The politics of education for globalisation: managed activism in a time of crisis

Since the 1990s, governments of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have begun to promote their foreign aid politics domestically via global education. This policy remit has its origins in civil society and has been combined with a stated aim on the part of governments to prepare populations for globalisation, but also to convince populations of the need for increased aid spending in the context of various challenges, including calls for aid effectiveness, large-scale protest by the metropolitan left and rising parochialisms that diminish cosmopolitan world views. In the context of the apparent spontaneity of political mobilisation globally, this article seeks to qualify the optimism of the political sociology and social movements literature on the network society by comparing two OECD government remits for global/development education in the UK and Australia, which are attempts to manage or socially engineer civic activism and engagement. The problem which this article addresses is that, on the face of it, state funding of ‘global education’ appears to be a success of the activism of educators combined with the networked advocacy efforts of development non-governmental organisations, except that it has occurred in tension with international drivers to use education to further global economic competitiveness and governments' desire to promote their own foreign aid spending in a climate of falling legitimacy. This phenomenon of state funding for global education might be considered an elaboration of network politics, but this article argues that it must equally be read, via Gramsci, as a hegemonic contest in the struggle for subject production appropriate to the global knowledge economy.     

The Responsibility to Protect and the International Criminal Court: counteracting the crisis

The establishment of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) process and the International Criminal Court (ICC) were seen by many to constitute significant progress in the protection of human rights. However, these institutions are now in crisis, due in large part to their failure to prevent or prosecute recent acute human rights abuses in Syria. There have been two responses to this crisis: the first assumes that the crisis is caused by the current structures of international governance, in particular the power of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), and calls for radical reform. The second sees possibilities within the current structure and advocates making R2P and the ICC more closely aligned under UNSC control. The article argues that both responses are mistaken and sets out an argument in favour of refocusing on the complementary nature of each institution. The Court's most successful actions have been in exercising the powers afforded by its complementary jurisdiction in situations such as Colombia. Similarly, R2P works more successfully at preventing conflict and changing expectations of acceptable state behaviour than it does at confronting situations in which large‐scale violence has begun. The article argues that the ICC and R2P should focus on ‘positive complementarity’ agendas, with the ICC devoting more resources to assisting states to build legal capacity in order to deter future conflict through stronger domestic criminal systems, and advocates of R2P focusing less on intervention in live conflict situations and more on building within states the capacity and resources to protect their own populations.     

Choice Flowers and Well-Ordered Tables: Struggling Over Gender in a Nineteenth-Century Household

Historical archaeologists have generally considered households as isolated,bounded entities, and not as sets of social relations. Consequently, the household has gone unrecognized as an arena of struggle. Analysis of documents associated with the household of nineteenth-century reformer Gerrit Smith challenges this approach. At his Peterboro, New York estate, a struggle ensued between family members because of conflicting ideologies of self-presentation, and between worker and employer on account of the period's shifting gender ideology. In order to access the meanings of objects excavated, the material remains associated with the Smith household must be considered in light of these struggles.     

Struggling for each other: the Stancioff family at work

Due to the unique nature of Stancioff family relationships, family members lived and work as a highly effective network of enabling partners. They were living and working in the rarefied world of diplomats and dealt with people in a variety of countries and cultures. Their eldest daughter; Nadejda Stancioff pursued a diplomacy career in the 1910s and participated in the post-World War I peace conferences. Dimitri Stancioff, her father, was a diplomat, and her mother, the Countess Anna de Grenaud, was mistress of the robes at the Bulgarian Court at the end of the nineteenth century. They were a "mixed" family in many aspects, yet they thrived. The manner in which this family worked together is a rare example of cooperative collective efforts unfettered by gender biases. They also formed a unique transitional unit as a family who successfully combined the traditional with the modern to serve their collective ends.     

Drinking like a man: the paradox of excessive drinking for seventeenth-century dutch youths

In the early modern period, drinking alcohol was an integral part of Dutch social and cultural life. Toast were made to the health of unborn babies, for job nominations, and at funerals. Young people started to consume alcohol at an early age. However, within this culture they had to learn how to drink in moderation. Excessive drinking was not only a cardinal sin, it was also a paradox in the realm of gender. For males, the act of getting drunk and losing control was a flaw on their masculinity. They in fact became like women who were believed to be incapable of controlling their mind and body. On the other hand, the ability to drink great quantities of alcohol symbolized an age-old form of masculinity. Imbibing in "wine, women, and song" were liminal rites in becoming men and how young men demarcated themselves from being boys.     

The urban paradox of a stranger

Rubén E. Reina. Paraná: Social Boundaries in an Argentine City. Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1974. xxiv + 390 pp. Figures, tables, illustrations, maps, bibliography, and index. $10.00.     

Russia and Syria: explaining alignment with a regime in crisis

This article explores explanations of Russia's unyielding alignment with the Syrian regime of Bashar al‐Assad since the Syrian crisis erupted in the spring of 2011. Russia has provided a diplomatic shield for Damascus in the UN Security Council and has continued to supply it with modern arms. Putin's resistance to any scenario of western‐led intervention in Syria, on the model of the Libya campaign, in itself does not explain Russian policy. For this we need to analyse underlying Russian motives. The article argues that identity or solidarity between the Soviet Union/Russia and Syria has exerted little real influence, besides leaving some strategic nostalgia among Russian security policy‐makers. Russian material interests in Syria are also overstated, although Russia still hopes to entrench itself in the regional politics of the Middle East. Of more significance is the potential impact of the Syria crisis on the domestic political order of the Russian state. First, the nexus between regional spillover from Syria, Islamist networks and insurgency in the North Caucasus is a cause of concern—although the risk of ‘blowback’ to Russia is exaggerated. Second, Moscow rejects calls for the departure of Assad as another case of the western community imposing standards of political legitimacy on a ‘sovereign state’ to enforce regime change, with future implications for Russia or other authoritarian members of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Russia may try to enshrine its influence in the Middle East through a peace process for Syria, but if Syria descends further into chaos western states may be able to achieve no more in practice than emergency coordination with Russia.     

