GLOBAL 4.1

DIALOGUE NEWSLETTER 4 issues a year in 14 languages

Simon Clarke – An Inspired Collaboration Sociology as Alain Touraine, a Vocation Kalpana Kannabiran Chile’s Democratic

Transition Manuel Antonio Garretón

Felipe Arocena, Adriana Marrero and Leandro Pereira, Uruguay’s Social Marcos Supervielle and Mariela Quiñones, Democracy Diego Piñeiro

Hungary’s György Csepeli, Eszter Bartha, Rightwing Surge György Lengyel

> South Africa’s Women Miners > Côte d’Ivoire’s Mobile Phone Culture > European Sociological Association’s Meeting VOLUME 4 / ISSUE 1 / MARCH 2014 VOLUME http://isa-global-dialogue.net > Final Declaration of ALAS > Social Transformations and the Digital Age

> Global Dialogue’s Russian team GD

> Editorial Reactions to Neoliberalism

ie live in a neoliberal world where markets spread ever wider and ever deeper. Nothing escapes the market as it enters terrains that have for long been protected. From being a crea- Wtive activity labor becomes the source of ever more uncertain survival; from being a medium of exchange money becomes a vehicle for making more money through loans and bets on loans, leading to wealthy creditors at one pole and impoverished debtors at the other; from sustaining life, nature (land, water, air) is subject to the destructive forces of capitalism, and turned into a high-priced commodity, encouraging violent dispossession; once a public good, knowledge is now sold to the highest bidder whether Simon Clarke is interviewed here by two of his students about the extraordinary they be students in search of credentials or corporations in search of subsi- collaboration he cultivated with young and dized research. The commodifi cation of each factor of production feeds the gifted Russian sociologists, producing a cor- commodifi cation of all. There seems to be no limit to the market. nucopia of case studies during and beyond the market transition. Yet markets generate their counter-tendencies whether these be social movements and/or state regulation. This issue contains four articles on Uru- guay’s socialist response to the dilemmas of global marketization: redis- tributive policies leading to and caused by strong unions; social policies that have legalized abortion, same-sex marriage, and marijuana; the retention of high levels of public education. Capitalism, on the other hand, has invaded agriculture, transforming agrarian society into a vehicle of accumulation. In power for the second term, the broad socialist front that includes former members of the Tupamaros guerrilla movement, pursued a popular mandate for social democracy, a trajectory so different from Chile’s conservative road. 2 Despite the rise of pink or electoral socialism in Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Bolivia, Uruguay’s social democracy stands out as both hu- mane and successful. Alain Touraine, internationally renowned sociologist, describes the origins of his path- breaking theories and his innovative and now If Uruguay is an outlier in Latin America, then Hungary is an outlier within widely used methodology for studying social the former Soviet bloc – not in its socialism but in its authoritarian populism, movements. Here he refl ects on his early an alternative response to the destructive powers of the market. The three optimism and his more recent pessimism. articles from Hungary describe the rise of a mafi a state headed by the self- aggrandizing Viktor Orbán, so different from Uruguay’s President José Mujica who lives the humblest of lives. In Hungary political elites ever more removed and ever more ruthless close down democracy and public debate, discredit the idea of class as a communist distortion even as class becomes ever more salient, and cultivate a national chauvinism aimed against Jews and Roma people while scapegoating the European Union for Hungary’s eco- nomic plight.

Two countries with very different economic and political histories respond to the same neoliberal stimulus with divergent political strategies. But can either social democracy or populist authoritarianism reverse the momentum Kalpana Kannabiran, enormously accom- of marketization that stalks the planet almost unhindered? Does the rever- plished sociologist and activist from India, sal of neoliberalism require a counter-movement not just on a national level relates the potential symbiosis of sociology but on a global scale, and what might that look like? Would such a global and critical legal studies in the pursuit of counter-movement expand or contract freedoms? Is it feasible or are we social justice. heading ineluctably for collective self-destruction?

> Global Dialogue can be found in 14 languages at the ISA website > Submissions should be sent to [email protected]

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014

> Editorial Board > In This Issue

Editor: Michael Burawoy. Editorial: Reactions to Neoliberalism 2 Managing Editors: Lola Busuttil, August Bagà. An Inspired Collaboration with Russian Sociologists Associate Editors: An Interview with Simon Clarke, UK 4 Margaret Abraham, Tina Uys, Raquel Sosa, Sociology as a Vocation – Moving Beyond Sociology Jennifer Platt, Robert Van Krieken. by Alain Touraine, France 7 Consulting Editors: Sociology as a Vocation – A Conversation between Law and Sociology Izabela Barlinska, Louis Chauvel, Dilek Cindoğlu, Tom Dwyer, Jan Fritz, Sari Hanafi , Jaime Jiménez, by Kalpana Kannabiran, India 9 Habibul Khondker, Simon Mapadimeng, Ishwar Modi, Challenges of the Democratic Transition Nikita Pokrovsky, Emma Porio, Yoshimichi Sato, An Interview with Manuel Antonio Garretón, Chile 12 Vineeta Sinha, Benjamín Tejerina, Chin-Chun Yi, Elena Zdravomyslova. Regional Editors > URUGUAY’S SOCIAL DEMOCRACY Uruguay at the Vanguard of Latin America Arab World: Sari Hanafi , Mounir Saidani. by Felipe Arocena, Uruguay 15 Brazil: How Public is Uruguay’s Public Education? Gustavo Taniguti, Juliana Tonche, Andreza Galli, by Adriana Marrero and Leandro Pereira, Uruguay 17 Renata Barreto Preturlan, Ângelo Martins Júnior, Uruguay’s Miracle: Redistribution and the Growth of Unionism Lucas Amaral, Celia Arribas, Rafael de Souza. by Marcos Supervielle and Mariela Quiñones, Uruguay 19 Colombia: Uruguay’s Agrarian Revolution María José Álvarez Rivadulla, Sebastián Villamizar Santamaría, by Diego E. Piñeiro, Uruguay 21 Andrés Castro Araújo, Katherine Gaitán Santamaría. India: > HUNGARY’S RIGHTWARD SURGE Ishwar Modi, Rajiv Gupta, Rashmi Jain, Jyoti Sidana, The Rise of Hungary’s Mafi a Society Ritu Saraswat, Uday Singh. by György Csepeli, Hungary 23 Iran: The Fate of Class in Contemporary Hungary Reyhaneh Javadi, Hamidreza Rafatnejad, 3 Saghar Bozorgi, Najmeh Taheri. by Eszter Bartha, Hungary 25 Japan: On the (Ir)responsibility of Elites Kazuhisa Nishihara, Mari Shiba, Kousuke Himeno, by György Lengyel, Hungary 27 Tomohiro Takami, Yutaka Iwadate, Kazuhiro Ikeda, Yu Fukuda, Michiko Sambe, Yuko Hotta, Yusuke Kosaka, Shuhei Naka, Kiwako Kase, > NOTES FROM THE FIELD Misa Omori, Kazuhiro Kezuka. South Africa: Women Miners and the Underground Self Poland: by Asanda Benya, South Africa 30 Krzysztof Gubański, Kinga Jakieła, Kamil Lipiński, Côte d’Ivoire: The Symbolic Capital of the Mobile Phone Przemysław Marcowki, Karolina Mikołajewska, by Jordanna Matlon, France 33 Mikołaj Mierzejewski, Adam Müller, Karolina Fiut, Patrycja Pendrakowska, Nastazja Stoch, Teresa Teleżyńska. > CONFERENCE REPORTS Romania: European Sociological Association Meeting Cosima Rughiniș, Ileana-Cinziana Surdu, by Jennifer Platt, UK 35 Adriana Bondor, Ramona Cantaragiu, Miriam Cihodariu, Final Declaration Daniela Gaba, Angelica Helena Marinescu, Cătălina Petre, Mădălin Rapan, Lucian Rotariu, Adopted at XXIX Congress of ALAS, Chile 37 Alina Stan, Balazs Telegdy, Elena Tudor, Social Transformations and the Digital Age Cristian Constantin Vereș. by Elisa P. Reis, Brazil 39 Russia: Global Dialogue’s Russian Team Elena Zdravomyslova, Anna Kadnikova, by Elena Zdravomyslova, Russia 40 Elena Nikiforova, Asja Voronkova. Taiwan: Jing-Mao Ho. Turkey: Aytül Kasapoğlu, Nilay Çabuk Kaya, Günnur Ertong, Yonca Odabaş, Zeynep Baykal, Gizem Güner. Media Consultants: Gustavo Taniguti, José Reguera. Editorial Consultant: Abigail Andrews.

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 > An Inspired Collaboration with Russian Sociologists

