In addition to the question of whether or not penditures, reduction in government regulation there are significant differences that make the and subsidization of private economy” (Nelson (so-called?) communist countries of Asia stand 1989: xi). But there also seems to be a difference out in practice from countries that have em- in that more so than in states committed to a braced neo-liberal capitalism more wholeheart- purely free market ideal, there is a recognition edly, another important question arises—that of the developmental role of the state in assum- of the substantial differences among these three ing the responsibility to “discriminate between states. The most obvious source of divergence, progressive and regressive aspects of capital ac- besides size and geo-political position, is the cumulation … and … guide the former towards fact that Vietnam and China are one-party au- a more generalized political goal that has more thoritarian states whereas West Bengal is a dem- universal valency” (Harvey 2005: 179). Reject- ocratic state, whose commitment to democracy ing any such efforts as simply capitalist, without is backed-up by a formally democratic Indian paying attention to details on the ground, or a union government. It seems that one consequent priori dismissing the institutional legitimacy of difference is that in China and Vietnam, more such efforts holds the danger of degenerating so than in West Bengal, the state can often get into an anti-development “politics of nostalgia away with a high-handed solution to what is re- for that which has been lost,” superseding the ferred to as the “distributive conflict problem”— search for better ways to meet the material needs the problem that the costs of efforts to increase of the population (ibid.: 177). All three coun- the aggregate social wealth in a society for the tries discussed in this forum pay a lot of lip- general benefit of all have to be shouldered quite service to this search, not only because of the concretely by certain opposing groups. This dif- unrest that reform provokes but also because the ference is reflected in an overall slower pace of legitimacy of the state is so closely connected to industrialization in India and a greater “check” its success in promoting general welfare rather on governments’ actions, prohibiting it in prin- What’s left? Land expropriation, socialist “modernizers,” and peasant resistance in Asia |69 ciple from taking any drastic steps, such as force- spite—or perhaps due to—being more author- ful acquisition of land, and allowing owners itarian, the state in Vietnam and in China seems (though not necessarily all inhabitants or work- in some aspects more in control of the “distrib- ers) of land targeted for industrial development utive conflict problem.” One of the blunders of more means of resisting expropriation or pres- the West Bengal Left Front government in its surizing the government to ensure proper reha- dealings with the Salim corporation was for in- bilitation for them. In this forum we do not stance to offer the extremely fertile land in Nan- hear of Chinese or Vietnamese cases where the digram rather than less productive “wasteland,” drive toward land expropriation has actually which it did primarily to be able to use the ex- been halted as it was in Nandigram. In a demo- isting infrastructure in the area rather than de- cratic set-up, it seems, ruling parties need to velop a new one. Special Economic Zones seem take more heed of the principle formulated by more strategically located in China than in India, Haggard and Kauffman, that “a reform that gen- where such planning is influenced by a myriad of erates a net social gain should be politically vi- interest groups. The democratic process in India able [only] if a portion of the gains are used to makes policy-making proceed at a slower pace, compensate the groups experiencing losses” not just in terms of dispossession but also in (1995: 157). For West Bengal’s ruling party, terms of proper rehabilitation legislation. The there is a more acutely politically consequential forum articles focusing on Vietnam and China, “policy-change dilemma” of “how to modify the though paying less attention to the question of core commitment of its partisan and ideological the legitimacy of capitalist land transfers, do pay agenda toward public sector-led industrializa- considerable attention to three main problems tion and redistributive economic policy strate- that inevitably arise during land transfers: the gies without losing its core support base—the correct pricing of land, adequate and encompass- public sector workers and agrarian peasants” ing compensation schemes, and an effective re- (Sinha Forthcoming: 18). A related crucial dis- settlement and rehabilitation policy. Zhao shows tinction in Indian versus Chinese and Vietnam- that there are detailed legal mechanisms in place ese cases is that while Sarkar and Chowdhury in China to deal with all three issues (though he and Mukherji question the moral authority of criticizes the faulty implementation of these West Bengal’s communist government to dispose laws and in particular the impunity with which farmers of their land/traditional livelihood, this laws are broken). Because the Communist Party ideological dilemma is less pronounced in China is directly identified with the state in China and and Vietnam, where private ownership of land Vietnam and because the one-party set-up dis- is prohibited. As discussed by Suu and Zhao, courages fundamental political turmoil (unlike in land is largely state or collectively owned both India, where some political parties in fact thrive in Vietnam and China, allowing the state to on such), it is perhaps all the more fundamen- allocate or withdraw land use rights to/from tal for the party not to allow dispossession to go individuals in the name of public interest. The too far. Note Giovanni Arrighi’s (2007) convic- debate in Vietnam and China therefore seems tion that the Chinese state is well aware of the to revolve primarily around policy formulation instability that radical expropriation of peasant (land pricing, compensation) and implementa- land and total proletarianization of workers tion (through adequate institutions). Though would cause and therefore will not easily be seen such questions are equally important for eco- privatizing land and taking it away from peas- nomic development of West Bengal, moral/ide- ants beyond a certain point. Whether this de- ological debates usually dominate there. gree of “self-restraint” by the Chinese state is a The determined resistance of the peasants of legacy of its socialist history or of a longer Con- Nandigram, as narrated by Sarkar and Chowd- fucian imperial strategy of benevolent paternal- hury,may also, however, point to some of the ism is an open question; it would be interesting weaknesses of West-Bengal’s democracy. De- to see to what extent this self-restraint will last. 70 | Luisa Steur and Ritanjan Das

Another point on which to compare the three petitive environment confronting all state gov- cases in this forum is their institutional set-up. ernment in India to attract private investments A lack of effective institutions at the local level since in 1991 the federal Congress government to manage the issue of land transfer is empha- embraced an era of concerted economic reforms sized mostly in the article on China—including (Jenkins, 1999; Sáez, 2002). Unlike in China, the a critique of the corrupt and inefficient bureau- central government in India to some extent ac- cratic channels, the poor law enforcement, and tively promotes the drive for greater financial the party-controlled judicial systems. Lest we regional independence in the transition from a focus too much on the idea of local institutional dirigiste mode of planning to a liberalized eco- inadequacy, it must be noted that in China, the nomic environment. The compulsions this has imperial tradition of peasants petitioning the placed on the Left Front government in West emperor, or later the Communist Party leader- Bengal is reflected in Chief Minister Buddhadeb ship, to find redress for abuses by local authori- Bhattacharya’s perhaps genuine words: “I can- ties (both systematically encouraged toward such not build socialism in this part of the country abuses but also publicly condemned for them … What we are looking at is the Left alternative by the center) seems alive as ever in the “right- and the compulsions of the objective situation” ful resistance” taking place in the countryside (The Hindu, 27 February 2007). (see O’Brien and Li 2006), but with a growing Despite these “compulsions of the objective number of these petitioners finding themselves situation,”some (Sarkar and Chowdhury) would persecuted by the state. What looks like local in- argue the cases discussed in this forum are not stitutional failure thereby might well be a sys- so much examples of land expropriation under tematic way by which the Chinese central state Asia’s modernizing Left but under Stalinist ver- tries to deal politically with the contradictions sions of Asian capitalism. The three cases con- of the path of capitalist development it has em- sidered in this forum do not, however, exhaust barked on. Institutional inadequacy is probably the possible alternatives to neo-liberalism in Asia as acute in West Bengal. One example is Singhur, or elsewhere. For many (e.g., Sandbrook et al. where after expropriating land from peasants, 2007), Kerala would be a more logical place in building a half-baked car production plant, and Asia to look for inspiration for a leftist alterna- receiving huge subsidies from the West Bengal tive to neo-liberalism, even though—or probably state, the Tata company decided at the last mo- precisely because—it is a state where commu- ment to give in to peasant protest and move in- nists manage to stay in power only for one elec- stead to notoriously neo-liberal Gujarat. What tion term at a time. But critical Kerala scholars made the mediocre policies of land expropria- will also point out that Kerala’s communist party tion in West-Bengal eventually lead to outcomes has not only recently become heavily implicated that were disadvantageous to all local players in corporate corruption scandals but has also, involved is perhaps the fact that the state had despite rhetoric to the contrary, started to imple- little control over the various institutions needed ment economic policies that embrace neo-lib- to implement its policy precisely because in a eralism (see, e.g., Devika 2007). Also in Kerala, democracy, adequate institutional functioning the Communist Party’s Marxist discourse is be- entails “an independent regulatory commission ing experienced as a mechanism to silence or with judicial powers to oversee the whole proc- co-opt, rather than empower, the political aspi- ess … operat[ing] at arm’s-length from the gov- rations of subaltern groups (e.g., Steur 2009). ernment, with independently appointed officials At Chengara, in Kerala, thousands of dalit, adi- … and with the judicial authority to request in- vasi, and other landless people who revived the formation from the government … with the me- specter of pro-poor land reform by occupying dia acting as a watchdog” (Banerjee et al. 2007: land on a formerly corporately owned planta- 1489). This democratic institutional commitment tion, have found themselves pitted against the in West Bengal combines with an intensely com- present communist-led government trying to What’s left? Land expropriation, socialist “modernizers,” and peasant resistance in Asia |71 undermine their movement. Tension at Chen- ies, London, and is currently a PhD candidate at gara between land reform activists and commu- the Department of Sociology and Social An- nist cadres has frequently become so intense thropology at the Central European University, that fears of another “Nandigram” have arisen Budapest. Her research focuses on class and (see Rammohan 2008). identity politics in Kerala, India, the global rise Kerala’s example, therefore, does not allow us of indigenous right activism among peasant to think that there are regions where the estab- and workers communities, and issues of global- lished Left has not been implicated in the proc- ization and inequality. esses of accumulation by dispossession that have E-mail: [email protected] been intensifying since the global advent of neo- Mailing address: Department of Sociology and liberalism. But it does confirm that local socialist Social Anthropology, CEU, Nador u.9, H-1051 histories can still contribute to the present-day Budapest, Hungary. political struggles for a more just redistribution of wealth. In West Bengal the socialist legacy of Ritanjan Das is a senior lecturer in Information peasants organizing for their right to land against Systems at the University of Portsmouth Busi- capitalist predators is invoked against the ruling ness School and a PhD candidate at the De- Left Front government’s turn toward neo-liber- velopment Studies Institute, London School of alism. In Kerala, still more democratic than West Economics. His research focuses on the politics Bengal in that no single party has a de facto mo- of policy transition in communist regimes and nopoly on political power, an increasing num- in particular the case of the Left Front govern- ber of people that have been dispossessed of ment of West Bengal, India. their land because of economic liberalization E-mail: [email protected] (Banarjee-Guha 2008: 57) are now pro-actively Mailing address: 60D, Victoria Road North, claiming land as a people’s right and a historical Southsea, Portsmouth, PO51QA, United promise of Keralese democratic socialism, be- Kingdom. trayed by politicians hypocritically posing as communists. Whereas in Vietnam and China, oppositional movements seem to find little gen- uine inspiration in socialist legacies and instead References frame their dissent against authoritarian social- ist predators in terms of claims to property, civil Arrighi, Giovanni. 2007. Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the 21st century. London: Verso society, and democracy, resistance against more Books. democratic socialist predators in West Bengal Banerjee-Guha, Swapna. 2008. Space relations of and Kerala is often articulated in a more social- capital and significance of new economic en- ist register, with reference to alter-globalist, anti- claves: SEZs in India. Economic and Politia capitalist ideals and redistributive claims to land Weekly, 22 November, 51–59. (see Omvedt 1993). Taken together, we may con- Banerjee, A.V., Bardhan, P., Basu, K. et al. 2007. clude that in democratic socialist states—unlike Beyond Nandigram: Industrialisation in West in authoritarian socialist states—the legacy of Bengal. Economic and Political Weekly, 28 April, socialism, even if articulated in a more contem- 1487–89. porary terminology and by political actors other Devika, J. 2007. The Trojan horse of neo-liberal than the official Left, continues to inspire more capital in Kerala. Kalifa. http://kafila.org/2007/ 12/01/the-trojan-horse-of-neo-liberal-capital- egalitarian alternatives to the overall drive to- in-kerala/. ward accumulation by dispossession. Haggard, S., and Kauffman, R. 1995. The political economy of democratic transitions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Luisa Steur has an MSc in Development Studies Harvey,David. 2005. The new imperialism. Oxford: from the School of Oriental and African Stud- Oxford University Press. 72 | Luisa Steur and Ritanjan Das

Jenkins, R. 1999. Democratic politics and economic Sáez. Lawrence. 2002. Federalism without a centre: reforms in India. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- The impact of political and economic reform sity Press. on India’s federal system. New Delhi: Sage Klein, Naomi. 2007. The shock doctrine: The rise of Publications. disaster capitalism. New York: Metropolitan Sandbrook, Richard, Marc Edelman, Patrick Heller, Books. and Judith Teichman. 2007. Social democracy in Nelson, J. M., ed. 1989. Fragile coalitions: The poli- the global periphery: Origins, challenges, prospects. tics of economic adjustment. New Brunswick, NJ: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Transaction Books. Sinha, A. Forthcoming. Ideas, interests and institu- O’Brien, Kevin J., and Lianjiang Li. 2006. Rightful tions in policy change: A comparison of West resistance in rural China. Cambridge: Cambridge Bengal and Gujarat. In Comparing politics across University Press. India’s states: Case studies of democracy in prac- Omvedt, Gail. 1993. Reinventing revolution: New tice, ed. Rob Jenkins. Http://www.idfresearch.org/ social movements and the socialist tradition in Sinha_in_Jenkins_ed.pdf. India. Armonk, NY and London: M.E. Sharpe. Steur, Luisa. 2009. Adivasi mobilization: “identity” Rammohan, K T. 2008. Caste and landlessness in versus “class” after the Kerala model of develop- Kerala: Signals from Chengara. Economic and ment? Journal of South Asian Development 4 (1): Political Weekly 43 (37): 14–16. 25–44. The meaning of Nandigram: Corporate land invasion, people’s power, and the Left in India

Tanika Sarkar and Sumit Chowdhury

Abstract:This article discusses the events at Nandigram in West Bengal where in 2006–7, a Left Front government collaborated with an Indonesian corporate group to forcibly acquire land from local peasants and construct a Special Economic Zone. The events are placed against the broad processes of accumulation by dis- possession through which peasants are losing their land and corporate profits are given priority over food production. The article looks at the working and impli- cations of the policies and the way in which a Communist Party–led government had become complicit with such processes over the last decade. It critically exam- ines the logic that the government offered for the policies: that of the unavoidable necessity of industrialization, demonstrating that industrialization could have been done without fresh and massive land loss and that industries of the new sort do not generate employment or offset the consequences of large scale displacements of peasants. The article’s central focus is on the peasant resistance in the face of the brutalities of the party cadres and the police. We explore the meaning of the vic- tory of the peasants at Nandigram against the combined forces of state and cor- porate power, especially in the context of the present neo-liberal conjuncture. Keywords: land struggles, Nandigram, neo-liberalism, peasant resistance, West- Bengal

Nandigram is the name of a cluster of villages lages as they resisted the forced takeover of their in Purba Medinipur district in West Bengal, the land by the state on behalf of a foreign multina- Indian state that has been ruled by a Left Front tional company. government uninterruptedly since 1977—the The name has, therefore, come to signify longest period that communists have been dem- much more than a place. Nandigram is invoked ocratically voted into power anywhere in the wherever peasants in India oppose the forced ac- world. Many poor farmers live in Nandigram, quisition of their land. Multinationals and state most of them Muslims and the rest are “low” and governments worry about peasant action when “scheduled” (ex-untouchable) castes. For much they remember Nandigram. It is uncanny that of 2007, they managed to keep all state func- such mighty powers should be haunted by mere tionaries, including the police, out of their vil- peasants. What is most uncanny is that Indian

