Public practices for the suppression of witchcraft are periodically performed throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. Anthropologists have generally sought to interpret such practices rather than explain them. This interpretation rests on assumptions about what such practices might mean for social actors rather than on the actual social processes which make their public performance possible. In the anthropological view, the performance of anti-witchcraft practices amounts to an expression of discontent with aspects of social and economic life deriving from the terms of Africa's engagement with the contemporary world. Antiwitchcraft practices and the witchcraft discourse of which they are part are understood to constitute locally constructed critiques of social transformation and modernity. But, whatever the coherence of the symbolic logic expressed in anti-witchcraft practices, such accounts fail to explain why large numbers of people participate in such practices from time to time or how such practices become public.
The political context of civil society in Western Europe has changed dramatically in recent decades. These changing circumstances may produce a decline in the integration of civil society into political life -- especially deliberative activities at the national level. This article discusses how serious these alleged threats are to a hitherto vital civil society -- that of Sweden. It focuses on fours indicators of organised civil society's contribution to deliberative democracy. First, have efforts to contact politicians, public servants and the media, as well as participation in public debates, decreased? Second, has civil society directed interest away from national arenas and instead concentrated resources in local and/or supranational arenas? Third, is there any evidence of a withdrawal from public activities, such as public debates and media activities in favour of direct contacts with politicians and public servants? Fourth, has civil society become more professionalised in the sense that interest groups are increasingly hiring professional consultants? Two surveys conducted in 1999 and 2005 show that Swedish organised civil society has not faded from national public politics. However, growing public participation is almost exclusively connected to increasing communication via the mass media and direct contact with politicians. Taking part in open public debate has not increased. The national arena has marginally lost some importance. Moreover, there is an increasing tendency to hire professional lobbying consultants. This might improve the quality of civil society's contributions to public deliberation, but a more elitist civil society might also develop, which is uninterested in social dialogue. Adapted from the source document.
This article addresses the relationship between political change and political culture at the end of Norman Sicily. It argues that one distinctive feature of that culture can be brought to light through an examination of the events of the 1190s, as processes of political restructuring gathered pace under the Staufen. The article begins from Peter of Eboli's Liber ad honorem Augusti. This text depicts a Norman political culture with considerable space for public assembly and interaction between populus and king. This was a model that allowed different religious and linguistic groups to be constituted in direct relationship to the king, without the formal mediation of institutional structures. Indications of a distinctively Norman Sicilian "public sphere" can be found in other texts of the period. Peter offered this to Henry VI, as a model the Staufen emperor could follow to demonstrate the legitimacy of his rule.
El presente artículo presenta un caso de incidencia en políticas públicas de un colectivo animalista (Identidad Animal, Manizales - Colombia) que, al mezclar estrategias micro y macropolíticas y agenciar un animalismo pragmático (integrando tácticas bienestaristas y abolicionistas), propone soluciones puntuales a problemas de maltrato y crueldad animal. Se realizaron entrevistas semiestructuradas a integrantes del colectivo y revisiones documentales sobre legislación animal y producción de conocimiento, tanto de académicos como de los colectivos animalistas. Se concluye que cuando los colectivos sociales apelan al pragmatismo privilegiando resultados sobre narrativas lúcidas y encasillamientos militantes, logran desarrollar una lectura política del contexto que los hace tener un mayor impacto sobre los hechos de injusticia que quieren transformar. ; The present article presents a case of incidence in public policies, where an animalist collective (Animal Identity, in Manizales – Colombia), mixing micro and macropolitical strategies and arranging a pragmatic animalism (integrating welfare and abolitionists tactics), proposes specific solutions to problems of abuse and animal cruelty. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to members of the collective and documentary reviews about animal legislation and knowledge production both academics and animalist collectives. It is concluded that when social collectives appeal to pragmatism privileging results on lucid narratives and militant placements, they get to develop a political reading of the context that makes them have a greater impact on acts of injustice that want to transform.