An Interview with Simon Clarke

uring the 1980s Simon Clarke, a British soci- ologist at Warwick University, was best known for his contributions to theory – in particular, Dhis original interpretation of Marx, and his 4 critique of the liberal foundations of modern sociology and economics. In 1990, Clarke took a fateful journey to the Soviet Union, inaugurating two decades of research through a rare international collaboration. He became the prime mover behind a new school of Russian sociology that examined a society in the throes of transformation. Along with his colleague Peter Fairbrother, he brought to- gether a network of Russian researchers in the Institute of Comparative Labour Relations Research (ISITO). Here Clarke and his Russian colleagues produced a corpus of work that meticulously analyzed the impact of economic Simon Clarke with admiring sociologists from Samara. reform on workplaces and households, and the response of workers and their organizations. This research was unique in its scale, insight, and originality, offering an in- sistent challenge to the dominant neoliberal orthodoxy. SC: Annie Phizacklea and I took a group of Warwick Univer- The ethos of ISITO was equally noteworthy. If hierarchy and sity students to Russia in March 1990. I was immediately subordination were key attributes of Soviet organizations, excited by the sense of a myriad of new possibilities that in ISITO, Simon Clarke managed to foster a collaborative seemed to be opening up. By chance we met Svetlana Na- ethos, underpinned by trust, friendship, and a spirit of mu- talushko, who had taken over running the “Advanced Sociol- tual learning. Here he is interviewed by two of his former ogy Courses,” which had been founded by Galina Mikhalyo- students, Sarah Ashwin who teaches at the London School va at the Higher Komsomol School (that had been renamed of Economics and Valery Yakubovich who teaches at ES- the Institute of Youth), to provide courses for young sociolo- SEC Business School, France. gists from Russia’s regions. In the absence of democratic elections, public opinion surveys had become an important Valery: From the late 1980s many Western sociolo- instrument for the alternative social organizations which gists went to the Soviet Union to observe a “natural had formed under perestroika (and for Party and trade un- experiment” in social change. But few, if any, created ion organizations trying to retain power), so many activists a new research institution. How did you come up with aspired to develop their sociological knowledge and came this idea? to Moscow to study sociology in a relatively progressive en- >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 vironment. I was invited back to give a week of lectures in Valery: As I remember, despite its “unscientifi c” repu- December and among the students were Vadim Borisov and tation, qualitative research was enthusiastically re- Olga Rodina, who were to become a mainstay of ISITO. The ceived in Russia in the early 1990s. What insights following March Peter Fairbrother and I again took a party do you think you’d have missed without a qualitative of students and met more young sociologists, including you approach? Valery Yakubovich, Vladimir (“Volodya”) Ilyin, and Petr Bizyu- kov, and had some fascinating site visits and meetings with SC: When we fi rst established our research program we alternative labor movement activists. discussed it with many sociologists in Moscow. They in- sisted that there were no sociologists in Russia’s regions, At that time, as you say, many western sociologists were be- only “fi eld researchers.” Sociology was divided between ginning research in the Soviet Union, but most were content social philosophers and social researchers. The social to subcontract their fi eldwork to Soviet research institutes, philosophers, who considered themselves to be the only survey organizations, or graduate students, which could pro- true sociologists, had made a seamless transition from duce plenty of cheap quantitative data (qualitative research Marxist-Leninist to Western social philosophy, but had no was regarded as unscientifi c in the Soviet Union) and reports interest in evaluating the empirical validity of either. Social recycling their old research. We were not interested in ana- researchers insisted that, while qualitative methods (“soft” lyzing second-hand data of dubious reliability, but wanted to methods) might have some heuristic value, only quantita- carry out our own research. The obvious barriers were time tive methods (“hard” methods) were truly scientifi c. Never- and language, but Vadim, Volodya, and Olga were able to theless, the younger sociologists we met, especially those serve as our interpreters and collaborators in interviews, and from Russia’s regions, showed real interest in qualitative we already had a core of interested researchers who could methods. This was partly a matter of resources, because conduct ethnographic case studies. We spent four trips over there was little money for quantitative research outside the the following year traveling around Russia with Vadim and Moscow Institutes, whereas anybody could do qualitative Volodya to carry out pilot studies, interview labor movement research, provided that they had time. But it was also be- activists, and look for potential collaborators. We explained cause they were disillusioned with the Soviet fetishism and to those we met that we were interested in conducting col- politicization of quantitative research. Nobody believed the laborative ethnographic research, but that there was no quantitative data published by state agencies to support funding. This was enough to sort out those who had a purely the government political line. Qualitative research, observ- fi nancial interest in collaborative research from those who ing and talking to people, revealed levels of reality that 5 positively wanted to participate in the project for its own had never been reported by Soviet publications so it was sake. Eventually, we established research teams in Moscow, exciting for younger, critical sociologists. Syktyvkar, Samara, and Kemerovo, with such outstanding leaders as Vadim Borisov, Vladimir Ilyin, Irina Kozina, Petr When we started our fi rst project we held a three-day seminar Bizyukov, and Veronika Kabalina. on qualitative methods in a dom otdykha (vacation home) of the Radio Ministry outside Moscow, where we slept in freez- We later formed research teams in Perm, Yekaterinburg, ing log cabins. Our key message to our collaborators was St Petersburg, Ulyanovsk, and Ivanovo. The whole program that qualitative research had to be rigorous and systematic. was held together by the friendship and commitment of the Peter Fairbrother led a memorable discussion of the techni- teams and team leaders, without any institutional frame- cal aspects of qualitative research – the importance of hav- work, but we had always insisted to our collaborators that ing adequate and suffi cient recording instruments, of writing the space that had been opened up for informal organization up fi eld notes immediately after an interview or observation, by the disintegration of the USSR and its institutions would the technical and ethical aspects of recording interviews not persist and that they needed to get an institutional foot- and so on. Everybody was enthusiastic, quickly grasping the hold in their regions, while we needed an institutional iden- essential principles of qualitative research. tity for our collaboration. Eventually, after many bureaucratic pitfalls, we established the Institute for Comparative Labour Most of our research was based on comparative case stud- Relations Research (ISITO) as a non-profi t social organiza- ies, particularly of industrial enterprises. Each research tion, with the paraphernalia of bank accounts, management team was responsible for conducting a certain number of committee, director, bookkeeper, and subordination to the case studies according to an agreed schedule. We held tax authorities. Nevertheless, in practice ISITO continued to initial seminars, involving all the researchers, at which we operate as an informal network based on friendship, col- decided who would be interviewed, for example key senior laboration, and commitment to research. managers, shop chiefs, foremen, and a sample of ordinary workers from one main and one auxiliary shop, and what Sarah: As you say, qualitative research was regarded forms of observation would be undertaken, for example sit- as unscientifi c in the Soviet Union. So did ISITO team ting in the offi ce of a shop chief or trade union president or members have experience of ethnography, or did you shadowing a foreman. We then drew up interview guides for need to train them? each informant category and prepared a template for the >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 report to be written up for each enterprise. In this way we Most of our research rigorously substantiated what we al- ensured, as best we could, that all of the case studies were ready suspected on the basis of past experience and ob- conducted on a comparable basis. Each case study report, servation, but there were some surprises. In one of our fi rst with its associated interview transcripts and fi eld notes, was projects we asked what motivated Russian workers. Sergei circulated to all the research teams and discussed by them Alasheev proposed his hypothesis that “Russian workers in their team meetings. Every three months we held meet- love to work” to much initial laughter, but the paper he pro- ings with the team leaders to review progress and every duced (published in Management and Industry in Russia: year we had a research seminar with all the participants to Formal and Informal Relations in the Period of Transition, formulate and evaluate hypotheses against the case study 1995) was a brilliant exposition of his argument. reports. For the fi nal seminar of each project everybody was expected to present an analytical paper drawing on all the From a scientifi c point of view I guess the most interesting case study reports and these became the basis of project fi nding has been the extent to which Soviet culture, mentality, publications in Russian and English. and practices have been reproduced, for better or worse, in a whole range of institutions. In our research we saw this most I doubt that we would have got any insights at all without particularly in trade unions, and industrial management and a qualitative approach. People individually knew what hap- shop-fl oor culture, but the phenomenon can also be observed pened in Soviet and Russian institutions and organizations, clearly in the reconstitution of traditional state structures. but this knowledge was nowhere systematically collated and codifi ed. Without qualitative research we have no idea Some of the most striking fi ndings came out of the 1998 what questions to ask in a survey and no idea of how to household survey, which gave us high-quality quantitative interpret the answers; quantitative research can only ever data on which to test various hypotheses. One of these, come at the fi nal stage of a project, when we seek a basis suggested by Lena Varshavskaya of Kemerovo, was that on which to generalize conclusions drawn from qualitative domestic agriculture was not a lifeline for the poor as many studies. We were not opposed to quantitative methods, commentators claimed, because the costs of domestic but we were suspicious of the available Russian quanti- agriculture in time and money far outweighed the returns tative data, especially as many of our collaborators had in agricultural produce. Rather, in line with the continuity worked as interviewers and knew the tricks that interview- argument, it was a leisure activity of the better off that ex- ers pulled. We also found major inconsistencies in the data emplifi ed the Soviet work ethic, idealization of nature, and that we sought to use in our own research, including that traditions of exchange. 6 from the most respected surveys. Another key fi nding concerned the dominance of institu- Our dissatisfaction with existing data sources led us to tional over market determinants of wage differentiation, seek funding for our own labor market survey in our four strongly supportive of the traditional, though largely for- core regions in 1998, directed by you Valery Yakubovich, gotten, argument of industrial relations specialists against with rigorous sampling, monitoring of interviewers, and labor economists and, in a similar vein, of the inability of testing the consistency of our data. labor economics to explain the domestic division of paid and unpaid labor. For me, as a one-time economist, these Sarah: Together with ISITO, you were extraordinarily are among our most satisfying fi ndings because I think that productive, publishing eighteen books and 55 refereed the principal responsibility of the social sciences today is articles in English, as well as countless publications to challenge and undermine the scientifi c pretensions of in Russian. Which of your fi ndings excited you most? neoclassical economics, to show it up as the vacuous and pernicious ideology that it is. SC: Initially we were looking to the new workers’ movement to provide leadership during transition, and throughout our Valery: What is the situation of ISITO now? research we have sought to support the development of a democratic and effective trade union and labor move- SC: ISITO as an institution is going through the process ment in Russia. I think that most of our fi ndings have been of liquidation, primarily because the administrative and fi - depressing rather than exciting. After the initial excitement nancial procedures demanded by the Russian state are following the collapse of the USSR, when anything seemed so costly in time and money, but the informal connections possible, we had to confront our naiveté as neoliberalism remain. In some ways, ISITO is a victim of its own suc- swept all before it and resistance to the “reforms” that cess. Its members became highly sought-after candidates destroyed people’s lives and hopes was rarely more than for top research and teaching positions at Russian uni- symbolic, with no effective leadership from the traditional versities. The majority have secured academic positions trade unions, while the “alternative” unions sank into a within which they can continue their work. We will have the swamp of corruption. Of course there were individuals and fi nal ISITO seminar in March (2014), probably in Egypt, to small groups who resisted, but most were quickly under- which all our friends and comrades will be invited. ISITO mined by repression and/or indifference. publications can be found at www.warwick.ac.uk/russia.

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 SOCIOLOGY AS A VOCATION > Moving Beyond Sociology

by Alain Touraine, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France and former Vice-President of the ISA, 1974-78

For four decades Alain Touraine has been a towering fi gure in the world of sociology. Starting out as an industrial sociologist he made his name as a theorist of social movements, leading him to conceive of the collective self-creation of society, which, in turn, inspired a new methodology of sociological intervention. He is a sociologist with rare global reach, always seeking out social move- ments for the expansion of freedom and dignity in different corners of the world. A long stream of now canonical works have come from his pen, including The May Movement of Utopian Communism (1968), The Postindustrial Society (1969), The Production of Society (1973), The Voice and the Eye (1978), Solidarity: The Analysis of a Social Movement: Poland 1980-1981 (1983) (with François Du- bet, Michel Wieviorka and Jan Strzelecki), The Return of the Actor (1984), and, most recently, The End of Societies. Touraine set up his own Center for Sociological Analysis and Intervention in the EHESS in Paris where he has trained scores of students from all over the world.

introduced into various industries by new technologies. He put me in charge of the study of the major French automo- 7 bile company, the nationalized Renault Company. I devot- ed one and a half years to studying the details of jobs and forms of industrial organization in the various plants of this huge corporation. I published the results of this intensive project in 1955 as my fi rst book. Meanwhile I won another “concours” (competition) to become a professor of history but, thanks to Friedmann, I was also selected as a full-time researcher in sociology where I would be completely free to organize my own research group. Friedmann told me very gently: if you succeed in this diffi cult “concours,” I will ob- tain a job of researcher for you and if you fail, I will do the same, because we need a new generation of researchers. Alain Touraine.

After a few years at the French National Center for Sci- y fi rst and most lasting orientation to sociol- entifi c Research (CNRS) I spent a year in the US – Harvard, ogy came from my opposition to a school Columbia, and Chicago – and another year in Chile where system which was more interested in de- I created a center for industrial sociology and, more impor- Mfending its own norms than in nurturing the tantly, married a young Chilean biologist. It was then, when different needs of young people. I was a strange case of I was 34 years old, that I was elected full professor at the an unhappy and not very successful school boy who, in the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales – it had a end, excelled in one of the most prestigious “competitive different name at that time – where I spent the rest of my exams” in his country, thereby becoming a student at the professional life except for several years in Latin America renowned École Normale Supérieure. After two years I left and various semesters spent at UCLA, Berkeley, and the this wonderful place, spent one year partly traveling in Cen- New School in New York City. tral Europe and partly working as a semi-skilled coal miner. In 1966 my abiding hostility toward the offi cial academic Georges Friedmann, the main fi gure behind the newly system prompted me to join the new university of Nanterre born European industrial sociology invited me to join a which had been founded near Paris. I did not realize I was group of people who were studying occupational change going to spend a few years at the center of the student >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 SOCIOLOGY AS A VOCATION movement in Europe which was rapidly transforming itself tion of new forms of manipulating public opinion. Globali- into a major cultural and political drama. Of the people zation, by itself, increases the complexity and, by way of who wrote books about it I think mine was the most deeply consequence, the presence of multiple confl icts within any favorable since I saw it as the most important example, sector of social life. after the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in 1964, of the new “cultural” rather than “social” movements. At We all know that sociology was created in industrial the same time I emphasized the contradictions between societies, that is in societies with a huge capacity to trans- this cultural movement and the old Marxist, and especially form their environment and themselves through the crea- Trotskyist and Maoist ideologies which interpreted it in po- tion of new forms of production, organization, distribution, litical terms. It was, I said, like pouring young wine into old and consumption, that is by using social and economic re- bottles. So that brought me into confl ict both with conserv- sources and methods. Now, for the fi rst time societies saw ative professors and with the “leftist” political groups. But I themselves as able to create and transform themselves. was in deep agreement with Daniel Cohn-Bendit, anarchist That was magnifi cently expressed by Durkheim’s founding and anti-communist, who was most infl uential at Nanterre principal: to explain social facts by social facts. where I was teaching. A second category of transformations, equally important, I became rapidly convinced that most forms of collective refers to rationalization and marketization that now domi- behavior cannot be defi ned in terms of agreement with or nate not only the production of goods; they also impose divergence from laws, customs, and dominant values. This their logic on communications and representations, so led me to develop two different initiatives. The fi rst con- that social and economic actors are eliminated from those sisted in studying collective behavior through participation new and immense fi elds. Actors become less powerful to – in several cases I spent one full year with members of a the extent that they only possess instrumental rationality. social or political movement without using questionnaires but instead organizing debates between activists and their Today, our main task is to understand social situations supporters as well as their enemies. It was in this way that and social actors that are deeply different from those of I studied the student movement ten years after Nanterre, industrial societies. On the one hand there is the rise the Anti-Nuclear movement, a regionally based national- of authoritarian regimes and, on the other hand, in the ist movement, unionized workers in different sectors of West industrial capitalism has been replaced fi rst in 1929 the economy, and – which became our greatest joy – the and then again in 2007-8 by a fi nancial capitalism which 8 Polish Solidarność movement of 1980-81, and unionized has no economic function but only to make profi t by any workers in the Chilean coal mines and steel industry. More means possible. Actors can only resist powerful specu- recently, together with a friend, I devoted a rather long lative capital and the pursuit of pure profi t by defending time to the study of the Zapatista movement in Chiapas ethical universal values. While the notion of human rights in the southeast of Mexico. In each case I tried to make did not capture the imagination during the long post-war movement participants conscious of the highest possible period, we see now that Human Rights and Democracy are meaning of their confl icts. the only values which appear to be able to mobilize enough social and political forces to oppose anti-democratic au- This approach was clearly opposed to functionalist stud- thoritarian regimes and speculative capitalism. ies which considered actors and systems as two sides of the same coin. On the contrary – and this was my second, We are as far as possible from the identifi cation – typi- theoretical initiative – I became more and more convinced cal of industrial society – of actors with systems. The 21st that the logic of social system and the logic of social ac- century began in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and tors, or at least the logic of those whose action reached the mass demonstration in Tiananmen Square, and then the highest level of innovative and critical intervention, later came the Arab Spring. The democratic spirit receives were directly opposed to each other. Systems look for their everywhere the support of new forces. Recently I have tried own integration and for adjustments to external or internal to analyze this general change of approach in a rather long change, while actors want to increase their own freedom book called The End of Societies, which refers to the end of action, their autonomy, their dignity, and their respon- of “societies” that thought and acted on themselves. So- sibility. It certainly often happens that the two logics con- ciologists themselves must recognize that the concept of verge toward the same kind of choices. But in societies in society no longer corresponds to the world in which we which internal systems of control are relatively weak and live. So while sociology itself could very well be renamed whose environment is constantly changing the two logics “political ethics,” the social sciences will not disappear. often enter into contradiction, despite the constant crea-

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 SOCIOLOGY AS A VOCATION > A Conversation between Law and Sociology

by Kalpana Kannabiran, Council for Social Development, Hyderabad, India, member of the ISA Program Committee for the Yokohama World Congress, 2014 and member of ISA Research Com- mittee on Women and Society (RC32)

Kalpana Kannabiran is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Council for Social Development, Hyderabad, an autonomous research institute supported by the Indian Council for Social Science Research. She was awarded the VKRV Rao Prize for Social Science Research in the fi eld of Social As- pects of Law in 2003. She was part of the founding faculty of NALSAR University of Law where she taught sociology and law for a decade, 1999-2009, and is co-founder of Asmita Resource Centre for Women, set up in 1991. Her work has focused on understanding the social foundations of non-dis- crimination, violence against women, and questions of constitutionalism and social justice in India. 9 Her most recent book is Tools of Justice: Non-Discrimination and the Indian Constitution (Routledge, New Delhi, 2012). In 2012 Kalpana Kannabiran received the Amartya Sen Award for Distinguished Social Scientists for her work in the discipline of law.