Focaal—European Journal of Anthropology 54 (2009): 73–88 doi:10.3167/fcl.2009.540106 74 | Tanika Sarkar and Sumit Chowdhury leftist parties, previously strident critics of corpo- commissions, the National Human Rights Com- rate land invasions, turned into neo-liberalism’s mission, and the Central Bureau of Investigation. most determined defenders at Nandigram (All Nandigram, then, is a story about how a harsh India Citizens’ Initiative 2007; Banerjee 2008; neo-liberal regime gets installed in the name of G. Roy 2008; Sarkar 2007). development: in this case, through a combina- It all began with the question of who should tion of Stalinism and neo-liberalism.1 It is also be allowed to live on and make use of agricultural a story about how this is resisted. land. Critical issues included the lack of trans- parency and undemocratic character of the de- cision making on land transfers, the ecological Sliding toward corporate communism impact of turning agricultural land into indus- trial zones, the level of compensation to be paid The Indian political scene is a highly fragmented to farmers and, most important, non-owning one. At the Centre, various coalitions come and sharecroppers and agricultural laborers and the go, either dominated by the right-of-center Con- lack of livelihood possibilities and social secu- gress Party or by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), rity that land transfer would leave them with. In a militant right-wing outfit of Hindu extremists 2006, these issues came to a climax as the Left that systematically organizes pogroms against Front government in West Bengal forced through Indian Muslims and Christians to augment its a spate of land transfers from peasants to large electoral base.2 Then there is a plethora of re- corporations: protest became more visible and gional parties, some of them organized by dalit uncompromising, gaining support from West (ex-untouchable) leaders. Left parties, especially Bengal’s major Opposition party, the Trinamul the CPI(M), have powerful mass bases in West Congress (TMC), as well as from the media and Bengal in the east, Tripura in the northeast, and radical Left activists. Kerala in the extreme south. Left Front govern- Nandigram farmers, who had always sup- ments, currently in power in all three states, are ported leftist parties, rebelled in early January secular regimes that countermand religious strife 2007 when they were told that their land, vil- and oppose the growing tilt in Indian foreign lages, and homes were to be handed over to an policy toward the United States. Indonesian corporate group to build a Special On the economic front, however, there is a Economic Zone. Ironically, this happened to be consensus that cuts across party divisions. In the the Indonesian Selim Group, economic advisers early 1990s, encouraged by the World Bank and of the erstwhile Suharto government—which the International Monetary Fund, Congress in- probably massacred more communists than Hit- troduced “structural adjustments,” throwing ler—and shunned by most Asian governments open sectors of the economy to foreign invest- because of the highly speculative nature of their ment, folding back public sector undertakings operations. When Nandigram peasants learned and welfare spending, promoting middle-class of the deal, they fortified their villages and ousted consumerism, and clearing slums to carry out the administration, police, and many of the loyal real estate aspirations. The BJP, when it ruled at Communist Party cadres from the locality to the center, likewise zealously pursued such poli- ensure that their land would not be forcibly an- cies. Left governments embraced the new thrust nexed. In reaction, the Communist Party of In- in the mid-1990s. In West Bengal land reforms dia (Marxist) (CPI[M]), the dominant partner were abandoned, existing industries were allowed in West Bengal’s Left Front government, repeat- to go into terminal decline, and public health, edly let loose armed party cadres and the state roads, transport, and education were neglected. police on the peasants of Nandigram, to shoot, Moreover, the privatization of basic social ser- kill, torture, maim, blind, gang rape, and sexu- vices put them beyond the reach of the poor. ally molest—abuses that have been widely doc- Urban slums and petty trade were cleared from umented by journalists, independent inquiry the streets, which began to flaunt spectacular The meaning of Nandigram: Corporate land invasion, people’s power, and the Left in India |75 shopping malls and luxury residences. Whole vil- acres of agricultural land is scheduled to be trans- lages were cleared to create space for speculative ferred to industries, real estates, tourism, and real estate investment and Export Promotion other non-agricultural purposes. The alarming Zones for private companies. The turn became justification, as given by Chief Minister Bhat- most pronounced and controversial in 2006, tacharya (2007) in response to public criticism when the West Bengal government struck a deal of the new policy by the historian Sumit Sarkar with the Tata Group and handed over about (2007), was that agriculture was a thing of the 1,000 acres of immensely rich agricultural land past: “the process of economic development at Singur for their small-car factory. The details evolves from agriculture to industry” and “it is of the deal and its rationale were not disclosed incumbent on us to move ahead.” to the dispossessed. Facts were falsified and Sin- There has not been a single cogent defense of gur was declared to be an arid and unproductive the new land transfer policy by an economist region. The move not only stripped landowners close to the regime. Instead, the Left Front has of their livelihood but also left thousands of reverted to abusing its critics, accusing them of sharecroppers and agricultural laborers stranded. “Luddism,” “right-wing deviation,” “extreme- The refusal by a large number of peasants to ac- Left infantilism,” “Maoism,” “communalism,” cept the compensation led to a historic peasant “a-political tendencies,” and “excessive moral- movement. Police and repressive laws were used ism.”We, therefore, have no way of gauging how to stifle public protest on the issue by farmers, the mainstream Left reviews problems of the opposition parties, radical movements, and stu- agrarian crisis and dwindling food production dents and intellectuals in Kolkata. or environmental issues in the light of its new It was the Left Front government that intro- economic decisions; how it can explain the trans- duced the bill to set up Special Economic Zones fer of land on terms that are extremely favorable (SEZs) in 2003 and in 2005 the bill was passed to the corporate sector but are ruinous for the by parliament with the approval of all political present land users as a route to at least social parties. This allowed multinational investment to democracy, if not socialism, in the future; why control vast stretches of territory where normal industries must displace many who manage to labor and tax laws would not apply. Corporate survive on agriculture to provide uncertain jobs land-grab—not all of them under multination- to a smaller number of better placed workers; or als—is a common occurrence all over India, es- how it will cope with the problem of the dis- pecially in mineral rich areas, lush forest locales, placed poor in an overcrowded urban situation and on the coastlines, where indigenous/tribal where no safety net or welfare exist. If so far its and low-caste people eke out a living and local mantra of industrialization as the way of the fu- land users are brutally evicted. When the Tatas ture has appeared unconvincing to its critics, it attempted to acquire land at Kalinganagar in is because we have not heard an answer to these Orissa in 2006, the police opened fire on resist- questions. ing tribal farmers, killing eleven of them (see If economists have not ventured into such Mishra 2006). To quell rural protest, various explanations, state and party functionaries have states have passed draconian laws against civil done so. They have invoked two separate strands and democratic rights organizations. Often this of arguments simultaneously. One is the neo- is done in the name of fighting Maoists or Left liberal logic: private enterprise and market forces extremists.3 should be unfettered for maximal effectivity. Of It is to be noted that at a time when the en- course, unfettered private enterprise is a myth tire world is witnessing a food crisis, India, with as the corporate sector enjoys lavish state assis- its massive population and spiraling inflation in tance (while the poor, even after thirty-one years food prices, is squandering away its rich food- of uninterrupted Left Front rule, do not enjoy producing resources at an alarming rate. In West anything by way of meaningful state welfare pro- Bengal alone, an estimated total of about 250,000 visions). The other is the invocation of the Marx- 76 | Tanika Sarkar and Sumit Chowdhury ist notion of invariant laws of history wherein a ship, disregarding all danger warnings and reg- mode of production must cease before a more ulations (Bidwai 2008). advanced one. This is augmented by the idea of Strangely, while industrialization is fervently a vanguard party, which understands the con- invoked, old industries that used to employ vast sciousness of the classes that it represents better labor forces are allowed to remain closed for than the classes do themselves, to the extent that decades. In West Bengal, an estimated total of it can countermand all expressions of their ex- 55,000 “dead” factories dot the industrial land- perience and consciousness if they contradict scape. In the early 1990s, an attempt was made the party’s decision. The idea of democracy is by the Kanoria Jute Mill workers at Phuleswar obviously attenuated: it shrinks to having elec- in Howrah district to keep their locked-out mill tions every five years. Between one election and open and run it on cooperative principles. The the next, the party in power can do what it wills. attempt eventually fizzled out as the Left gov- West Bengal does, indeed, suffer from a huge ernment disapproved of the experiment. Most unemployment problem. But that does not ex- of these shuttered factories can be opened up to plain why industries should begin in areas where new industries or turned over to workers to large populations subsist quite adequately on manage on cooperative lines, as has been done agriculture and must lose their livelihood if the in Argentina and Venezuela. If ownership laws new policies come into force. Singur, for instance, needed to be changed, the Left Front has so far lay on one of the richest tracts in India and pro- been in a most advantageous position to do so: duced four to five crops annually. its relations with the central government, until We must also remember that modern indus- recently, have been most intimate and cordial. tries do not create many jobs because they are Quite obviously, the generation of employment not labor-intensive, but technology-dependent. for the rural and urban poor by setting up sta- Jobs, when available, go to skilled and educated ble industries has not been a priority for the employees, not to small peasants and agricul- state. Nor are its critics “anti-industrialization,” tural laborers. Also, capital is notoriously mo- as the Left Front alleges, because they repeatedly bile and the industrial landscape in the state is have pointed out these alternative routes to crowded with abandoned industries, under lock- industrialisztion. out for decades. Much of the acquired land is There are other ways of expanding produc- often put to non-productive uses, usually for tion and employment without land loss. Rural tourist hubs, residential buildings, and malls. cooperatives can be promoted to provide eco- The New Rajarhat Town that was built on the logically sustainable agro-based manufacture, periphery of Kolkata, dislodged a flourishing and “dead” manufacturing units can be reopened biodiverse economy of floriculture, orchards, ag- with state aid, and instead of collaborating only riculture, and fishing, displacing about 100,000 with giant private concerns, the government villagers. What is being built in its place are could invest in joint ventures with small farm- IT hubs, multi-crore rupee luxury residences, ers in order to develop the potential uses of the aquatic apartments where each floor has a swim- land. One would have expected a Left Front gov- ming pool, expensive theme parks, and spectac- ernment, well entrenched in power, to initiate ular shopping malls (M. Roy 2005). None of this such farmer friendly experiments. Instead, the can be called industrialization or generates stable economic vision of the Left Front is one of crony employment for the poor. Elsewhere, too, huge capitalism. The state invoked an old colonial law stretches of land are acquired forcibly, at terri- of 1894, which allows for land acquisition for ble human and environmental costs, for state public purposes. In colonial times, this law was projects. The Centre and the West Bengal govern- used for government spending on canals and ment have plans to build a nuclear power plant public roads. Now, states use it to transfer land to at Haripur in Purba Medinipur, on a cyclone- private enterprises, acquiring them with minimal prone coast and very close to a populous town- compensation to land users, and selling them at The meaning of Nandigram: Corporate land invasion, people’s power, and the Left in India |77 throwaway prices to global investors along with CPI(M) patronage networks, between party and huge concessions in power and water rates. government (see Bandyopadhyay and Ray 2005). Even the partners of the CPI(M) were kept Land for industrialization is seized from peas- in the dark about the various deals that the state ants who are not destitute. Singur was particu- government and corporate bodies—Indian and larly prosperous, and Nandigram is poorer but multinationals—entered into. Most pleas for still solvent. Villagers told us, at Singur and at transparency under the Right to Information Nandigram, that they choose to retain the vil- Act were rejected. Party factsheets spread disin- lage homestead and their agriculture even when formation. Danger warnings by the Geological some sons and daughters go to the cities, look- Survey of India and from the Green Bench of ing for jobs. In fact, these urban salaries are the Kolkata High Court were in certain cases ig- mostly spent on adding to the rural landhold- nored. A systematic withholding of information ing. American sociologists have long castigated is combined here with an equally systematic such “backward linkages,” and circular migra- lack of research on vital issues. If mapping was tion between cities and villages as a sign of the a colonial device for control, un-mapping has typical backwardness of the Indian labor force, become the typical mode of power among post- their ingrained inability to adjust to the indus- modern states. trial work discipline and modern urban life (see, e.g., Moore and Feldman 1960; Myers 1958). Conversely, historians of labor ascribe a distinct “We will not give up our land” peasant rationality to such movements (Chan- dravarkar 1994; Morris 1965). Because neither There is undoubtedly terrible rural poverty in the state nor employers offer permanent job as- parts of West Bengal and, consequently, a mas- surance, training, adequate accident and illness sive influx of rural immigrants to the cities in insurance coverage, pensions, and an urban liv- search for subsistence. Cities, however, provide ing environment where working class families no real shelter, nor do industries accommodate can subsist safely and with dignity, the urban la- these unskilled, uneducated people. Migration bor force requires a rural hinterland to recoup, to urban centers is distress—driven and displaced retire to, and leave their families in. Unless the people survive under terrible conditions. The state and the capitalists change their ways dras- only mode of survival for the urban poor is the tically, ushering in at least a minimally welfare protection of a party, and they cling to which- state, industries have to be parasitic on rural ever party controls the area (see A. Roy 2008). homes and links. In fact, parties, especially the ruling party, have Villagers at Singur and at Nandigram told us a controlling presence in almost all aspects of that land is the source of continuous, simulta- people’s lives. Rural self-governing bodies or pan- neous, and multiple occupations. It produces a chayats, possess substantial power and resources surplus for the market while the homestead in West Bengal. These bodies are elected along land contains fruit trees, a kitchen garden and a party lines. Resources, too, get distributed as pa- pond, yielding fresh fruit, vegetables and fish for tronage along party lines, leading to dangerous domestic consumption. Common land provides outbursts of violence during elections as crucial pasture for domestic cattle which, in turn, pro- material advantages are at stake. Although all vide milk for the various products that abound parties try to impose total control in areas un- in the Bengali diet. Many villagers who were able der their constituencies, the CPI(M) alone has to flee when Nandigram was invaded by the party enjoyed absolute state power for thirty-one years. cadres on 14 March 2007, told us that they came Its patronage networks, its control over the po- back soon, taking a huge risk, in order to feed lice and bureaucracy, and the might of its cadres their precious cattle. Multiple small-scale agro- are unparalleled. There is little real distinction industries and employment flourish around the between state deliveries of public goods and villages: local marts, cold storages, power-tiller 78 | Tanika Sarkar and Sumit Chowdhury production, home-based manufacture. The from time to time, ruthlessly dispossess local land home provides a space where women undertake users to facilitate European-owned plantations, a number of processing operations after the har- or for canals, railways, and new urban spaces. vest is brought in. They also run small-scale man- But by and large it did not dislodge peasants, es- ufacturing units from the home. Nandigram pecially as it derived the bulk of its revenues women stitch garments for sale in Kolkata mar- from agriculture. The postcolonial Indian state kets. Women thus see themselves as producers allows Indian and global capitalists to acquire of surplus, important earners and contributors land as a source of actual and potential produc- to the family budgets, whereas modern factories tion, as well as non-production, to be turned into employ few women who work under harsh con- speculative real estate investment, or to manufac- ditions. As feminist historians have pointed out ture, which may be switched around or switched that the separation between the workplace and off entirely if profits from a particular industry the homestead that industrialization brought in plummet. Even then the land remains locked up its wake meant a marginalization and a devalu- for any number of future uses. The dead indus- ation of the female labor force. tries in West Bengal whose owners retain their This is perhaps an important reason why ownership rights, including one very close to women are such militant activists in these move- Nandigram, are signs of the flexibility of capi- ments. At Singur, old and young women ex- talist maneuvers with land. Peasants understand plained the larger purpose of neo-liberalism as this only too well. well as the micropolitics of local parties with fluency. They improvised small allegorical tales to describe the consequences of land loss. At The meaning of Nandigram Nandigram, Muslim women surrounded us in their hundreds, shouting: “Let them come and Nandigram has become a symbol of peasant re- kill us, how many can they kill, we will not give sistance throughout India. It also has an impor- up our land, our beautiful land which gives us, tant place in the history of such resistance and poor people, clean air and fresh food. Why some of the typical strategies of the present should we move around the streets of cities like struggle in Nandigram go back a long way. In homeless gypsies, with tents on our backs? We 1930, Nandigram people took an active part in will never be parted from our land, it is our life, Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement. The colo- the dearest thing to us.” They repeated all this nial Sub-Divisional Officer of Midnapore had after the March 2007 massacres, albeit in tired, then reported : “I was informed that all the vil- despairing voices. At both places, we found them lages had been converted to good forts, cutting trudging to daily meetings and marching in pro- up village roads, filling them with loose earth, cessions, after they had cooked and fed their fam- thorn and rough sharp shells … barricades with ilies, declaiming, discussing and debating the large bamboo trees and houses barricaded with political issues of the day. In sharp contrast to thorn, removal of bamboo bridges and trenches this vibrant political life lies the dismal lack of dug into the middle of the fields.”(All India Cit- political concerns among the women of the ur- izens’ Initiative 2007). ban poor where local party bosses negotiate with In 1942, during the Quit India movement, families on a male-to-male basis (A. Roy 2008). there was formidable armed resistance to the state The problem is that the big corporate sector, all over Medinipur. In December of that year, too, sees land as a stable, constant source of Tamluk—including Nandigram—was turned profits, infinitely elastic in its possible uses. In into a liberated zone and a sovereign government, older times of classical imperialism, capital ac- declaring its independence from British rule, quired land globally as units of territorial sover- was formed. For nearly twenty-two months, all eignty and authority. The British Empire in India of Tamluk remained out of bounds for the Brit- did not create a settler colony. The state would, ish police and administration. Roads were cut The meaning of Nandigram: Corporate land invasion, people’s power, and the Left in India |79 off at various points, armed volunteers guarded any real help from opposition parties in the form- its frontiers, and the rebel government ran a ative stages of the movement. The long record parallel administration. of local loyalty to the CPI(M) was squandered In 1946, when the peasant front of the undi- when the party chose to create a SEZ in its own vided Communist Party of India, launched the constituency. Tebhaga movement,4 Nandigram became its epi- Nandigram thus signals the reversal of Left- center in Medinipur. A significant feature of the ist politics where peasants find Communist Party Tebhaga movement was self-organization by rural members as their enemies rather than their al- women, largely autonomous of directives from lies. For this reason also activists at Chengara in male party activists. They came out with their Kerala, another Indian state ruled by the Left domestic instruments—broomsticks, hammer, Front, have started referring to their struggle as chopper—to defend themselves from assaults by “Kerala’s Nandigram” (see Devika 2008). As these the police. They also developed secret codes of activists struggle to hold the government to its communication to pass on messages, guarded promise of redistributing land to the landless crops in the field, kept vigil on the police and and have occupied government land previously officials, and blew conch shells or beat gongs to held by the Harrison Malayam corporation, warn the villagers of imminent enemy attacks. whose lease on the land has long since expired, To the people in Nandigram, these remain active they also find the Left Front against them— and vivid memories. And in their present strug- CPI(M) cadres have even assaulted the women, gle, they turned to the same forms of resistance. thrashed the men, and cut off food and medical In the rebellious 1960s, when a surge of anti- supplies to the squatters occupying the land. imperialist street action was sweeping across The symbol of Nandigram is however broader several continents, the radical youth of Kolkata than that and has come to stand more generally coined a rallying cry about the Vietnam war: for peasant resistance against being pushed off “Amar naam, tomar naam, Vietnam, Vietnam” their land. It thus stands for resistance against (Vietnam is my name, your name). With the ebb- the intensified capitalist trend toward what David ing of the global revolutionary tide, the Vietnam Harvey (2005) has called “accumulation by dis- slogan gradually faded from public memory. It possession” whereby fertile land is handed over returned in 2007, albeit with a slight variation. for corporate profit making, actually productive A new slogan filled the streets of Kolkata:“Amar potentials that could absorb India’s labor force naam, tomar naam, Nandigram, Nandigram” are neglected, and peasants across India face the (Nandigram is my name, your name). Ironically, threat of being driven off their land and being the slogan came to haunt the same people who added to the growing group of people consid- in their youth had waved the red flags in the ered “surplus population.” Vietnam solidarity rallies: the Left, now safely Nandigram indeed is an extremely fertile ensconced in state power. area. Cultivation of paddy, thrice a year, grow- Nandigram, and its surrounding areas, had ing vegetables and pulses and deep-sea fishing always been faithful to the Left Front. The Com- are the main occupations of the people on this munist Party of India, a smaller partner in the 413.74 square kilometer area. Paan (betel leaf) Left Front, has a big presence here, holding the grown in the vines also fetches a good income Nandigram State Assembly constituency while for many, having a fairly large market in other the CPI(M) controls the parliamentary seat. The parts of the country and among Indian émigrés CPI(M) also commanded five of the six pan- in London and Dubai. But despite the potential, chayats (local government) in the area while the agriculture in Nandigram has always been neg- TMC controlled only one.7 Local TMC leaders lected—the state government has turned a blind admitted to us that they had little influence on eye to the longstanding demands of the local most local peasants who organized themselves farmers for electricity so that modern irrigation to resist the proposed land acquisition without could be introduced.5 80 | Tanika Sarkar and Sumit Chowdhury

Industry hardly exists in Nandigram. The find an occupation. All of them would be flung only project at Jellingham6 on the shores of the on city streets as the most vulnerable and mar- Hooghly—a ship-repairing unit—was set up on ginalized of Indians: displaced rural migrants. a 400-acre plot in 1977 but was abandoned soon after. As many as 942 local families were ousted from their land, of which only five persons got The land seizure employment in the project. Today it serves as the pilfering ground for the underworld, among On 31 July 2006 Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhat- them CPI(M) cadres as well as members of the tacharya signed a deal with the representatives right-wing opposition Trinamul Congress. Dur- of the Selim Group.8 It specified that the Indo- ing the bloody events of 2007, it was alleged that nesian company would set up, among a slew of resistance groups were making guns from junk other infrastructural projects, a chemical hub lying inside the factory premises. SEZ at Nandigram as part of the proposed Petro- In the total absence of industry, unemploy- chemicals and Petroleum Investment Region ment is rampant among the youth. This is wors- (PCPIR). The projects, it was said, were to bring ened by more general government neglect, seen in investments worth Rs400 billion to invest- in the fact that in many hamlets in Nandigram ment-starved West Bengal. only 27 percent are able to read and write. Many In 2005 Bhattacharya had made a trip to Sin- youth have thus taken up contract labor work in gapore and Jakarta and returned with what he Haldia, the industrial township across the called a “package deal” with the Indonesian busi- Hooghly or make daily or weekly trips to Kol- ness giant. The projects he carried back could kata’s Metiabruz where they work in the small- not, however, be implemented as there was strong scale garment-manufacturing units as tailors or opposition by farmers in Bhangar, a rural locality cutters at very low wages. near Kolkata, to land acquisition for one of the At the same time, poverty is not abject and projects. In any case, state assembly elections were the local people explain how they manage. There drawing near and it was thought to be prudent to is much to compensate for a certain level of shelve the “package” for the time being. Queried stagnation: land of their own, fresh food and about Selim’s political antecedents, Bhattacharya water, small-scale multitasking. All this would replied that he would not look at the color of cap- go once the SEZ came and swallowed up the vil- ital as long as it brought investments to Bengal. lages. Most of all they need the ties of village Meanwhile, the anti-acquisition movement community and solidarity in times of seasonal in Singur was peaking. At Haripur, where a nu- or exceptional need, periodic crises, for collec- clear power plant was planned, villagers put up tive celebrations and festivals that keep alive their a road block to prevent the entry of government human identity. The chemical hub would have officials, a situation that continues to this day. destroyed their villages and reduced them to In Deganga in Nadia district, angry village women landlessness, to far inferior, low-grade, and tran- beat up district officials and police when they sient jobs in the new concerns. It would have came to serve the land acquisition notice. dispersed the people, organically tied to one an- The mood in Nandigram, too, was gradually other, to far flung out locations, among streets reaching a boiling point as days passed and of distant cities. The petty compensation they CPI(M) functionaries began to talk about the would have received in return for their small imminent acquisition. The villagers’ sentiments landholdings would be inadequate for any mean- are best summarized by Sumit Sinha, an activist ingful investment. Because the land reforms had who joined the movement: petered out since the late 1980s, the number of unregistered sharecroppers has grown vast as has “Laxman Seth, the MP from here had pro- the size of agricultural laborers. Even though they nounced that the land here was one crop, that make a meager living at present, they still do people here were waiting with folded hands to The meaning of Nandigram: Corporate land invasion, people’s power, and the Left in India |81 offer their land ‘for industry.’ The moment he ried a story that morning regarding the land ac- said this, the local folks got infuriated—‘Lies, quisition. The people asked if a notice had been there isn’t a bigger lie than this. This land is our despatched to the panchayat why were they not lung, our lifeblood. If we give that up what are informed. The crowd spontaneously organised we left with? Neither life, nor honour.’ The itself into a march and a 300-strong rally set out women were icons of fortitude.” towards the Kalicharanpur panchayat office. … he said he was in a meeting on sulabh sauchalay A decision was taken to form a village commit- (pay-and-use toilet). People’s anger reached its tee in every would-be affected village and also ac- peak.‘If our homes cease to exist, where will the tivate the gram sansads (village councils).9 Every toilets come up?’ village committee was to include fifteen men and … when the rally was returning towards five women. In practice, however, the number of Bhuta More … five police vans went past the female members far exceeded the quota allotted rally towards the panchayat office. People’s ire to them. In just one week, twelve village com- turned into a blaze. ‘Why are the police here? mittees were formed. Turn the rally around. Let’s go the panchayat of- On 29 December 2006, Laxman Seth, chair- fice.’ … In no time, the number went up to man of the Haldia Development Authority 2,000. The crowd was bent on going to the pan- (HDA)—under whose jurisdiction falls Nandi- chayat office—after a lot of persuasion, comply- gram—addressed a public meeting. The aim was ing with the local leader Nanda Patra’s advice, to convince the people of the necessity of land ac- the rally was turned around through the village quisition. Seth announced that a total of twenty- road towards the Haldia ferry ghat.… five po- seven mouzas (village unit) in Nandigram Block lice vans came back. … the lathi charge began. 1—including agricultural fields, water bodies, The crowd was taken aback … within a short homesteads, school buildings, and even tem- time it regrouped. It began to lob hard mud ples and mosques—would be acquired. Even balls … at the police. The police, in turn, hurled the sparse crowd, consisting mainly of CPI(M) stone-chips meant for road repairs. Soon, the supporters, was so angered by this announce- whole area turned into a battlefield. The police ment that many of them got up on the podium burst teargas shells but couldn’t stop the crowd. and began to question him. For the first time in … The police fired. many years, Seth’s authority faced a real challenge. A bullet hit Jahangir’s arm right in front of On 2 January 2007 HDA issued a prelimi- my eyes. Gurupada Barik’s arm, too, was hit by nary notice indicating a plan to acquire about a bullet. Another bullet made a hole on Sattar’s 14,500 acres of land in twenty-seven mouzas in foot. Any other time, I would’ve fled—but the Nandigram Block 1 and in two mouzas in Khe- people’s indomitable courage gave me the nerve juri10 Block 2. It was also made clear that 12,500 to stand my ground. … At last, it was the police acres in Nandigram would be acquired imme- who had to look for an escape route. … Within diately, because the construction work would moments, people came out with spades and soon begin for the mega chemical hub by the axes. In no time, all roads from Hazrakata to Selim Group and a shipbuilding-cum-repairing Sonachura were dug up. … What do I call it ? A unit by the Pawan Ruia industrial group. As the festival or preparing for war?” news spread, more than a thousand people gath- ered at the Kalicharanpur panchayat office at As part of an independent inquiry team, we vis- Garchakraberia. Sumit Sinha who was an eye- ited Nandigram in late January, 2007. We talked witness, has a detailed account of the beginning to about fifty eyewitnesses who all told us this of the movement: story with minor variations. In the clash, a po- lice jeep was overturned and caught fire but the “At 9am I reached Bhuta More and found the policemen were allowed to escape. In fact, some crowd worked up. A newspaper had already car- of the villagers helped one of them to change 82 | Tanika Sarkar and Sumit Chowdhury into civilian clothes, in case he faced angry vil- three state governments have constructed in a lagers on the way back (Sarkar et al. 2007). highly seismic zone. Party leaders and cadres re- ferred to her in public with unspeakably filthy words and obscene gestures and she was even Violence and resistance at Nandigram beaten up. Between January and March Nandigram was From 3 January 2007, a civil war raged in Nan- a self governing fortress where state agencies digram. On the night of 7 January, CPI(M) cadres had no place. The main arterial road that con- poured into the villages even as the police camps nected the villages lying on both sides was dug evacuated their forces before the party-led op- up into deep trenches at different points so that eration began. Villagers were deliberately aban- police jeeps and vans would not be able to go doned to the rage of the cadres. The furious through. At other points, huge barricades had crowd set fire to the house from where the party been built of stones and trees. Isolated, the re- cadres were firing, and a local party leader was sistance committees now looked after village af- burned alive. Erstwhile CPI(M) supporters at fairs and prepared for an assault from the party Nandigram now pulled away from party loyal- and the police. It was alleged by the CPI(M) ists while loyalists camped at Khejuri, on the that their loyalists were forcibly evicted from borders of Nandigram, a place that was not the villages and were assaulted. These charges scheduled to come under the axe of land acqui- would redouble after the party had invaded sition. It had, therefore, remained loyal to the Nandigram in March and massacred villagers. ruling party. An exchange of handmade bombs Some, indeed, did leave the threatening and hos- and firing went on every night among the com- tile environment, some were, no doubt, forced batants, CPI(M) cadres being far better armed to leave, though many of them left their families and protected by the police. When our inquiry behind who carried on without any noticeable team visited Nandigram, women told us that harassment. The refugees crossed over to Khe- each night they sheltered in adjoining forests. juri. The party set up camps to receive them and They lived in terror and begged us to stay with to prepare them for future combat. Wild stories them. They were sure of terrible reprisals but circulated about anti-CPI(M) reprisals. There they also said that even death would not make may have been some truth in them as Nandi- them part with their land. gram villagers were angry and apprehensive, but The TMC so far had no real presence at Nan- most of these reports were mutually contradic- digram. As villagers moved away from their old tory and remained unsubstantiated. party and faced its wrath, a way was cleared for In Nandigram villages there was remarkable their entry into the volatile situation. But as they amity between Hindus and Muslims, among themselves admitted to us, they had not created different castes, as villagers—men, women and the movement, nor did they become its undis- children—kept daily and nightlong vigil at the puted leaders. Rather, the struggle spawned a Sonachura-Khejuri borders that separated multi-party organization, the Bhumi Ucched CPI(M)-dominated Khejuri from rebellious Nan- Pratirodh Committee (Resist Land Eviction digram. They faced and beat frequent CPI(M) Committee—BUPC). It included some Muslim and police incursions, and a continuous steady organizations, some far left activists, the Social- level of intimidation from across the borders. As ist Unity Centre, and the TMC. Non-party left- the vigil continued, news of the struggle spread ists and cultural activists from Kolkata and throughout the country. The chief minister prom- other parts of India came often to express soli- ised, after a week-long delay that there would be darity. The person who drew much ire from the no SEZ at Nandigram. He added a caveat: there CPI(M) is Medha Patkar, leader of the Narmada would be no chemical hub only if villagers do Bachao Andolan, a movement of thousands of not want it. Villagers would still not remove the people, displaced by the Narmada dams that the barricades as they believed that as soon as they The meaning of Nandigram: Corporate land invasion, people’s power, and the Left in India |83 did so, CPI(M) loyalists would pour in and de- Koran on 14 March 2007. The hope was that the mand land acquisition for the chemical hub. combined presence of religious activities and They also believed that if they allowed the ad- women and children would stop a police-cadre ministration and the police to move back into invasion or would mitigate the worst of the of- Nandigram, there would not only be renewed fensive. Under colonial rule, nationalist demon- efforts for industrialization, but also horrific strations and barricades used to deploy this tactic reprisals for their disobedience. Their fears were before police onslaughts, on the whole success- confirmed by the daily barrage of attacks and by fully. However, this time this tactic did not work. threatening and violent speeches by senior party Cops and thugs, roughly 500 of each, had leaders. One of them promised that he would gathered across the border in the morning of 14 “make their lives hell.” March. A single warning was broadcast, asking As peasants continued to barricade them- people to go away and let the police come in. It selves, solidarity protests gathered strength in did not mention that there would be shootings Kolkata despite arrests and lathi charges on if villagers disobeyed. When the people refused peaceful demonstrators. Slowly, Kolkata was re- to move, firing started, along with the lobbing turning to a political life where demonstrations of teargas shells, hundreds at a time—eyewit- and processions were no longer command per- nesses say that CPI(M) thugs, dressed in police formances by the ruling party but were authen- khaki were the ones who opened fire. A woman tic peoples’ protests. In its turn the Politburo of at Adhikaripara later told us: “We had thought the all India party declared its unequivocal sup- they would not fire on women nor thrash them. port for West Bengal economic policies and its But they did. They fell upon us with such force politics of reprisals, eschewing its own recent that we went down like rag dolls.” In all, 635 criticisms of neo-liberalism. rounds were fired, fifteen people were killed, sev- The government imposed an economic block- eral went missing, and seventy-five were injured. ade on the villages. The ferry service across the What followed was even more gruesome. The Hooghly river to Haldia and Kakdwip was with- cops and the thugs now entered the villages in a drawn and CPI(M) cadres blocked the only road pincer movement. The entire area was sealed off to Nandigram. Anyone opposed to the CPI(M), for forty-eight hours, as loot, plunder, arson, even media personnel and medical teams, were torture, rape, and sexual molestation went on. stopped from reaching the scenes of conflict. When we visited victims at the Tamluk Hospital Some political activists were also arrested by the at the end of March, we found clear evidence police. At the same time, there was a massive that a single person was simultaneously attacked congregation of armed party cadres, across the by several cadres and policemen with multiple Sonachura borders. weapons: cudgels, steel rods, guns, butts of guns, Much depended on crushing of the Nandi- rubber and real bullets, kicks, and slaps. All the gram rebels, not just in West Bengal but all over while, a thick cloud of tear gas smoke billowed India where violent land acquisitions were being around and people running helplessly fell into met with farmers’ protests. Because Nandigram ponds, were separated from one another, or were farmers had managed to build up a particularly dragged away into adjoining forests. A woman tenacious, enduring and effective resistance, all recalled that she was put into a truck with sev- eyes—of multinationals, state and central gov- eral others. She fainted and came to conscious- ernments, and of peasants—were on that small ness the next day. She found herself lying naked cluster of villages that had become a test case in in the forest. A man who had his thumb ripped this most unequal of battles. Anticipating a cops- off by a bullet told us that he had spread his and-cadre invasion from across the Talpati hands across a child’s head protectively when the canal, the BUPC mobilized a few thousand men, firing started. Several eyewitnesses told us that women, and children, ostensibly for a Hindu children were picked up, swung around by their worship and a congregational chanting of the legs, and were then flung onto ponds; “there 84 | Tanika Sarkar and Sumit Chowdhury they floated on the water, like flowers,” said one disclosed marks of physical injuries on their witness. They were rescued in time by the vil- bodies. lagers but a lot of panic stricken stories flew The voice that haunted us for days as we around for days that children had been ripped came back from Nandigram was that of an old apart. What was very touching was the way in woman who sat, arms dangling and eyes empty, which men and women endured torture and in- outside her ravaged hut. As we were leaving, she juries as they protected children they did not murmured, half to us and half to herself: “Will even know. we live? But how will we?” The same hopeless At Tamluk Hospital and at Adhikaripara vil- voice, nonetheless, affirmed quietly when we lages, women of all ages told us that they had asked her if she would obey the party now: “I been raped or sexually assaulted and tortured. will not give up my land. I know they will take Before we could stop them, they would pull it away if they can—if not for the Selims, then aside their saris to show us bite marks, gouge just to punish us. I will not let them take my marks, deep and still festering wounds on their land away.” breasts, legs, and thighs. Several civil rights or- Compensation is usually promised—though ganizations and medical teams have recorded in this case, the state has still not delivered it— visual evidence of sexual torture. Some of them if there is rape and murder. But here were innu- mentioned the name of a CPI(M) woman cadre merable wounded bodies of laboring men and who called on the party men to assault women women with severe eye, chest, lung, liver, and and stood by and watched as they were mo- urinary tract injuries who would never be able lested. Women narrated these tales in an expres- to work again. Disabilities that put workers out sionless voice, looking away into the distant of work should be treated as a special class of horizon. The only time some animation livened torture effects, with the highest possible com- their voice was when they told us the names of pensation rates. Treatment expenses were borne the cadres and insisted that we write them down. by BUPC activists and all relief was collected by When we hesitated, thinking that this may groups of non-party citizens. As Nandigram lay worsen things for them, they went on insisting: devastated after two days of relentless pound- “Go on, take the names down. Don’t worry about ing, villages remained surrounded by police and us, we are already dead, we are dead people walk- cadres and no media or relief teams were al- ing about. But let the world know about these lowed in. Activists had to get a High Court in- men and women.” junction to get inside with relief material along Indian women are notoriously modest and with the inquiry team of the Central Bureau of careful about their reputation for chastity. The Investigations. slightest violation can make them social out- Something incredible happened after this castes and even family members are not told crushing experience. On 16 March more than about such occasions. But here they were, shout- 20,000 villagers—battered, bruised and flogged— ing out their stories, they wanted to know that picked themselves up from the dust. Men and we have gotten every detail right and they wanted women began a march to Sonachura with the to be sure that we will tell the world. What was dead bodies of two of the young people who had going on? It seems these women had crossed a been murdered. As the procession approached, very important threshold. They were ready now cadres fled across the canal into Khejuri. Nandi- to read rape and sexual assault as marks of phys- gram was reoccupied by rebels. ical torture—nothing more and nothing less, The government provided no relief nor re- without the additional stigma that sexual as- sponded to the Central Bureau of Investigations sault had so far carried. In the general devasta- findings about an arms dump that was controlled tion that all bodies had met with—male, female, by party cadres. The party refused to accept any and infantile—women displayed marks of sex- blame and no party leader visited Nandigram. ual injury with the same ease with which men At the same time, they had to watch helplessly The meaning of Nandigram: Corporate land invasion, people’s power, and the Left in India |85 as Nadigram became a national scandal, as med- bushes and started firing indiscriminately, kill- ical, women’s, and relief teams poured in from ing several people. As people ran helter-skelter, all parts of the country; and as long-time sup- the gunmen captured about 300 protestors as porters and sympathiszrs returned state awards hostage. They were taken to Khejuri where they as a mark of protest and resigned from state of- were tortured throughout the night. On 10 No- fices and academies. Intellectuals, cultural ac- vember, the hostages, hands tied and guns to tivists, students, and persons from all walks of their heads, were used as human shields and the life marched in protest demonstrations, and not cadres marched into Nandigram without a just in West Bengal. Streets filled up with posters fight. Nandigram was “recaptured,” BUPC flags and slogans, there was an outpouring of protest pulled down, and red flags once again fluttered plays, art and photography exhibitions, and over every housetop. “A new sun has risen over poems. Nandigram,” declared Biman Bose, CPI(M)’s Days and months went by. Nandigram re- state secretary and chairman of the West Bengal treated into the inside pages of newspapers in Left Front. spite of the continuing violence from Khejuri. The CPI(M) confidence proved premature. The government now talked less about Nandi- In May 2008, in the rural local elections, the gram and more about Nayachar, an uninhabited CPI(M) fared very badly, for the first time in silt island on the Hooghly next to Nandigram, thirty years. In all areas, threatened with corpo- where the chemical hub would now be situated. rate takeover, the party lost miserably. In Nan- In the last week of October there were fresh digram they lost every seat. intimations of violence. Sophisticated weaponry came in trucks and ambulances up to the Sona- chura Khejuri borders. The CPI(M) now opened Conclusion a second front at Satengabari on the west, pre- sumably to divert the attention of the BUPC Nandigram starkly exposed the failures of the fighters. Women supporting the BUPC-led CPI(M) of West Bengal to stand up to the neo- movement were brutally assaulted and houses liberal model of development. Moreover, as the were set ablaze. Satengabari fought back but CPI(M) Politburo stood staunchly with the West cadres finally took over the area. Another access Bengal communist party, it also lost credibility to Nandigram was thus opened for the police. and the sympathy of leftist social movements On 2 November the skirmishes intensified in all over India. Its opposition to neo-liberalism several parts along the frontline. TMC funds turned out to be restricted to its role as opposi- and arms bought guns and bombs for the BUPC tion party in the parliamentary arena as state who began to anticipate another invasion and government under its control followed the all- began to prepare themselves. Firearms are legally India trend, especially in terms of land policy. not sold in the open market in India but there is It seems that the Communist Party is not only a vast underground market in all sorts of lethal incapable of organizing popular struggles but weapons. Even before Nandigram, party battles actually represses them when it is in power. All in rural and urban areas, especially at the time governments behave similarly, but, as Nandi- of local elections, had been fought with guns. gram showed, a left-wing party which had come On the night of 4 November the police out- to power with the promise of radical land re- post at Tekhali bridge was suddenly withdrawn. forms and with the slogan “Land to the tiller” Four days later, in response to a BUPC call to had created an aura of expectations that could protest against the Satengabari massacre, the not be dispensed with casually. villagers joined two rallies, one in Sonachura and Nandigram may have been the most dra- another in Garchakraberia. Just before the two matic instance of resistance but there are other could merge at Mahishpur, adjacent to Satenga- instances in India where poor villagers and tribal bari, masked gunmen appeared from behind the people have held out against land acquisition in 86 | Tanika Sarkar and Sumit Chowdhury the face of state repression—Orissa, Jhargram, particular on women and the Hindu Right. Her Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and many other publications include Bengal 1928–1934: The places. The resistance is not so much an evi- Politics of Protest (Oxford University, 1987), dence of the innate heroism of peasants. It is Words to Win: The Making of “Amar Jiban,” A born more out of a conviction that if their rural Modern Autobiography (Kali for Women, 1999), livelihoods go, then any other form of living Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation: Community, Reli- would be so much worse that life would literally gion, and Cultural Nationalism (Permanent have no point; that industries would have no Black, 2001), and Rebels, Wives, Saints: Design- place for people like themselves; and that rural ing Selves and Nations in Colonial Times (Per- migrants in cities live a dog’s life. The convic- manent Black, 2008 ). tion is not a product of blind prejudice or con- Email: [email protected] servatism. After all, many rural families do send Mailing address: 250 Mandakini Enclave, New out some members to find work in cities to sup- Delhi 110019, India. plement their agricultural income. But land— the most enduring and productive property of Sumit Chowdhury is a documentary filmmaker all—has to be the foundation of their existence. and social activist. He is the co-author of The Without it, there is no permanent livelihood se- Dispossessed: Victims of Development in Asia curity, nor food to feed the entire family. The (Arena Press 1999) and has made prize-winning fate of displaced people on city pavements is far documentaries aimed at awakening cultural ac- too vivid and familiar. tivities and resisting the rise of fascism in the What Nandigram showed is that resistance Indian political firmament. He is also the coor- against this trend can still have significant ef- dinator of the Solidarity and Resistance Forum fects. With the defeat of the CPI(M), it seems set up in Kolkata in the aftermath of September certain that no SEZ will be built in Nandigram 11 and an Executive Committee Member of the and that the villagers will keep control over their Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and land—an incredible victory for a rural insurrec- Democracy. tion that had to hold its own in the face of a pow- erful multinational company, a state power that has ruled proudly for thirty continuous years, Notes and, closely allied to it, a central government committed to policies of forced land acquisition 1. Indian communist parties, especially the CPI(M), for SEZs. The victory has inspired similar strug- have remained fervently committed to the Stal- gles throughout the country as it has sent warn- inist legacy. They also admire China’s Deng Xi- ing signals to corporate bodies and to state aoping’s path of development and approved of governments. It seems the power of corporate the Tiananmen Square massacres. Since the capital is not so invincible after all. The chal- mid-1980s the CPI(M) has been seen to give up lenge awaiting us now is to organize so that the on its erstwhile radical implementation of land charisma of Nandigram and the solidarity ini- reform and village-level organizing, through tiatives it set off will not be compromised but which it earned the support of peasants and will rather be routinized in ways that will stretch agricultural laborers and since the early 1990s turned to wooing the urban upper- and upper- its potential and possibilities. middle classes. 2. Among the most notorious of these pogroms had been the genocidal events in Gujarat in Tanika Sarkar is Professor at the Centre for His- 2002 and the anti-Christian violence in Orissa torical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University in in 2008. The Congress does not usually incite New Delhi. Her work focuses on the intersec- religious violence, but compromises with Hindu tions of religion, gender, and politics in both majoritarianism when it happens. colonial and postcolonial South Asia, and in 3. In Chattisgarh, a BJP-ruled state, a new law en- The meaning of Nandigram: Corporate land invasion, people’s power, and the Left in India |87

