Violins and trowels for Palmyra: Post‐conflict heritage politics

Since the rise of the Islamic State in the Middle East, anthropological research has focused on the many deliberate destructions of cultural heritage in the region. Whilst such analyses can offer important insights into the multidimensionality of contemporary warfare and the important role of culture in perpetuating physical violence, heritage ethnographers should also spotlight the post‐conflict futures of Syria and Iraq's war‐torn heritage. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research on (world) heritage politics in the Russian Federation, this article highlights the strategic manipulation of Palmyra by the Russian Federation and investigates how conservation and reconstruction are also important political episodes in a heritage object's cultural biography.     

Post‐Conditionality Politics and Administrative Reform: Reflections on the Cases of Uganda and Tanzania

This article contributes to the discussion of the nature of external intervention in the reform processes of indebted states. Looking at administrative reform in Uganda and Tanzania, it is argued that external involvement in sub‐Saharan Africa is becoming increasingly differentiated. For some states — including the two cases dealt with here — a key set of continuities and changes allows us to conceptualize a regime of post‐conditionality. Post‐conditionality regimes exist where extreme external dependence and economic growth produce a set of political dynamics in which external–national distinctions become less useful, in which there emerge a set of unequal mutual dependencies, and in which donor/creditor involvement in reform becomes qualitatively more intimate, pervading the form and processes of the state. Details of this dispensation are provided in an analysis of key ministries and key interventions by donors/creditors. The article finishes by considering the contradictions of the post‐conditionality regime, and its prospects.     

Asylum and the Post‐Political: Domopolitics,Depoliticisation and Acts of Citizenship

This paper explores the ways in which practices of asylum governance serve to depoliticise those seeking asylum in the UK. In critiquing claims over the “post‐political” nature of contemporary governance, the paper proposes a focus upon situated practices of depoliticisation which displace those seeking asylum through the production of specific sites of accommodation and specific discourses of risk, security and moralised concern. The paper questions the tendency within “post‐political” thought to strip the potential of modes of informal citizenship through arguing that minor acts of resistance are ineffectual and illusory. In response, the paper explores irregular migrant's “acts of citizenship”, and suggests that such prosaic acts can be powerful forms of political interruption through which new ways of seeing asylum are constructed. The paper concludes by suggesting that an incremental politics orientated around such acts of interruption is essential to challenge the material, affective and discursive closures of asylum domopolitics.     

A Long Time Gone: Post‐conflict Rural Property Restitution under Customary Law

Mass displacement of people due to violence poses a unique set of challenges for property restitution when people return to their homes after a long absence. This is particularly evident in rural areas where the dominant form of land holding is customary tenure. Violence‐induced displacement, unlike voluntary migration, challenges both customary and public legal‐administrative structures. The lack of written documentation of customary holdings and the importance of the support of community leaders means that incorporating returnees back into a community can be easier for those who choose to return, while reclaiming property without physical return is nearly impossible. This article seeks to make three contributions: 1) to note the diversity of return processes after long displacements in terms of timing and demographics; 2) to demonstrate that the nature of the claims people can make on customary tenure systems is at odds with international legal norms on property restitution after displacement; and 3) to introduce a set of observations and questions on how conflict can change customary law. The article is based on fieldwork conducted in Uganda, Liberia and Timor‐Leste, all countries with extended displacement where most of the rural land is held via customary claims.     

The Emergence of a Working Poor: Labour Markets,Neoliberalisation and Diverse Economies in Post‐Socialist Cities

Abstract: This paper examines the transformations of urban labour markets in two central European cities: Bratislava, Slovakia and Kraków, Poland. It highlights the emergence of in‐work poverty and labour market segmentation, which together are leading to a reconfiguration of the livelihoods and economic practices of urban households. The focus of the paper is on the growing phenomenon of insecure, poor‐quality, contingent labour. It examines the ways in which those who find themselves in, or on the margins of, contingent and insecure labour markets sustain their livelihoods. We ask how such workers and their households negotiate the segmentation of the labour market, the erosion of employment security and the emergence of in‐work poverty and explore the diverse economic practices of those who cannot rely solely on formal employment to ensure social reproduction. Further, we assess the articulations between labour market participation and exclusion, and other spheres of economic life, including informal and illegal labour, household social networks, state benefits and the use of material assets. We argue that post‐socialist cities are seeing a reconfiguration of class processes, as the materialities and subjectivities of class are remade and as the meaning of work and the livelihoods different forms of labour can sustain are changing.     

Suffering,Vice, And Justice: Religious Imaginaries and Welfare Agencies in Post‐War Melbourne

Faith‐based welfare agencies vary considerably, dependent on the nature of their leadership, the inheritance of their services, and the niche that they are assigned by state policy in the mixed economy of welfare. Another dimension of their diversity can derive from the discursive structures of their faith. This article examines the theological inheritances that shaped how three key welfare agencies in post‐war Melbourne imagined what they were doing, as they drew on the diversity of teachings about the poor derived from the Catholic, Anglican, and Methodist traditions.     