Kalpana Kannabiran. >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 SOCIOLOGY AS A VOCATION

nstarted to study sociology at at sociology seriously, it was always search such as the recent efforts the undergraduate level in Hy- tied to an understanding of the law that came to a head after December derabad in the late 1970s but and a commitment to radical poli- 2012 around a new law on sexual Iit was not an informed choice. tics. Not sociology of law but sociol- assault. Putting it differently, if we The combination of subjects – eco- ogy and law as full disciplines that were to place justice at the center nomics, sociology, and geography – must speak to each other, in ways of sociological endeavor, the study seemed interesting in a vague kind that enable a more nuanced un- of law creates enabling conditions of way, and different from literature, derstanding of justice. In an ironic for the sociological project. psychology, and philosophy which I twist, this connection was reinforced was sure I did not want to study. In a for me by the “accidental” deaths I was not of course satisfi ed with sense it was a default choice. I went of my MPhil supervisor (then just looking at the law as a sociologist, to a public college in a state university about thirty) and her husband (also because as a co-founder of a femi- – Nizam College in Osmania Univer- a teacher in the same department) nist collective, Asmita, in 1991, I sity – and from there to the University in a fi re at home that was witnessed was a pro bono counselor for women of Hyderabad for a Masters and MPhil by their two-year old child. I was her survivors of domestic violence and and fi nally to Jawaharlal Nehru Uni- fi rst and her last research student rape. Even a doctorate in sociology versity for a PhD in sociology. Under- and a friend. The fact of domestic and an understanding of law did not graduate teaching in my time was un- discord was well-known as was the help me get answers from lawyers imaginably unimaginative, as it tends extreme distress my supervisor was representing cases. To dismantle to be in state universities, but so was going through. There was nothing in the disability that professional gate- the Masters program. all those classes on the sociology of keeping imposes, I studied law and the family that prepared me to even obtained formal degrees – a Bach- Fortunately, by my second year understand this. Coping was possi- elors and then a Masters in Jurispru- of BA, I had got closely involved ble only because of my engagements dence. I refused to practice law but with a feminist group, Stree Shakti with struggles outside the university, I could now enter courts to explore Sanghatana, and was participat- although my teachers were always a different [constitutional] common ing in campaigns against domestic vexed by my “activism.” sense with lawyers, judges, litigants, violence and rape. I was also begin- law students – one that broadened ning to learn about the movements My involvement in the politics of the understanding of fundamental 10 for civil liberties that campaigned organizing and my experience of law rights beyond the rigidities and re- against state impunity in the post- as tied to courtroom deliberations ductionism of constitutional law as it Emergency era, i.e. between 1977 and strategies of interpretation, led was practiced. Instead, I focused on and 1985. I was also fortunate to me very early on to looking at case reducing the suffering of and harm to have a ringside view of the move- law, at the constitution and con- people and communities that were ment for civil liberties because my stituent assembly debates and at particularly vulnerable. father was a lawyer and President legislative debates. But I was also of the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties interested in exploring the possibili- On the other side, I was struck Committee and later became Na- ties of a popular and transformative by how little sociologists understood tional President of the Peoples Union constitutionalism: How do social law, although a range of sociologi- for Civil Liberties and my mother, a and political movements repre- cal concerns are quite closely tied to feminist writer and poet, was a vocal sent the constitution in courts and realms of formal and customary law. critic of the civil liberties movement, outside? How are movements or- Despite early western anthropology even while providing vital support to ganized around constitutionalism? and sociology closely examining the survivors and political dissidents who What legislative trajectories have relation of law and society and their kept coming to our home. She was movements opened up and how do transitions – Malinowski, Durkheim also part of Stree Shakti Sanghatana these shape movements in a dialec- and Weber being the most obvious and a co-author of We Were Making tical turn? The Scheduled Tribes and examples – sociology in India re- History: Life Stories of Women in the Other Traditional Forest Dwellers mained a gated community at many Telangana People’s Struggle. (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act of levels right through my education 2006 is an instance. The two-way and my early forays into research and This experience of directly witness- relation wherein movements force writing. A large part of the practice ing the effects of state violence and the upholding of the constitution of sociology in India, for instance, the resistance to it beamed back against a negligent state and the has focused on “caste” – and much on my understanding of sociology reliance of the state on movements of this work has reproduced ideolo- as holding the possibility of under- for wisdom regarding legislation and gies and structures of domination standing society differently. And from accountable government throw up by situating theory within the expe- that moment when I began to look very interesting possibilities for re- rience of the dominant and deriv- >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 SOCIOLOGY AS A VOCATION ing its logic from that standpoint. It ties (sexual and religious), my work ciplines – throws up two ideas that has taken a long time to turn that has revolved around understanding are particularly relevant: the fi rst is around, and fi nally today we see the the relationship between discrimina- Ambedkar’s idea that constitutional emergence of a different argument tion, loss of liberty, and violence. I morality must replace public moral- in classrooms and journals. have been particularly interested ity – a concept that lay buried for in theoretical strategies that might six decades till it was resurrected by My own work departed from these give rise to a shift in constitutional the Delhi High Court in 2009 in its conventions. Thus, one part focused interpretation by courts, looking for upholding of the rights of sexual mi- on the historical emergence of crimi- instance at the different forms that norities in the Naz Foundation case. nal jurisprudence and how its devel- the loss of liberty takes for different Ambedkar only sketched it. What are opment during the colonial period groups that suffer discrimination – its contours and how might this idea led to contemporary debates around untouchability (caste), sexual con- be developed to advance the place sexual assault, sex work, the death trol (women), forced displacement of justice within social sciences? penalty, and the criminalization of (tribes), genocidal violence and This appeal to Ambedkar’s idea it- homosexuality and of transgender ghettoization (religious minorities), self underscores the importance of persons. A sociology calibrated with and the refusal to impose barrier- making impossible or unimaginable law enables an exploration of the pol- free access as a norm (persons with connections in our exploration of itics of legislation, courtrooms, and disabilities). How does the idea of justice. The second focus that I fi nd interpretive strategies; it advances social transformation simultane- fascinating is the uses of the idea of a keen understanding of the fi nely ously accommodate the frames of insurgency – disobedience, critical- tuned mechanisms through which revolutionary violence, Gandhian ity, and refl exivity – in fl eshing out ideologies of domination percolate non-violence, and Ambedkarite re- the fi eld of constitutional morality through procedural law into jurispru- sistance to caste? As an architect and of justice more generally. This is dence, defeating fundamental rights of the constitution and an anti-caste the vision that drives movements for even while seeming to uphold them; philosopher, Ambedkar is an infl u- social transformation, and provides and, of course, it examines the rela- ential fi gure who has been margin- a framework for radical struggle on tionship between social location and alized by the mainstream academy. different fronts. It contains the po- access to justice. How might we resurrect an intellec- tential for subaltern interpretations tual history that will fold in to consti- of constitutional morality by commu- 11 A second and related thread has tutional concerns? nities facing historical injustice and been my interest in investigating vio- their advocates – interpretations that lence. While exploring the fi elds of The question of justice – framed by are subversive by defi nition. gender, caste, disability, and minori- sociology and law as interlocked dis-

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 > Forty Years after the Chilean Coup An Interview with Manuel Antonio Garretón Part II: The Challenges of the Democratic Transition

Manuel Antonio Garretón presenting the Manifesto for a New Constitution to the public, June 2013.

12

he interview with Manuel Antonio Garretón has been engaged in the promotion of a new constitution. continues with a focus on the legacy of the His political life has always been informed by the intellec- dictatorship for democratic politics. Apart from tual perspectives of a social scientist. This manifold academic activities Professor Gar- retón has led an intense political life, beginning with his MB: In the previous part of the interview (GD3.5), you election to President of the Student Union at the Catholic were talking about the failures of Salvador Allende University in 1964. During the dictatorship he wrote and and the Unidad Popular, especially the theoretical taught beyond the academy, training new generations who failures that contributed to their downfall. Let us now otherwise had little access to pluralistic education and in- turn to the fall of the dictatorship. How could this formation. He was actively involved in rebuilding the social- happen? How did this happen? ist democratic project, becoming a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Party. After the dictatorship he MAG: Let us start with a clarifi cation: the failures or prob- participated in public debates about the transition to de- lems of Unidad Popular did not cause the downfall but the mocracy, was advisor to the fi rst Minister of Education, conspiracy of the civilian right and the intervention of the Coordinator of the Commission for Culture and member of military, all this with the support of the US. In 1980 the the Commission for Higher Education. In recent years he dictatorship introduced a completely new constitution that >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 generated two political orders; one from ’80 to ’88 and the MB: And from such a change in the political system other after ’88. The fi rst was the crystallization of the dicta- it could have moved ahead with change in the neolib- torship, but with a constitution. The second was intended eral economic model? to be a strictly authoritarian civilian regime with military veto, what is called restricted democracy, protected de- MAG: You cannot change the economic model without mocracy – whatever you want. But in order to go from one fi rst changing the political one. For example, you cannot to another, and to keep the same leader in power – that is even create an enterprise of the state under the present Pinochet – you needed to have some mechanism. constitution. Remember that this is the purest neoliberal- ism – purer than Thatcher – because it was accomplished MB: This is where the plebiscite comes in, right? under the dictatorship. Now, after 20 years you have what I call the success trap of the Concertación that has won 19 MAG: Yes, they chose the mechanism of a plebiscite, but elections, has moved the country from $5,000 per capita this created a problem. The opposition had developed to $15,000 per capita, and, as another mark of progress, considerable organizational capacity, fi rst, in resisting and today 70% of university students have fathers who didn’t keeping organizations and people involved, and, second, have higher education. This amounts to an enormous in connecting different sectors of the opposition to one transformation. another and to social sectors in a rapidly changing con- text of structural transformation, of weakening unions, and So the Concertación says, listen, we haven’t done badly. so forth. The economic crisis of 1982-83 started a cycle It has been a great success. So why should we make any of mobilization which had the effect of gathering people fundamental changes? Why should we change the consti- together, overcoming their fear and forging a political al- tution? We have democratized Chile and that was, indeed, liance, but without any idea as to how to get rid of the a very important transformation. Moreover, they claim to dictatorship. At the same time the communists, who were have corrected neoliberalism. But in correcting it they not part of the socialist opposition, wanted to get rid of the have consolidated it, re-established its legitimacy. In other dictatorship through insurrection. Their attempt to assas- words, they failed to break the ties of this transformed sinate Pinochet failed. Until the dictatorship called for the society to Pinochet, to the dictatorship’s socio-economic plebiscite to keep Pinochet in power, the opposition had no model and its non-democratic regime. The government clear strategy. Although it was a very diffi cult decision, the may be democratic, politics may be democratic, but the opposition decided to contest the plebiscite. As one of the regime is not democratic. 13 rightist civilian supporters of the dictatorship recognized, the plebiscite was the regime’s big mistake as it played MB: What do you mean by that? What does it mean into the hands of the opposition. The only thing they knew to have a democratic politics under an undemocratic how to do was to win elections! regime? Sounds like a Leninist formula!