abled not only massive repression of indigenous/ sition CPI(M) supporters, fearing that they tribal people but also the detention of civil rights would be harmed because they were a hopeless activists, including Binayak Sen, a leading civil minority, fled to Khejuri when trouble broke rights and health-care activist and recipient of out in Nandigram in the first week of January prestigious international awards—despite wide- 2007 and took shelter in the so-called relief spread and international protest, he has been camps set up there. The entire CPI(M) leader- under arrest without a trial since May 2007 (see ship had been shouting from the rooftops casti- “FreeDr. Binayak Sen” 2007). gating media reporters and civil society activists 4. The landless sharecroppers of Bengal—called for not bothering to visit the relief camps and bhag chashi, bargadar, or adhiyar—declared that bring to limelight the plight of their ousted sup- they would not hand over, as the custom was porters. The fact is that no one was allowed to then, half the share of the crop they cultivated go to Khejuri barring their henchmen, for the to the landowner—the jotedar—but only one- relief camps were actually the place where armed third. The militant movement, lasting nearly goons and hired killers were housed. It was from half a decade, spread to far corners of rural Ben- Khejuri that for eleven months gunshots were gal, turning violent in several pockets in re- fired and bombs were hurled at Nandigram to sponse to the vicious repression let loose by the spread terror. There were also wild variations in state and the landowners. Tebhaga has pride of the figures the CPI(M) leaders presented from place in the annals of peasant uprisings in India time to time of their ousted supporters. and is, in many ways, a precursor to the radical agrarian movements like Naxalbari in the post- independence period. References 5. In 1984 the farming community had put up a seven-day blockade demanding electricity in All India Citizens’ Initiative. 2007. Nandigram: Nandigram. It may seem incredible now, but What really happened? Report on the Peoples’ the Left Front, the coalition in power in the Tribunal on Nadigram. Delhi: Daanish Books. state then and now, led the blockade. To lift the Association for the Protection of Democratic blockade, police resorted to firing, killing one. Rights. 2007. Nandigram massacre: Fact-finding 6. This is how the local people pronounce the name. report. Kolkata: Aneek. It could have been Gillingham, not Jellingham. Bandyopadhyay, Parthapratim, and Dayabati Ray. 7. During the last panchayat elections held in May 2005. Gram Banglar Rajniti: Gram Banglar Sam- 2008, the TMC wrested all the panchayats from pratik Samaj Rajnaitik Itihasher Anusameeksha. the CPI(M). Kolkata: Peoples’ Book Society. 8. The Selim Group was founded by Sudono Se- Banerjee, Sumanta. 2008. A political cul de sac: lim, a close friend of former Indonesian presi- CPI(M)’s tragic denouement. Economic and dent Suharto. An army general, Suharto came to Political Weekly, 18–24 October. power after ousting president Sukarno through Bhattacharya, Buddhadeb. Thousands of young an allegedly CIA-backed coup in October 1965, people want jobs … they will shape the coun- which saw the murder of over 200,000 commu- try’s future. Indian Express, 19 January. nists belonging to the Indonesian Communist Bidwai, Praful. 2008. Drifting into nuclear blunder- Party (PKI). Suharto was hated by communists land. In Nandigram and beyond, ed. Gautam the world over, including the CPI(M), for this Roy. Kolkata: Gangchil. crime. Selim’s cement and flour business flour- Chandravarkar, Rajnarain. 1994. The origins of in- ished after Suharto came to power and his ill-got- dustrial capitalism in India: Business strategies ten money came from a number of underhand and the working classes in Bombay, 1900–1994. dealings that Suharto helped him make. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 9. Gram sansad, comprising every eligible voter in Devika, Jayakumari. 2008. A new “Kerala model.” a village, was given constitutional sanction by Kafila. http://kafila.org/2008/09/01/a-new- an act passed by the West Bengal Assembly in kerala-model/. 2001, but has rarely been put into practice. Free Dr. Binayak Sen, Immediately! 2007. Analyti- 10. Khejuri is a CPI(M) stronghold to the south of cal Monthly Review, June. http://mrzine Nandigram across the Talpati canal. Pro-acqui- .monthlyreview.org/amr140607.html. 88 | Tanika Sarkar and Sumit Chowdhury

Harvey,David. 2005. The new imperialism. Oxford, the politics of poverty. Minneapolis: University of New York: Oxford University Press. Minnesota Press. Mishra, Banikanta. 2006. People’s movement in Roy, Gautam, ed. 2008. Nandigram and beyond. Kalinga Nagar: An epitaph or an epitome? Kolkata: Sangehil. Economic and Political Weekly 41 (7): 551–54. Roy, Mohit. 2005. Gram Diye Shohor Ghera— Moore, W.E., and A.S. Feldman, eds. 1960. Labour Rajarhat Theke New Town. Kolkata: Baromash. commitment and social change in developing Sarkar, Aditya. 2007. Nandigram and the areas. New York: Social Science Research deformations of the Indian Left. International Council. Socialism 115. Http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4 Morris, David. 1965. The emergence of an industrial ?id=333&issue=115. labour force in India: A study of Bombay Cotton Sarkar, Sumit. 2007. A question marked in red. Mills. Berkeley: University of California Press. IndianExpress, 9 January. Myers, C.A. 1958. Labour problems in the industrial- Sarkar, Sumit, Sumit Chakrobortty, Krishna Ma- isation of India. Cambridge: Harvard University jumdar, Colin Gonsalves, and Tanika Sarkar. Press. 2007. Interim Report of Enquiry. http://www Roy,Ananya. 2008. Calcutta requiem: Gender and .counterviews.org/Web_Doc/sumit_sarkar.pdf. “Communist” dispossession meets “reactionary” resistance: The ironies of the parliamentary Left in West-Bengal

Projit Bihari Mukharji

Abstract: The reflections in this article were instigated by the repeated and brutal clashes since 2007 between peasants and the state government’s militias—both of- ficial and unofficial—over the issue of industrialization. A communist govern- ment engaging peasants violently in order to acquire and transfer their lands to big business houses to set up capitalist enterprises seemed dramatically ironic. De- spite the presence of many immediate causes for the conflict, subtle long-term change to the nature of communist politics in the state was also responsible for the present situation. This article identifies two trends that, though significant, are by themselves not enough to explain what is happening in West Bengal today. First, the growth of a culture of governance where the Communist Party actively seeks to manage rather than politicize social conflicts; second, the recasting of radical political subjectivity as a matter of identity rather than an instigation for critical self-reflection and self-transformation. Keywords: Bengal, bhodrolok, ethnicity, Kanoria Jute Mill, Marxism

The events at Nandigram and Singur in West belligerent attitude even in the face of the grue- Bengal were such that it forced many—if not some live pictures of police firing upon unarmed most—of those who follow South Asian affairs women and children—beamed to the comforts to rethink their beliefs and positions.1 The man- of the average middle-class home thanks to ifest contradiction of the naked oppression un- satellite televisions channels—and clearly sup- leashed—both through official and unofficial ported such actions. Even as some of the older channels—by an allegedly communist govern- leaders of the Left Front (the ruling coalition) ment on an impoverished peasantry in the inter- found themselves unable to support the govern- ests of big industry was so obvious, that it forced ment’s action, the younger leaders of the party many to ask how this could happen. What was persisted in calling the farmers “reactionaries.” even more disturbing was that it could not be The state of West Bengal, which came into attributed to ideologically corrupt elements in being through the division of the erstwhile Brit- the lower echelons of the party. The Communist ish Indian province of Bengal in 1947 between Party of India (Marxist) (CP([M)) bosses kept a the newly independent India and Pakistan, has

Focaal—European Journal of Anthropology 54 (2009): 89–96 doi:10.3167/fcl.2009.540107 90 | Projit Bihari Mukharji a long tradition of radical politics. The massive that made Singur and Nandigram possible were displacement of people through the traumatic in motion long before 2007. Its roots lay in fact partition further stoked this radical political in the very nature of the CPI(M)’s politics in culture and in the 1960s and 1970s there emerged Bengal since their rise to power in the late 1970s. a robust strand of militant communism. Though In this context I limit my discussion to two such many of these communist radicals were devoted long-terms dimensions of CPI(M) politics in to extra-parliamentary and violent politics, even- Bengal and show why I feel that what we are see- tually a parliamentary strand of communism ing today has its roots in the distant past. It is was voted to office in 1977. The Left Front has not intended to be an exhaustive analysis. There since held unbroken power in the state, winning are many other factors, both immediate and repeated elections. As extra-parliamentary com- longer term, which are possibly equally impor- munism has been increasingly marginalized in tant. I do not propose that the dimensions I iden- the three decades since 1977, the parliamentary tify are more or less important than the many left has emerged as the longest serving commu- more I do not discuss. But I do feel that they are nist government to be elected through a multi- illustrative of trends long at work. As with most party election. This same parliamentary left has “reflective” pieces, of course, serendipity plays a however steadily changed the meaning of com- major part in the choice. munist politics. All of us who had callously tossed around the words “reactionary,” “radical,” “bourgeois,” Marxism as everyday management “communist” over endless cups of tea and cheap cigarettes in an era before Coca Cola came to Anybody who has lived in Bengal during the the Calcutta pan-shop, seemed to have learned 1980s and 1990s can attest to the growing cen- our dictionaries wrong. The words seemed now trality of the CPI(M)’s Local Committees (LCs) to mean exactly the opposite of what we had in their lives. These ubiquitous committees me- thought they meant. “Bourgeois” and “reaction- diate in every local dispute—however big or ary” now seemed to mean anyone opposed to small—from domestic quarrels to neighborly the government and anybody speaking for the disagreements. Their support and concurrence peasantry. Even the extreme left, which eschewed is required in everything from settling a bitter parliamentary democracy, had thus become “re- domestic quarrel to obtaining a necessary gov- actionaries” and “bourgeois.” Similarly the tag ernment certificate/clearance. The men who sit “radical” could now be used to describe those on these hallowed LCs, however, share very little who supported forcible eviction of farmers from in common. One finds among them the well- their lands in the name of big industry. “Com- meaning local school teacher as well as the local munist” could now be legitimately applied to bully and strongman. Clearly not all of them are those who offered immense tax cuts to the big- corrupt—or well-meaning—but neither are all gest industrial houses in the region. Could it be of them communists with a deep acquaintance that there was an Evil Genius who had changed with the writings of Marx or Engels. Their indi- the meanings of the words while we slept? Or vidual proclivities need not detain us here. The had it taken longer? How did we not notice what important thing to note is their function. They was going on? This article is part of an ongoing do not espouse any fixed agenda (other than vot- personal quest to find an answer to this ques- ing for the CPI(M) of course). Their status, au- tion: to identify the Evil Genius. thority, and importance in local society do not The more I think about it, the more con- derive from any constitutional position, yet they vinced I am that this change could not and did are an integral part of the smooth functioning not happen overnight and cannot simply be at- of the local community. Their role is simply to tributed to the machinations of a handful of new “manage” the lives of their community members. leaders. Its roots go further back, and the changes In a good number—even if not most cases—the “Communist” dispossession meets “reactionary” resistance |91

LCs have very little to gain from settling the nu- in the system in need of right management,” is merous petty disputes. In most cases, these me- not limited to the level of the LCs. It permeates diations do not make it into the media and hence every aspect of the CPI(M)’s day-to-day political do not allow for quantification. Yet it cannot be strategy. Let me give two relatively well-known denied that numerous disputes between quar- examples in brief. relling brothers over an ancestral home or an The first of these incidents took place when abusive husband regularly beating his wife have I was a student at the Presidency College in Cal- been settled by the LCs for nothing (or at best a cutta in 1998. After returning from our lengthy small contribution to the “party fund”). As a lo- summer vacations that year, we found that a cal system of dispute management, the value of medium-size but well-built, marbled temple de- the LC cannot be ignored. Some—predictably voted to Shiva had grown up plum in the mid- those not on the best of terms with the LCs— dle of the college premises. The college, which is tend to detest this “interference” stating that the the oldest in South Asia, has a veritable legacy of CPI(M) has “put politics into everything” (sa- being a bastion of radicalism and free-thinking. bete politics dhukiyechhe). Ironically they have Also, at a government college in a country that done just the opposite. is officially secular, such a building was illegal For instance, almost all who are today trying in every respect. Moreover, coming as it did in to build homes on the ever-expanding outskirts the 1990s—when the tentacles of the hated BJP of Calcutta often complain that the LC has (Bharatiya Janata Party) seemed to be spreading forced them to pay a hefty subscription to either everywhere—most of us saw in it yet another the “party fund” or the local “sporting club.” evil machination on the part of the Hindu right Many who are building homes in popular areas wing. As the general secretary of the student like Baruipur are not exactly struggling salaried union, I was urged by my constituents and fel- classes and can easily afford to pay this extra low students to take immediate steps to have the sum. Indeed for many these homes are second temple removed, before its presence got “natu- homes—bagan bari—meant for weekend get- ralized.” We notified the college authorities of aways. There is a very understandable anger our concern and asked for its immediate demo- among the local poor who are being, in a sense, lition. To our utter surprise, however, the college forced to sell out their meager homes for the authorities—despite being government servants bagan baris to be built. It is the same anger one and having no right to allow such an illegal meets with in the beautiful villages in Cornwall, structure to exist on government property—re- where Londoners build their second homes, or fused to act. The principal of the college even on the outskirts of Chicago. This anger stems allegedly released statements to the press sup- from the economic exigencies of the life of the porting the structure. Where we had suspected poor on the fringes of the urban sprawl. Yet a covert machination of the right wing and nat- what the LC does is not politicize this anger into urally expected enthusiastic support from the a co-ordinated demand for government support Left government, we were shocked to find bitter or local community development, but rather opposition. merely smoothen the transfer for land and hence Eventually, as the symbolic value of Presidency the further eventual impoverishment of the poor. College to Calcutta’s rich history catapulted the Those very people who build these homes and issue to media spotlight, we even managed to gain complain—albeit in sotto voce—of the exactions an audience with the then minister of higher edu- of the LC, do not appreciate that ironically it is cation. The minister explained that the temple the mediations of the latter that render the anger had been built by members of the college’s non- of the impoverished tame and thereby enable academic staff and it was best not to “hurt their the smooth acquisition of surplus land. feelings.”Moreover, all non-academic staff mem- This trend of using the party machinery to de- bers at the college were members of the CITU politicize disputes and to render them as “glitches (the Trade Union affiliated with the CPI(M)). 92 | Projit Bihari Mukharji