Pious Way to Politics: The Rise of Political Salafism in Post‐Mubarak Egypt

The Arab Spring has reshaped the Islamist landscape in the Middle East drastically. After decades of repression and exclusion, Islamist parties have taken power in Egypt, Tunis, and Morocco. However, the startling rise of Salafism (Salafiyya) remains the most visible feature of the new Islamist scene in the region. After decades of eschewing politics for theological and political reasons, Salafi movements and groups have rushed into electoral politics enthusiastically. They became keen to form political parties, contest elections, and vie for power. In Egypt, the Salafi parties fared well in the post‐revolution parliamentary elections and are a key player in drafting Egypt's new constitution. This article explores the rise of Salafism after Mubarak and examines its effects on the democratic transition in Egypt. It investigates the ideological and theological stance of Salafi movements and parties on politics and democracy in particular. The argument put forward is that the extraordinary political openness in Egypt after the revolution has pushed Salafis into everyday politics. Subsequently, Salafis have become more inclined to adopt a pragmatic and practical discourse. Based on field research, this article provides a thematic analysis of Egyptian Salafism and assesses its political future.     

The Student's Two Bodies: Civic Engagement and Political Becoming in the Post‐Socialist Space

Student activism in Montenegro has remained largely unaccounted for in the growing body of literature on civic engagement and popular politics in the post‐Yugoslav space. When students took their discontent to the streets of the Montenegrin capital in November 2011, the dual nature of the student body was rendered visible and audible: while the official student organizations framed their activity as an apolitical expression of discontent over studying conditions, several independent student associations positioned themselves as an extra‐parliamentary opposition to the ruling establishment and called for the creation of a wide anti‐austerity/anti‐corruption coalition. Drawing from critical theory, political sociology, and human geography, this article addresses the questions of why, how, when, and where a part of the student body became political. I argue that a social context that lacks a tradition of politically engaged student movements provides opportunities for a nuanced understanding of political becoming of a hitherto apolitical social group.     

Managing Dissent in a Post‐genocide Environment: The Challenge of Political Space in Rwanda

This article analyses how political space, defined here as the ability of actors other than the government to critically engage in debate on government policy and practice, is being constituted in post‐genocide Rwanda. Using evidence from interviews with civil society activists and examples from the Rwandan Government's post‐genocide policies, it explores the kind of political space which results from an interplay of potentially competing influences. These include the promotion of a liberal approach to democracy, favoured by many of Rwanda's donors, and a more tightly‐managed and limited transition which is both preferred by and beneficial for the RPF Government. The article shows that although space could be seen in some areas as opening, this trend is hampered by government actions, including legislative and shadow methods, by donor reluctance to pressure the ruling RPF and by fear within civil society of tackling politically sensitive issues. In conclusion, the author suggests that this fear is reinforced by government policies which narrow perceptions of political space, exacerbated by perceived abandonment of civil society by donors, and that in combination these factors pose a long‐term challenge to more openly contested politics in Rwanda.     

From Democratization to Securitization: Post‐Arab Spring Political Order in the Middle East

This article examines the question: why and how the wave of democratization in the Middle East has receded, giving way to the prioritization of security in the post‐Arab Spring by conducting analyses at three levels: societal, state, and international. By applying the main concepts and theories found in the literature on democratization and securitization and by analyzing the Bertelsmann Stiftung's Democracy Status Index, the Arab Barometers Survey, and the Arab Opinion Survey, the article concludes that: at the societal level, the tragic unfolding of events after the Arab Spring prohibits the public from pushing a reform agenda; at the state level, the post‐Arab political environment raises doubts among the ruling elite about how far political reforms should be extended; and at the international level, with the rise of new security threats, international pressure on Middle East countries to democratize has been restrained, giving way to security cooperation as the top priority.     

Storm Drains as Assemblages: The Political Ecology of Flood Risk in Post‐Colonial Bangalore

Cities around the world are increasingly prone to unequal flood risk. In this paper, I “materialize” the political ecology of urban flood risk by casting stormwater drains—a key artifact implicated in flooding—as recombinant socionatural assemblages. I examine the production of flood risk in the city of Bangalore, India, focusing on the city's informal outskirts where wetlands and circulations of global capital intermingle. Staging a conversation between Marxian and Deleuzian positions, I argue, first, that the dialectics of “flow” and “fixity” are useful in historicizing the relational politics of storm drains from the colonial to the neoliberal era. Second, flood risk has been heightened in the contemporary moment because of an intensified alignment between the flow/fixity of capital and storm drains. Storm drains—and the larger wetlands that they traverse—possess a force‐giving materiality that fuels urban capitalism's risky “becoming‐being”. This argument raises the need for supplementing political‐economic critiques of the city with sociomaterialist understandings of capitalism and risk in the post‐colonial city. The paper concludes with reflections on how assemblage thinking opens up a more distributed notion of agency and a more relational urban political ecology.     