Despite all the tricks and power resources of the regime, MAG: I mean, fi rst, the constitution has never been dem- the opposition prevailed. So the mechanism the dictator- ocratically approved. So it is not legitimate in its origins. ship chose to perpetuate itself proved to be its undoing. But second, the constitution established a political system As regards the opposition, as long as it was a matter of where the minority which supported the dictatorship had getting out the “no” vote, it didn’t matter that they had no equal electoral power to the majority that was against it. The program for the future. electoral system makes it very diffi cult for a constituency to elect two candidates from the same party, even if the MB: This is a strange way for a dictatorship to end, to party wins the majority of the votes. And so the members of commit suicide. What were the consequences of the Congress are always evenly divided between two blocs, but plebiscite road to democracy? to change the constitution you need a 75% majority. So it’s impossible. What, after all, is the constitution for? It’s for MAG: One of the consequences was to get rid of the dicta- maintaining the economic model. It has one line about the torship but not its institutional framework or its economic right to life, and three pages about property rights. model. That is very important. It is the only country in the world that after a long dictatorship, with a constitution cre- MB: So what’s so bad about the socioeconomic order? ated by the dictatorship, has not created its own constitu- All these indicators point to it being a success. tion. It’s the only case in Latin America of a transition to democracy in which there was no Constituent Assembly. MAG: I think that it is a complete failure. Nothing that is good is due to the economic model. It’s due to the price of But this was not inevitable. After winning the plebiscite and copper, to the policies of the Concertación attacking pov- then the elections, the ruling coalition, the Concertación, erty. Solving the economic crisis is not in the model but in could have gone further toward changing the political sys- the counter-cyclical policies of the government. tem without fear of authoritarian regression. >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 MB: So the model is not so bad, it’s without effect? But you cannot make education free for everybody without a deep tax reform. If the children of the bourgeoisie receive MAG: No, no. In the 70s Chile had the second most equal free university education, like everyone else, that can only income distribution in Latin America. In 2000 it had the sec- be because they are paying for it in heavy taxes. This means ond most unequal income distribution after Brazil (with Uru- changing the economic model, which in turn requires chang- guay always the most egalitarian). The income distribution ing the political system. in Sweden, before taxes, is more unequal than in Chile, but after taxes, Chile’s income distribution is one of the worst MB: So you’re saying this is a revolutionary demand? in the world whereas Sweden’s is one of the best. Second, there is no other educational system more segregated than MAG: I call it a foundational demand, different from de- the Chilean one, whether by neighborhood, class, income, mands for better conditions. It seems to me that the stu- or any other measure. In 1970, to be sure, there were fewer dent movement in Chile plays the same role, without having students studying, but then 75% were in the public system, access to government or parties, as do the movements in today the fi gure is less than 35%. So you don’t have a so- Venezuela and in Bolivia, namely to break the relation be- ciety, you have a market with some correction by the state. tween state and society inherited from dictatorships. And so There’s an important break between politics and society. If in that sense it is “revolutionary,” but it is not revolutionary in the Chinese and the copper disappear, the country will dis- the sense of method. The other foundational aspect of the appear. The model is based on exports, on commodities, student movement is that, in my opinion, it is the fi rst social and on people’s debt. It has the worst labor relations laws movement in contemporary Chilean history that is not based in the world. You have 8% of the work force under collective on that historical imbrication with the political system that I bargaining. It is the only country without a policy toward in- mentioned above. digenous people, the Mapuche. And it’s a country that loves anti-depressant medication. MB: So the privatized education is based on an eco- nomic model that cannot be changed without change MB: But weren’t you saying earlier that poverty has of the constitution and the associated political sys- been eradicated? tem, and such a change, in turn, requires rebuilding the relation between politics and society. But, Manuel MAG: If the standard measurement is used, poverty has Antonio, who can possibly undertake this break – the fallen from 50% under the dictatorship to around 15%. But, one that already occurred in Brazil, Venezuela, and Bo- 14 you know, people who are above the poverty line today can livia – that will take us from a post-Pinochet market be below the poverty line tomorrow. There’s no public sys- society to a more democratic one? tem of social protection. MAG: In Chile all historical projects were made through the MB: OK. You’ve made your case. Now we must turn to connection of parties and movements: “industrialization” the student movement. To what extent does it refl ect by the popular front (communists, socialists, and radicals), these inequalities? And to what extent do students “agrarian reform” by Christian Democracy (church and peas- have a political project of their own? ant movements), “socialism” by the Unidad Popular (so- cialists, communists, and other parties). The fi ght against MAG: There are different interpretations of the student the dictatorship was made by the Concertación and the movement. There are those who say it is a typical middle- Communist Party but today that alliance is not enough to class movement. Students are discontent because they bring democracy, which requires reestablishing the link with have got a lot and all they want is more. Discontent is one movements. There have been moments when this seemed crucial dimension of every social movement, but it doesn’t possible but they failed. A new possibility is now opened up explain anything. If we are to talk about discontent, then it with the recent presidential election. Michelle Bachelet was is the parents who are most unhappy because they have to elected with a large majority and the fi rst point on her pro- go into debt to pay their children’s student fees. gram is a new Constitution. The combination of her promise with social mobilization could unleash a democratic, par- The most signifi cant demand of the students has been for ticipatory, and institutional constituent process that could public education which includes three elements. First, the begin with a plebiscite. A new democratic constitution and system of public education must be majoritarian and he- a Constituent Assembly would provide new connections be- gemonic. You can have a place for private education but it tween politics and society, creating new parties and so on. must be regulated. Second, the law must forbid for-profi t schools, and prohibit the present system in which the state MB: Manuel Antonio, that was amazing – you covered subsidizes the private profi t of entrepreneurs in the school the whole 40 years since the coup! That was quite an system and even in higher education. The third demand is education for me as it will be for our readers. Thank for free public higher education and without subsidizing pri- you so much. vate higher education.

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 > Uruguay at the Vanguard of Latin America

by Felipe Arocena, University of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay

A demonstration to legalize marijuana out- side the Legislative Palace in Montevideo.

15

ruguay, a small country of marriage between two men, followed America is the “other West,” it seems three million people, sur- by others between men as well as be- that to date gay marriage is almost prised the world with two tween women. In addition to Uruguay, exclusively Western, surely due to this Ulaws it passed in 2013: there are two other South American region’s more pronounced seculari- one allowing marriage between peo- countries with similar legislation: zation, its process of modernization, ple of the same sex and the other le- neighboring countries, Brazil and Ar- and the expansion of rights. galizing marijuana. If we add a third gentina. Beyond that, only twelve law passed in 2012 decriminalizing other states in the world offi cially ac- The proposed Law on the Regu- abortion, it would not be inaccurate cept gay marriage: Sweden, Norway, lation of Marijuana was approved in to say that the country is now at the France, Spain, Iceland, Belgium, Lux- December 2013. According to this vanguard of the West. embourg, Holland, Denmark, Portu- law, “the state will assume responsi- gal, Canada, and South Africa (the bility for the control and regulation of According to the fi rst article of the vast majority of these being located in the activities of import, export, plant- Uruguayan Law of Equal Marriage, Western Europe). In Mexico, the Unit- ing, cultivation, harvesting, produc- “civil marriage is a permanent union, ed States of America, and the UK, this tion, acquisition, storage, marketing, by law, of two persons of the opposite right exists only in some territories. If, and distribution of cannabis and its or the same sex.” In August 2013, following José Guilherme Merquior’s derivatives.” Marijuana growers clubs under this new law, we saw the fi rst classifi cation, we accept that Latin and household cultivation of up to >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 six plants per household will also be and risked the lives of low-income the early twentieth century in which legal. No other country in the world women, who could not pay for higher it adopted legislation considered has given the state public control over quality procedures. avant-garde at the time, eliminating the production, distribution, and sale the death penalty (1907), accepting of marijuana. The expected effects These three laws have been passed divorce initiated by women (1913), are twofold. First, to distance mari- because the ruling Frente Amplio mandating an eight-hour work day juana consumers from drug traffi ck- (Broad Front) party has an absolute, (1915), and approving women’s suf- ing – and from the victimization and offi cial majority in the current Parlia- frage (1927). The country advanced violence with which it is associated. ment. This governing party, actually a so much in the early decades of the Second, it inaugurates an unprec- coalition of parties and groups rang- last century that many were alarmed edented strategy of combating drug ing from center to left, was created that it was becoming socialist. Third, traffi cking itself. Uruguayan President in 1971 and fi rst came to power in even though the population is com- José Mujica argues that if decades 2005, winning re-election in 2010. paratively old, a large proportion of repression have not ameliorated Meanwhile, support for these laws came of age during the cultural, this situation, the time has come to from opposition parties varies. While sexual, and political revolution of the try new solutions. If the Uruguayan equal marriage had widespread sup- 1960s. Fourth, the country is going “laboratory” shows positive results, port from lawmakers, the other two through one of its most positive pe- other countries in the Organization of laws have been much more contro- riods in many decades: its political American States (OAS) – which are versial, and almost half of the leg- democracy is complete (according already looking at alternatives – are islators opposed them. Such differ- to all the international indicators of more likely to think seriously about ences refl ect similar patterns in the contemporary democracies), the adopting a similar approach. population at large. economy has grown at an average of around 5% per year in the last In 2012 Uruguay also passed the These laws clearly refl ect the coun- ten years, and society has become Law on the Voluntary Termination try’s leftist government that has been more egalitarian and less poor as a of Pregnancy, whose second arti- in power for the last eight years with result of strong social policies that cle states, “voluntary termination of a legislative majority that allows it to redistribute wealth. Uruguay is living pregnancy will not be penalized [...] pass such initiatives in Congress. But through a period only comparable to during the fi rst twelve weeks of preg- this would only be a superfi cial expla- the beginning of the twentieth cen- 16 nancy.” In this area, Uruguay is also nation. On a more thick, sociological tury, when it was considered to have one of the few places in Latin America level, what deeper forces of Uruguay- one of the best conditions of well- to recognize women’s right to abor- an society are fi nding expression in being on the planet. tion (along with Cuba, Guyana, Puerto these laws? How can we understand Rico, and Mexico City). A woman’s them, in a country that often defi nes It is likely that in the near future, desire alone provides suffi cient basis itself as culturally conservative – and many Western countries will pass for all the health institutions in the has one of the oldest populations on measures very similar to those de- country to provide this service. Parlia- the continent? scribed here, and therefore it is not ment had already approved this law inaccurate to say that Uruguay is pav- fi ve years ago, but former president There are at least four relevant ing the way for a more general expan- Tabaré Vázquez, a medical oncologist factors. First, Uruguayan society is sion of rights. At the same time, such by profession, vetoed it. Among the one of the most secular on the con- laws may face severe obstacles as in arguments in the law’s favor, two are tinent and probably in the world. As so many countries, with their differ- central. First, women’s right to decide historian Carlos Real de Azua wrote, ent cultural traditions, they would be about their pregnancies, and second, Uruguay is the dimmest star in the viewed as an abomination. doing away with the network of under- Latin American Catholic sky. Second, ground clinics that provided abortions the country already had a period in

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 > How Public is Uruguay’s Public Education?

by Adriana Marrero, University of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay, and member of ISA Research Committees on Sociology of Education (RC04), Sociological Theory (RC16) and Women and Society (RC32), and Leandro Pereira, University of the Republic, Monte- video, Uruguay

Uruguay’s parliament surrounded by pro- testing teachers.

17

here is a country, Uruguay, where between 80 currently through secondary education – receives a laptop and 90% of students of all ages attend pub- computer with Internet access from the state. In honor of lic education. Yes, public. Private education the national fl ower (the ceibo) the “CEIBAL Plan”1 enables Trepresents no more than about 15% – a rate even the poorest to take the laptops home, where they can that has varied little historically. Public education is totally use them to learn, share, and play. free, from preschool to university, including at the master’s and doctoral levels. In addition to being free, university We might suppose that a system with these charac- education is open-access, without exclusionary exams or teristics – public, free, and open, in a country with low quotas, so any high-school graduate may enroll. Further- population growth (0.19% per year) and where only 22% more, despite Latin American religiosity, Uruguayan pub- of the population is under 15 years old, in an area with lic education has been secular since 1917 – and even a temperate climate and without geographical or cultural in the nineteenth century, religious education was an op- barriers – would be able to provide inclusive education and tion parents could refuse. In addition, in Uruguay, women equitable educational results. But it does not. have surpassed men in educational achievement since the beginning of the twentieth century; today, they have According to the 2012 PISA (Program for International higher average levels of education than men. Women also Student Assessment) Report for Uruguay, “Uruguay contin- represent almost three quarters of university and tertiary ues to show a very pronounced inequality in sociocultural enrollment and an even higher percentage of graduates. development. While 89% of students who attend educa- This educational “paradise” was the fi rst country in the tional institutions in ‘very unfavorable’ sociocultural contexts world to adopt the MIT program “One laptop per child,” rank below Level 2, only 13% of students in the ‘most fa- through which every student and teacher in every school – vorable’ contexts fall below this rank. The gap between the >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 two extremes is as wide as 170 on the Mathematics exam, corporate interests have taken over. The ANEP, which is making Uruguay a country of high educational inequality. responsible for mandatory education and teacher training, This result has been a constant throughout the four cycles is ruled by mechanisms that together contribute to low- of PISA exams in which the country has participated.” ering the quality of teaching and lock the system into a self-referential and complacent bubble. On the one hand, To put it simply, the most advantaged children, on aver- teacher training still follows the model of the traditional age, score higher than the averages in Norway (489) or school, without being informed by research. On the other the United States (481), while the poorest score much hand, promotions are made on the basis of simple seniori- lower than those of Qatar (376), Indonesia (375) or Peru ty without any evaluations of teacher development or com- (368). What’s more, of the students scoring the highest, petitiveness. The hiring of new teachers remains closed 75% attend private schools. by the very people who run ANEP which expressly exclude teacher credentialing by universities. As if this were not If the results of the PISA exam are not convincing to the enough, teachers are almost impossible to fi re. reader – indeed, there may be justifi ed objections to the in- ternational comparisons, even if there are fewer against the In secondary education – the true bottleneck of the edu- internal comparisons the instrument allows – we can also cational system – more than a third of classes are missed draw on information generated internally within the country. due to teacher absences, and as many as 40% of students In Uruguay, at higher levels of education, the poorest stu- end up repeating grades. Primary education, where there dents are progressively stripped away – primarily due to high is less teacher absenteeism, has high rates of grade rep- rates of school dropout and grade repetition. According to etition as well. In 2013, the struggle for higher salaries offi cial data from the National Statistics Institute’s House- – which have grown steeply since the Leftist government hold Survey (2012), 95.3% of children aged 6-11 attend took offi ce in 2005, to the point that the starting salary for primary school, 73.8% of those aged 12-14 attend second- a teacher today is more than double that of a university ary school, and only 51.4% of those aged 15-17 attend professor – has left the poorest children without classes high school. Finally, only 23.7% of young people aged 18 for more than a month in total. This does not include other to 24 attend university. Inequality between quintiles based strikes that opposed attempts at reform, proposed by suc- on household income points in the same direction: at age cessive governments in the post-dictatorship period, in- 3, in the highest quintile, nine of every ten children attend cluding those of the left. Private schools, which are less le- school, while in the lowest quintile the rate is only one out of nient about teacher absences even though they pay lower 18 two. By age 22, 57% of young people in the highest quintile salaries than the public schools, have not suffered from attend university, compared to only 9% in the lowest. this type of corporate onslaught. From this perspective, there is little “public” about Uruguayan education. So, what is wrong here? How is it possible that an edu- cational system based on principles that sought to ensure Aware of the Uruguayan attachment to the public as inclusion and equality could have such unequal and exclu- a sphere that mediates between society and state power sive results? and of the strong importance of public education in shap- ing the Uruguayan identity – and also of citizens’ distrust We believe the problem can be located in the meaning of market mechanisms,2 teachers’ unions have contributed of “public.” The education that Uruguay calls “public” re- to what we can call a “refeudalization.” With cries of war, ally has very little connection to the notion of “public” as brandishing the banner of “public education,” they have it is understood in democratic and pluralistic societies. All claimed the right to sustain, without compromise, their formal education, from preschool to university, is managed corporate interests – expressed in privileges and perks that by two autonomous entities: the National Administration of foster irresponsibility in the face of educational inequality Public Education (ANEP) and the University of the Republic and violate the right to education of the children who need – both of which are separated from the sphere of formal it most. Claiming for themselves the right to make deci- politics. Although there is a Ministry of Education includ- sions about education without a single concession, the ed in the Executive Branch, it has practically no say over unions deny other citizens the right to critique, debate, educational affairs. Even though the Constitution states and to make proposals. Thus, Uruguay may tout its public that “Sovereignty resides in the Nation,” as expressed by education, but it is not quite as public as it sounds. ballots in obligatory elections every fi ve years, the will of the Uruguayan people regarding education policy cannot fi nd expression, either through the bicameral legislature 1 “Ceibal” (meaning a group of ceibos), is the acronym for “Conectividad Edu- cativa de Informática Básica para el Aprendizaje en Línea” or “Educational Con- or through the Executive Branch – where the Ministry of nectivity and Basic Information Technology for Online Learning.” Education has its hands tied. 2 As an illustration, it’s worth remembering how, in 1993, in the middle of a process of privatization that affected the whole world, the citizens of Uruguay voted with a Meanwhile, in the entities that govern education – which 72% majority to repeal a law that enabled privatization of public companies. have immense autonomy enshrined by the Constitution –