Eventually even as the students themselves un- the impoverished workers pooled their meager dertook to demolish the structure, the govern- resources to start a community kitchen and or- ment refused to help. ganize a drawn-out resistance, the government The point behind sharing the experiences of unleashed brutal police violence. Despite the this incident is not to suggest—as some do— violence and repression, for a while the Kanoria that on the ground level, the CPI(M) workers dispute seemed to be triggering off a new wave have communal sympathies. Rather the point is of radical workers’ politics independent of the to highlight the fact that ideology and politics major political parties. With this growth also do not play a part in the day-to-day running of came ever greater administrative violence. One the party. The irony of members of a commu- of the early organizers, Bhikari Paswan, was nist-backed trade union clandestinely building arrested and subsequently disappeared from a temple on government property did not strike police custody. His whereabouts remain un- the minister as being cause for concern. What known to this day. Other worker-organizers like he was concerned about was in “not hurting any Someswar Rao and Rajeshwar Rai were also mar- feelings” and trying to find a solution that would tyred. The workers demanded that the mill be keep everybody happy. turned over to a workers’ co-operative but the The second incident I discuss was much better- “communist” government refused, preferring the known than the previous one. For many of my capitalist mode under which it was being run. generation—who were then in high school—it While the struggles of Kanoria Jute Mill—in marked the beginning of our disillusionment the very heart of the capital city—ignited in with the Left Front government. The incident I many once more the belief in the political po- refer to here is the Kanoria Jute Mill agitation in tential of workers’ movements, it also showed 1993 (see Anonymous 1994; Davala 1996; Deb- that the CPI(M) government was a humungous nath 2003). managerial machine. Many have seen in the Left Jute,which was one of the major cash earn- government’s actions during the Kanoria strug- ers for the Bengal economy, suffered a period of gles a sellout to capitalists. But I reckon it was decline following the partition of the province more than that. I do not think those who ran in 1947, but had again picked up its business the government saw it necessarily as an act of since the 1970s. The industry had long been run selling out. Instead it was the logic of the ma- along extremely exploitative lines owing to a sur- chine that was taking over. Because the CPI(M)’s plus availability of labor. With the steady growth strategy was to actually eschew politicization of the industry in the 1970s, as more and more and ideological divisions in favor of making the willing workers turned up, the management of “system” run properly, they did not possibly see the mills sought to further raise profits by try- their stance as deriving from any ideological ing to replace permanent workers by part-timers positions. They had a “system” to run and this who would work at lower pays and without any “dispute”—like the proverbial cog in the wheel— additional benefits. Initially this led to a strike, was holding up the grand “system” from func- but the government then mediated a tripartite tioning smoothly: their task was to rectify the deal among the unions, the management, and “glitch” as quickly as possible and get the jug- itself. As it turned out, the unions—including gernaut running again. the leftist CITU—at the behest of the govern- The secret both to CPI(M)’s success as well ment had actually officially signed away the rights as its seeming betrayals lies in its machinic logic. of the workers by accepting most of the oppres- Indeed Marxists in West Bengal describe their sive proposals of the management. Stunned by actions not as “ami Marxism kori” (I do Marx- the sellout, a spontaneous workers’ resistance ism) but rather as “ami CPM kori”(I do CPI(M)). developed at the gates of the mill. Workers de- The active verb is no longer the praxis of Marx- nied the right of their union bosses or the gov- ism but rather fulfilling the ascribed organiza- ernment to sign away their legitimate rights. As tional roles within a particular party machine. “Communist” dispossession meets “reactionary” resistance |93

Such a machinic logic and the inherent value of Just as following Tagore does not mean reading it in the eyes of the defenders of CPI(M)’s current his books, following Vivekananda does not nec- politics is also seen in the way the latter con- essarily mean eating beef, building biceps, or tinue to describe themselves as “the organized reading the Gita, so too following Marxism does Left,” while all other parties—including the nu- not necessarily mean believing in class struggle. merous highly organized far Left alternatives— One merely learns a handful of the more com- are dismissed as the “unorganized Left.” It is as mon songs of Tagore, becomes a member of if there can be only one form of “organization”— Ramkrishna Mission (for Vivekananda’s sake), coincident with one particular party—and even makes it a point to dislike Gandhi (for the sake more dangerously, as if the mere fact of being of his opposition to Netaji), and votes for the “organized” is somehow excuse enough for bad CPI(M). politics. It is indeed ironic in the extreme that All these are markers of the contemporary such a fetishization of the organization over Bengali bhodrolok identity, a social group which praxis actualizes the very alienation of workers emerged in the nineteenth century. They were from their labor that Marx set out to demolish. mostly a professional middle class but also had some minor interests in land. They were over- whelmingly drawn from the Hindu upper castes Marxism as ethnic identity and emerged in the wake of the displacement of the traditional elite by the emerging British Just as the status-quoist logic of the ‘systems” power. The group members were also the first has become a fetish, so has the vocabulary of to take to “Western” education (see e.g., Kopf Marxism itself, which in Bengal is no longer a 1979) and throughout the nineteenth century matter of revolutionary praxis. It has instead were engaged in many cultural, religious, and become a matter of ethnic identity and even political reform movements. Though the occu- chauvinism that does not necessarily need any pations and caste/religious identity of the group specific actions or self-transformations. One does have undergone some changes in the period then, not need to question her prejudices or grapple they remain culturally and politically the hege- with his own shortcomings of being a Bengali monic group in West Bengal.Various dominant Marxist. One can simply be a Bengali Marxist. cultural icons—often not mutually reconciled He or she can at the same time continue to be a with ease—have been drawn from this complex bloodthirsty Hindu chauvinist, or a devout Mus- history of the class. As a result, they have be- lim mulla, or refuse to marry off their daughter come our cultural capital, not our intellectual to her Scheduled Caste boyfriend.2 Some even praxis. Atul Kohli (1990) has pointed out that turn their Marxism into an icon of their preju- this cultural identification is also reflected in the dices. It is not rare to find a Bengali Marxist voting patterns in West Bengal. Non-Bengalis proudly proclaiming that, “BJP will never win tend to look upon the CPI(M) as a Bengali party in Bengal, they only win among the Hindustanis and therefore distance themselves from it, while and the Gujjus.”The BJP’s poor performance in Bengalis—particularly Bengali Hindus—for that Bengal is seen to be a consequence of the essen- very reason, tend to vote for them. My own ex- tially more “liberal” and “enlightened” outlook perience, especially in student politics in Delhi, of the Bengalis. Ironically—despite their alleged also bears out this contention. liberal views—this “essentially liberal nature” Innumerable popular songs from contem- does not usually extend to descriptions of Ben- porary artists such as Kabir Sumon, Nochiketa, gali Muslims. and Chandrabindu, while celebrating the every- Many a middle-class Bengali home is adorned day life of the city of Calcutta refer to its radical by the pictures of Bengal’s great icons: Tagore, politics and leftist sympathies. What these Netaji,Vivekananda, and Marx.3 These are things artists perceive with more acuity than academ- to be proud of, not necessarily to be acted on. ics is the ways in which Marxism has become a 94 | Projit Bihari Mukharji part of Bengali cultural life. In so doing, how- more material terms, the conjunction of land ever, it has often been reduced to the level of a tenures and administrative policies created a fetishized facet of ethnic identity rather than a context where many young men, though not ac- matter of critical reflection and praxis. tually impoverished, had to undertake liberal As a marker of difference this unique aspect education as a means to eventually getting a job. of the Bengali bhodrolok identity—their radi- From the beginning of the twentieth century calism—could therefore with ease, in the wake the shrinkage and saturation of this job market of the Nandigram agitation, be pressed into the created a significant group of discontented young service of the CPI(M)’s campaign to delegit- men with a liberal education. Consequently, rad- imize its opponents. The involvement of the Ja- ical youth societies sprung up everywhere. These maat-e-Islami in the Nandigram issue—though were mostly nationalist and usually had a religio- the movement itself had clearly embraced both moral aspect to them. There were also some ele- Hindus and Muslims—was easily represented ments of social equality enshrined in these youth as a plot by Islamist mullas who controlled the societies. After the 1947 partition of South Asia “essentially bigoted Muslim peasants.”4 The en- the huge dislocation and utter impoverishment lightened Marxist bhodrolok thus had opposed of the displaced people further radicalized the the poor bigoted Muslim peasant. Bengali youth, who already had readily available Ignoring such obvious—though implicit— models of youth radicalism from a previous “communalism,” as the politics of religious sec- generation. This is not to underestimate the role tarianism is called in South Asia, many defenders of communist mobilization in the 1960s and are heard saying that, “well, it is true—isn’t it? 1970s, but merely to place it in its historical Bengal after all is not Gujarat and you must thank context. There is a tendency in radical, or even the CPI-M for that.”5 The fallacy in this argu- liberal, circles to often see the “positives” in a ment lies in that—yes, Bengal is not Gujarat post-communist society as the legacy of commu- and Bhattacharya is not Modi,6 but how much nism, whereas the very fact that a communist of the credit goes to the CPI(M) and how much mobilization had succeeded in these societies to the different political histories of the two re- might also prove that these societies had already gions? Bengal’s “radical” tradition goes much been more receptive to socially “progressive” further back than the CPI(M). The success of the agendas due to other, older elements in their party was itself a story of the success of that tra- histories. dition, not the other way round. CPI(M)’s suc- However, just as the party inherited some of cess happened on the back of a long tradition of the “radicalism” from earlier movements, it also “revolutionary terrorism” of the early twentieth inherited some of the chronic limitations of those century and the immediate context of the Nax- movements. Bengal’s “radical” traditions—even alite risings of the late 1960s and early 1970s. before Marxism—had a tinge of implicit neo- Though it would be impossible to go into Hinduism to it. The “revolutionary terrorists” detail here, this point is worth reiterating. The of the early twentieth century had more than a acceptance and success of communism at the fair share of middle-class neo-Hinduism in their ballot box in 1977 built on historical factors politics and their rhetoric, even though they that went back—at least in certain aspects—to claimed to represent the entirety of the Bengali the nineteenth century. The rationality and crit- people. Rajarshi Dasgupta argues that Bengali icality that had been introduced in bhodrolok Marxism was always aligned to madhyabitta religious life in the middle of the nineteenth (middle class) sensibilities, but in radical poets century by reformers like Rammohun Roy and like Samar Sen, “transgression [had continued the humanism and universalism found for in- to] figure in radical subjectivity” (Dasgupta 2005: stance in Tagore’s hugely influential oeuvre, all 97). A vision of an apocalyptic revolution had played a part in constituting a self-image for the continued to figure in the Bengali Marxist imag- bhodrolok as a “rational,” “liberal” person. In inary, thereby keeping alight the torch of self- “Communist” dispossession meets “reactionary” resistance |95 transgression and critical reflection. With the the CPI(M) removed the power of the old land- suppression of internal criticism and the adop- lords and facilitated the rise of a new middle- tion of a more centralized form of Marxism peasantry, which now combined land-ownership, after the removal of PC Joshi as the general sec- an interest in the wholesale trade of grain and retary of the undivided Communist Party of access to governmental financial support through India in 1947, Dasgupta contends, this transgres- proximity to the party. This middle-peasantry sive potential was quashed.7 In its place arose a thus came to share in time many of the status- “madhyabitta Marxism,”where the middle-class quoist sensibilities of the ex-refugee urban sup- could safely continue to be a Marxist without the port base of the party. Because CPI(M)’s Marxism need of transgressing the limitations of their in Bengal remained a reflection of predominantly own inherited prejudices. Bengali, Hindu middle-class sensibilities, these But this madhyabitta Marxism is also a Ben- shifts in the latter’s sensibilities also shifted the gali Hindu Marxism. Its lack of self-criticism, accents of Bengali Marxism toward more status- the fetishization of its own identity, and its ma- quoist registers. A machinic logic prevented crit- chinic logic have therefore all been maturing ical safeguards from operating to challenge this for a long time. Of course the Hindu Bengali ossification of the party. madhyabitta’s own historical situation itself has As I pointed out at the beginning of this ar- undergone (often dramatic) change throughout ticle, there are many other factors that make the course of the twentieth century and with Singur, Nandigram, Dobadi, and so on possible, this change have come changes to their sensibil- but the crux of the matter for me lies embedded ities and consequent changes to the Marxism in the history of Marxism in general as well as they espouse. The traumatic 1947 partition saw the party in particular in the region. the sudden displacement and abject impoverish- ment of a massive section of the Bengali Hindu middle class. These refugees formed the back- Projit Bihari Mukharji is a Research Fellow at bone of radical Marxist politics in the 1960s and Oxford Brookes University. In a previous life he 1970s. By the 1980s and 1990s, however, most of was a student activist in Calcutta and served as these refugee families—the bulk of whom had the general secretary of the Presidency College forcibly settled on land they did not own to the Student Union. south of Calcutta—had once again “settled E-mail: [email protected]. down.”On the one hand, the electoral victory of Postal address: PB Mukharji, Department of the Left Front in the late 1970s had paved the way History, School of Arts and Humanities, Ox- for many of these families to be given titles to ford Brookes University, Headington Campus, the lands they had forcibly occupied since 1947. Gipsy Lane, Oxford, OX3 0BP. On the other hand, due to the persistent invest- ment of these refugee families in educating their children—in fact schools were one of the first Notes things the refugees built in the areas they set- tled—many of the next generation were able 1. This is not so much an academic paper as a to get lucrative middle-class salaried jobs. Both series of critical reflections; I interpret my per- these developments—as well as the host of other sonal experiences, using my professional train- ing as a social scientist. larger pan-Indian trends of liberalization, glob- 2. At the time of independence the constitutional alization, and so on—now muted the radicalism fathers of India had recognized the reality and of the earlier generation and converted the bulk undesirability of the caste system. Incorporat- of the CPI(M)’s urban support base into a prop- ing the American idea of “affirmative action” or erty-owning middle-class with its own distinctly positive discrimination toward underprivileged status-quoist sensibilities. In the country-side, groups, they had drawn up a “schedule” of cer- similarly, the early land-reforms instituted by tain castes who would be eligible for preferen- 96 | Projit Bihari Mukharji

tial treatment in education and employment government led by the hawkish Narendra Modi. owing to the many social disadvantages under In 2002 massive violence broke out throughout which they labored. In time members of these the state in which a disproportionate number of castes have come to be called by the generic Muslims were killed and it is widely believed name of “Scheduled Castes” and are often sub- that Modi had used his office to deploy the state ject to negative social prejudices of the upper machinery to attack or at least allow the mas- castes, not only due to their historically low sta- sacre of Muslims to take place. tus but also because of the preferential treat- 6. Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and Narendra Modi ment they are now legally eligible to get. are the chief ministers of West Bengal and Gu- 3. Rabindranath Tagore was a great Bengali poet, jarat, respectively. who won the Nobel Prize for literature and is 7. Puran Chand Joshi was a leading Indian com- today the National Poet of Bangladesh. He has munist in the 1930s and 1940s. He had been the distinction of having written the national tried by the British government in the notori- anthems of both India and Bangladesh. Netaji ous Meerut conspiracy case and sent to the pe- or Subhas Chandra Bose was a leader of the In- nal colony in the Andamans. As the Communist dian National Congress who had initially repre- Party of India’s first general secretary he guided sented the young left wing within the Indian it through its most formative years. His advo- National Congress during the 1920s and 1930s. cacy of closer ties with the Indian National He eventually fell out with Gandhi who was op- Congress under the leadership of the socialist- posed to Bose’s leftist inclinations. Eventually minded Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru after Bose was forced to quit the Congress. When independence made him unpopular to the World War II broke out, he decided to side with more militant young members of the party and whoever was opposed to imperialist Britain and led to his exit from the leadership. In his later ended up aligning himself with the Axis powers. years he devoted himself to developing archives He raised an army comprised of Indian soldiers of Indian communism at the Jawaharlal Nehru in the British Army taken prisoner by Japan in University in New Delhi. the Eastern Front and tried to invade British In- dia with this army to liberate it. Vivekananda was a Hindu monk, who sought to reinterpret Hinduism, thereby modernizing and organiz- References ing it. He also toured the world giving lectures, presenting Hinduism to the audiences of the Anonymous. 1994. Kanoria Jute worker’s historic West as a spiritual alternative fully compatible struggle. Economic and Political Weekly 29 (1/2): with modern life but also promising an escape 22. from the narrow materialism of contemporary Kopf, David. 1979. The Brahmo Samaj and the life. Many right-wing Hindu political configu- Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind. Princeton: rations of today have built on Vivekananda’s vi- Princeton University Press. sions of Hinduism. Dasgupta, Rajarshi. 2005. Rhyming revolution: 4. The Jamaat was founded in Lahore in British Marxism and culture in colonial Bengal. Studies India in 1941 by Sayyid Abdul Ala Maududi. Its in History 21 (1): 79–98. aim was to affect an orthodox Islamic revolu- Davala, Sararth. 1996. Independent trade unionism tion in South Asia through peaceful means. To- in West Bengal. Economic and Political Weekly 31 day sister organizations under the same name (52): 144–49. exist in all post-colonial states of South Asia. Debnath, Kushal. 2003. West Bengal: The neo-liberal Particularly in India, where Muslims are in a offensive in industry and the worker’s resistance. minority and many are socially and economi- Revolutionary Democracy. http://www cally disadvantaged, the Jamaat’s politics is of- .revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv9n1/index.htm. ten in line with the interests of the poor, though Kohli, Atul. 1990. From breakdown to order: West it remains couched in a religious idiom. Bengal. In Democracy and Discontent, 267–96. 5. The western Indian state of Gujarat has in re- Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. cent years repeatedly elected a right-wing BJP Land expropriation, protest, and impunity in rural China

Bo Zhao

Abstract:Conflicts over rural land expropriation, which have intensified over the past decade in China, pose a significant threat to the country’s social stability and the sustainability of its economic development. This article argues that such con- flicts are inevitable under China’s current political and legal system. After a brief introduction of the present situation in China and an overview of China’s land regime, the article first analyzes reasons for the escalation of land conflicts, includ- ing the vague definition of public interest, the inadequate compensation, and the ambiguous nature of collective land ownership. It then argues that even the few existing rights of rural peasants under the present land regime are not adequately protected due to China’s poor law enforcement. The article further elucidates that impunity with regard to illegal land grabbing is common in China for a variety of reasons that all have roots in the Communist Party’s monopoly over Chinese society. With no fundamental reform to China’s party politics, the article con- cludes, there will be no effective measure to prevent further conflicts over land in the near future. Keywords: China, conflict, party politics, rule of law, rural land expropriation

In April 2008 a violent clash between local po- attention even in the international media—it is lice and villagers resisting the expropriation of however only one of hundreds of uprisings tak- their land occurred in Saixi village in the south- ing place in present-day China related to rural western province of Yunnan (Hsiao 2008). The land expropriation. conflict began with villagers protesting against Forced appropriation of land and resistance the insufficient compensation they had received against it has increased dramatically during the from the Zijin Mining Corporation, one of the past ten years and appears to be accelerating (Zhu largest mining companies in China, which had and Prosterman 2007). According to data col- started excavations on the contested land. Local lected by the Ministry of Land and Resources, in police arrived and strived to put down the pro- the first half of 2002 40 percent of the petitions test but instead their presence increased the ten- received from peasants related to land acquisi- sion. In the end the police opened fire on the tions and illegal land seizures, of which 87 per- protesters, killing one person and critically injur- cent involved inadequate compensations for land ing several. The incident in Saixi village gained and unfair resettlement subsidies (Zhang 2004).

Focaal—European Journal of Anthropology 54 (2009): 97–105 doi:10.3167/fcl.2009.540108 98 | Bo Zhao