Experiences learned from the natural aging process are reproduced in a context of economic and social insecurity, which makes extremely elderly people vulnerable to discrimination. Research shows that discrimination against older people is not confined to the socially constructed stereotypes and prejudices towards the elderly, but the source is in conditions of poverty and inequality. Since the living conditions of the elderly are a reflection of the situation of young people, tackling the problem of discrimination need to complement comprehensive public policies that guarantee social security and access to justice for all people. Otherwise, senior will be eternally condemned to suffer the same problems that actually put face to face. ; Las experiencias del proceso natural de envejecimiento se reproducen en contextos de inseguridad social que hacen de los ancianos personas extremadamente vulnerables a la discriminación; sin embargo, sugiero que no son los prejuicios y estereotipos, en primera instancia, causantes de aquella, sino las condiciones de miseria y desigualdad en las que viven. Puesto que las condiciones de vida de los ancianos son un reflejo de las condiciones de vida de la población más joven, se requiere implementar políticas públicas de atención integral; de lo contrario, la población adulta estará condenada a padecer eternamente los problemas que hoy enfrentan.
Abstract This text brings into analytical focus the workings of whiteness within the politics regarding Ukrainian refugees in two neighboring countries, Austria and Czechia. This comparison aims to contextualize various racial hierarchies in which Ukrainian refugees are embedded, and to connect public discourses translated by mass media and critically accepted by scholars and experts with the personal experience of refugees and those recruited to help them in reception centers. We follow the layering and conversion of racial hierarchies through examining three interrelated realms of public policy: (1) the conflation of illiberal and liberal populisms concerning the Russian invasion and the subsequent refugee movements in the discursive practices of leading politicians and those responsible for refugee politics; (2) the intersectionality of gender, class, and race as a locus of control over Ukrainian women, who comprise the majority of those fleeing the country; and (3) elaborating an extreme case of forging whiteness, within the overt and covert racist practices concerning Ukrainian Romani refugees. To conclude, we discuss possible directions for future research that apply critical whiteness studies for understanding how racial hierarchies design public politics concerning refugees, and what can be done to minimize the injustices determined by whiteness.
This thesis applies role theory to understand how Uzbekistan's bilateral relationships became either conflicting or cooperative between 1991 and 2010. Roles are key elements of social interaction as they describe plausible lines of action in a particular subject-person. They are thus a helpful way of identifying actors and constructing narratives. Furthermore, if they are seen as metaphors for drama, one may argue that roles - as opposed to personal identities - encapsulate autonomous action, which, like a text, ascertains meaning beyond the author's intent. In other words, by separating action from intent, one may regard politics in a different light - as interaction emplotted by roles -, thereby revealing how actions contradict a set of roles and lead to conflict and crises in public credibility. This manner of emplotting relationships divulges an alternative story that, rather than focusing on Tashkent's strategic balancing and alignment, demonstrates how Uzbekistani leadership gradually developed an overarching self-reliant role set that shapes its actions. Moreover, Uzbekistan's cooperative and conflicting relationships are described less in light of strategic survival rationale than as the outcome of gradual role compatibilities arising through time. Therefore, unlike some other accounts, this thesis argues that, throughout Uzbekistan's first twenty years of independence, public disputes were crucial to understanding interaction and also that Tashkent was never actually aligned with Russia or the United States. To bring forth this argument, the following chapters expound the assumptions behind some scholarly research and develop the concepts of self-reliance, roles, action, public sphere, credibility and narrative. The discussion progresses toward self-reliance and how the concept captures President Karimov's roles, which are used to emplot Uzbekistan's interaction with the United States, Russia, Germany and Turkey. The first two are relevant for analyzing whether roles reveal more than the typical accounts based on security balancing. Germany is then included because its relationship with Tashkent was rarely conflicting in the public sphere, allowing it to increase bilateral trade and secure a military base in Uzbekistan after the 2005 Andijan Crisis. It was thus a relatively stable connection, unlike Tashkent's relationships with Washington and Moscow. Lastly, to control Germany's middle-power status, the case of Turkey is brought to the fore since Ankara's willingness to engage with Tashkent was not enough to foster cooperation.