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 > Uruguay’s Miracle Redistribution and the Growth of Unionism

by Marcos Supervielle, University of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay and Board member of ISA Research Committee on Work (RC30), and Mariela Quiñones, Univer- sity of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay

Improving he second leftist govern- duced, increasing the numbers en- 19 “ ment in Uruguay, elected rolled in social security and expand- equity would in 2009, has deepened its ing the number of benefi ciaries of all Tpro-labor policies through legal labor rights. Fulltime employ- not have been Wage Councils and a tripartite system ment with benefi ts – or good quality to fi x the minimum wage for all oc- employment – grew from 55% of all possible without cupational categories in all sectors of those employed in 2004 to 69% in the economy. In doing so, it played 2011. In this period, youth employ- a very strong a strategic role in promoting progres- ment also increased and labor unrest political will sive income redistribution. In recent diminished. To be sure the latter still ” years real wages have grown by 4% fl uctuates in conjunction with cycles per annum, and the minimum wage of labor relations – those of pub- has increased by 250%. Previous to lic workers linked to votes on public the arrival of the leftist government budgets and those of private workers in 2004, the average salary repre- linked to the term limits of collective sented 6.5 times the minimum wage, bargaining agreements – but broadly, whereas today the average salary is and over the long term, labor confl icts only three times the minimum wage. have decreased. Contrary to conventional wisdom that redistributive policies reduce levels All this was possible due to a very of employment, the unemployment favorable economic situation that rates fell from 13.7% before the fi rst ran counter to the crisis occurring leftist government came to power in in more developed countries. Such 2004 to about 6.1% on average dur- a bonanza was a necessary condi- ing its second term in offi ce. tion for improving social redistribu- tion, but it would not be suffi cient Moreover, the jobs available dur- by itself. Improving equity in soci- ing this period increasingly offered ety would not have been possible decent work. Informal labor was re- without a very strong political will, >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 especially policies that had such This explosive growth in union ac- the historic leftism. At the ideological dramatic consequences, reducing tivity has had several consequences. level, in some sectors, radical union poverty from about 40% to 12% of On the one hand, it generated an currents appeared and developed the population and extreme poverty outpouring of classic union ideolo- strong anti-government positions. In from 4.5% to 0.5%. gies. Traditionally, Uruguayan unions other sectors, corporate rhetoric pre- have remained separate from the vailed, breaking with traditions that As we have noted, a social mech- state and corporations, but also from integrated union grievances into a anism that has played a central political parties – at least in the or- broad political strategy to modernize role in this process was the so- ganic sense – including parties of the the country and improve the positions called Wage Councils. These coun- left. The infl uence of the latter oper- of the lowest ranks of society. These cils, which have had a long history ated through the leftist tendencies of new union tendencies, which in cer- in Uruguay, were reinvented by the leaders who could only arrive at such tain situations have proven extremely fi rst leftist government, and became a position through democratic elec- aggressive, have seemed to be alter- entrenched as policy in its second tions by the rank-and-fi le members. ing the broad organization of union- term. The exponential growth in Another tradition of Uruguayan union- ism, generating challenges to the old rates of unionization contributed ism is that each company or sector of patterns and creating new relation- to making the changes effective. production has its own particular un- ships with the future government. In Indeed, unionization has grown by ion, turning unions into micro political practice, a new corporate grievance approximately 300% since 2005, systems concerned with local issues, process has developed – and even reaching a total of 350,000 mem- which could be very divisive in the become dominant in certain sectors bers to date. By the end of 2013, wider political sphere. As a result, the – that is exclusively oriented towards the central union predicts that this central Uruguayan union – the PIT- increasing wages, without tying these number will reach 380,000, ap- CNT – has always contained a broad grievances to any broader vision of proximately 12% of the population range of union tendencies, albeit all the world, as had been the tradition of the country or 24% of the salaried of the left. among unions. Perhaps, we are also labor force. There was an enormous seeing a new left, operating within the growth not only in membership but Through these democratic tradi- traditional union structures, or, alter- also in the creation of new unions tions, paradoxically, unionism lost natively, creating new structures for in sectors where none had existed some of its political coherence as a new vision of society based on the 20 before, such as in rural areas or in new leaders, arising from below, did world of work. domestic work. not necessarily align themselves with

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 > Uruguay’s Agrarian Revolution

by Diego E. Piñeiro, University of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay

21

From traditional cattle ranching… to multi-national pulp industry. Photos by Emilio Fernández.

n 2002 a deep economic and ments engaged in the production of has experienced an increased intensi- social crisis struck Uruguay af- commodities for export. Due to the ty in land use. The country combined ter twenty years of neoliberal early formation of capitalist agricul- increased exploitation of new land for Ireforms, under the direction of ture, wage workers provided much of growing grains and oilseeds with an the traditional parties. In 2005, the the rural labor force, but, at the same increase in the productivity of live- leftist Frente Amplio (Broad Front) time, there was also a sizable num- stock, resulting in increased produc- won the election and began the ardu- ber of family producers (more farm- tion and exports despite the loss of ous task of rebuilding the country. In ers than peasants) of European origin two million hectares. To these forms subsequent years the economy grew who produced food for the internal of production – which can be thought at the highest rate on the continent, market. At the beginning of the new of as more traditional – we must add while redistributive policies managed century much of that social structure forestry. Thanks to government sub- to reduce poverty and destitution at was revolutionized in an ongoing pro- sidies, which began in 1987, there unprecedented rates. Many of these cess that I will describe here. are today more than a million forest- achievements were due to the strong ed hectares, processed by two pulp growth of the agricultural sector, Since the end of the last century production plants constructed and which underwent a profound struc- there has been a growing demand in operated by multinational corpora- tural transformation in those years. the world market for food, fi ber, and tions. Another ingredient affecting the raw materials for the production of relative balance of different forms of The structure of rural society in Uru- biofuels. The inclusion of vast popu- production, is the rise of biofuels, led guay had changed little in the course lations in emerging economies as by the state oil company. of the twentieth century. At its sum- new consumers has raised the prices mit were the owners of relatively large of these products. As a producer of Land prices provide a clear indicator livestock and agricultural establish- these goods in high demand, Uruguay of these changes in the agricultural >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 Biofuel for today, hunger for tomorrow? Illustration by Arbu.

agrarian world looks completely dif- ferent from what it was in the last half of the twentieth century.

The dramatic change in landscape and agriculture resulted from several processes that fed on each other. First, changes in the regulatory frame- work facilitated the penetration of fi - nance capital across a wide range of agricultural enterprises. Second, organizational changes within fi rms, particularly the construction of “net- work enterprises,” gave capital the resources to operate with extraordi- nary contractual fl exibility. Third, there has been an increasing outsourcing of agricultural work to contractors who service agricultural machinery by drawing on their social networks to re- cruit and manage work crews. Fourth, technological changes, which come 22 with precision agriculture, increase dependence of producers on geneti- cally modifi ed seeds with agrochemi- cals and new machinery. In the area of livestock, this includes the application world. During the last decade, the av- with the rise of foreign ownership. of vaccines, new products to maintain erage price of land has increased sev- Preliminary data from the same Cen- animal health, feedlots, and so on. enfold. But for the largest farms (over sus of 2011 show that, whereas in 2,500 hectares) the increase has 2000 90% of Uruguayan land was At the same time, the arrival of been twelve-fold, leading both small in the hands of individuals physi- new information and communication and large producers to sell their land. cally living in Uruguay, eleven years technologies (computers, Internet The result has been a growing con- later that fi gure dropped to 54%. By access, cellular phones, etc.) pro- centration and foreign ownership of 2011, 43% of Uruguayan land was in foundly altered the management of land. Preliminary data from the most the hands of legal “persons,” main- agricultural companies. These tech- recent Agricultural Census of 2011 ly “Anonymous Societies,” most of nologies, combined with infrastructur- show that if in the year 2000 there whom were citizens and corporations al improvements and the expansion were 57,131 agricultural plots, elev- of other nationalities. of the use of light vehicles, altered en years later only 44,890 remained. the organization of the workforce, Even though 91% of the 12,241 plots Thus, we have gone from a land- linking workers to one another and that disappeared had fewer than 100 scape dominated by extensive live- to the urban areas, shifting the cul- surface hectares, there are indicators stock holding to one with vast ex- tural boundaries between “country” that point to the displacement not panses of grain and forest cultivation, and “city.” This reconfi guration of the only of smallholders as in the dec- production of biofuels, the domina- structure of agriculture and rural so- ades of the 70s and 80s but also of tion of large corporations, the adop- ciety is creating new actors and new the owners of local livestock. tion of large machinery, the gradual alliances, demanding investigation exodus of a rural population to the especially in a country with a long tra- The consolidation of a new tier of cities and small towns, high land dition of agriculture and which aspires landowners has had an indisputable concentration, foreign ownership and to improve its democracy, equity, and cultural impact not least associated so forth – to the point that today the sustainability.

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 > The Rise of Hungary’s Mafi a Society

by György Csepeli, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

Appearing on the cover of the widely read Heti Világgazdaság (World Economy Week- ly), the ruling party (Fidesz) is portrayed as a mafi a.

process had really expected the tran- 23 sition to the new order. The common people certainly were not in favor of the change and they soon realized that the novelties of the system, in particular entrepreneurship and un- employment, were not to their taste.