The Ministry of Public Security disclosed that in Since 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 2005 more than 65 percent of mass incidents in has gradually eradicated private land ownership rural China were reportedly the result of land ex- through a series of political campaigns to real- propriation (Hsiao 2008). In the first nine months ize its socialist ideology of a planned economy. of 2006, China reported a total of 17,900 cases of A new land regime was established after 1956 massive rural unrest, with at least 385,000 farm- that made all land publicly owned, either by the ers protesting against the government. Approx- state of by rural collectives (see Ho 2005). The imately 80 percent of these incidents were related only liberalization that has taken place since is to illegal land appropriations. Land acquisition that a market has developed for the lease of con- by the state has thereby become the top cause of tracted farmland and the transfer of farmland rural grievances in China (Zhu and Prosterman use rights. Ultimately, state and collective own- 2007). In the absence of a free media and with ership however remain untouched. local government trying to silence protest, it is According to Chinese law, urban land belongs safe to assume that there are many more inci- to the state; the State Council, by means of sub- dents related to land expropriation. organs, exercises this right. In contrast, rural and In recent years such mass incidents have sub-urban land, including arable land, forest, started to pose a significant threat to China’s so- grassland, and construction land, should—un- cial stability and economic development, as well less prescribed otherwise by law—be collectively as to the authority of the Chinese government. owned by farmers and be collectively adminis- In order to ease the accumulating tension in ru- tered on behalf of farmers at two levels—the ad- ral China, the latter has made considerable ef- ministrative village and the village group.1 This forts, including establishing new land markets, means that only farmers’ use rights (jingyingquan) legislating new laws, tightening law enforcement, to land are recognized and protected by law. Be- issuing stricter policies, increasing compensation cause all urban land belongs to the state, it must standards, and punishing corrupt officials. How- be noted that land expropriation in China merely ever, those measures have not had the expected refers to rural land. result. In the past two decades rapid industrializa- This article seeks to explain why conflict over tion and urbanization in China has caused an rural land expropriation is inevitable under the increasing demand to convert rural land for in- present political and legal regime of the party dustrial, housing, infrastructural or other urban state in China. It is not that the Chinese govern- use (see Wang 2005). But a potential land user— ment is not serious about the issue, but that un- for example a private property developer—can- der current conditions it is impossible for the not acquire rural construction land or arable state to solve it. Contrary to what has been the land directly from a collective on the land mar- expectation of many Chinese scholars, this arti- ket. Such conversion must be permitted and cle argues that the forthcoming land reform will carried out by the Chinese government. After not make much difference. There will inevitably the potential land user has made an application be more land expropriation-related tragedies for the land that is in accordance with land use unless fundamental political and legal reforms plan, the government can start the procedure of in pursuit of the rule of law and democratiza- land expropriation (tudi zhengyong) in the name tion are embarked on. of public interest, followed by a land transac- tion (tudi churang) between the government and the potential land user. Land expropriation under Rural land expropriation is carried out by the present regime the county government or higher level officials. Farmers who lose their land do not get compen- The main characteristic of the Chinese land re- sation directly from the local government, but gime is the prohibition of private ownership. from a potential land user, according to statu- Land expropriation, protest, and impunity in rural China |99 tory standards based on the principle that farm- comparison to the market value, farmers are of- ers’ living standard may not be lowered due to ten not even given that and a considerable part the expropriation. Compensation is based on of the compensation disappears into the pock- the original land use. It consists of three parts: a ets of local governments, collectives, and village compensation for the loss of land set at six to cadres. Moreover, there are no stipulations in ten times “the average annual output value,”2 a current Chinese law on the procedure to be fol- resettlement subsidy of four to six times the av- lowed where compensation fees are not paid ac- erage annual output value, and a compensation cording to the legal standard (Liu 2007). for structures and standing crops. Based on the Also the meaning of “collective ownership” is prescribed standard, each provincial government vague and it is not clear who the actual owners can decide its own compensation rates accord- of collectively owned rural land are. Scholars have ingly within its jurisdiction. However, in case the suggested that rural land is ultimately owned by prescribed compensation is not high enough to the state (Ho 2001), but in reality it is in the comply with the above principle, the total com- hands of village and township party cadres (Cai pensation of the first two categories shall not 2003; Guo 2001). In land expropriation cases, exceed thirty times the average annual output the latter pursue their personal interests in ne- value of the previous three years.3 gotiating how much is to be compensated and Land expropriation remains a highly contro- in deciding how much each villager may get. The versial matter in China, partly because of leg- overall gap between the compensation in farm- islative defects and poor law enforcement. An ers’ hands and the market value of the expropri- important issue in this regard is the ambiguity ated land is so big that landless farmers cannot of the notion of the “public interest,” in whose but feel heavily exploited.4 name land is expropriated. There is no specific However, not all rural land acquisitions give definition of the term in either case law or statu- rise to riots and unrests, even under the current, tory law. In common practice, the term is inter- defective legislation. Peasants do not have high preted extremely broadly to allow a variety of expectations because they know that they only urbanizing, industrializing, and “modernizing” have “use rights” to rural land. In cases where activities. In this way, local governments sup- the legally prescribed compensation is paid, they port many commercial projects to increase local are usually satisfied. In Guangzhuo City, Guang- revenue. It is, however, mostly certain local lead- dong province—one of China’s richest areas— ers, interest groups, and other insiders who ben- land requisition for urban development has for efit from such projects, while farmers’ interests instance been successful and has triggered no seem to be excluded from the definition of pub- apparent confrontations (Tang et al.2008). Land lic interest (Zhang 2004). expropriation was conducted there in accor- The most often reported reason for the high dance with the respective rules and regulations number of land-related incidents is inadequate and with more transparency and public partic- compensation to farmers. No doubt the com- ipation than in other places. Even the proper pensation standard set by statutory law is rather implementation of existing state law would likely low in comparison to the market value of ex- reduce the intensity of the present conflicts over propriated land, let alone farmers’ real long-term land. loss. The compensation only aims to uphold their present living standard, but does not ensure them an alternative means of making a living. With a Economic dispossession maximum compensation of thirty times the with political impunity average annual output value, it is up to the ju- risdiction of the provincial government to deter- In recent years the Chinese government has be- mine the amount of compensation. Although the come more aware of the danger of popular un- compensation de jure standard is already low in rest over land expropriation and has tried to 100 | Bo Zhao improve the situation. It has made considerable by all means, even offering land at a price far efforts to tighten the fence and has issued new below the market value (Zhou 2004). Thus, in policies, established new monitoring agencies, regional economic competitions some local lead- and designed new laws. It is worth mentioning ers even offer free land to companies that may that the recently promulgated property law par- contribute more to local revenue. For this rea- ticularly emphasizes the protection of farmers’ son inadequate compensation to local farmers land use rights and prescribes adequate compen- is almost unavoidable. Second, large real estate sation to be paid in case of land acquisition.5 development rather than agricultural produc- Such measures nevertheless cannot effectively re- tion is promoted by local officials as the former duce the conflicts over land expropriation. New is likely to contribute more to GDP growth. laws have little effect as local officials hardly Apart from this, there is also the fact that lo- comply with them. Even under strong pressure cal officials can gain incredible interests from from Beijing, illegal land grabs continue in ru- land expropriation and land lease. Due to the ral China. For instance, local officials of Dang- non-democratic character and hierarchical struc- shan County, Anhui province, have engaged in ture of the Chinese government, rent seeking is illegal land grabbing for many years, causing popular in local land administration. Though continuous conflicts between peasants and the there are specific procedures, rules, and policies local government.6 In June 2008 the Chinese on land transfers, it is ultimately local leaders, Central Government issued a special regulation usually party cadres, who have the last say in de- punishing government officials who intention- ciding who gets land and at what price. Local ally disregard land laws. Its preamble openly ad- leaders, in particular those in charge of land is- mits that local officials breach the law and that sues, benefit directly from such land transac- China’s land administration is at a critical point.7 tions by taking bribes from potential land users. The fact that there is a widespread violation of In some cases, the land developers are actually the law in rural China despite remedies sought companies owned by officials’ relatives, family by the central government relates to the sharp members, and close friends. All this leads to an contrast between economic reforms that have ever more disturbing redistribution of wealth lead officials to pursue profit at all costs and an away from farmers toward local officials and the absence of any political reforms to hold officials companies to which the land is assigned. democratically accountable and tackle their The attractions of the promotions and prof- impunity. its to be made from illegal land grabbing are Following the 1994 fiscal reform, the central worsened by the lack of punishment of officials government took away most of the revenues of breaking the law. Poor enforcement of land laws local governments but did not diminish their fi- has caused serious problems in China. Due to nancial responsibilities (Yang 2008). To meet illegal land grabbing, China’s arable land de- local needs, a considerable proportion of local creases so fast that it now touches the so-called income is acquired, legally or illegally, through red line, endangering China’s food security. land expropriation. Had state law been strictly Moreover, massive land expropriation-related implemented, the income of township, county, incidents threaten the rule of the party state. and municipal governments would have de- Though Beijing wants tight control over local creased significantly, particularly in less devel- officials on land issues, it cannot achieve the oped areas of the country. With GDP growth aim because land law violations at local level are being the priority of the Chinese government, hardly punished. The main reasons for this are more rural land is needed for industrial use and strong local protectionism and the absence of urbanization. In the present promotion system, an independent judiciary. officials who achieve high GDP growth are most It is difficult for Beijing to restrict local offi- likely to be promoted. This has two negative con- cials due to an increasing local protectionism, a sequences. First, they have to attract investors problem that results from China’s rapid eco- Land expropriation, protest, and impunity in rural China | 101 nomic growth. Local governments enjoy more not welcome and are forwarded to the local of- independence and have become the real gover- ficials in charge. Local media often keep quiet nors of their localities. Taking into account the on illegal land grabbing and insufficient com- size of the Chinese government and the number pensation because the party propaganda bureau of local officials, it seems impossible to reverse forbids them to disclose such negative news so this trend. Although still appointed from above, as not to endanger “social harmony.” Less than local leaders now have absolute authority within one percent of the farmers surveyed in Zhu’s their jurisdiction. They tend to align with each (2007) study were able to file formal lawsuits to other to seek personal interests and establish resolve their land-related grievances. Rights to larger social networks for mutual protection. This public hearings and procedural justice only ex- makes it easy to escape legal punishment and ist on paper. When individual lawsuits are de- party disciplining. Moreover, when high-rank- nied and class-action lawsuit banned, farmers ing officials and party leaders in Beijing become are forced to stage public protest and riots to involved in corruption scandals,9 we can expect draw attention from the national media and even more impunity. Beijing, whom they tend to consider more be- Reinforcing this impunity is also the lack of nign than their immediate oppressors at the lo- judicial independence in China (Lubman 2000). cal level (see Guo 2001: 436 ff.) Chinese courts are under the control of party cadres. Party policy, instead of state law, gets priority in decision making (Peerenboom 2002). The dilemma Thus the different parties in a land-related con- flict are encouraged to solve it by means of ne- Though the CCP’s efforts to curb misbehav- gotiations and non-legal methods. Class action iours in land expropriation are impressive, the lawsuits are extremely uncommon in China. Such result is doomed to be far below expectation as lawsuits are rarely accepted by Chinese courts any real solution would have to involve a funda- because they are regarded as threatening social mental political reform. Some scholars assume stability, as was seen for instance in the recent that it would be possible to return land to farm- milk adulteration scandal (Wong 2009). Local ers but under the present conditions this means courts encounter pressure and interference from returning it to local cadres (Cai 2003). The prob- local leaders and party cadres in the name of lem is that the CCP is the landlord of all Chi- promoting “local economic development and nese and has the ultimate authority to decide who urbanization.” Under such circumstances, ap- can benefit from land use and how much—one peals from farmers to local courts against illegal of the reasons why Chinese dissidents tend to see land expropriation and unfair compensation private property as the solution to the lack of have little hope of winning. Only a small por- protection currently enjoyed by farmers against tion of law violations is punished unless they forced expropriation. Under China’s current threaten to seriously damage Beijing’s reputa- economic policies, the state monopoly over land tion. In this regard, Pei’s study indicates that in means that local governments and land devel- general the low rate of criminal investigations opers, particularly those having close relation- targeting individuals accused of corrupt activi- ships with local leaders, gain major profits from ties and the negligible probability of criminal land acquisition at the expense of farmers’ liveli- penalties make corruption a low risk and high- hoods (Zhang 2004; Zhu and Prosterman 2007).8 return activity that is extremely attractive to of- The central issue is thus whether the Chinese ficials (Pei 2006: 150). government, or the CCP, is willing to give up its In contrast to well-protected local officials, monopoly over land and give farmers a real say landless farmers have to march a long way to in what happens to the land they depend on for achieve justice. As an ex-post remedy, petitions their livelihood. This also entails bringing the to higher governments like letters and visits are impunity to an end with which farmers’ rights 102 | Bo Zhao are violated by Chinese officials, which has deep ciation and a free media, to procedural justice, roots in the CCP itself. Since the terminal crisis and especially to direct local elections, is testi- of international communism in the late 1980s, mony to this interdependence. Realization of what glues party members together is no longer such rights is undoubtedly a threat to the party so much communist ideology but mere pursuit state as well as to the interests of party cadres. of individual interest. More and more people join Although human rights violations by local offi- the CCP for social advancement instead of for cials are common in China, only those seriously commitment to any political ideology. As Peer- damaging CCP’s legitimacy and international enbom points out, “party control and discipline reputation will be tackled. At the local level, law have been largely weakened by further corrup- violations by officials seem to be an “open se- tion and the prevailing ethos of self-interested cret.”To meet the quota set by higher officials in materialism” (2002: 210). After the amendment population control, local officials in Shangdong of the party charter in 2002, it has basically be- province for instance quite openly took illegal come an association of nouveau riche, bureau- measures trampling human rights (Watts 2005). crats—the majority of which are party cadres, Such interdependence, however, does not sim- and some intellectual elites. It has moreover come plify the central-local relation and drive away to the point that not only are mafia members possible clashes. To understand the complex re- joining the CCP but local cadres are even col- lation, one has to bear two things in mind. First, lecting wealth in ways that are no different from the CCP has both a benevolent and a malevolent those of the mafia (He 2006, 2007). face simultaneously. To retain its grip on power In a sense the CCP is more united than ever despite increasing economic injustice, it deploys before, even if without any ideological commit- heavy-handed suppression. On the other hand, ment and with diversified interests. On the one it cannot rely solely on coercion and must deploy hand, local officials and cadres rely on the a benevolent face to gain legitimacy. Thus cases Party’s authority and protection to seek personal annoying the public and damaging the party’s goals. Even though they are number one within reputation have to be punished to show its deter- their own territory, they have to comply with mination in curbing corruption and in serving the officials above them who are responsible for the interest of Chinese. Second, as Lü (2000) ar- their promotion. As long as the officials domi- gued, deviations from party policies and miscon- nating key positions of local government con- ducts in pursuit of personal interest cannot be tinue to be assigned by those above them and eradicated due to the “organizational involution” selected within the CCP rather than democrat- of the CCP. The party state has never succeeded ically elected, it is safe to assume that the pro- in modernizing its organizations by integrating tection of peasants’ land rights will not be a true relations of legal-rational authority in the We- priority. On the other hand, at national level, berian sense. Instead it has been captured by its the central party needs support from local lead- own agents who distort policies and resist con- ers and cadres to maintain its party monopoly. trol from above. In this regard, it is not so much China’s new generation of leaders do not have that the central government is “unwilling” to the same authority over local leaders as Mao fight against the misconduct of its members and and Deng once had. To retain power, they have sub-organizations, but it is incapable to do so. to win loyalty by allowing local leaders to pur- Because the CCP cannot really fight itself, il- sue their own interests, sometimes even illegally. legal land grabbing and corruption can only be Consequently, the aforementioned separation of brought to a halt through democratization and local and central governments, though apparent, judicial independence. In China village elections is not fundamental; they are more interdepend- began in the late 1980s and have been popularly ent on each other. regarded as a good means toward responsive lo- In this regard, the suppression of human cal leadership. As it turns out, village leaders rights such as the right to free expression, asso- elected in fair elections are willing to protect Land expropriation, protest, and impunity in rural China | 103 farmers’ interest against illegal land acquisitions people, which seems to be a by-product of the and unfair compensations (Cai 2003). Although propagation of “socialist rule of law” by the it is probably only still a minority of village elec- CCP. As Gallagher (2005) observed with regard tions that are conducted democratically and to labour law, Chinese citizens have accepted the though there are many “fake elections,” it is still Western legal concepts and now use the law as a observed that even poorly conducted or corrupt- weapon to press their own rights and interests. ible elections provide leaders with a motivation Whether such rights-based fights can lead to to act in the interests of their constituents (Brandt much result is doubtful as long as local courts are and Turner 2000). So far there has been no sign still under the control of cadres who may have from Beijing of extending these elections to the various interests in land expropriations. Never- township level or higher. The CCP becomes very theless, this is no doubt the strongest push to- cautious when encountering challenges against ward the rule of law that we have seen in China’s its political monopoly. recent history. Neither is judicial independence possible in The CCP is fully aware that judicial independ- China right now. It is well recognized that inde- ence, democratization, and increasing rights- pendent judges can bring justice to a society by based resistance eventually will remove its keeping a rein on the power of executive officials. monopoly over Chinese society, a path however With judicial independence, there could at least not acceptable to the party.10 With the example be better law enforcement in China, countering of the coloured revolutions in Eastern Europe, illegal land grabbing. However, though pro- the CCP knows that gradual political reform claiming that the rule of law is China’s future, puts it in danger of losing power altogether. True the CCP hardly makes any substantive move to- democracy and judicial independence will also ward judiciary independence. Even the firmest endanger leaders by removing their impunity. supporters of gradual judicial reform have lost So here comes the dilemma: on the one hand, confidence after observing so many years of “slow illegal land grabbing and unfair compensation progress” (He 2008). in land expropriations endanger the CCP’s le- One may object that countries with judicial gitimacy and authority and it is therefore forced independence and formal democracy, such as to take the problem seriously. On the other hand, India still show many cases of violent land expro- the final resolution depends on a fundamental priation and that thus the expectations of what political reform that is unbearable for the CCP. democracy and rule of law can do should not be too high. In this regard, the best counterargu- ment resides in what is now happening in Tai- Conclusion wan, which has more similarities with Mainland China, both culturally and socially, than India. The real source of the numerous social conflicts Thanks to judiciary independence and demo- related to land expropriation is the CCP’s mo- cratic governance, forced evictions and illegal nopoly on Chinese society. In the near future, land takings are seldom reported. Former pres- the present situation will not change much, if ident Suibian Chen has been formally accused the CCP continues to maintain the monopoly of misconducts during his presidency. Taiwan’s and allows no real political reform. Ideally speak- case at least proves that democracy and judicial ing, the more the CCP gives up its monopoly on independence can remove officials from the pro- land issues, including the return of ownership tection of party politics and hold them respon- of land, the more rights and interests peasants sible for past misconducts. This is why many may have, the less discretionary power local Chinese believe that China’s real future may lie cadres can wield against peasants, consequently in that small island. the less land expropriation-related mass inci- In addition, it is important to mention the dents. Whether peasants can benefit from such increasing rights consciousness among Chinese a retreat also depends on political development 104 | Bo Zhao introducing more democracy and judicial inde- Zhu (2007) revealed, land losing farmers typi- pendence. Otherwise, the rights awarded to peas- cally receive 10–20 percent of total land sales. ants might be taken away again by local cadres, 5. Chinese Property Law (2007), article 42, 125, of which strict control from Beijing seems im- 126, and article154. possible under the present circumstances. 6. Anhui Dangshan: Conflicts over Coercive Land Expropriation with Local Police Led by County In line with this, observers should not be too Leaders,” Nanfang Daily, 5 November 2008. optimistic that the Third Plenary Session of the 7. See http://www.gov.cn/jrzg/2008-05/29/content Seventeenth Central Committee of the CCP held _998441_2.htm. in October 2008 signals any fundamental reform 8. According to Forbes magazine ranking of wealth- in the near future. According to its proclamation, iest Chinese (2007), six of top ten are private es- no significant reform is promised so far; only tate developers. measures to tighten up the already loose fence 9. For example, at the time of this writing, vice are adopted. For example, the proclamation ac- president of the Chinese Supreme Court Songyou cepts popular experimental practices, though Huang is under investigation for misconducts illegal before, such as transfer of use rights of in interfering with local court’s judgment in arable land; emphasizes more strict land acqui- Guangdong province. sition regulations and explicitly assures peasants 10. Luo Gan, China’s top law and order official, warned of the danger of Western enemy forces of full compensation in land acquisition; and it trying to use China’s legal system to Westernize promises to separate public interest from non- and divide the country. He demanded that legal public interest. With a new round of policy mak- departments should stand with the CCP (Kahn ings and law amendments, I believe these mea- 2007). sures will somehow help. However, as long as there is no proper law enforcement and democ- ratization in China, the old question remains: how much? References

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Nguyen Van Suu

Abstract: Đổi Mới, the name given to the economic reforms initiated in 1986 in Vietnam, has renewed the party-state’s ambitious scheme of industrialization and has intensified the process of urbanization in Vietnam. A large area of land has been converted for these purposes, with various effects on both the state and so- ciety. This article sheds light on how land conversion has resulted in farmers’ re- sistance and in what way and to what extent it has transformed their livelihoods in the transitional context of contemporary Vietnam. The article argues that agri- cultural land use rights remain an important asset for Vietnamese farmers, con- taining great value and meaning for them besides forming a means of production and therefore a source of income. Because the contemporary land tenure system has not yet recognized an adequate level of private property in relation to land, agricultural land conversion often becomes a contested issue and has often disrupted farmers’ traditional livelihoods, forcing them to face insecure livelihood prospect. Keywords: contemporary Vietnam, industrial zones, industrialization, land rights appropriation, livelihood conflicts

After a long struggle against French domina- This set the scene for the struggle for national tion, the 1954 victory of the Việt Minh in Điện unification under the leadership of Vietnamese Biên Phủ did not result in a total independence Communist Party that has become known under for Vietnam but in the partition of the country different names: “The war of resistance against in two zones, each of which would follow a dif- America” by the Vietnamese side—the “Viet- ferent path of political and economic develop- nam War” by the American side. Following the ment. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam in unification of Vietnam in 1975, the Socialist Re- the north tried, with the international support public of Vietnam was declared on 2 July 1976. of it communist allies, to build socialism through Shortly after Vietnam faced two more severe a centrally planned economy while the Repub- wars: one against the Khmer Rouge in the south, lic of Vietnam in the south favored a more mar- from 1978 to 1989, and one with the Chinese in ket-oriented economy, built under the auspices the north in 1979. The human and economic of the United States. costs of these wars for Vietnam were high; more-

Focaal—European Journal of Anthropology 54 (2009): 106–113 doi:10.3167/fcl.2009.540109 Agricultural land conversion and its effects on farmers in contemporary Vietnam | 107 over, they critically damaged the country’s inter- cially agricultural land, for the processes of in- national diplomatic and trading relations. The dustrialization and urbanization and what the suffering from these prolonged wars was wors- impacts of this are on farmers in contemporary ened by the increasing ineffectiveness of the Vietnam. centrally planned economy in addition to the reduction of foreign aid after 1975. Combined, these factors pushed Vietnam into a major eco- Land rights in Vietnam nomic crisis, starting in the late 1970s. At the same time the international situation In the 1980s Vietnam, just as Laos and China, changed. Vietnam’s fraternal socialist countries began clarifying the issues of land ownership, like China, the Soviet Union, and the countries control, and use rights in the state land tenure of Eastern Europe commenced reforms while legislation. A crucial point of the new land ten ure cold war tensions reduced and the pace of glob- regime that has emerged since is the state’s divi- alization increased. In such a domestic and in- sion of land rights into three key categories, held ternational context, the Communist Party of by different entities: ownership rights (quyền sở Vietnam, at its Sixth Party Congress in 1986, of- hữu) belong to the entire people, control rights ficially launched its economic reform program (quyền quản lý) are under the state, and use of Đổi Mới (“renovation”), though piecemeal rights (quyền sử dụng) are allocated to individ- reforms in agricultural production and other uals, family households, and organizations for a sectors had already emerged earlier, initiated by certain period of time, depending on the type of local farmers and cadres and later adopted by land. Although this process of agricultural de- the central party-state in the early 1980s (Kerk - collectivization started in the early 1980s, land vliet 1995, 2005). use rights were only officially allocated to indi- Though trying to maintain political stability viduals, family households, and organizations in and territorial integrity, the Vietnamese party- 1988, in accordance with the 1988 Land Law and state has pushed strongly toward the transforma- with the Party Political Bureau’s Resolution 10. tion of the centrally planned economy to a more In 1993, land use rights were officially reallocated market-oriented model, which increasingly treats in accordance with the 1993 revised Land Law, private, foreign, and joint-venture economies as which also regulated the possible extension of key pillars of the national economy. Consequently, the use time in 2013. this has changed the relationship between the Moreover, since the Seventh Party Congress party-state and society in a number of fields, in- (1991), and particularly since the Eight Party cluding with regard to the control of agricul- Congress (1996), industrialization—“công nghiệp tural land and other natural resources. Another hóa”—has once more become an ambitious key aspect of Đổi Mới’s agenda was a fundamen- scheme of the party-state, aiming to turn Viet- tal shift in the party-state’s foreign relation policy nam into an industrialized country by 2020. To toward a normalization of Vietnam’s diplomatic turn Vietnam’s traditional agricultural economy and trading relations with China, the United into a modern industrial one, the party-state sees States, and other countries since the early 1990s. it necessary to convert agricultural land to cre- After over twenty years of Đổi Mới, Vietnam ate space for industrialization and urbanization. has been praised by various domestic and inter- As in China, industrialization in Vietnam is national institutions for its “impressive” achieve- accompanied by a rapid process of urbanization. ments in socio-economic development and The seizure of land that has taken place in the pov erty reduction and its gradual liberalization past 20 years for these purposes comes roughly and market diversification combined with a in two forms. The first is land seizure for the commitment to equality. In this context, this ar- state, collective, national defense, and security ticle examines why, how, and to what extent the purposes. In this case, relevant state authorities Vietnamese state has appropriated land, espe- directly plan the location, the area, and level of 108 | Nguyen Van Suu compensation and implement the seizure to meet nam has no accurate and systematic figures on targeted purposes without consulting the hold- the total area of land, especially agricultural land, ers of the land use rights. This originates from a that has been appropriated since the early 1990s rationale that all land in Vietnam belongs to the for these purposes nationwide. The piecemeal entire people, which is represented by the social- data show that on the national scale, from 1991 ist state, and therefore the state allocates (giao)— to 2003, 697,417 hectares of land have been rather than gives (cho)—land use rights to indi- seized to build industrial zones, construct infra- viduals, households, and organizations for certain structure, and serve other non-agricultural pur- period of time. When the state needs land, it has poses (Lê Du Phong 2005: 9). In 2005 Nhân Dân the power and the right to seize (thu hồi) use newspaper, the Vietnam Communist Party’s rights on the land, and offer the holders a level mouthpiece, reported that approximately 200,000 of compensation for their forgone land use rights hectares of agricultural land were being appro- alongside compensation for what they may have priated each year for non-agricultural purposes cultivated or constructed on the fields. The ques- nationwide (Báo Nhân Dân 2005). Various other tion of what is a reasonable level of economic materials provide complementary figures. One compensation is often the key point creating source from the Ministry of Agricultural and conflict between the state officials in charge of Rural Development, as reported by the Commu- land appropriation and the villagers who hold nist Review, a theoretical and political agency of the use rights on the appropriated land. the Communist Party of Vietnam, claimed that The second, a new form that emerged with in a five year period (2001–2005), 366,000 hec - the 2003 revised Land Law, is land seizure for tares of agricultural land had been converted purposes of economic development, which in into urban and industrial land by the central many cases involves the transfer of land use rights government. This amount accounted for 4 per- from farmers to private entrepreneurs and other cent of the total area of Vietnam’s agricultural commercial parties. The latter have to work with land. In the sixteen provinces that have con- relevant state institutions and the holders of land verted particularly sizeable areas—including use rights to reach agreements about the trans- Tiền Giang (20,380 hectares), Đồng Nai (19,752 fer or appropriation of land use rights prior to hectares), Vĩnh Phúc (5,573 hectares), and the relevant authorities’ official decision mak- Hanoi (7,776 hectares)—89 percent of the ap- ing about any specific land seizure. In contrast propriated land is agricultural (Tạp chí Cộng to the first, this second form of land appropria- Sản 2007). Since 2005 the pace of land conver- tion does give the holders of land use rights, sion has increased, but accurate figures on the who are usually farmers, a say in the land con- areas converted are not yet available. version process. As previously noted, land is appropriated for Conflicts over appropriation of and compen- industrial sites, urban development, infrastruc- sation for land use rights remain burning ture construction, recreation (e.g., golf courses),1 issues in Vietnam. In 2008 the central govern- and other non-agricultural purposes. Among ment explored new institutional ways of land these, land conversion for the building of ex- seizure, including establishing a Company of port-processing zones (khu chế xuất), industrial Land Seizure and Compensation and allowing zones (khu công nghiệp), economic zones (khu the local authorities to set up a Centre for Land kinh tế ), and hi-tech zones (khu công nghệ cao) Seizure and Compensation in the hope to build accounts for a major percentage. Government mediating institutions between the holders of bodies, at different levels, often “roll out the red land use rights and other parties wanting to use carpets” (trải thảm đỏ)to attract foreign and the land. domestic investors by making administrative During the past 20 years, industrialization arrangements easier for them and, in a few cases, and urbanization in Vietnam have encroached a by waiving or reducing the land rental fees for a large area of land. However, to this date, Viet- certain period of time. Agricultural land conversion and its effects on farmers in contemporary Vietnam | 109

