Stephen Lukes has argued that how political theorists conceive of power always entails normative ... more Stephen Lukes has argued that how political theorists conceive of power always entails normative judgments because they always involve normative assumptions about whether one agent affects – exerts power over – another agent in significant ways. Similarly, political theorists incorporate claims about what counts as significant suffering – who suffers and in what ways – into their accounts of justice. This paper compares and evaluates three models of what could broadly be described as suffering: Foucault’s conception of normalization, Young’s conception of oppression, and Bourdieu’s conception of symbolic violence. The considerable overlap among these three accounts makes identifying their differences and distinguishing their premises about power, subjectivity and collective action all the more important. This task is made all the more important by the waning of the identity-based politics Foucauldian and antioppression theories of power inspired and the apparent return of politics c...
In “Throwing Bricks at a Brick Wall: The G20 and the Antinomies of Protest,” an examination of th... more In “Throwing Bricks at a Brick Wall: The G20 and the Antinomies of Protest,” an examination of the protests against the June 2010 G20 meetings, Chris Samuel argues that debate about the appropriateness of the protestors’ tactics has missed the central question: what impact can oppositional movements have in the current political-economic climate? Samuel posits that it is impossible to adopt the “right” form of political protest in a political field in which there was no opportunity to influence the negotiations. Using Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power, he argues that the construction of violence “forced protestors to decide between ineffectual marches and marginalizing vandalism.”
with an addendum of maps to vol. IV reflecting all the key phrases of the region's territoria... more with an addendum of maps to vol. IV reflecting all the key phrases of the region's territorial, political and ethnographic evolution. Finally, in terms of integration, the selections pretend that the Trianon elephant is not in the room. The readings that are available fail to even mention the Treaty of Trianon. Without this Entente blunder the new nation-states listed by Todorova would not have been possible. Had Trianon not been excluded from the discussion, the fascinating discussion of the Transylvanian autonomists, both Romanians (pre-World War One) and Hungarians (interwar period) might have been part of the discussion of modernism. Furthermore, without the presence of this elephant in the room, it is unlikely that the road to World War Two could have been ideologically charted by a revisionist appeal from the totalitarians Hitler and Stalin who presumably will set the tone for the major players in volume IV. One could also take issue with the selection of readings. Why, for example, is the essay of Josip Broz Tito more significant than any or all the writings of Edvard Kardelj on the nationality question? Or why is Attila J6zsef's "By the Danube" deserving of space while Gyula Szekfii's "Ethnicity, Nation and State" is not? However, in the final analysis these are choices that may have been forced by the underlying assumptions of the editors rather than the actual significance of the individual reading. The readings in volume 111.1 will indeed be a useful supplement to both graduate and undergraduate courses dealing with the region. They raise almost all the important questions regarding collective identity. However, they will remain only supplements and the instructor will have to use additional sources to provide the complete picture, including population tables, good maps and a good cross-referenced index, which, hopefully, will also be added to the concluding volumes of this series.
Social movement researchers have only recently begun to make use of the rich explanatory leverage... more Social movement researchers have only recently begun to make use of the rich explanatory leverage offered by Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice. The normative implications of his framework remain almost entirely undeveloped. This paper seeks to redress these shortcomings by applying central concepts from Bourdieu's work—symbolic violence and his realist philosophy of science—to social movement analysis. Using North American lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer collective identities to illustrate this application, the paper advocates shifting analysis of collective identities from models based on negotiation to one based on domination and advocates treatment of social movement organizations as sites of justice amenable to normative evaluation and critique.