Among the countries living in state socialism Hungary was known for tolerating a certain kind of entrepre- neurship in agriculture. According to Ivan Szelenyi’s book, Socialist Entre- preneurs, during state-socialist Hun- gary about 10% of the population were involved in activities that had an entrepreneurial appearance. En- trepreneurship, however, in the sense ore than twenty years certain Transition, observers of this of Western capitalism, was not only have passed in Hun- process were divided in their inter- not permitted but it was considered gary since the annus pretation, caught between the grand a crime. Szelenyi’s theory of “inter- Mmirabili of 1989, when narratives of “the end of history” and rupted embourgeoisement” proved to state socialism suddenly ceased to the “new, unknown orbit of postmo- be wrong. The ex-socialist entrepre- exist and gave way to a new system dernity.” The reality turned out to be neurs quickly realized that under the based on liberal principles. It was rather different. new dispensation entrepreneurship then that the transition to a market was too risky and most of them failed. economy and democracy began. As Except for a few radical intellec- Success was contingent on networks Michael Burawoy and Katherine Ver- tuals and well-informed high-ranking rather than on talent or achievement. dery wrote in their introduction to Un- Communist cadres, no agents of the Many of the new post-socialist entre- >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 preneurs did not derive from former come disoriented. Freedom of thought has changed since there are no more “socialist entrepreneurs” but from has become a nightmare for those citi- Turks, Habsburgs or Soviets to target. former high-ranking cadres. zens who were afraid of thinking. The new external enemy is now sit- ting in Brussels. The European Union Many of those who came from the These two kinds of insecurity have has become the focus of Hungary’s working class or from middle and lower led to a democratic revolt against nationalist resentment. Paradoxically, cadre positions have had to face the liberalism. With the landslide victory or perhaps not so paradoxically, the likelihood of unemployment. One and for the Nationalist Coalition in 2010, anti-European Union rhetoric fakes a half million former employees of the democracy has devoured its children. ignorance of the funds pouring into bankrupt state economy immediately On the 25th anniversary of the transi- the country from various EU sources. lost their jobs as a consequence of tion it could well happen that Hungary the transition from a “shortage econ- will return to state socialism, only this The mafi a state has produced three omy” to a “surplus economy.” The dif- time it will appear in the guise of na- social clusters. One is the cluster ferences in income and consumption tional socialism. within the closed circles of the rul- between the richest and the poorest ing political families. The second families have become more marked, According to Bálint Magyar Hungar- consists of believers who are willing especially in recent years. Marginal- ian society today can be characterized to consume the nationalist message ized populations that include Roma, as a “mafi a state,” partitioned into of the government. They are ready to elderly people living in remote rural closed circles within which social ties participate in the System of National areas, and the homeless have lost all are thick but between which ties barely Cooperation as it is called by the rul- hope of catching up with society at exist. Or to put it in sociological terms, ing party. There are several reasons large. Ethnic and territorial inequali- following Mark Granovetter, the preva- for this enthusiasm: ardent anti-Com- ties have overlapped, resulting in the lence of strong ties has given rise to munism, drives to recruit neophytes, emergence of ghetto-like settlements the mafi a state that, in turn, has in- experiences of injustice under the pri- in Northern Hungary. Discrimination hibited the development of social or- or regime of state socialism or simply and a culture of poverty make the life ganization based on weak ties. In con- careerism. The third cluster of Hun- of the Roma minority miserable. sequence, the absence of civil society garians consists of the new emigrants organizations based on weak ties has whose numbers have increased in In addition to material insecurity, restricted national competitiveness the past few years. According to a 24 there is a sense of epistemological in- and the growth of the economy. study by Ágnes Hárs, it is the better security that emerged with the open- educated, young people, residing in ing of spaces for competing world- In order to secure their legitimacy, Western Transdanubia (adjoining Aus- views and ideologies. Vaclav Havel’s leaders of the “mafi a state” neces- tria), and the old industrial heartland famous greengrocer, living in social- sarily resort to a nationalist ideology. of Northern Hungary that provide the ism, demonstrated that “living a lie is People outside the mafi as that con- backbone of this emigration. living a lie.” No matter whether they trol the mechanisms of redistribution were in power or were powerless, be- of goods and services get their share For those who remain in Hungary, lievers in socialism as well as the op- of redistribution in symbolic goods – however, there is no other exit from position were convinced that truth and the endlessly repeated message of the present situation than to reestab- falsity were clear, water-tight catego- nationalist ideology that Hungarians lish some sense of social trust, that ries. With the transition from the party are born as freedom fi ghters, com- is, the capacity to develop coopera- state to political pluralism, the frontier batting internal and external enemies tion among members of society who between truth and falsity disappeared who are joined in a conspiracy. The are strangers to one another. The task – a division that before the transition internal enemy does not need to be must be to break out of the captivity had seemed so permanent. Unaccus- defi ned as it has been stable and well of close ties and to create many new tomed to choosing between compet- known for a long time, namely the communities based on weak ties. ing truths and lies people have be- Jews. The external enemy, however,

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 > The Fate of Class in Contemporary Hungary

by Eszter Bartha, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

he fi rst question that comes to mind is whether the concept of class has any relevance in post- 25 industrial society or indeed, what academic Tdiscussion would gain by bringing class back in. The career of the concept of “class” in Eastern Europe was closely linked to the development of state socialism, which proclaimed the working class to be the ruling class.

The eventual and rapid collapse of communist regimes across the region in 1989 discredited the legitimizing nar- ratives of the offi cial working-class histories. The events of that year disproved notions of a simple equivalence between class position and class consciousness found in the dominant trends of Marxist thought. While, in 1989, there were some East European intellectuals who still ar- gued for a democratic socialism based on workers con- trol1, other groups, including many of the reformers, were calling for a “third way” between capitalism and socialism, and some for the creation of a social democracy based on a mixed economy and strong trade unions. It was also widely expected that the working class would not support the restoration of capitalism or even a reformist collectivist alternative. Of course, this expectation proved to be wrong, and there was little effective working-class resistance to the introduction of a capitalist economy. Indeed, there was not a single country in Eastern Europe where workers sup- ported any kind of democratic socialist alternative to the existing system. Nor was the East European political and intellectual climate favorable for revisiting the concept of class after the change of regime: all forms of class theory Abandoned industrial ruins – where once there were armies of workers, now there are snooping dogs. Photo by Balázs Gárdi. were regarded as utterly discredited, and the working class >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 was often uncritically associated with the state socialist ly increased since 1989. Many of my respondents com- past, as intellectual elites invested in futures based on plained that their children can’t compete with the children “embourgeoisement,” which downplayed the social and of managers, doctors, and lawyers, who start their adult political roles of industrial workers. life with much better chances (due to private language courses, sports classes, dance school, ski camps, etc.). Why is it, then, necessary to rethink the concept of class in Eastern Europe? The project of ‘‘embourgeoisement” This criticism of the new regime failed, however, to promised the people a rapid catching-up with the standard translate into a fully-fl edged anti-capitalist critique. Typi- of living of the middle classes in the advanced capitalist cally, workers still expected the state to protect the do- countries of the West and the maintenance of universal mestic producers from the unfair competition of multi- employment and social security that they enjoyed under national companies and they saw the strong state and socialism. Twenty years after the collapse of state social- a kind of “third-road” national capitalism as a positive ism the failure of this project has become clearly visible for alternative. This reaction can be attributed to the lack of the masses. Privatization increased social mistrust since a strong anti-capitalist public sphere, to the discrediting postsocialist capitalism everywhere created greater social of the term “working class” as well as deeper historical- and material inequalities than had existed under state so- economic reasons, which have conserved the backward- cialism. The drastic contraction of heavy industry resulted ness of the region. in massive unemployment while foreign capital imposed unfair competition on domestic enterprises, which badly However, these Hungarian tendencies can also be ob- needed capital and infrastructural investments. Western served in advanced Western countries such as the United authors also criticized neoliberal capitalism as a new “co- States: political corruption, broadening of class divisions, lonial” project for Eastern Europe.2 expansion of the underclass, weakening of labor unions, etc. Could it be that postsocialist countries are holding To the question of what kind of new structural positions up a mirror to the West, pointing to a global convergence postsocialist capitalism created in Hungary, we can answer of social and economic problems alongside the political that – in accordance with Western trends – it decreased the consequences of the downgrading of class that reinforces industrial sector while it signifi cantly increased the share of ethnic-populist ideologies among the working people? It the service sector of the economy. Moreover, outsourcing has become customary to argue that in postindustrial so- reinforced structural inequalities between East and West, ciety with its corporate culture, talent, achievement and 26 which explains the relatively low proportion of capitalists diligence decide who will climb the ladder so that “equal and the high proportion of unskilled workers in Hungary in competition” creates socially acceptable occupational comparison with Western Europe. Szalai argues that a dual and material inequalities. This was also the ideology of model is needed to describe contemporary Hungarian soci- postsocialist capitalism, which brought as much disillu- ety in which she distinguishes between the workers of the sionment as the earlier offi cial Marxism-Leninism. Firstly, multinational companies and the workers of the domestic competition is not equal; secondly, the great social and sector. The latter are poorly paid, heavily exploited “brico- material inequalities that ruthless capitalist competition leurs,” often informally employed and living from one day generates are no longer accepted by the people. Indeed, to the next, while the former can be viewed as part of the many would even accept autocracy in exchange for great- new labor aristocracy. At the same time Szalai stresses the er social justice; here, hopefully, it is the democratic West differentiated character of the Hungarian working class, the that provides the mirror for the future of the East, and not very shallow (or even non-existent) class consciousness and the other way round. the weakness of the local trade unions, all of which impedes 1 In Hungary the idea of democratic socialism without the Hungarian Socialist the development of a Hungarian working “class for itself” Workers’ Party (the former Communist Party) was represented most completely and, of course, the representation of the interests of labor.3 by the Leftist Alternative Union (Baloldali Alternatíva Egyesület). After the politi- cal failure of its project, the intellectual heritage of this school was continued by the journal Eszmélet (Consciousness) launched in 1989. The internationally However, these new forms of inequality were not insti- most well-known intellectual of this circle is Tamás Krausz. tutionalized (let alone sanctioned) by Hungarian society. 2 For a review of the literature see: Swain, N. (2011) “A Postsocialist Capitalism,” “This market economy kicked us out” was the overwhelm- Europe-Asia Studies, 63:9, pp.1671-1695. ing feeling among my working-class interviewees.4 Workers 3 Szalai, E. (2004) “Tulajdonviszonyok, társadalomszerkezet és munkásság,” Kritika, were disappointed with “this capitalism.” Their skills and 33:9, pp.2-6. knowledge were downgraded by the new regime and they 4 For a summary of this research see: Bartha, E. (2012) “‘Something went wrong recognized that, although people were not equal under the with this capitalism’: Illusion and doubt in a Hungarian (post)industrial community,” Kádár regime, social-material inequalities have signifi cant- in: Mathijs Pelkmans (ed.) Ethnographies of Doubt. London: I.B. Tauris, pp.191-225.

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 > On the (Ir)responsibility of Elites by György Lengyel, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary

27

The Hungarian prime minister has a pen- he Hungarian Prime Min- “If you have nothing, that’s what you chant for sports… ister has a penchant for are worth.” sports, particularly football. THe often ends his speech- This mentality could be found in es with “Forward, Hungary!” – a for- the Hungary of the late state social- mula he borrowed from Berlusconi. ist period. From the seventies, after Hungarian football is out of sorts now- the decades of wartime privations, adays. So is the political elite, appear- delivery obligations and forced col- ing somewhat feeblish. At the darling lectivization, consolidation opened venue of the Prime Minister’s child- the road for individuals to feather hood, next to his provincial house, their nests through a symbiosis of a stadium is being built with access the quasi-market of the coopera- via a planned narrow-gauge railway. tive and the household plot, redis- Many dislike this. Others don’t. They tribution and the second economy. say: “Let’s be proud of what we have As a result, storied houses began accumulated.” In the vein of what the to crop up in Hungarian villages. Deputy Prime Minister enunciated Many turned out to be hard to heat when still a politician in a rural town: and inconvenient to live in, but they >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 functioned well as prestige goods. The other grave norm-breaching There is no anarchy or dictator- The current ruling elite’s prestige example refers to donations collect- ship in Hungary. However, both may goods are the stadiums. They need ed during election campaigns that emerge, the latter standing a great- not be owned – it suffi ces that they exorbitantly exceeded the legally er chance. With its two-thirds parlia- are associated with their names, permitted amounts. Party funding, mentary majority (actually a minor- like the pyramids, triumphal arches specifi cally campaign funding, is an ity in terms of eligible voters), the and cultural establishments of other obscure, grey zone between legality conservative government has put countries. and illegality which might determine through a new constitution, new law the prospects of the Hungarian po- of the media, a new act concern- However, the main trouble with litical elite. As Transparency Inter- ing elections and a new labor code the Hungarian political elite is not national calculated, in the previous and accomplished all this without vainglory, greed, and tastelessness. elections both leading parties – now fi rst achieving broad support. These I fear that the consolidation of the ruling Fidesz and the opposition So- have cut back earlier rights and en- Hungarian democracy is at stake – cialists – spent at least triple the titlements to a considerable degree, this being the main responsibility of legally allowed amounts. Other spe- restricted the judicial review and the Hungarian political elites. One cialists estimate this spending as far threatened democratic checks and need not be elitist to see that the higher. Several initiatives have been balances. The infl uence of the EU elites have a fundamental role in de- made to modify the political fi nanc- appears to be very limited and the signing social alternatives. And the ing act so as to make campaign fi - voice of critical intellectuals is also political elite here and now is merely nancing more transparent, but none faint. The Prime Minister’s manag- simulating adjustment to the demo- have been passed. This is not a spe- ing style is authoritarian and toxic; cratic institutions while it behaves in cifi cally Hungarian phenomenon, but people are afraid of the uncertain- a norm-breaching manner in weighty here and now the consolidation of ties caused by the protracted cri- and signifi cant matters. democracy is at stake. Apparently, sis so they call for social care and it is the interest of the ruling elite greater equality. Two such violations can be men- to keep up the muddled grey zone tioned briefl y. One is the denun- around party fi nancing. The elite re- This encourages populist rheto- ciation of the elite settlement. The alizes but overlooks how much this ric that presents itself as the fi ght acceleration of the replacement of situation is untenable. To be more for “economic freedom,” displays 28 elites before the great changeover precise, it sees it clearly but tends to an arrogance towards international contributed to a process of politi- interpret it in ideological terms. political partners and becomes the cal transformation that took place excuse to levy special taxes such fairly quickly and without major so- A former Socialist Prime Minis- as those imposed on the banks and cial shocks. This, in turn, facilitated ter, who has founded a new party other economic branches mostly of the agreement between the state- since his premiership, hinted at the foreign ownership. It is also pos- socialist elite and the elites of the past absurdities in the funding of sible that this is not mere rhetoric rising democratic opposition. The the two large antagonist parties, but the governing elite does indeed roundtables of 1989 constituted but said he was waiting for charges think that they have to fi ght against a mechanism of elite settlement to be laid against him, before pro- external political and economic con- through which the elite structure viding the concrete data in court. It straints to avoid the “country be- appeared to develop a consensual is not quite clear what keeps him coming a colony,” and that they have project. There was a broad con- from telling the truth beforehand. to considerably cut back the coun- sensus around the adoption of the The present Prime Minister men- try’s external debts amounting to rules of parliamentary democracy tioned that a ruthless segment of 80% of the GDP because “someone with basic freedoms, the multiparty big business had wriggled itself into in debt is no longer free.” Sociolo- system and respect for private prop- politics, first of all into the party gists, however, well know the social erty. Actors mutually accepted each of his adversary, the Socialists. A technique which tries to strengthen other’s legitimacy and the rules of member of the former democratic unity by creating phantom and alien the game. That fractions of the po- opposition and ex-minister argues enemies. As a by-product, a xeno- litical elite, following partisan inter- that the present governing elite has phobic and racist party got into the ests, often re-wrote the operative built up a mafia state, for the gov- Hungarian parliament as a result of rules of the consensually unifi ed ernment can manipulate the econ- the last elections. elite or denied their rival’s legiti- omy and redistribute the revenues macy seemed to be disturbing but to its clientele with the help of laws Over two thirds of the Hungarian minor episodes that could be con- and regulations. adult population speak no foreign veniently overlooked or swept aside. language. The state media present