In most cases the development of industrial numerous state media reported on Vietnam’s and other economic zones takes place in the flat celebration of its twenty years of Foreign Invest- and fertile arable land that farmers call bờ xôi ment Law (1987–2007), in which the Ministry of ruộng mật around the urban areas, especially Planning and Investment announced the coun - the large cities, where there is better infrastruc- try’s winning of 9,500 projects from eighty-two ture and that are densely populated, rather than countries, worth US$98 billion in investment in the less fertile, hilly land areas as the former capital, most of which will go to industrial sites more easily attract entrepreneurs and strongly (Báo Kinh Tế Việt Nam 2008). reduce the government’s costs on infrastructure Conversion of land at such a large scale will development prior to the entrepreneurs invest- affect farmers and generate resistance from them ment. In this case, the government can take a against what they see as corruption and unfair shortcut in terms of reaching its industrialization levels of economic compensation. In a number goals. The farmers whose land use rights are of cases, farmers’ resistance to land conversion converted are likely to lose out in this process of has not been limited to the type of everyday development if they are unfairly compensated forms of resistance that Ben Kervliet (1995, 2005) and/or unable to form alternative livelihoods. documented in local communities during the agricultural collectivization period in North Viet - nam, but has turned to forms of public protest, Land use rights appropriation within and outside farmers’ home villages, in- and its effect on farmers volving discussion, petition, denunciation, gath- ering, and sometimes violent actions to voice Since the early 1990s, land conversion in Viet- their views and demand their wants (for a de- nam has paved the way for the development of tailed discussion of this form of resistance, see a large number of industrial sites. The first export- Nguyen Van Suu 2007). One example is Đại processing zone was constructed in Ho Chi Minh Lộc2 village in Bắc Ninh province, which in City in 1991 and since then many more indus- 2001 had 2,829 inhabitants, living in 636 house- trial, economic, and hi-tech zones have been holds. From 1999 to 2001, the agricultural land planned. By 2005 130 large export-processing, use rights of 359 households were seized with industrial, economic, and hi-tech zones under the conversion of agricultural land for a new the management of the central government have highway and a local industrial zone. As a result, dotted the country, using 26,517 hectares of 11 households lost all, over 100 households lost land (Vũ Đình Tôn et al. 2007: 50). In addition, around 90 percent, and many others lost about there is a variety of small- to medium-size in- 50 percent of their allotted agricultural land use dustrial zones and clusters that are managed by rights. Many villagers disagreed with the level of city, province, or district governments and that compensation given to them by the government do not appear on the national map of industrial and the corrupt acts conducted by the local sites (see Ministry of Planning and Investment cadres in the process of land appropriation. 2007). Between 2005 and 2010 the government They also went to different levels of state au- plans to build 128 new large industrial zones on thorities. Upon failing to have their demands an estimated area of 22,813 hectares (Lê Văn addressed and seeing local cadres’ misbehave, Học 2005: 8). It has officially approved a master they took stronger actions and did not allow the plan for the longer-term development of indus- village’s organizing committee to count the trial zones that aims to increase the total area of votes on the day of National Assembly Election. industrial zones to 70,000 hectares of land by Consequently, higher-state officials and police 2015 and 80,000 hectares by 2020, excluding a forces interfered to resolve the issue and punish variety of small- to medium-size industrial zones a number of both local cadres and villagers. In and clusters managed by lower authorities (see the end, the conversion of land had been com- Quyết định số 1107/QĐ-TTg). By early 2008, pleted; the villagers whose agricultural land use 110 | Nguyen Van Suu rights were seized did not receive any other eco- application of machines, new varieties of seeds, nomic rights.3 fertilizers, and chemicals alongside the develop- Another pervasive effect is the disruption of ment of irrigation systems that have not only farmers’ traditional livelihoods. As most of the improved agricultural productivity but also in- appropriated land is agricultural land in the creasingly reduced the size of the labor force re- densely inhabited lowland areas around urban quired on a given area of farm land. All these centers, land conversion has also led to increased factors result in greater redundancy among the inequality in access to land use rights among rural labor force. farmer households and especially the loss of The social issues related to the high pace of tra ditional livelihoods. Considering the case of land appropriation during the past 20 years are Hanoi as an example, industrialization and ur- a source of concern for the party-state. In addi- banization have led to a rapid expansion of the tion to various piecemeal assessments by differ- city during the past decade. As it is planned, ent state institutions and NGOs, in 2005 the 11,000 hectares of land—mostly annual crop- Vietnamese prime minister assigned the Na- land in rural Hanoi—will between 2000 to 2010 tional Economics University to examine the be converted into industrial and urban land for current income, life, and work situation of the 1,736 projects. It is estimated by the city author- people whose land use rights had been appro- ities that this conversion will result in the loss of priated for purposes of industrialization and ur- the traditional employment of 150,000 farmers. banization (Lê Du Phong 2005; in 2007 the study In practice, in a five-year period alone (2000– was published in book format [Lê Du Phong 2004), Hanoi has converted 5,496 hectares of [chủ biên] 2007]).The study recommended that land for 957 projects and this impacts critically though appropriation of land for industrializa- on the life and employment of 138,291 house- tion and urbanization needs be continued, even holds, of which 41,000 are classified as agricul- with a higher pace in the coming years, there tural households (Hồng Minh 2005). are social and economic issues for the state and As a result, many farmers face insecure live- parties who use the appropriated land to pay at- lihoods as they are forced to change their oc cu - tention to (Lê Du Phong 2005: 9). The study pation and even their socio-cultural lives. Ac- covered only some aspects of land conversion cording to the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and and did not analyze how the appropriation of Social Affairs estimates, Vietnam’s conversion of land results in conflicts. 366,440 hectares of land between 2001 and 2005 In theory, the government emphasizes the alone affected the lives of 627,495 households, insurance of livelihoods of those whose land including 950,000 laborers and 2.5 million farm- rights are appropriated. For example, it regulates ers (Bùi Trần 2007). that the affected farmers must be provided with Farmers on land targeted for conversion of- a limited fund for job training, and in the case ten have few alternative options of work. The of industrial zone building, the entrepreneurs resistance arising from individual conflicts over who use the acquired land are required to em- land use rights compensation usually does not ploy a certain percentage of the farmers who last long—in most cases the state is successful in lost their land rights, and has also planned to acquiring the land for development objectives. export labor forces to foreign countries. One The problem of landless villagers will become decree (17/2006/ND-CP) even stipulates that more visible in the coming years when their com- farmers who have been required to make way pensation money will have been spent. In addi- for development projects must be compensated tion, agricultural land per capita continues to with land, not cash (see Viet Nam News, 9 Feb- decrease for various reasons, including demo- ruary 2006: 15). Meanwhile, some researchers graphic increase and agricultural land appro- urge the state to take steps to balance the inter- priation. This is not to mention the increased est among the state, land use rights holders, en- Agricultural land conversion and its effects on farmers in contemporary Vietnam | 111 trepreneurs, and the nation at large in seizing Vietnamese society. The conversion of land on land for purposes of industrialization and urban- the scale at which it has been taking place dur- ization (Lê Du Phong [chủ biên] 2007: 220–22). ing the past decade and is planned for the com- However, the situation on the ground is far ing years also indicates a change in the party- from ideal as a large portion of the expropriated state’s ideology with regard to the relationship villagers have no stable job. This problem would between land and farmers. During the revolu- deserve greater attention. Tran Duc Vien and tionary period, the party-state used to promote colleagues (2005) found that farmers in Hanoi the slogan “người cày có ruộng” (land to the till- who lost their land right often did not find work ers) but it now seems to accept a certain level of in the non-agricultural production sector. In inequality in access to agricultural land among one commune in Hải Dương province, where farmers, with a number of farmers now having 220 hectares of agricultural land were acquired no or little agricultural land use rights. for a company to use, the company promised to Some Vietnamese researchers endorse this employ 11,000 laborers of the local commune. perspective by arguing that this is a necessity It ended up employing only forty-eight workers suitable to the rules of economic development. (Xuân Quang 2004). They argue that resolutions for landless farmers In Phú Điền, a peri-urban village of Hanoi, should concentrate on vocational training and 70 percent of the village agricultural land was the creation of new jobs and not on equalizing seized between 1998 and 2007. Farmers received land use rights because it is the time for the state a large amount of cash for their land loss in addi- to replace its traditional slogan of “người cày có tion to a rapid increase of their residential land’s ruộng” (land to the tillers) with “người lao động exchange value. Although some villagers have en- có việc làm” (jobs for laborers). This is an ideal gaged in simple, self-employed non-agricultural goal. However, a key question that remains un- work such as informal retailing and selling basic answered is what kind of jobs there are for land- foodstuffs, household goods, and services to the less farmers. Information on various cases that I migrant laborers and students residing in their have discussed indicates that without more effec- community, many other farmers have no work tive policies to reduce the impact of large-scale to do after their land is appropriated.4 land conversion, farmers whose agricultural land Investors are often only able to employ about use rights are ceded might become marginalized 3–5 percent of people whose land has been ap- in the process of development. propriated (Báo Nhân Dân 2005) and often farm- ers’ poor social and human capital, making them unqualified to work in the industrial sector, is Nguyen Van Suu is a lecturer at the Department blamed for this. According to the Ministry of of Anthropology, College of Social Sciences and Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs, in 2004 alone, Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. 63,760 farmers in northern Vietnam had be- He has published a number of articles and book come jobless due to their agricultural land be- chapters on land tenure changes and conflicts ing appropriated for state programs (quoted in over land in Vietnam. His current research proj- Xuan Quang 2004). According to 2007 data, of ect examines the question of how the conversion the more than 12 million rural households, with of agricultural land use rights for industrializa- nearly 33 million people of working age—ac- tion and urbanization has transformed farmers’ counting for 72 percent of the national labor livelihoods in the peri-urban area of Hanoi. force—only 3 percent had been trained.5 Email: [email protected] In short, various materials demonstrate that Mail address: Department of Anthropology, for many farmers, a loss of agricultural land use College of Social Sciences and Humanities, rights results in a loss of livelihood, potentially Vietnam National University–Hanoi, 336 creating a vulnerable group in contemporary Nguyen Trai, Thanh Xuan, Hanoi, Vietnam. 112 | Nguyen Van Suu

Notes Kerkvliet, Ben. 1995. Village-state relations in Viet- nam: The effects of everyday politics on decol- 1. Land conversion for golf courses accounts for a lectivization. Journal of Asian Studies 54 (2): large area of agricultural land. As of 2008 Viet- 396–418. nam has 140 golf courses, covering over 38,000 ———. 2005. The power of everyday politics: How hectares of land in fifty-one provinces and Vietnamese peasants transformed national policy. cities. There is a common saying that thousands Ithaca: Cornell University Press. of Vietnamese farmers have to satisfy their agri- Lê Du Phong. 2005. Thực trạng thu nhập, đời sống, cultural land, their traditional means of pro- việc làm của người có đất bị thu hồi để xây duction, for the amusement of a few hundred dựng các khu công nghiệp, khu đô thị, xây dựng wealthy people. Since early 2008, when the kết cấu hạ tầng kinh tế - xã hội, nhu cầu công country’s inflation hit a two-figure rate, possi- cộng và lợi ích quốc gia. Trường Đại học Kinh tế bly threatening national food security, the cen- Quốc dân: Đề tài độc lập cấp nhà nước. tral government has started limiting the issuing Lê Du Phong (chủ biên). 2007. Thu nhập, đời sống, of permits for the development of new golf việc làm của người có đất bị thu hồi để xây dựng courses. các khu công nghiệp, khu đô thị, kết cấu hạ tầng 2. Names of villages have been changed in this kinh tế-xã hội, các công trình công cộng phục vụ article. lợi ích quốc gia. Hà Nội: Nxb. Chính trị Quốc 3. According to my fieldwork data in 2002. gia. 4. According to my fieldwork data in 2007. Lê Văn Học. 2005. Định hướng phát triển các khu 5. According to VUFO-NGO Resource Center’s công nghiệp ở Việt Nam đến năm 2010. Thông News, 25 June, 2007. tin Khu Công nghiệp Việt Nam, số 5. Ministry of Planning and Investment. 2007. A guide for investing in Vietnam’s IPs, EPZs and IZs. http://www.khucongnghiep.com.vn. References Nghị quyết số 07-NQ/HNTW của Hội nghị lần thứ Bảy Ban Chấp hành Trung ương Đảng Khóa VII Asian Development Bank. 2006. Industrial and về Phát triển công nghiệp, công nghệ đến năm commercial land market processes and their im- 2000 theo hướng công nghiệp hóa, hiện đại hóa pact on the poor. Making Markets Work Better đất nước và xây dựng giai cấp công nhân trong for the Poor. Discussion Paper no. 14. giai đoạn mới. Ngày 30 tháng Bảy năm 1994. Báo Kinh Tế Việt Nam. 2008. Foreign investment in Nghị quyết số 15-NQ/TW của Hội nghị lần thứ Vietnam: A 20-year review.” 3 March. https:// Năm Ban Chấp hành Trung ương Đảng Khóa www.ven.vn/investment/foreign-investment-in- IX về Đẩy nhanh công nghiệp hóa, hiện đại hóa vietnam-a-20-year-review. nông nghiệp, nông thôn thời kỳ 2001–2010. Ngày Báo Nhân Dân. 2005. Tìm lối ra cho nông dân 18 tháng Ba năm 2002. không còn đất. Ngày 16 tháng Tám. Nguyen Van Suu. 2004. The politics of land: Inequal- Bộ Lao động – Thương binh và Xã hội. 2006. Số ity in land access and local conflicts in the Red liệu thống kê việc làm và thất nghiệp ở Việt Nam River Delta since Decollectivization. In Social giai đoạn 1996–2005. Hà Nội: Nxb. Lao động – Inequality in Vietnam and the Challenges to Re- Xã hội. form, ed. Philip Taylor, 270–96. Singapore: ISEAS. Bùi Trần. 2007. Đất cho nông dân. Thanh Niên, ———. 2006: Phân hóa trong tiếp cận đất đai ở Việt ngày 8 tháng Bảy. Nam. Tạp chí Dân tộc học, số 3, trang 48–57. Hồng Minh. 2005. Hà Nội giải quyết việc làm cho ———. 2007. Contending views and conflicts over lao động khu vực chuyển đổi mục đích sử dụng land in Vietnam’s Red River Delta. Journal of đất. Lao động & Xã hội, số 270. Southeast Asian Studies 38 (2): 309–34. Kelly, Phlip F. 2003. Urbanization and the politics of Quốc hội Nước Cộng hòa Xã hội Chủ nghĩa Việt land in the Manila region. Annals of the Ameri- Nam. 1995. Luật Đất Đai. Hà Nội: Nxb. Chính can Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. trị Quốc gia. 590, Rethinking Sustainable Development, pp. ———. 2003. Luật Đất Đai. Hà Nội: Nxb. Chính trị 170–87. Quốc gia. Agricultural land conversion and its effects on farmers in contemporary Vietnam | 113

Quyết định số 1107/QĐ-TTg. 2006 (của Thủ tướng tion. Joint Donor Report to the Vietnam Con- Chính phủ) về việc phê duyệt quy hoạch phát sultative Group Meeting, Hanoi, December. triển các khu công nghiệp ở Việt Nam đến năm Vụ Quản lý Kiến trúc Quy hoạch. 1998. Quy hoạch, 2015 và định hướng đến năm 2020. Ngày 21 quản lý và phát triển các khu công nghiệp ở Việt tháng Tám. Nam. Hà Nội: Nxb. Xây Dựng. Rigg, Jonathan, Suriya Veeravongs, Lalida Veer- Vũ Đình Tôn, Nguyễn Thị Huyền, and Võ Trọng avongs, and Piyawadee Rohitarachoon. 2008. Thành 2007. Thách thức đối với sinh kế và môi Reconfiguring rural spaces and remaking rural trường sống của người nông dân vùng chuyển lives in central Thailand. Journal of Southeast đổi đất cho khu công nghiệp. Nghiên cứu Kinh Asian Studies 39 (3): 355–81. tế, số 351. Tạp chí Cộng sản. 2007. Tình hình thu hồi đất của Walker, Kathy Le Mons. 2008. From covert to overt: nông dân để thực hiện công nghiệp hóa-hiện Everyday peasant politics in China and the im- đại hóa và các giải pháp phát triển. Số 12. plications for transnational agrarian movements. Tran Duc Vien, Nguyen Vinh Quang, and Nguyen Journal of Agrarian Change 8 (2 and 3): 462–88. Van Dung 2005. Rural-urban land use changes Xuân Quang. 2004. Câu chuyện quản lý: Hai cái in peri-urban Hanoi. SEARUSYN research report. “ngắn.” Lao Động, số 219, ngày 6 tháng Sáu. Vietnam Development Report. 2008. Social Protec- “With calluses on your palms they don’t bother you”: Illegal Romanian migrants in Italy

Ana Bleahu

Abstract: For every official registered Romanian migrant in Italy there are between one and three illegal, unregistered migrants. This article examines the informal forms of self-organization that arise among the migrants in order to manage the challenges migrants face under a system that needs their labor but refuses to ac- knowledge this need publicly or institutionalize it openly. Semi-tolerated illegality determines the forms of networks both in the organization of the migration and in the forms of its integration into the labor and housing markets. This strictly ethnographic and qualitative presentation focuses on informal solutions to hous- ing and the creation of informal labor markets and the consequences for the mi- grants of this enforced informality. It shows how the Italian state is caught between toleration and repression, arbitrarily switching from one mode to the other. Keywords: European accession, illegal migration, marginality, networks, Romania

The current migration of Romanians to Italy bers of the families left behind. I have collected has two fundamental characteristics: first, it is dozens of migration histories and as many life mostly informal and illegal; and second, it tends stories to enable me to highlight the specificity to transform into a semi-permanent or endur- of Romanian migration to Italy. ing clandestine existence. These two essential The interviews were conducted in Romania dimensions of migrants’ everyday life and in in the area known as Vrancea and in Italy in particular of their experience on the labor mar- Rome and its surroundings, that is, localities ket will be the focus of this article. I offer a outside the city proper including San Cesario, strictly ethnographic presentation that focuses La Dispoli, Tivoli, or the woods of the Mala primarily on the community of La Fripta, a for- Grota area. est outside Rome, and the work ‘depots’ where Some of the interviews were recorded, some the Friptari (those from La Fripta) seek work. were noted on the spot, and some were simple My material draws exclusively on the analy- spontaneous conversations (especially with sis of qualitative data: interviews with immi- those who did not have ID papers or who re- grants conducted in Romania, interviews with fused to be recorded) that were reconstructed immigrants in Italy, and interviews with mem- from memory immediately afterward.

Focaal—European Journal of Anthropology 49 (2007): 101–109 doi:10.3167/foc.2007.490108 102 | Ana Bleahu

A secluded life: “Here, your brother is no the time the issue is simply used as a means to longer your brother” attract attention to politicians’ speeches. One may well wonder how the housing and labor markets absorb such a large number of Ro- Informal statistics indicate that about one mil- manians. Where do these immigrants stay? For lion Romanians live in Italy while leaders of lo- Romanians in Italy it is simple to ‘spot’ other cal Romanian associations claim that there are Romanians in the street; they see them every- over one-and-a-half million. The perception of where. But a more complete answer to this ques- Romanians living in Italy themselves is that they tion is that part of them live crammed into legally are numbered “in the millions … everywhere rented apartments—only one person may have around Rome you hear people speaking Roma- legal papers, while the other four, six, or ten res- nian. I don’t even want to mention Turin, we will idents are illegal. There is also the category of become a majority there. Visit any Italian town the badante (housekeeper), the women working and it is impossible not to meet Romanians.” for and living with Italian families. Others live Of this ‘million’ only about 300,000 have in the most diverse possible places: metronomii official papers (permessi di soggiorno anuali or refers to those wandering through metro trains permanenti—annual or permanent residence or metro stations at the periphery of the city, car- permits). According to data published in Octo- rying a small backpack and wearing rubber slip- ber 2006 by the Italian National Institute of Sta- pers “because we keep the sport shoes for the tistics the number of Romanian citizens living days we find work.” We find others in the “car legally in Italy amounted to 297,570 persons, rep- cemeteries” in which the “guards let us enter resenting over 10 percent of 2,670,514 foreign only after dark … and we leave in the dark to go residents in the country. According to the Min- directly to the labor depots.” Yet others can be istry of the Interior, in 2004 there were 243,793 found in the woods around Rome, living in Romanian citizens in Italy (compared to 237,010 “huts covered in plastic sheets.” in 2003). The much larger, informal figure of a million- Migration networks and-a-half of Romanians is in fact derived from these figures of legally resident Romanians. The How do people end up in these places? Kinship calculation is very simple: it assumes a ratio of and neighbor networks as well as affiliation to one legally resident Romanian to four illegally the same village or district in Romania are im- resident Romanians. My own field experience portant factors determining the residence of the suggests that this back-of-the-envelope calcula- increasing number of clandestine immigrants tion may well be accurate. Among the illegal ‘rest’ in Italy. Many Romanians leave for Italy with as one finds people in various degrees of informal- numerous phone numbers of relatives or friends. ity: some have expired papers, usually a perme- Neediness, however, breeds contempt and more sso de soggiorno, that they still use; some filed and more often a contact’s cell phone remains for such a permit and are waiting for a legal so- unanswered after a promise of help. lution to their situation (according to the Bossi- The nuclei of migration networks are the old Fini law); others have not even filed for permits. immigrants. They are among the first who ar- The officialdom’s response is mixed. During rived in Italy and they have invested money and the past twenty years different Italian govern- time into this country. Sometimes they even put ments have tried to cope with the challenges im- their life in jeopardy. A Romanian immigrant I migration poses today. Several laws (the Martelli interviewed told me: law no. 39 of 1990, the Turkish-Neapolitan Law “I left Romania in 1997. I left with a guide. no. 40 of 1998, the Bossi-Fini law no. 189 of 2002) The guide was a friend of mine. We crossed the were passed but the management of this phe- border at Arad. We crossed to the Hungarians, nomenon remains largely deficient and much of then the Slovenians, on into Croatia, then into Illegal Romanian migrants in Italy | 103

Austria and Italy. We traveled in a coach as far as together … There were women who got sick, we Hungary. had to help them … but we could not stop. We “I paid a thousand US dollars in total to this had to keep moving … We crossed many vine- friend of mine. We were four persons in all, we yards. There were a lot of barbed wire fences, all knew the guide. The guide in Romania worked we had to keep quiet, it was very difficult for the for someone else. The boss was somebody we did women. When we arrived in Italy, we slept one not know, but we trusted the guy from Romania. night in the woods, we huddled close to each He was our guide up to Slovenia. Thereafter the other, then we spent all of the next day in the for- guide, a Romanian, returned home. From Slo- est. We ate together, the people who came after venia we crossed on foot through forests and us still had some of the money they had brought vineyards … a whole night. At the outset we did from home. They gave us food. Even if we did not not know we would have to cross on foot. We know each other before. We ate canned food … spent five weeks in a hotel until we managed to “The first town we arrived in was Venice. cross on foot. We were just four persons and we From the forest they took us by car to Venice. We had to wait for other people to cross together separated there. Everyone went where he/she had with us. They [the smugglers] paid for the hotel to go. I took the train to Rome. I have a cousin and all expenses. There were some problems be- and an uncle who came about two years ago, I cause we shouldn’t have had to wait so long. They spent only one night at my cousin’s because they were our friends. The people from the hotel had were very many, some six or seven men there. nothing to do with us. The people who crossed Then I went to my uncle who kept me three on foot with us were Romanians from Moldova days and then he talked to the boss. He did not and Ukraine. In these five weeks we were con- tell the boss I was already there, so I had to stay stantly in touch with the [organizers]. We were three days locked up in a closet in the dark, so talking on the phone or someone was coming to the boss didn’t see me. The boss did not want … look for us at the hotel. We bought food with he said there are police controls … and that he our own money. After two weeks we had used cannot help me. up our money and then they brought us food. “Then I wanted to go to England. My friends “I think altogether we were more than twenty from England said they would send me money when we crossed the border in line: men, women, to go to them. But eventually, I found work here girls, some from Romania, others from Moldova. with the help of some of my uncle’s friends.” Before crossing the border on foot they tried four times to send us by train. They did not know Dissolving relations what route to pick. They said they would send us to Austria by train and from there by car. But If at the beginning of the mass migration net- we did not want this because it was very unsafe. works were effective and provided essential sup- It was just like going to surrender to the police. port to immigrants, once the numbers increased And … we did not want to take any chances. the networks became more restrictive, less per- “They took us four times to the train by car. meable, and less efficient. We witness therefore They thought maybe they can convince us. Once the shrinking and dissolution of such networks they took us to a field where the train was sup- due to oversizing and oversaturation. After 2002, posed to be waiting and left us there. We froze when the ‘borders opened’, the number of Ro- because it was a hard winter. It was February. manian immigrants to Italy drastically increased. There were soldiers with dogs. We took cover The first migrants who had shared similar expe- lying flat on the ground, in the ploughed field, riences of migration, work, and housing, could in bushes … we had just some spare clothes … no longer support the new wave of migrants. “We left Romania on January 28 and we ar- From then on most immigrants chose to sepa- rived in Italy on March 12. It was so cold … we rate fast and started to solve problems alone. For had to run to keep warm … we were crowding most, migration then became a strictly individ- 104 | Ana Bleahu ual matter in which solutions to problems are ad hoc hierarchical structures based either on found randomly and gradually, each person for free association or else on power, blackmail, and her or himself. violence on the other. ‘As your luck is’ seems to be the basic rule for As mentioned earlier, to lack documents the success or failure of a migration attempt. means to lack the means of a normal life: you After a while the stories of the new migrants cannot rent a house, you only work informally, start to look alike. Solitude, hunger, fear of the you have no right to health care services, and authorities, unstable work places, bosses who do you live in a permanent state of fear of the au- not pay on time or do not pay at all appear in thorities and of other people in your situation. everybody’s discourse in various accents. A young immigrant told me: The immigrants seem to be acutely affected by the dissolution of family ties. Relations between “We were sleeping in the field surrounded by husbands and wives deteriorate and this increases strings, alarms we had strung up since we were the rate of divorce. But also relations between sib- scared of being attacked, like in the Rambo se- lings, children, and parents are put under great ries … they all are like this in the field, with pressure—to the point that they break. As Fa- traps to break your neck if you enter their bar- ther Ba˘la˘uca˘, an Orthodox Priest in Rome says: racks area; some use beer cans as traps … I had a sleeping bag here and a pillow outside in the “There is a phenomenon that is a disaster for field … no luggage at all.” everybody here. The divorces! I alone have trans- lated hundreds of divorce pronouncements. The In this context semi-organized communities ap- divorces number in the tens of thousands. Many pear, based on informal hierarchical structures. families are destroyed. Either the husbands left This is a new social phenomenon that we could the children, or the women left their husbands. call ‘life under the bridge’, ‘life in the field’, or Family betrayal is one of the plagues we are ‘life in the woods’. fighting. The distance, the privations, the stress A dwelling is essential to the success of an make this generation a generation of sacrifice.” immigration attempt. Those without papers can- not rent. The first thing to do when you get to a I also interviewed an immigrant, aged twenty- foreign country is to find a place to live. Friends five, who told me: or relatives who help you first find a dwelling for you. If they do not help, “you gather with other “Here everybody runs from one another. If you Romanians like you, if you are lucky enough to come with your wife you become jealous of the be from your area it is very well, if they aren’t, Italian men because they have money, if you you can still work things out, maybe you pay come with your brother discussions erupt be- more if they don’t like your face.” cause he found work and you didn’t … It all starts from money. They go back home for just La Fripta one week and they become friends again … here they fight … they separate.” La Fripta is a Romanian community with a his- tory going back almost four years. Its existence has been more or less hidden from outsiders. To get there, you get off at Mala Grota, at a regular Informal communities of Romanian bus stop. The locality you are looking for lies to immigrants your left. You walk along the road until you en- ter boscheti (bushes).You jump over a small ditch The basic structural support of informal immi- and then you enter a forest. The trail taking you gration of Romanians to Italy is therefore the to La Fripta starts inside this forest. An immi- legal migration on the one hand and nd some grant, aged thirty-seven, told me: Illegal Romanian migrants in Italy | 105

FIGURE 1. La Fripta. Source: Ana Bleahu.