In fact, a given agent’s practical relation to the future, which governs his present practice, is... more In fact, a given agent’s practical relation to the future, which governs his present practice, is defined in the relationship between, on the one hand, his habitus with its temporal structures and dispositions towards the future, constituted in the course of a particular relationship to a particular universe of probabilities, and on the other hand a certain state of the chances objectively offered to him by the social world.1
Stephen Lukes has argued that how political theorists conceive of power always entails normative ... more Stephen Lukes has argued that how political theorists conceive of power always entails normative judgments because they always involve normative assumptions about whether one agent affects – exerts power over – another agent in significant ways. Similarly, political theorists incorporate claims about what counts as significant suffering – who suffers and in what ways – into their accounts of justice. This paper compares and evaluates three models of what could broadly be described as suffering: Foucault’s conception of normalization, Young’s conception of oppression, and Bourdieu’s conception of symbolic violence. The considerable overlap among these three accounts makes identifying their differences and distinguishing their premises about power, subjectivity and collective action all the more important. This task is made all the more important by the waning of the identity-based politics Foucauldian and antioppression theories of power inspired and the apparent return of politics c...
In “Throwing Bricks at a Brick Wall: The G20 and the Antinomies of Protest,” an examination of th... more In “Throwing Bricks at a Brick Wall: The G20 and the Antinomies of Protest,” an examination of the protests against the June 2010 G20 meetings, Chris Samuel argues that debate about the appropriateness of the protestors’ tactics has missed the central question: what impact can oppositional movements have in the current political-economic climate? Samuel posits that it is impossible to adopt the “right” form of political protest in a political field in which there was no opportunity to influence the negotiations. Using Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power, he argues that the construction of violence “forced protestors to decide between ineffectual marches and marginalizing vandalism.”
with an addendum of maps to vol. IV reflecting all the key phrases of the region's territoria... more with an addendum of maps to vol. IV reflecting all the key phrases of the region's territorial, political and ethnographic evolution. Finally, in terms of integration, the selections pretend that the Trianon elephant is not in the room. The readings that are available fail to even mention the Treaty of Trianon. Without this Entente blunder the new nation-states listed by Todorova would not have been possible. Had Trianon not been excluded from the discussion, the fascinating discussion of the Transylvanian autonomists, both Romanians (pre-World War One) and Hungarians (interwar period) might have been part of the discussion of modernism. Furthermore, without the presence of this elephant in the room, it is unlikely that the road to World War Two could have been ideologically charted by a revisionist appeal from the totalitarians Hitler and Stalin who presumably will set the tone for the major players in volume IV. One could also take issue with the selection of readings. Why, for example, is the essay of Josip Broz Tito more significant than any or all the writings of Edvard Kardelj on the nationality question? Or why is Attila J6zsef's "By the Danube" deserving of space while Gyula Szekfii's "Ethnicity, Nation and State" is not? However, in the final analysis these are choices that may have been forced by the underlying assumptions of the editors rather than the actual significance of the individual reading. The readings in volume 111.1 will indeed be a useful supplement to both graduate and undergraduate courses dealing with the region. They raise almost all the important questions regarding collective identity. However, they will remain only supplements and the instructor will have to use additional sources to provide the complete picture, including population tables, good maps and a good cross-referenced index, which, hopefully, will also be added to the concluding volumes of this series.
Social movement researchers have only recently begun to make use of the rich explanatory leverage... more Social movement researchers have only recently begun to make use of the rich explanatory leverage offered by Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice. The normative implications of his framework remain almost entirely undeveloped. This paper seeks to redress these shortcomings by applying central concepts from Bourdieu's work—symbolic violence and his realist philosophy of science—to social movement analysis. Using North American lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer collective identities to illustrate this application, the paper advocates shifting analysis of collective identities from models based on negotiation to one based on domination and advocates treatment of social movement organizations as sites of justice amenable to normative evaluation and critique.
In fact, a given agent’s practical relation to the future, which governs his present practice, is... more In fact, a given agent’s practical relation to the future, which governs his present practice, is defined in the relationship between, on the one hand, his habitus with its temporal structures and dispositions towards the future, constituted in the course of a particular relationship to a particular universe of probabilities, and on the other hand a certain state of the chances objectively offered to him by the social world.1
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