>>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 foreign criticism of the government What critics fi nd is a mediocre self- playing is to “skate where the puck as offenses against the entire Hun- ishness and manipulative machina- is going to be, and not where it has garian nation. The great majority of tions wherein the governing elite is been.” It is an appropriate metaphor the independent media is tabloid involved in the leasing of state land since the Prime Minister realized which tends to interpret the world and the distribution of tobacco shop that the job of a statesman is to ex- as the struggle between heroes and concessions to clientele. Bibó’s plore the real needs of the masses wicked people. Nowadays the Hun- one-time polemicist, the youth- and to weigh the requirements and garian political elites deserve this ful György Lukács passionately de- possibilities of the future, not only of antagonistic description as they are nounced the claim of a Dostoevsky the present. It seems however that extremely disunited. It is however hero that lying leads to truth, yet a the Prime Minister has not chosen mistaken to think that the consen- little later he found it to be an ac- the right playing style for this manly sual model envisioned in 1989 has ceptable solution. So far this recipe game: while he pretends to see the simply been replaced by a competi- appears to have failed. goal and the only right way toward tive majoritarian model. it, he cuts up the ice rink so much In the spring of 2014, elections and re-writes the rules so thorough- The Prime Minister does not con- will be held in Hungary. There is no ly, there is a chance that when the ceal his intention to overcome this doubt that they will be free elec- teams re-enter the rink, it won’t be disunity by creating a “central fi eld tions. There is, however, some the same game anymore. of forces,” or, in other words, by ce- doubt about the elections being fair, menting his ruling position for sev- and whether they will be controlled It’s cold comfort to know that as eral elections to come. That – he by the norm of restrained partisan- long as there are free elections, there claims – is indispensable for the ship, meaning that the governing is still a chance for the convergence elite to fulfi ll its cultural obligation, elite will refrain from abusing their of the elites, for the opposing parties that is, to put forth examples of how excessive power to manipulate the to abandon their positions so as to to live “nicely, nobly, and tastefully.” media and the voters. arrive at consensus – the precondi- This latter is a literal allusion to a tion for a consolidated democracy. It former political theorist, István Bibó, The Prime Minister likes to cite is cold comfort because this process who emphasized the social respon- people other than political thinkers. might take many years and it is not sibility of the elite. So far the exam- In one of his annual addresses he yet obvious what would usher the 29 ples of elite behavior do not offer cited the bon mot of an ice hockey elites towards this goal. promising prospects for the future. player who said the secret of good

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 NOTES FROM THE FIELD > South Africa Women Miners and the Underground Self

by Asanda Benya, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

30

Asanda and a rock drill operator taking a break from barring.

n South Africa’s large and highly mechanized min- to understand the challenges women face underground. ing industry there are over 48,000 women work- This was followed by a longer period from 2011 to 2012 ing in underground occupations, mainly in platinum when I immersed myself in the underground world working Iand gold mines. These women form part of the core as a winch driver, cleaning blasted rock and hoisting it to workforce and labor as miners or general workers, install- surface, lashing and preparing the face for drilling. ing support structures, water and ventilation pipes or oper- ating different machines used underground. As my shifts started as early as 4am, I had to leave the mine hostel at 3am and make my way to the shaft. Wom- For three months in 2008 I set out to study a platinum en who live further from the mines habitually leave their mine in South Africa as an ethnographer, working and liv- homes as early as 2am. These women have to navigate ing with women underground workers. My main aim was their way through public transport, often taking a bus from >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 NOTES FROM THE FIELD

31 Asanda operating a winch. their village to town, then a taxi from town to the mine hos- in these stopes, working on our knees installing supports tels where they catch a company bus to their respective to prevent rocks from falling while drilling. It was in these shafts. It’s a long, dangerous, and expensive journey which stopes that I was reminded of the immediacy of death. can take close to one third of a worker’s wage – $120-150 dollars a month. My work underground ranged from operating a winch, pumping out water and removing ore, transporting mate- The struggle does not end when we arrive in the shaft, rial to the rock drill operators or assisting some of my but intensifi es when catching the cage from surface to the crew members. Operating the winch was a delicate and stopes, which are located 2-3 kilometers underground. fatal affair which involved controlling the winch ropes Catching the elevator-size cage was always a rude awaken- that, with one tactless hand movement, could easily be- ing, an aggressive event; mired in shoving and ending with come unsynchronized and coil-up. Mastering the art of 50 or more workers tightly squeezed around you. In this operating the winch depended more on tacit knowledge space, to breathe comfortably, while your legs are dangling than on formal training. in the air, one has to synchronize their breathing with that of the person closest to you. Inside the cage, lamps are While all the workers had specifi c occupations and re- switched off, it is an unwritten rule. In that darkness, some sponsibilities, as women we were also seen as assistants workers would take advantage of the proximity and fondle to the “real” workers, men. It was all common to see an your breasts knowing that you cannot move or switch on RDO (rock drill operator) calling you with his lamp to hold your lamp to expose and identify them. steady his drilling stick and another male worker calling you to “help” pump-up roof bolts used to support the hanging When you get underground, it is a different world: dark, wall. None of this was considered work, simply “help,” it dusty, hot, and humid, with protruding rocks and water was only seen as work if done by real workers, men. As puddles. The stopes are short, sometimes as short as 1.2 women we were sometimes delegated cleaning responsi- meters and to move from one end to the other you crawl bilities or fetching water for male crew members. Towards and negotiate the rocks that occasionally were danger- the end of each shift, after drilling, we charged up drilled ously unstable. Sometimes we would spend eight hours holes with explosives and connected blasting cables. >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 NOTES FROM THE FIELD

I quickly learnt that to survive as a woman I had to have Glossary of Mining Terms a thick skin. But in addition to the thick skin I had to learn a way of “being” underground. Alongside the formal rules Cage: an enclosed platform used to transport workers that I was taught on surface and at the training center, and material underground – similar to an elevator. there were informal rules, a different logic and order op- erating underground that was defi ned by men. Operating Lashing/shovelling: the process of clearing blasted outside that logic would indicate that you were an illegiti- rock, forcefully, often using a shovel. mate worker. To be accepted and seen as a real minework- Stope: An opening or room made in the process of er, I had to learn how to walk, talk, work, carry material, excavating and extracting ore. use my lamp like a mineworker. From working with crews I discovered the many “languages” used to communicate Winch: A machine consisting of a rotating drum and a underground. Besides fanakalo, the underground pidgin rope, used to scrape and pull out ore from drilled areas. language, I had to learn other “languages” that were used when the noise from drilling engulfed our stopes, the lamp and glove language. or someone you’ve worked with. Even then, you can only The violence in the cage and dangerous conditions in be disturbed for two days, the day you see the emergency the stopes all seemed to require coping strategies that, at workers going to get the body and the following day, the fi rst, I could not muster. At noticing this, workers told me day of mourning. After that, you are supposed to get back that to survive underground, you have to “forget yourself” to your underground self and continue pushing production and others said “if you bring yourself underground you can and navigating the unstable rocks. cause accidents.” How could I not bring myself under- ground, I used to wonder? Soon, I learned that forgetting Back on surface I often wondered about the contradic- the self means adopting a different identity, or at least tions of underground work – the possibilities of death as negotiating your identity and acting differently. Workers call liberating and dignifying – and of my two selves, the under- it your “underground self” – a self that takes risks, resists ground self that took risks barring loose rocks and my cau- thinking about the possibilities of rock falls or family, a self tious surface self. While I did this for research, many do it that sees cage violence, sexual harassment, and seis- to feed their children, put a roof over their heads and take mic events as part of the culture. Part of this culture also them to school. I thus concluded that maybe the reward of 32 makes one think that 120 deaths annually in the industry being able to take your children to school is the liberating are “not that bad,” until it happens to someone you know and dignifying part about putting your life at risk.

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 NOTES FROM THE FIELD > Côte d’Ivoire The Symbolic Capital of the Mobile Phone

by Jordanna Matlon, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, France

The mobile phone as the ultimate status symbol.

33

pitiable sight in Adjamé’s smartphones equipped with technol- able at a full range of prices, mo- black1 is the section for ogy that only a fraction of Abidjan’s bile phones are generally accessible used and stolen mobile population will ever use. If supply in- among deeply peripheral populations Aphones. Hundreds of men dicates anything about demand, the who use them more symbolically line up single-fi le on either side of a market for mobile phones in Abidjan, than as functional devices. Even major thoroughfare. Each man has Côte d’Ivoire is ringing off the hook. cheap phones can offer a veneer of one or several phones on his person bling despite limited functional ca- which he fl ashes at passers-by, des- In researching the livelihoods and pabilities, a fact not lost on market- perate to stand out from the mass. lifestyles of underemployed Abid- ers who embellish basic models with They whisper, hiss, or call out; some janais men from 2008 to 2009, I bright colors or metallic faceplates. make silent appeals with their face found a particularly rich resource The cheapest second-hand phone or hands, others follow for a couple in the city’s mobile phone culture. can go for as little as 5,000 FCFA.2 of paces, bargaining down from their Across the city billboards for the starting price before being asked. largest phone companies imitated When I met Calice, a hard-up twen- These hawkers range in age and music video stills, featuring hip men ty-three-year-old juice vendor, the dress from barely teenagers in grubby accessorized by doting divas – and headphones in his ears resembled an tees and frightened faces, smooth, a phone. These suggestive images iPhone advertisement. It was only a self-aware twenty- and thirty-some- are effective: country-wide there are look: his phone had been out of bat- things, and tired-looking men past over 17 million mobile telephone teries for some time and he could their prime in respectable, casual subscribers in a population of 22.4 not afford new ones. The accessory, Friday-type shirts and slacks. They million, whereas 42% of Ivoirians live however, cost him 27,000 FCFA up- offer dinosaur relics and bona fi de below the poverty line. Widely avail- front and he was paying the rest of its >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 NOTES FROM THE FIELD

40,000 FCFA cost in installments.3 ceiving a call is proof that someone to a different network, so you can Especially among men, phones are cares enough to spend the money to call friends within various networks a must-have accessory. In maquis call you. When it happens in public at the cheapest rate. [open-air bars], they are prominently everyone around bears witness to displayed on tables, silently or playing this fact: at weddings, in classrooms, However good they may be as deco- music, while their owners drink. As amidst somber meetings and at of- ration, entertainment, or to receive status markers they are a relatively fi cial functions phones go off, always calls, peripheral Abidjanais seldom democratic means of gaining visibility with ringers set on high volume. used their phones to make calls. Only and accessing the world of modern the caller pays, and they rarely had communicative technology, and have If the Western stereotype is that a credit. Calls I received tended to be come to play a signifi cant role in Abid- man needs a ride to snag a woman, from cabines – a ubiquitous stand janais sociality. in Abidjan he needs a phone (and comprised of a small wooden bench if and when he has her, he should and table, typically manned by a young Phones counter the anonymity of probably buy her one too, credit man or woman with a mobile and bulk peripheral life. A name and phone included). As one of my friends re- credit from all the networks. Credit is number, and sometimes only a marked, this is both a blessing and available for up to 100,000 FCFA, and phone number, make for common a curse: a man buys his girlfriend the more you purchase at once, the graffi ti around Abidjan. Numbers are a phone not just to impress but to more bonus, or free credit you earn. scrawled on street-side stalls, in the keep tabs on her, and it comes with Alternatively, the person calling imme- backs of taxis and on maquis tables, the expectation that she will answer diately hung up (expecting me to call perhaps with the distant hope that his call at all times. Phones defi ne back). Or I would be “beeped” – sent a someone, somewhere, is looking for the realm of the possible for poor free automatic text message request- a good time. A friend employed in men’s consumption capabilities, and ing I call the number back. And if ex- one of Abidjan’s foreign embassies even among the most peripheral pecting a call, a friend or partner can returned from his last day of work populations most men had at least send credit to the caller via a cabine. with his shirt marked up not with one; only the most desperate cases But unlike tag, you’re it, who calls goodbye wishes, but phone num- were without. To have a phone was to whom indicates the hierarchy between bers. Phone numbers are one of few have respect. When I asked Erick if the caller and the called. Those with forms of documentation for popula- he ever wanted to upgrade his 5,000 more money call those who have less 34 tions who live lives under a guise of FCFA mobile phone, he replied, “Of in the same manner that African “big informality: unregistered, undocu- course I want to change. I am a hu- men” maintain status vis-à-vis patron- mented, unseen. They signal partici- man being, every person is ambi- age relations. Financial and in-kind pation in modernity as well as in lo- tious.” And Samuel explained that as support ensures not only dominance, cal and distant social networks, and a man he has “biological, sentimen- but a social debt. your “contacts” list indicates status. tal, and social needs” that he “must 1 Known as the black (the English word was used here), During one conversation, a local mu- fulfi ll.” He went on, “Everyone enjoys this part of Adjamé – Abidjan’s largest market – was sician named Doug MC pulled out a a little pleasure. I, for example, have known to be shady, often peddling in stolen goods. magazine featuring an Ivoirian artist a Sony Ericsson mobile phone.” And 2 At the time of my research 1 USD was approximately who performs in New York City. He the more phones the better: there is 500 FCFA. showed me the man’s US number nothing bizarre about carrying around 3 Men often justifi ed exorbitant phone purchases by stating that this was a way to keep their savings, and if on his phone, and boasted that his two or three phones, the justifi cation they needed to cash in they could trade the phone for a friend often called him. Moreover, re- being that each phone corresponds cheaper model. None of these men had bank accounts.