“Before, we had the huts on the border of the “To the right is the trail leading to the Olteni, they lake, it was simpler, we had free access to the are higher on the hill side, only some twenty of water, but the carabinieri kept coming there them, in the valley there are Moldoveni, some with bulldozers and destroyed them. Here they forty of them, and here are us, the Satmareni, cannot bring the bulldozers because it is forest we are the largest group, some 100 people. The and the carabinieri are in no mood to pull youngest is four months old, the child of Crina down our huts and destroy them. Some are tied … her husband left her for another woman and to trees. There is someone who knits the frame she came here to her parents … the oldest is from thicker branches. Then we cover them in sixty-four, he doesn’t work, he hangs around plastic sheets, tarpaulins … It is better here, be- and watches the huts while we are out to work.” cause we are safe, only the carabinieri know of us … they have gotten to know almost all of us The community has a kind of leader, the only over all these years since we have been here; they person with papers and the main negotiator with know everything … the Italian bosses coming the local authorities. This ‘boss’ has been living to take us to work also know.” in Italy for the past fourteen years. He has all the necessary documents. He knows everybody and Inside La Fripta the inhabitants are grouped ac- everybody knows him. From him the other resi- cording to their region of origin: Oltenia, Mara- dents find out the exact days when the carabini- mures¸, Moldova, etc. As one of the immigrants eri will come to ‘inspect’, that is, to check their I talked to explained: papers. As one of the immigrants narrated: 106 | Ana Bleahu

FIGURE 2. Hut structure—“We make them solid … so if the carabineri pull them they won’t break.” Source: Ana Bleahu.

“Usually they come in the morning, at about six “If your past is colorful, you might not be or seven. They know for sure that at this time accepted. You cannot move in unless several they will only find those who have no work. The people agree to it. In principle you have to be people that work or who are looking for work recommended by someone. If you simply stick leave for the depots at five in the morning. They around here … anyhow you have to give ac- know that we don’t steal. The criterion the cara- count of yourself.” binieri use to check on us are our hands: if you have calluses on your palms they don’t bother The information circulates orally, from person you.” to person. “The Romanians brought along their oral culture!” says the Orthodox priest. Every- Another immigrant says: “The Romanians are thing is organized through word of mouth. In extremely organized. They are not united, but the huts almost everybody has a cell phone. One they are well organized.” They are the only mi- of the immigrants told me: nority that is structured in this way, ad hoc, close to Rome. The huts can be rented. The rent is “Anything but the phone! One cannot live with- EUR 50 per month. Besides the rent there are out a phone, you can’t manage it, you can’t find protection taxes that differ according to the level work,you don’t hear this and that. The first thing of insecurity of the particular immigrant. As one when you get to Italy is to get a phone. Then immigrant told me: you can make phone calls and wait to be called.” Illegal Romanian migrants in Italy | 107

The depots construction materials (hence their name). The Italian bosses coming to buy construction ma- The expansion of networks has slackened the terials can thus pick up workers easily and effi- intensity of inter-migrant support and assistance ciently. The depots for work in agriculture are in finding a job. An immigrant, aged twenty- outside Rome, near large bus stops or at the eight, told me, “We already are too many; it is crossroads of different bus routes. Usually the quite difficult to help each other because it is no people living in the nearby forests, in the ‘car longer that easy to find work.” Apart from the cemeteries’, or ‘in the field’ (Mallagota) turn up relative saturation of the labor market with un- at these depots. In the small towns close to Rome, skilled labor, the lack of formal institutions of the depots are usually located downtown (La the labor market, and the seasonal character of Dispoli, San Cesario). the work in both agriculture and construction These informal institutions work in a very have all resulted in the development of an infor- simple manner. At 5:30 every morning the Ro- mal market for the labor force, the so-called de- manians come and wait outside, in the open, pots. These depots are places where immigrant until about noon. They smoke, they gather in Romanians gather to seek work. small groups, they laugh, talk, and exchange in- There are depots for work in agriculture and formation. Most of them are men but one can for work in construction. The ‘depots’ for work also see women. One of them told me: “rather in construction (Castel de Guido, La Storta, than prostituting, I prefer to stay here and maybe Ponta Roma) are usually near a depot/store for find work.”

FIGURE 3. The depot at Mala Grota at 11 in the morning. Source: Ana Bleahu. 108 | Ana Bleahu

The segregation along region of origin is pre- notice. They know that us, those staying here, served in the labor search as well as in the or- we are here to work not to steal.” ganization of the ‘home’.It is an established fact that you will find people from Bacau at Ponta Roma, or that you will find the Olteni at La Storca. “We are transnational, but regional,” I Balancing between two worlds was told. The climax of the morning is the appearance A young immigrant, aged twenty-three, told me: of an Italian boss. Some come with large cars. “Here you are a slave. You are a Romanian, so As one interviewee told me: you are a slave, you are not equal to them … but you enjoy their civilized world together with “They load us into the bus and take us wherever them.” Indeed, it is hard to remain in Italy. And they need, some of us are thrown out … we get it is hard to leave Italy. The push factors of Ro- as many as possible in and thereafter they throw manian society are about as strong as the pull some of us off.” factors of the new world. Another immigrant says: “Once you are accustomed to Italy it is dif- To my questions of how do they make the selec- ficult to return to Romania without regret.”The tion and what are the criteria, he said: condition of balancing between two worlds is characteristic of the semi-permanent, informal “It depends. If the boss comes in a small car it migration of Romanians to Italy and, to some ex- counts to be as close as possible to the car, or tent, to Spain. In comparison, circulating labor whoever manages to open the car door first. migration to Germany raises no such problems. When bigger bosses come they know us and The lack of legal regulations distorts the po- they tell one of us how many people they need. tential positive effects of labor migration. The Then we make the selection between us. We regulatory permissiveness combined with the in- know each other; you take only a trusty fellow adequacy of the legislation to deal with the move- so you don’t have to work ‘for him’.The worst is ment of labor migrants responding to factors of when you have a Romanian boss, because they supply and demand creates imbalances both in exploit you … or they delay the payment, some- the destination countries and in the countries times they even don’t pay you at all, they even of origin. These imbalances, moreover, affect the threaten you and if you don’t have a backup … deepest fabric of social relations. As the ortho- that’s it, you loose your money! dox priest I interviewed said: “The people loose “If two of us go that counts for something … themselves. They can’t return home because they but if you go alone you never know. I heard of a are not convinced they will get another break to Romanian who jumped on an Italian who did- escape and … they can not remain here in peace n’t want to pay him after working for a week. because they don’t have papers.” They say the Italian killed him and buried him … it was in the Romanian newspaper.” The end of the story … ? The depots are well known to the authorities, they are tolerated by the carabinieri. In these On 1 January 2007, Romania became a full mem- places the visibility of the Romanian immi- ber of the European Union. Just before that, on grants is maximal. As one immigrant said: 23 December 2006, the camp at La Fripta was destroyed. I spoke to one of the women on her “We are easily hunted down here. If a round-up mobile phone who told me: comes they rapidly give all of us a foglia de via. If you have Romanian papers and calluses on “The police came and set fire to the huts in the your palms they don’t hand you the warning forest. They came during the day … we had left Illegal Romanian migrants in Italy | 109 everything at home … my passport, my clothes, Acknowledgments all the things I had collected during the year … some of us were arrested … others ran into the The fieldwork in Italy on which this article is forest … now I have only what I am dressed in based was financed by the Open Society Foun- … for an entire year I worked for the Italians in dation. their fields … and now, just before Christmas they leave us under the open sky … without any- thing … we have no food, no money, no other Ana Bleahu is a researcher at the Research Insti- place to go … now it will be holiday time here tute for Quality of Life of the Romanian Acad- until January … nobody works … the Italian emy of Sciences, Bucharest. She is a doctoral bosses will not come to the depots to offer us student at the Department of Sociology of the work … we don’t know what to do.” University of Bucharest, working on migration. Strawberry fields forever? Bulgarian and Romanian student workers in the UK

Mariya Ivancheva

Abstract: This article is based on fieldwork conducted among Romanian and Bul- garian students working under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme in the UK. It shows how a public discourse on the benefits of and for immigrant seasonal workers silences the voices of these workers. It also discusses how a hidden tran- script of the student workers shows they are deeply frustrated about their ex- ploitation in terms of wages, living conditions, and the fact that they have come to the UK on false promises of cultural exchange and learning. The confinement of Bulgarian and Romanian immigrants—such as these student workers—to the un- skilled and underpaid labor sector in the UK, which continues despite Romania and Bulgaria’s recent accession to the EU, not only reproduces the dual labor mar- ket in the UK itself but it also reduces Romania and Bulgaria to ‘second-hand’ EU members states. Keywords: dual labor market, EU expansion, migrant labor, public and hidden transcripts, SAWS

On 26 September 2006, the monitoring report entry of 20,000 workers from Romania and Bul- of the EU commission on the preparedness of garia for low-skilled jobs in the food processing Bulgaria and Romania was presented in Brus- and agricultural sectors. sels. “As a result of the progress made,” both This selective opening of the UK labor mar- countries were granted the position to “take on ket to new member-states, allowing workers the rights and obligations of the European Union only into low-skilled jobs, should not come as a membership” effective 1 January 2007 (Commis- surprise. It is entirely in line with the existing sion of the European Communities 2006: 13). Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS). Less than a month later, the UK Home Secre- This scheme enables students from outside the tary John Reid announced the decision of the European Economic Area to meet the seasonal government to restrict access of the citizens of agricultural labor needs of the UK under an both countries to the UK labor market (Barrett annual quota (e.g., 25,000 for 2004, 16,250 for 2006). The only opening of the UK labor mar- 2005 and 2006) and forms one of the ways in ket that would accompany accession of the new which Tony Blair’s neo-liberal government in- member states would be a scheme allowing the stitutionalizes a dual, bifurcated labor market

Focaal—European Journal of Anthropology 49 (2007): 110–117 doi:10.3167/foc.2007.490109 Bulgarian and Romanian student workers in the UK | 111 through the exploitation of a reserve army of nal space was ironically compensated by the in- foreign workers. timacy of the caravans’ interior—worn out and The exploitation of workers under the SAWS stifling space of two by five meters was to ac- is all the more serious, however, because student commodate three to six students. workers are deceived into taking on seasonal agri- Despite some initial hostility and suspicion, cultural labor in the UK through a discourse most of the students gradually accepted my pres- presenting the work as ‘youth mobility’, ‘inter- ence and started chatting with me. Many ex- cultural exchange’, and even ‘holiday’, which pressed their concerns about the conditions of stands in sharp contrast to the realities that stu- life and work on the farm. Their daily routine dent workers become trapped in on the farms. followed clear and unquestionable imperatives As this article shows, the provision of ‘reliable and did not seem too different from that of po- and legitimate’ workers in low-skilled jobs, for litical prisoners in a work camp: wake up at 5 which UK employers praise the SAWS, relies on a.m., start work at 6 a.m.; go to the greenhouse— structural violence enforced on these workers. on foot, if no transport is provided; pick straw- berries in an exhausting, bent-over position for ten to fourteen hours; bear the heat of 70 de- Strawberry fieldwork grees Celsius; do not take more than one break, for lunch, during the day; ask permission to use During the past decade, many students from the the bathroom; drink boiling-hot water from the former Soviet bloc—among them a large num- sun-heated barrels. Once home, the only energy ber of Bulgarian and Romanian students—have left is to queue for a shower and follow one taken part in so-called travel-and-work programs more imperative—that of the body—sleep! that give students an ‘opportunity’ to work in Almost everyone I spoke with expressed dis- another country. The US is usually the most de- satisfaction with the conditions at the farm. Ini- sired country for a summer job but application tially most students talked of abstract feelings of procedures for traveling and working there are tiredness, nostalgia, or having been shammed. relatively expensive and include an English- But soon more concrete issues came to light. Se- language test. Thus, students from poor families vere exploitation was obvious from the discrep- and those with limited knowledge of English ancy between the students’ workload and their tend to go for legal seasonal work in Western payment. The pay-slips of a group of Romanian European countries instead. Therefore, despite students showed they were paid far less than the common-sense knowledge that agriculture ‘work promised national minimum wage (NMW). is harder and pays less’, the UK’s SAWS has be- The UK NMW in July 2005 was GBP 4.8 an hour come a frequently chosen ‘easy’ option. for people over twenty-two years of age, and GBP In July 2005, I was hired as an assistant to an 4.1 for younger workers. The students received academic project on personnel management to about GBP 1 to GBP 3 an hour. Many said this administer a questionnaire among a group of wage was enslaving rather than liberating. The foreign students, a so-called student brigade, payment hardly covered the costs of the loan working on a farm in the East of England.1 Right many had taken out to pay for their stay in the away I was shocked by the students’ ‘accommo- UK. dation’.A country-road led to a lawn, surrounded The SAWS hires through subcontracting by fields and a forest. A quarter-of-an-hour drive agencies that process the students’ documents. from the closest little town, this lawn was cov- The extra costs of application through the oper- ered with three circles of old, rust-eaten cara- ator Concordia—the agency that arranged the vans: one circle formed around the shower shed students’ stay at the farm—was to more than with two parallel, concentric circles. Except for GBP 170. Together with the cost of travel, which administration’s wooden house, there were no students had to pay for themselves, the sum to- other buildings. The apparent lack of commu- taled about GBP 400, that is, more than twice 112 | Mariya Ivancheva the average monthly income of a Bulgarian or limited hours, when most students are in the Romanian household. Furthermore, unless the field, and its services are only available in En- students worked overtime, ‘room and board’ at glish, which most students do not feel confident the farm was also at their expense. The cost of a to use. Moreover, despite the mandatory pas- single plank-bed in a caravan was GBP 6 a night toral tax paid by the students to provide them and this sum had to be paid every day, regard- with Internet access, on this particular farm stu- less of whether the student had worked that day. dents had to use Internet and telephone at their Thus, students had to pay without earning any- own expense in the nearest little town. Thus, the thing on holidays and days of excursion, bad students had almost no possibility of inquiring weather, or sick days, including frequent work- about their wage. related traumas. The practices of exploitation described above I asked the students what was the wage they could have been less blatant if the other prom- agreed to when they signed their contracts. Most ises of the program’s statement of purpose were explained that they were promised the NMW kept; if students indeed would have experienced by the subcontracting agency in Bulgaria. Some some of the benefits that were advertised to them, of them had interrogated the farmers or the con- that is, “return home with additional knowl- tact persons of these agencies on that matter, edge, experience and a maturity that will be of but both had merely given vague answers. As benefit to them and their universities,”“gain new my further investigation showed, the sum of the skills,”“undertake a certificated training course minimum wage to be paid to seasonal workers that will further their careers,” “make lasting was not stated in any of the Agriculture Wage friendships with the grower, their family and Orders of the last three years. The SAWS work- other students,” “improve their English,” “see ers were not mentioned in these orders. Because the UK,” go on a “working holiday from which of the shorter period of their employment and to return with extra money,” and get “compan- the specifics of their contract and work, they fall ionship of students from other countries, and an outside of the classification of cadres with a opportunity to work alongside them, gaining similar profile (such as manual harvest workers, real insight into their country, culture and tra- short-time flexible workers, and trainees; see ditions” (Concordia 2006). Despite these prom- DEFRA 2006: 7f). My search for exact numbers ises, the living conditions on the farm were no became even more frustrating when I turned to better than those of work. the discussion of the temporary workers wages The students emphasized the humiliating presented in the extensive thematic research re- treatment they received from the farm adminis- cently administered by the Department of Envi- tration, the agency contact persons, and their ronment Food and Rural Affairs (Frances et Al. supervisors. I myself witnessed such an instance 2005). Frances and colleagues draw on a variety when during one of my visits to a group of Bul- of statistics as well as interviews with employers garians in their caravan, a supervisor entered and and workers to trace the average wage in tempo- started shouting at one of the girls about a mi- rary work.Yet, they never differentiate the SAWS nor issue. Upon noticing my presence, however, workers from other workers with a similar pro- her voice softened and she ended the conversa- file (ibid.: 108–11). Thus, the wage that a student tion with a smile and a promise of an excursion. participating in the SAWS should make remains Communicating with the farm administration a mystery. and the agency was very difficult for the students. Many Web sites (e.g., DEFRA 2006) provided When not reproaching them for their uncom- telephone numbers for ‘inquiries or complaints’. fortable questions, the farm owner simply referred The SAWS Web page, for example, gives you the them to the subcontracting agency, whose em- Helpline of the Agricultural Wages Board in En- ployees would usually provide no more than a gland and Wales. However, this turned out to be word-for-word repetition of the ‘law-and-order’ an expensive dial number only available during of the information pack. Bulgarian and Romanian student workers in the UK | 113

Just before my arrival, the students from this norm. The system thereby led to friction and farm had managed to call the Home Office for envy among the students and made their work- an inspection of the working conditions. Yet, ing conditions even less tolerable. before their visit the state officials followed the formal procedure to warn the owner of the farm one week before their visit. After a few days of Public transcripts and grievances stir, the picture looked quite different. The work- inscribed in the margins ing hours were reduced, the barrels at the green- house were filled with cold water, and the evening Despite their dismal living and working condi- of the supervision, the first and only garden party tions, there was a striking lack of contention was organized for the students. and organized resistance among the students. Along with their scornful treatment by the The reasons for this seem to lie primarily in the farm administration and their isolation, stu- set-up of the SAWS as an annually recurrent, dents regretted the lack of communal space and performative rehearsal of a particular scenario social activities in the camp. The lack of oppor- of domination.2 Any potential form of resistance tunity to interact with local people of their age is smothered in the SAWS through forms of further increased the feeling of isolation many structural violence that hide behind a legalized of the students suffered from. As a Bulgarian boy hegemonic consensus. Ideological silencing of grumbled, his knowledge of the country was any critique of the SAWS makes for a strong pub- limited to his travel from the airport. Some stu- lic transcript celebrating the SAWS alongside a dents went on one or two excursions to bigger fragmented and hidden transcript of resistance cities organized by the farm. Yet, given their fi- (Scott 1990). At various levels, from government nancial concerns, the motivation to join these publications to academic reports, media repre- self-financed trips was rather low. Language bar- sentations and even students’ own stories, a riers between students from different countries counter-hegemonic critique of the exploitation made them stick mostly with the community of of student workers under the SAWS is systemat- their own compatriots, making the segregation ically suppressed. on national basis noticeable. The only ones who The public transcript is predictably most did not follow this pattern and lived in one of forceful among Britain’s political class that recur- the few mixed caravans usually belonged to a rently emphasizes the need for workers’ schemes group of returning students from previous years. like the SAWS. The workers’ exploitation is seen They were regarded and commented on with as a great opportunity for people used to hard- suspicion, also because of their higher positions ship to now earn some money and hence the as sub-supervisors in the camp hierarchy. stigmatization of these workers is almost inevi- The communication breakdown was rein- table. As Colin Yeo, Immigration Advisory Ser- forced by the particular payment conditions in vice official, declared, “Employers are crying out this farm, which were directly linked to the proj- for immigrants from eastern Europe … You don’t ect I was working on. The students were used as find British people queuing up for jobs as meat ‘guinea pigs’ for a human resource management bone breakers, fish filleters, in agriculture” (Tem- experiment: instead of being paid per hour or pest in the Guardian, 22 August 2006). per accomplished job they were paid for team- UK government departments, such as the work.According to their physical and personal Home Office, share this discourse by introduc- qualities, students were to establish, join, be in- ing the SAWS as “being an important source of vited to, or be expelled from the teams compet- seasonal labour to UK farmers and growers” but ing against each other. Team members were paid also having “many overseas workers benefit from a gross sum of money based on a secret formula the opportunity to earn money and experience that took into account both the results of the living and working in the UK” (Home Office competition and the team’s fulfillment of a daily 2007). Though the Home Office Web site (ibid.) 114 | Mariya Ivancheva states that the workers “should be paid at least script of the SAWS—a legal and legitimate self- the national minimum wage for the work” and affirmative public discourse—they will simply says that “appropriate work” should be provided, conclude that no labor market regulations are as well as “clean and sanitary accommodation,” violated. important information on the wages and defi- Some more critical voices in the media, nitions of the working status of the students is emerging around the time of the debate on the hard to find. migration waves to the UK after the 2004 ex- This is, however, not only the case in gov- pansion of the European Union and on Bulgar- ernment documents but also in academic doc- ian and Romanian accession in 2007, are slowly uments. As I mentioned before, in the report of exposing some of the exploitation involved in a study conducted on behalf of the Department the SAWS. SKY news journalists, for example, of Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) revealed the scandalous conditions under which by a consortium of academic researchers, the SAWS students work alongside legal and illegal simplest issue of providing definitions of work- immigrants (Devlin in Sky News, 7 July 2006) ers’ status and giving exact numbers on wages and an article in the Guardian reported of an was avoided. Moreover, the description of the old lady who broke down the strawberry beds entire SAWS program is given in abstract and in a farm nearby her house in Herefordshire in value-free phrases such as ‘labor user’,‘labor pro- solidarity with the students (see Vidal in the viders’,‘basic logic’‘accommodation’,and ‘work- Guardian, 5 June 2006). The topic of the student ers’ perspectives and aspirations’ (see Frances et workers in the strawberry fields even inspired a al. 2005: 60–65). The problems of student work- theater play (see Jones 2005).3 ers, including their lack of socialization and iso- Yet, even the most critical materials on ex- lation, are not given any emphasis in the DEFRA ploitation of SAWS workers usually comply with research. the official transcript in the important sense that The section of the report dedicated on ‘the they do not leave the students to speak for them- workers’ point of view’ (Frances et al. 2005: 65– selves.4 Instead, they engage in interpretations 79) mimics the previous section of the research on their behalf. This practice has a backlash ef- on the concerns of the employers. Whereas most fect as the public image of migrants being silent, of the employers are given direct voice within numb, or even speechless becomes internalized the text, the ‘workers’ are represented through by the students themselves. four ‘case studies’. Thus, the general issues at Nevertheless, as was the case with the students stake for both employers and employees appear asking the Home Office to investigate the farm, to be the same. And where the employers are students sometimes do try to engage in negoti- seen to express their general satisfaction with the ations with the farm and break the official con- ‘ideal type’ seasonal workers, the workers inter- sensus that hides their blatant exploitation and viewed seem to have little or nothing to say. There keeps them numb. But the half-hearted inspec- is a rather simple explanation for this: The re- tion of the Home Office that followed the stu- searchers admit that a member of the farm ad- dent’s call demonstrates that the possibility of ministration was present during all the interviews their protest was a foreseen part of the official with their employees (Frances et al. 2005: 65). scenario and what started as an act of subversion The ideological ‘mask’ called SAWS thus eventually amounted to a reaffirmation, a ‘self- manages to conceal the rampant exploitation of dramatization’ of the system of domination students even to most political journalists, econ- (Scott 1990: 69). By requesting an inspection be- omists, and quantitative sociologists. Armchair cause of their maltreatment by the farm admin- researchers will not be able to reveal the struc- istration, the students became dependent on the tural violence meted against the students and will Home Office, which soon enough revealed itself fail to unmask the delusive language and logic to them as simply another agent of the same sys- of the official papers. Relying on the public tran- tem. The Home Office rather than protecting Bulgarian and Romanian student workers in the UK | 115 them against exploitation by the farm authori- theory sees the migration process as initiated by ties merely reminded them more forcefully of the advanced capitalist societies whose “permanent risks of protesting. demand for immigration labor … is inherent to The contract the students sign does not allow the[ir] economic structure” (Massey et al. 1994: them to seek any other employment in the UK 441). Immigrant workers are necessary as a ‘re- and to reinforce this rule students’ passports are serve army’ of laborers (Cohen 1987, cited in even kept by the farm administration. The stu- Castles 2000) who not only refresh the labor dents thus have to submit to the almost unbear- force of the aging populations of advanced cap- able working and living conditions on the farm, italist states, but also fill in the gap positions in which amount to bonded labor, as not doing so their labor market. Indeed this market has be- would mean breaking the contract and entail come bifurcated into two sectors: a capital- the possibility of deportation by none other than intensive sector of high-skilled experts and a the Home Office itself. The Home Office visit labor-intensive sector of low-skilled workers. therefore merely reminded students considering The difference between these categories lies not a critique of the public transcript that this could only in the salary, but also in the social prestige well come at the cost of inviting the most dra- of certain occupations. The gradual loss of pres- matic form of structural violence inherent in the tige of particular jobs has made low-skilled cit- SAWS: the possibility of deportation. izens of advanced capitalist societies reluctant Given the lack of communication and coor- to accept them and after the continuous employ- dination opportunities combined with the thick- ment of migrants on such positions they have ness of the public transcript, it was thus not sur- come to be known as ‘immigrants’ jobs’ (Piore prising, that even students themselves had no 1979, cited in Massey et al. 1994: 453). effective way of pinpointing and confronting The UK government ideologically embraces the structural violence against them and engaged this kind of reading of reality as a virtue rather merely in rudimentary, disguised forms of re- than a critique and has a long history of ensur- sistance such as bitter chuckling and grumbling ing the supply of foreign laborers while at the (see Scott 1990: 152ff). Inscribed into the mar- same time making sure they keep a legal status gins of the questionnaires I had to administer— that makes them easily exploitable. In the past, whose questions otherwise gave little room for the UK has tried to use the citizens of the so- real critique—thus appeared words and phrases called Commonwealth to serve as a labor force. such as “injustice,” “unfair,” and “no team After opening its borders to 400–500 million work!”, as well as calculations of working time potential citizens from the ex-colonies with the and proper wages. Caught in a situation of rel- British Nationality Act of 1948, the UK gradu- ative powerlessness, the students used the mar- ally established a subtle difference between citi- gins of the questionnaire to give expression to zens and immigrants through rigid application their hidden transcript of resistance. What ap- procedures for citizenship and work permits peared in the margins was a grumbling that had (Geddes 2006: 585). not been able to develop into a clear counter- The most recent closure of the UK to work- hegemonic critique, which attests to the thick- ers from Bulgaria and Romania seeking higher- ness of the ideological domination of the SAWS skilled jobs follows this old and familiar trend. (Scott 1990: 27f.). It seems that decades after the declared end of the former Empire, British labor policy is ex- tending its post-imperial classification to the Another brick in the wall new EU members. The decision to restrict the opportunities of Bulgarian and Romanian em- The utility of the SAWS program to the British ployees to low-skilled and seasonal work does not Government is easily understandable through express a fear of a new immigration avalanche the dual labor market theory (Piore 1979). This but an attempt to ensure that workers from new 116 | Mariya Ivancheva