Marxism and bureaucracy: A paradox resolved

This article describes one apparently paradoxical course of development of the concept of bureaucracy within Marxism. The paradox has to do with the striking difference between the role attributed to bureaucrats by Marx and by a number of prominent members of the heretics from the Marxist tradition. In Marx's own analysis of contemporary societies, bureaucracies were rarely given a central and never a primary role. In his portrayal of the future society, bureaucrats were swept from the stage altogether. In the writings of Trotsky and theorists of a new bureaucratic class, bureaucrats have come to play a central and ultimately the central role. The argument of the article is that both elements of the paradox stem from precisely the same set of theoretical commitments, in particular the same combination of claims as to what the fundamental activities and actors in societies are, what are the dynamic forces in societies and what is the destination of modern societies. Notwithstanding serious and much‐debated differences between them, what these theories have in common lies deeper than anything on which they disagree. The article concludes by arguing that neither of these approaches is likely to lead to successful analyses of the place of bureaucrats in modern societies.     

Views and Commentaries: Struggling with the Past: Some Views of African-American Identity

Identity has been, and remains, central to African-American struggles with inequalities in the United States. In this paper I address various portrayals of African-American identity, and consider how these views of the past articulated with contemporary struggles. These portrayals range both in time and authorship, and include the views of former slaves, black intellectuals, and archaeologists. Taken together, they reflect the dynamic nature of identity, as well as the shifting importance of Africa as a root of identity and source of strength in struggles, past and present.     

Authenticity and adaptation: the Mongol Ger as a contemporary heritage paradox

The Mongol Ger is a transportable felt tent deriving from an ancient nomadic civilization. The structure encapsulates a specific Mongolian nomadic cultural identity by encompassing a way of life based upon pastoral migration, complex familial relationships and hierarchies, and spiritual beliefs. As Mongolia has rapidly urbanised over the past century, the form and function of the ger have changed, with some of the integral facets of the structure lost with a view to commercialising and/or adapting a nomadic symbol for modern consumption. This paper will explore the ger as a vernacular and globally recognised form, assessing whether its nomination by the Mongolian State Party on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as a craft-skill is either sufficient or indeed appropriate. It will further be argued that to understand the ger in its totality requires an understanding also of the concept of authenticity to disentangle variations between the ‘livingness’ of the ger and its appropriation for a wider audience.     

Struggling to Save Cash: Seasonal Migration and Vulnerability in West Bengal,India

This article concerns an important but overlooked means by which able‐bodied poor people get hold of lump sums of cash in rural West Bengal: seasonal migration for agricultural wage work. Drawing on a regional study of four migration streams, our main focus here is on the struggle to secure this cash by landless households in just one of those streams, originating in Murshidabad District. Case studies are used to illustrate the importance for women in nuclear families of maintaining supportive networks of kin for periods when men are absent. A parallel analysis is made of the negotiations between male migrant workers and their employers, at labour markets, during the period of work, and afterwards. The article then briefly discusses some of the contrasting ways in which remittances are used by landless households and owners of very small plots of land, in the context of rapid ecological change, demographic pressure and growing inequality.     

Madagascar's independence jubilee: a nation's holiday in times of crisis

The fiftieth anniversary of Madagascar's independence in 2010 took place in the midst of political crisis. The transitory government staged large public parties to mark the Jubilee. Despite a public discussion about legitimacy and justification of this fact, the national holiday was lavishly celebrated. In Madagascar, Independence Day is also an important family event and emphasis was put on private celebrations including family feasts and reunions. As a result, it enhanced the participants' emotional attachment to their personal and local face‐to‐face milieu. This article asks how the golden jubilee was celebrated against a backdrop of political illegitimacy. I contrast official state‐led initiatives and individual agency in the private sphere and discuss how the national holiday has been appropriated and reinterpreted by the population as a family and community holiday. This article is based on qualitative ethnographical fieldwork in Antananarivo before, during and after the peak of the independence jubilee.     

Food mapping: a psychogeographical method for raising food consciousness

Food mapping is a new, participatory, interdisciplinary pedagogical approach to learning about our modern food systems. This method is inspired by the Situationist International's practice of the “dérive” and draws from the discourses of critical geography, the food movement's research on food deserts, and participatory action research. Using a “critical food lens,” this experiential exercise encourages participants to look beyond their plates and think about the health, economic, and ecological impacts of food. This ethnographic activity produces user-generated data and has the potential to transform participants' understanding of how agricultural practices effect other societal institutions.     

The culture of Sofia: At the crossroads of paradox and optimism

NINTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CULTURAL ECONOMICS ASSOCIATION FOR CULTURAL ECONOMICS INTERNATIONAL (ACEI) in co‐operation with Northeastern University, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, USA 8–11 May 1996