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 > Report from the European Sociological Association Conference, Torino 2013

by Jennifer Platt, University of Sussex, UK and ISA Vice-President for Publications, 2010-2014

35

The ESA Executive Committee and Local he ISA’s Publications novel or alien approaches. I am not Organizing Committee enjoying Turin. Committee has a policy sure whether this strategy was the of sending members to reason why there seemed to be more Tkey conferences to report people than I was accustomed to back on what is going on to inform our meeting at conferences who worked editors; this is one of those reports. in policy rather than academic set- But how to report on a whole meet- tings. Whatever the reason, I thought ing? There were said to be at least this gave an interesting perspective 2,600 people attending; 4,000 ab- on some issues, as well as access stracts had been submitted, of which to data not open to every researcher. 3,200 were accepted. It is clearly It also meant that academic sociolo- impossible for any one person to at- gists were getting more opportunities tend everything when there are many than usual to pass on their research simultaneous activities. My strategy to the policy world. was to go to as many different things as possible, on diverse topics, with- Timetable slots were an hour and out regard to my personal interests, a half, and the non-plenary ones or with regard to them but looking for normally had three or four papers, >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 which meant that each had to be • Performative and arts-based bio- are different scapegoats or objects very briefl y presented; the effect be- graphical methods, excellent of of negative identifi cation in different ing to encourage data without theory their kind, may not be accessible parts of Europe – Islam in the West, or theory without data. The maxi- to the general public. A grounded the communist past for the East. mum number of participants had the theory approach in a large study opportunity to give a paper, but that of European identities led to the • A number of presentations which was not an unequivocal advantage discovery of eight different types relied on secondary survey data, for the listener! It was hard to judge of felt European identity. offering description without expla- what more extended versions of nation, suggested that it would be the papers, suitable for publication, • Elderly people found weak ties, useful to have some deliberate would be like. However, the skeletal with others on the periphery of methodological comparisons with structure did make it very clear what their social circles, important for “qualitative” approaches using were some of the key points. Here is support because they involved smaller and less formally repre- a sample1: lesser obli- gations than ties with sentative samples. those closer, such as relatives. • Secularism does not have to be ESA is just starting a new journal; regarded as a foundational part of • A lot of people [especially in Ger- they already have European Socie- modernity. many and Switzerland] are now ties, and both journals will be elec- working on aspects of fashion. tronically free to members. The new • The former communist countries one is the European Journal of Cultur- can usefully be categorized as • Family sociology has neglected al and Political Sociology, also to be post-colonial. people living in single-person published by Routledge; the fi rst issue households. is planned for March 2014. The edi- • Cultural stratification might be tors are Paul du Gay, Ricca Edmond- more fully understood if business en- • The level of success of radical right son, Eeva Luhtakallio, and Charles tertainment practices were studied. parties depends on such factors Turner. An editorial board of nineteen as voting systems [compulsory includes seven members based out- • Crisis may lead to new creative op- voting, and broadcasting oppor- side Europe and so far, surprisingly, portunities, giving more visibility to tunities, bring in people hostile to none from Eastern Europe. 36 young people’s subjective choices. politics], and whether there is a moderate right party available as 1 Much programme information on the conference is still available at the ESA website, • Government reactions to fi nancial an alternative. http://www.europeansociology.org/conferences/11th- crisis have implications for profes- esa-conference.html sionals in the health care system • Contemporary right parties have which need to be taken into account shifted their attention to ethno- in the sociology of professions. culture rather than “race;” there

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 > Final Declaration Adopted by the General Assembly of the XXIXth Congress of the Latin American Sociological Association (ALAS)

37

”Crisis and Social Emergencies in Latin eeting in Santiago, tions it provoked, both in the Congress America” – theme of the 29th Congress of the capital city of and in the country, about the effects ALAS in Santiago. Chile, from Septem- of such a barbaric event, as well as Mber 29 to October 4 the long silencing of the trauma, which (2013), 4,168 sociologists from 30 conservative intellectuals, govern- countries in Latin America, the Car- ments, and international organizations ibbean and elsewhere participated saw as the capitalist re-founding of in 33 working groups, 79 panels, 86 Chile and of Latin America as a whole. book launches, and 5 plenary confer- ences. Twelve preparatory (pre-ALAS) Today, the rigor of our studies com- events helped enormously to dissemi- bines in creative ways with an expan- nate the objectives of the Congress, sion of critical capacity, but also with encouraging active participation in continent-wide social and political our Association. In particular, the in- movements of great vitality and trans- clusion of hundreds of students and formative power. In recent years, sev- young professionals and the forma- eral such movements stand out: tion of networks to exchange infor- mation and experiences will mark the • The struggle of Latin American mi- legacy of this Congress of the Latin grants for true reforms in the Unit- American Sociological Association. ed States that would recognize rights to work, health, education, This year marked the 40th anniver- and social security, and of course, sary of the coup in Chile, and not one the possibility of Latin American participant in the Congress escaped communities and families to live in the intense debate and critical refl ec- that country without persecution. >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 • The struggle of Mexico’s democratic • The struggles against violence, ter- socially responsible states in compli- teachers unions who demand true ror, and the growing presence of ance with the rights of all individuals education reform and an end to security apparatuses in the lives of and peoples; overcoming of all forms the planned fi rings of teachers who our communities and peoples. of coloniality of knowledge and pow- belong to the largest union on the er, with true academic autonomy and continent (1,200,000 teachers). • The struggle against corruption and inclusion, without evaluation param- extravagance of extremely rich gov- eters imposed by international organ- • The continent-wide struggle against ernments, offi cials, and functionar- izations, and with free access to the the illegal appropriation and savage ies as their people grow ever poorer. production and exchange of knowl- exploitation of the natural and stra- edge. These objectives form the basis tegic resources of our region, such • The struggles against the constraints of our commitment and the promises as oil, gas, mining, agriculture, fi sh- on social programs and public poli- for the future of our Association. ing, forests, coasts, and water. cies. Our universities and institutions of • The profusion of demands in Co- • The struggle against US spying on higher education, public and private, lombia for true peace negotiations all of our countries. must make an extraordinary effort to that would put an end to the most constantly renew their research, in prolonged and painful confl ict on • The struggle to recover the true sov- order to give our societies and states the continent. ereignty of our nations and the the foundation on which to establish autonomy of indigenous, Afro-de- solid commitments to benefi t those • The persistent and brave struggle scendent and island peoples. most in need and to defend justice, of the Cuban people for respect of freedom, and diversity. their sovereignty and an end to the Such an accounting requires sys- blockade. tematic work from sociologists of the ALAS embodies these aspirations continent. We have a responsibil- and assumes responsibility for con- • The struggle for recognition of and ity to share our knowledge and dis- tinuing in the path it has followed an end to the aggressions against seminate our fi ndings concerning the to date, while making every effort to the democratically elected govern- most pressing social problems: the include a greater number of sociolo- ments of Venezuela, Bolivia, Argen- threat of land destruction; poverty; gists – respecting and recognizing the 38 tina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Ecuador. exclusion; insecurity; violence; and plurality of their theoretical perspec- the vulnerability of the majority of the tives, practical experiences, and iden- • The struggle for real and deep demo- population to disasters and economic tities – in pursuit of a world wherein cratic transformation in all the crises. We must seek to achieve full we all may fi t. countries of the region. freedom of expression, association, and criticism for all those who inhabit Long live ALAS! • The struggle against neoliberal cuts our region; the institutionalization of Long live our America! in health, education, social secu- policies that will improve the welfare rity, and pensions. of the population, implemented by

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 > Social Transformations and the Digital Age

by Elisa P. Reis, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, former member of the ISA Execu- tive Committee, 2006-2010, and ISA Representative to ISSC1

39

Elisa Reis, new Vice-President of ISSC. Alberto Martinelli, the new President of ISSC.

ocial Transformations and cussion and encouraged us all to un- and Cheryl Teelucksingh, offered an “ the Digital Age” was the dertake collaborative research. exciting preview of the next Congress theme of the World Social after Yokohama. SScience Forum organized The ISA sponsored a session on by the International Social Science the major themes in current Canadi- ISA also participated in the session Council (ISSC) in Montreal from Oc- an sociology with a view to assessing on “The Changing Geopolitical Land- tober 13 to 15 (2013). Over 1,000 the gains, promises, shortcomings, scape in the 21st Century: Human social scientists, science manag- and the implications of the digital Rights and Ethics.” Organized by ers, and experts on digital matters, age for knowledge generation and Saths Cooper, President of the Inter- coming from 60 countries, took part policy intervention. Under the title national Psychological Association, in the Forum that included around “Understanding Social Transforma- this panel anticipated the next ISSC 750 presentations, plus various side tions in a Digital Age, Canada 2013 World Social Science Forum which events organized by ISSC partners. – Canadian Sociology in the Run-up has the theme “Transforming Global to the ISA World Congress 2018,” Relations for a Just World.” The third The plenary sessions, focusing four paper presentations provided World Social Science Forum will take on crucial issues for contemporary a good sample of contemporary Ca- place in September 2015 in Durban, society, attracted large audiences nadian sociology. Patrizia Albanese, South Africa where we hope for a and provided opportunities for lively President-Elect of the Canadian So- strong participation from the ISA, es- dialogues across the social science ciological Association and chair of pecially its younger members. disciplines. The ISSC invited an ac- the local organizing committee for tive group of young fellows who not the XIX ISA World Congress to be 1 Note from the editor: Congratulations to Elisa Reis who was elected Vice-President of ISSC and to Alberto Mar- only presented their own works, but held in 2018 in Toronto, and her col- tinelli (former President of the ISA, 2000-2004) who was posed challenging questions for dis- leagues Howard Ramos, Rima Wilkes elected President of the ISSC at the Montreal Meeting.

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 > Global Dialogue’s Russian Team by Elena Zdravomyslova, European University at St. Petersburg and member of the ISA Executive Committee, 2010-14

ur team is a fl exible one. The core group of translators are Elena Nikiforova, Anna Kadnikova, and Asja Vo- ronkova. Others contribute to the project more or less regularly and we expect new team members as well as a certain rotation. We belong to different sociological institutions. Currently the results of the project are Odisseminated by the St Petersburg Sociological Association which is the regional branch of the Russian Socio- logical Society. We are happy to be a part of the transnational teams of translators. Working on the Russian version of the magazine makes us alert about the current debates in the global sociological community and helps us broaden our socio- logical horizon. We learn more as we try to fi nd Russian linguistic equivalents for terms and categories. We are, indeed, “learning by doing” sociological translations! We wish Global Dialogue to continue and cover the diversity of sociological concerns and perspectives! We wish this magazine to be globally famous!

40

Elena Zdravomyslova, PhD in sociology, Pro- Anna Kadnikova has an MA in sociology. She Elena Nikiforova is a research fellow at the fessor at the European University, St Petersburg graduated from the European University at St Center for Independent Social Research, St (EUSP), co-director of the Gender Program at Petersburg and her academic interests are Petersburg. She received her diploma from the EUSP; project coordinator at the Centre for pro-life mobilization in Russia during the last Department of Sociology at St Petersburg State Independent Social Research. Her research decade. University, studied at the School for International and teaching fi elds include: gender studies, Studies, St Petersburg State University, and at women’s movements, and qualitative research the Department of International Studies, Univer- methods. Areas of expertise include gender re- sity of Limerick, Ireland (MA). Her current aca- lations in Russia, feminist theory, sociology of demic interests lie in the sphere of mobility and care, and biographical research. space and are largely infl uenced by the debate on glocalization and transnationalism, and the study of “borders.” To date, her research has focused on the transformations of places, iden- tities and life trajectories connected to the ongo- ing reconfi guring of political space in the former Soviet empire; her regions of interests include (but are not confi ned to) the Baltic States (pre- dominantly Estonia and Latvia), Northwest Rus- sia and the Russian Far North. >>

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014 Asja Voronkova is a musician, the founder of Alexander Kondakov, MA, is a research fel- the rock group Patience Airways. She received low at the Center for Independent Social Re- her BA at Smolny College (St Petersburg State search, St Petersburg. He graduated from the University, Russia) and Bard College (USA). She International Institute for the Sociology of Law has published on the sociology of rock music; and his academic interests are sociology of her particular sociological interest is extreme law and queer studies. His current project is metal music as a youth culture phenomenon. focused on the controversies of sexual citizen- She works as a translator in the sociological ship in Russia. journal Laboratorium.

41

Yuliya Martinavichene is a Faculty Member Ekaterina Moskaleva is a sociology gradu- at the Department of Media of the European ate of the St Petersburg State University. Her Humanities University (Vilnius, Lithuania) and research interests lay in the sphere of public a doctoral candidate at the Department of Phi- relations and art through her involvement in losophy. Her main research interests include two big projects, the International Franchise visual semiotics, public service advertising, and Festival, Geek Picnic where she performed as the philosophy and sociology of collective iden- a project manager, and the Critical Mass 2013 tities. Her master’s thesis was a study of the (as a researcher and event manager). At pre- advertising of Belarusian outdoor public service sent, she works as a project manager at the St and its discursive appeal. Petersburg Branch of the High School of Eco- nomics, Russia.

GD VOL. 4 / # 1 / MARCH 2014