Eastern European member states receive only a was to translate back into English the bits of text very vulnerable legal position in the UK and written by the Bulgarian, Russian, and Ukrain- can thus be overexploited. ian students in their respective languages. This is what SAWS students from Bulgaria 2. Written and enacted by a Shropshire theater, and Romania are now experiencing in the UK. Strawberry Fields deals with the frictions be- tween the management of a farm, its exploited Deprived from the possibility to compete for student-workers, and the local population. While positions in the general UK labor market, they the main concern of the piece is the protest of become a legitimized and invisible reserve army the locals against the endless greenhouse tunnels of ‘strawberry slaves’ (Devlin in Sky News,7 July cutting across their beloved scenery, the ending 2006). The UK hereby not only reinforces its dual scene has an Eastern European student impress labor market but also creates a ‘second-hand’ a local old woman with his knowledge of eco- EU citizenship. Regardless of their training and nomics (see Jones 2005). education, the options of these highly educated 3. To counter this, research has recently been un- workers are confined to working in insecure, dertaken on the potentials for Eastern European underpaid, and ‘immigrant’ occupations. EU members to get access to trade unions in the UK (see Anderson, Ruhs, Spencer, and Rogaly 2006a, 2006b). Coda 4. A year ago, a weekly newspaper representative of the Bulgarian diaspora in London had an in- terview with one of the only girl ‘escapees’ from The Beatles’s song “Strawberry fields forever” a farm in England. Claiming that she was a was named after a Salvation Army orphanage. ‘heroine’, this interview is still the only publica- Against the background of the present study, we tion I found on the topic that gives voice to one may well ask: Is the new regulation of the UK of the exploited students. Despite the good in- labor market an expression of charity toward tentions, however, it falls short of articulating the ‘second-hand’ citizens of the EU, or is it sim- any broader claim, or any strategy for opposi- ply an attempt to make the Strawberry Fields tion (see Georgiev 2005). scenario persist forever? References Mariya Ivancheva is an MA student at the De- partment of Sociology and Social Anthropology Anderson, Bridget, Martin Ruhs, Sarah Spencer, and at the Central European University in Budapest Ben Rogaly. 2006a. Changing status, changing and has an MA degree in Social Theory from lives? The socio-economic impact of EU en- University College London. Her research focuses largement on low wage migrant labor in the UK. on critical social theory, utopian studies, and Oxford: COMPAS. http://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/ publications/Findings/Findings%20Fair%20 intellectual history of Eastern Europe. Enough.pdf. E-mail: [email protected]. ———. 2006b. Polish and Lithuanian workers: Opportunities and challenges for trade unions. Oxford: COMPAS. Notes Barrett, David. 2006. Reid hints at curbs on new EU migrants. Open Europe, 19 September. http:// 1. I defer from mentioning any concrete names: www.openeurope.org.uk/media-centre/ the project was protected under the Reciprocal article.aspx?newsid=1583. Confidentiality Agreement signed between the Castles, Stephen. 2000. Ethnicity and globalization. Universities and the company of the strawberry London: Sage. farm. My role in the project was to translate a Commission of the European Communities. 2006. questionnaire into Bulgarian language, and then Monitoring report on the state of preparedness to administer it among students working on a for EU membership of Bulgaria and Romania. strawberry farm in the West Midlands. Finally, I http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/key_ Bulgarian and Romanian student workers in the UK | 117

documents/2006/sept/report_bg_ro_2006_en Bulgarian immigrants’ community in London. .pdf. http://ide.li/article803.html. Concordia. 2006. Work experience for young people. Home Office. 2007. General information about http://www.concordiafarms.org/students/index SAWS. http://www.workingintheuk.gov.uk/ .aspx. working_in_the_uk/en/homepage/work_ DEFRA 2006. Farming: Agricultural wages. http:// permits0/seasonal_agricultural/general_ www.defra.gov.uk/farm/working/agwages/. information.html. Frances, Jennifer, Stephanie Barrientos, Ben Rogaly. Jones, Annabel. 2005. Strawberry fields: Seeing red. 2005. Temporary workers in UK agriculture and BBC online. http://www.bbc.co.uk/shropshire/ horticulture: A study of employment practices in blast/2005/06/strawberry_fields_review.shtml. the agriculture and horticulture industry and co- Massey, Doughlas S., Joaquin Arango, Graeme located pack house and primary food processing Hugo, Ali Kouaouci, Adela Pellegrino, and J. Ed- sectors. Suffolk: Precision Prospecting. http:// ward Taylor. 1994. Theories of international www.defra.gov.uk/farm/working/gangmasters/ migration: A review and appraisal. Population pdf/research-study1.pdf. and Development Review 19 (3): 431–66. Geddes, Andrew. 2006. The politics of immigration, Piore, Michael J. 1979. Birds of passage: Migrant asylum, and ethnic diversity. In British Politics, labor in industrial societies. Cambridge: Cam- ed. Dennis Kavanagh, 580–96. Oxford: Oxford bridge University Press. University Press. Scott, James. 1990. Domination and the arts of resist- Georgiev, Boyan. 2005. “Bulgarian workers work in ance: Hidden transcripts. New Haven and Lon- farms, under 70ºC heat”: An interview with don: Yale University Press. Daniela Danielova. Big Ben—newspaper of the Indigenous resurgence, anthropological theory, and the cunning of history

Terence Turner

Abstract: Why has the recent period of global centralization of capital, from the 1970s to the present, also been a period of resurgence of indigenous movements and of forms of global civil society that have supported indigenous rights? This ar- ticle argues that tackling this question can only be done by using concepts that emphasize what Hegel called the ‘cunning’ of history: the fact that the same his- torical process can on the one hand bring devastation to indigenous habitats and on the other hand create opportunities for political leverage by indigenous soci- eties to gain recognition of the legitimacy of their different social, cultural, and economic systems within their ambient nation-states. Politically engaged anthro- pological theory, it seems, needs concepts that emphasize these contradictions— which in a nutshell means more Marx and less Foucault. Keywords: activism, cunning of history, ‘globalization’, historical context, indige- nous resurgence

Particularly in the field of indigenous studies, an- “Envisioning history: Anthropological theory thropological theory has become a vital politi- and the rights of indigenous people” at the Ca- cal issue.1 I want to make two points here. First, nadian Association for Social and Cultural An- that in order to appreciate and support particu- thropology conference in Montreal in May 2006. lar indigenous people’s struggles, it is crucial to The session was devoted to examining the ways understand these particular struggles as part of anthropological theories have affected struggles a global phenomenon. And second, that anthro- for indigenous peoples’ rights. The authors of pological theory can only make sense of this the session’s papers mostly belonged to a group global indigenous resurgence through concepts led by Professor Michael Asch of the University that stress the contradictions and lacunae of shifts of Victoria and all of them have been working in the global and state system in the last quarter with Canadian hunting and foraging societies. of the twentieth century, which indigenous peo- Michael Asch’s group has made itself a major ple have courageously managed to exploit. force for the defense of the rights of Canadian My reflections here on this issue were trig- First Nations and many of its members have been gered by my role as commentator in the session involved as expert witnesses in Canadian court

Focaal—European Journal of Anthropology 49 (2007): 118–123 doi:10.3167/foc.2007.490110 Indigenous resurgence, anthropological theory, and the cunning of history | 119 proceedings dealing with indigenous land rights the continued economic viability, cultural con- and cultural rights issues. In their court testi- tinuity, demographic growth, and political resur- mony, they have often had to contend with oppo- gence of indigenous peoples or First Nations nents of First Nations’ land and cultural rights, around the world. While the presenters only dis- who base their cases on anthropological theories, cussed hunting and foraging peoples, these be- mostly of evolutionistic or cultural materialist ing the groups among whom they conducted types. The authors were concerned, as activists, their own field research, its is important to bear to bring out the political issues that arise from in mind that hunters and foragers account for the political resurgence of indigenous people, but only a small proportion of indigenous peoples— also, as anthropologists, with its significance for who share most of the same problems and is- anthropology and vice versa, that is, the part sues—worldwide. Also the theoretical concepts played by anthropological theory, sometimes by employed by the presenters to “envision” the supporting it or more often by indirectly seek- history of anthropological theory and indigenous ing to delay it by legitimizing attempts by the rights struggles, need themselves to be under- Canadian and US governments to strip indige- stood, just as the facts and cases they describe, nous peoples of their lands and resources, while in the wider global and historical contexts that formulating reductionist theories that misrep- produced them. Theoretical concepts such as resent their cultures and modes of livelihood, ‘colonialism’ and ‘post-colonialism’, ‘nation’, and denying their agency as social actors. For ‘globalization’ and ‘governmentality’ either Asch and his students, including the organizer originated or have significantly changed in mean- of the session Marc Pinkoski, theoretical critique ing during the same historical period as the re- has become a vital practical and political issue, surgence of indigenous peoples (roughly from rather than merely an academic exercise (for an 1970 to the present), and responded to many of earlier exposé of their argument see Pinkoski and the same historical factors (see also Turner 1999a, Asch 2004). 2002, 2003, 2004). These factors, I would argue, I was invited to act as commentator on the appear in some cases to be changing again, with session because although my anthropological re- historical and theoretical consequences that are search has been with indigenous societies in the of great significance. Brazilian and Venezuelan Amazon (see Turner In the following section I attempt to summa- 1993, 1996, 2000; Turner and Fajans-Turner rize my ideas about the global political-economic 2006), as an activist I have faced similar issues forces that have enabled indigenous peoples all concerning the relation between anthropologi- over the world to launch effective struggles for cal theory and professional responsibilities and their rights and territories, and to indicate some the struggle to defend the territorial and cul- of the implications of these dynamics and move- tural rights of the peoples with whom I have ments for anthropological, and more broadly worked (see Turner 1999b). I have also been con- social theory. cerned with more general issues of globalization’s impact on indigenous movements and rights, both in my own writings and as a member of The historical context of the indigenous the Committee for Human Rights of the Amer- resurgence ican Anthropological Association. My role as commentator at the Montreal session was thus Following the collapse in the early 1970s of the to try to put the activist interventions and crit- Bretton Woods arrangements,—designed at the ical theoretical reflections of my Canadian col- end of World War II to enable states to control leagues into a broader comparative perspective. transnational corporate and finance capital and The Canadian cases presented local manifes- support currency convertibility, the accelerated tations of a global phenomenon of great histor- global centralization of capital, especially finance ical, anthropological, and human significance: capital—has forced states to defend the stability of 120 | Terence Turner their currencies by curtailing inflationary spend- ethnic minorities into internally united and po- ing on domestic social programs. This meant litically uniform societies. retreating from the ‘class compromise’ of the These transformations of the social, political- welfare state—the social-democratic attempt by economic, and ideological character of states the Western democracies to promote relative class brought fundamental changes in the cosmolog- equality of all citizens that gained political as- ical space-time of Western civilization—changes cendancy during and following World War II. It that have affected the situation and prospects is important to recognize that this commitment of the indigenous peoples located within those to social and political homogenization was ac- states. The Modern conception of social time companied by the persistence of assimilationist as a unilinear diachronic progress culminating policies toward racial, cultural, and indigenous in the development of internally homogeneous minorities (with some moderate exceptions such nation-states rather rapidly gave way to a non- as John Collier’s tenure as Director of the Bureau directional, decentered notion of synchronic of Indian Affairs in the Roosevelt administration pluralism, where states serve as frames guaran- in the US). The retreat from welfare-state poli- teeing the coexistence of socially and culturally cies in the early 1970s also led to the abandon- different sub-groups; in other words, to post- ment, for practical purposes, of the nationalist modern multiculturalism. The key role of the ideological and cultural project of assimilating state in this new cosmological configuration is economically and culturally marginal minori- not to impose and maintain internal uniformity ties, above all indigenous groups into the ‘na- among its members as bearers of a common na- tion’, conceived as the ethnically and culturally tional identity, but to maintain the external uni- homogeneous population of the state. The same formity of their economic activities as workers, political-economic developments caused the re- consumers, managers, and capitalists—that is, versal of the class dynamics of the post–World as good members of the uniform global econ- War II period, characterized by the progressive omy. In this way, the commitment to jural and expansion of the middle class, by promoting the administrative equality remains the touchstone differentiation from the rest of the middle class of the political-economic functions and ideo- of a new upper class of super-wealthy with close logical legitimacy of states, but the application financial ties to the global economy. The politi- of this principle has become severed from any cal and ideological effects of this shift in class considerations of assimilation to a national eth- dynamics were reinforced by the diminution of nic identity, or for that matter from any beyond states’ control over their monetary and social the minimal considerations of provision of so- policies—the result of the achievement of eman- cial welfare or economic support. cipation of state control by transnational capi- There is, however, an ironic sense in which tal in the 1970s and 1980s. ethnic, racial, or cultural difference remains stra- This was a significant diminution of the po- tegically relevant in the new system of synchron- litical powers of states, and thus the ability of ic pluralism. Fully assimilated members of the their internal systems of electoral politics to ex- dominant society of a state can claim no special ercise meaningful influence over these aspects treatment from their governments based on the of economic and social life. States remained im- latter’s commitment to the equal treatment of portant, indeed indispensable, as the executors differences, because they lack difference in any of the economic and administrative policies re- relevant sense. By emphasizing the very differ- quired by global capital and financial markets, ences that previously stigmatized them as not but they lost their autonomous character as the sufficiently evolué, obviously unassimilated in- highest-level economic and political units of the digenous persons or groups may now find them- world system, just as they lost their social and selves able to demand recognition, rights, and ideological character as integral nations, capa- protections from states previously reluctant to ble of assimilating their constituent classes and grant them. This point can be put another way Indigenous resurgence, anthropological theory, and the cunning of history | 121 by saying that egalitarianism remains a basic nous societies to gain recognition within their principle of state ideologies, but it has reversed ambient nation-states of the legitimacy and via- its meaning in a fundamental respect. It is no bility of their different social, cultural and eco- longer an equality of ideally homogeneous iden- nomic systems—ways of using their territories tities (as of citizens assimilated to a uniform na- and other material resources. It is a tribute to the tional norm) but an identity of differences, where resilience, courage, and political perspicacity of contrastive identities become the basis for legit- so many indigenous groups that they have been imizing the equality of claims on the state. able to exploit the opportunities provided by Multiculturalism and the principle that cul- these contradictory developments of the global tural difference confers a right to formal politi- political economy as mediated through their cal and social equality have in this way become ambient nation-states, even as they deal with essential to the legitimation of states in the age the negative effects of the shrinkage of social of globalization. The very economic and politi- services and threats to their territorial and re- cal processes that threaten to undermine the le- source bases from those same states. gitimacy of states in their roles as implementers of the global capitalist system, and oblige them to abandon programs for the promotion of so- More Marx, less Foucault cial and economic equality, also put pressure on them to recognize and defend the equal rights What does all this imply for anthropological of groups whose cultural and social differences theory? I would argue that it implies concepts from the hegemonic national norm until recently like ‘colonialism’ or Foucault’s ‘governmental- served as stigmata of inequality. This ideologi- ity’ are inadequate and even potentially mis- cal principle of the right of difference, I have ar- leading if employed as theoretical frameworks gued, cannot be understood in its own terms for understanding the contemporary situation simply as the outcome of enlightened legal rea- of many indigenous peoples, whether hunter- soning or progressive political theory, or as the foragers, swidden horticulturists, pastoral no- spontaneous product of indigenous peoples and mads, or Central American maize farmers. other distinctive cultural groups by themselves, These rubrics seriously distort current political but as the ideological expression of the effect of and economic reality by assuming that they are the operation of the global capitalist system on essentially the products of deliberate policies by the internal social dynamics and class structure states or else by capitalist corporations, without of individual nation-states. Its grounding in attempting to analyze the political-economic the global economic system is the real basis of system of which those states and corporations the expansion of civil society in the recent age form parts. By exclusively emphasizing the op- of globalization from the internal societies of pressive aspects of the imposition of state power nation-states to what has come to be called on subject populations, they miss the importance ‘global civil society’. of contradictions and lacunae in the contempo- While they have had many unfortunate po- rary global and state system in creating opportu- litical and social effects, such as the despoliation nities for indigenous peoples to assert and defend of environmental resources and indigenous their cultural differences and rights to resources. habitats in the intensified race to extract energy They also ignore the reality of the agency and and raw materials, the transnational centraliza- capacity for effective political action and cul- tion of capital—or what has been called ‘global- tural transformation of indigenous groups that ization’, and the neo-liberal social and eco- have enabled them to act successfully in their nomic policies it has brought in its train—have historical situation. They thus fail to deal with the also, by a process akin to what Hegel (1953) great question of why the recent period of global called the ‘cunning’ of history, helped to create centralization of capital (1970 to the present) has opportunities for political leverage by indige- also been a period of resurgence of indigenous 122 | Terence Turner movements for territorial rights and cultural logical journals. For a previous contribution to autonomy, and why the same period has given the discussion on indigenous rights and anthro- rise to forms of global civil society that have pological theory in Focaal see Steur (2005). supported indigenous rights and (however am- bivalently) environmental stewardship. So I would say that we need more Marx and References less Foucault. Above all, we should avoid theo- retical formulations, like ‘post-coloniality’ or Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1953. Introduc- Foucault’s ‘governmentality’ and its immediate tion. Lectures on the philosophy of history. Trans. R. S. Hartman. New York: Bobbs-Merrill. ancestors, such as ‘discourses of power’,or some Pinkoski, Marc, and Michael Asch. 2004. Anthro- forms of world system theory, that in effect un- pology and indigenous rights in Canada and the critically continue the work of capitalist and United States: Implications in Steward’s theoret- imperialist domination of indigenous and ical project. In Hunter-gatherers in history, arche- other non-Western cultures by postulating that ology, and anthropology, ed. Alan Barnard, the former are invariably and totally effective in 187–200. New York: Berg. subverting, controlling, and inauthenticating Steur, Luisa. 2005. “On the correct handling of con- the latter, along with any possibility for open tradictions”: liberal-culturalism in indigenous and effective organized resistance by move- studies. Focaal 46: 169–76. ments of national populations. Indigenous peo- Turner, Terence. 1993. The role of indigenous peo- ples, by their courageous and effective struggles ples in the environmental crisis: The case of the in Canada and all over the world, have been Brazilian Kayapo. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 36 (3): 526–45. demonstrating the inadequacy of these forms of ———. 1996. An indigenous Amazonian people’s theoretical colonialism, and creating by their struggle for socially equitable and ecologically actions a reality that challenges the trendy sustainable production: The Kayapo revolt forms of irrealism our discipline has been toy- against extractivism. Journal of Latin American ing with while they have been fighting for their Anthropology 1 (1): 98–121. collective social and cultural lives. ———. 1999a. Indigenous and culturalist move- ments in the contemporary global conjuncture. In Las identidades y las tensiones culturales de Terence Turner (PhD from Harvard, 1965) has modernidad, Francisco F. Del Riego, Marcial G. worked for decades with indigenous peoples of Portasany, Terence Turner, Josep R. Llobera, the Brazilian Amazon, mostly the Kayapo, but Isodoro Moreno, and James W. Fernandez, recently also the Yanomami. He is involved in 53–72. Santiago de Compostela: Federacion advocacy and human rights work and is inter- de Asociaciones de antropologia del Estado ested in indigenous peoples’ political struggles Español. and associated ecological, cultural, and rights ———. 1999b. Activism, activity theory, and the issues. His theoretical interests include social and new cultural politics. In Activity theory and so- cultural theory, Marx, kinship and social orga- cial practice, ed. Seth Chaikin, Marianne Hede- gaard, and Uffe Juul Jensen, 114–35. Aarhus: nization, myth, ritual and narrative, visual an- Aarhus University Press. thropology (particularly indigenous video and ———. 2000. Indigenous rights, environmental TV documentary), the body, and the critique of protection, and the struggle over forest resources anthropological theory. in the Amazon: The case of the Brazilian Kayapo. E-mail: [email protected]. In Earth, air, fire and water: The humanities and the environment, ed. Jill Conway, Kenneth Kenis- ton, and Leo Marx, 145–69. Boston: University Note of Massachusetts Press. ———. 2002. Shifting the frame from nation-state 1. There are currently many discussions around to global market: Class and social consciousness this theme, running through various anthropo- in the advanced capitalist countries. Social Indigenous resurgence, anthropological theory, and the cunning of history | 123

analysis: The International Journal of Social and power and difference: The scholar as activist, ed. Cultural Analysis 46 (2): 56–80. Carole Nagengast and Carlos Velez-Ibañez, ———. 2003. Class projects, social consciousness, 193–207. Society for Applied Anthropology. and the contradictions of ‘globalization’. In Glob- Turner, Terence, and Vanessa Fajans-Turner. alization, the state and violence, ed. Jonathan Fried- 2006. Political innovation and inter-ethnic man, 35–66. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. alliance: Kayapo resistance to the develop- ———. 2004. Anthropological activism, indigenous mentalist state. Anthropology Today 22 (5): peoples, and globalization. In Human rights, 3–10.