Reaching across: institutional barriers to cross‐ethnic parties in post‐conflict societies and the case of Northern Ireland

This paper investigates the paradox in post‐conflict societies of continued marginality of cross‐ethnic parties despite significant convergence in public attitudes and identities. In so doing, it examines the argument that parties that attempt to reach across the divide are constrained by consocational institutions designed to accommodate rival identities in such environments. The paper explores this puzzle in the context of Northern Ireland, drawing upon qualitative evidence from elite interviews and focus groups collected in 2012 and 2013. It concludes that cross‐community parties operating in the region do encounter formal institutional barriers, but that such barriers only partially explain the phenomenon and an interplay between formal and informal constraints underlies their position of relatively limited electoral success.     

Post‐communism and the Russian public

This book, based on a survey by the Sociology Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences completed in April 2011, provides, in the opinion of this reviewer, one of the most comprehensive accounts so far published of Russian opinion during the twenty years since the fall of communism. Based on a carefully weighted sample of respondents, it makes full allowance for the great variations of opinions according to age, income group and place of residence. It also allows for changes in opinion by drawing on surveys of earlier years. The finished product provides a wealth of information on subjects ranging from leisure to moral attitudes. The book sees little conclusive evidence of xenophobic attitudes towards the outside world, and suggests that ethnic hatred within Russia is a reflection of stress rather than racism. One salient finding is that very few Russians support the idea of the ‘minimum state’ or unregulated free market. Most Russians believe in some kind of a mixed economy in which the state nevertheless plays a key role. The idea of democracy, according to this book, is regarded with ‘benevolent scepticism’; that is, support in principle coupled with considerable doubts whether it would work in present‐day Russia. Given the impossibility of voting the present government out of office, Russians are increasingly resorting to other means of protest, including street demonstrations. The level of discontent is illustrated by the fact that only 10 per cent in the survey said they were better off as a result of the post‐communist reforms, while 25 per cent said they were worse off. Nevertheless, the majority of Russians have no wish for yet another upheaval and this may explain the continued public acceptance of President Putin's rule.     

Gender and Welfare Reform in Post‐ Revolutionary Mexico

This article discusses the impact a gender and woman's history conference had on the development of my own research and writing. ‘Las Olvidadas’ was a conference held at Yale in the Spring of 2001, and was the first in a series of Mexican women's and gender history conferences organised. My own research, on the gendered nature of the welfare state in Mexico, explores how class and race intersected with gender to produce a welfare system that, while particular to Mexico, also nevertheless had much in common with other Latin American countries. These conferences shaped both my views of gender, but also the importance of the transnational to historical research.     

Rescaling White Space in Post‐apartheid Johannesburg

This paper traces three political mobilizations in the wealthy suburbs of Johannesburg: a boycott of redistributive tax policies, the creation of gated communities and residents’ associations, and the demand for residential city improvement districts (CIDs). I argue that state rescaling and networked governance are constituted through struggles over governmental power. I also argue for more attention to race in the political economy of scale. Struggles over the scalar, networked, and territorial dimensions of governance are constitutive moments in the shifting articulation of race, class, and space. An analysis of articulation highlights the role of territory, identity and imagination in the production of space, demonstrates that neoliberal forms of networked governance are products of struggle, and reiterates the feminist argument that governmental interventions are about more than just capital accumulation.     

Irruptions of the Dreamings in Post‐Colonial Australia

This essay is written round four ‘funny stories’ from Northern Australia. Metamorphosis instigated by a Dreaming is central to all four stories and this is why the stories are counted as ‘funny,’ and received with glee. The analysis illuminates a topic that has been attracting attention in recent contributions to Aboriginal ethnography: how Dreamings irrupt into contemporary histories and act in ways that have political significance, contesting whitefella paradigms and re‐asserting the world‐view of the original Australians.     

Maori Tribalism and Post‐settler Nationhood in New Zealand

In this article I begin by sketching the main events in a recent dispute over the allocation of fishing quota among Maori. I seek to shed some light on the ideological grounding of this dispute in the simultaneous individualisation and tribalisation of Maori society since the late 19th century. Because the New Zealand nation is now imagined as an essentially binary one (bicultural, or treaty‐based) there is no secure place for urban indigeneity which constitutes a third voice. The inability of urban Maori Authorities to gain a share of the fishing quota is a reflection of this binarism.