Territorialising Movement Parties: The Case of Nuevo Encuentro in Buenos Aires

How and why do political parties, seemingly focused on electoral politics, also mobilise within contentious arenas? Drawing on qualitative research with a centre-left Argentine party called Nuevo Encuentro (NE) in the city of Buenos Aires this paper demonstrates the importance of a geographical reading of “movement parties” for responding to this question. Specifically, the paper analyses NE’s territorialisation, understood as a strategy for organisation building via the political appropriation of space, typically by opening branches and mobilising activists in neighbourhoods. Between 2007 and 2019 NE’s strategy of territorialisation mobilised across multiple scales—the neighbourhood, city and national—yet in so doing its organisation became overstretched and struggled to engage across both contentious and electoral arenas. Through an analysis of NE’s territorialisation, grounded in the historical and geographical context of contemporary Argentina, the paper provides an original attempt to spatialise the concept of movement party.     

Political chess and vernacular discursive strategies: A study of the late Qing Sichuan Railway Protection Movement

ABSTRACT

Interdisciplinary literary and historical studies of late Qing vernacular are rare, and the vernacular texts of the Sichuan Railway Protection Movement have been overlooked by academics. This paper focuses on this topic, arguing that the discursive strategies in such texts revolved around the movement's aim of “breaking the agreement and protecting the railway,” and primarily included discourses on constitutionalism, financial interests, patriotism, cultural order, and the late emperor, as well the ideas of “ridding the emperor of evil ministers,” borrowed from traditional Chinese political discourses, and “national subjugation,” within the context of the national crisis. None of these discourses were “anti-Manchu” or “revolutionary,” yet they were able to mobilize the people of Sichuan to devote themselves to the Railway Protection Movement, as well as attracting the “sympathetic understanding” of high-ranking Sichuan officials, such as Wang Renwen 王人文 and Zhao Erfeng 赵尔丰, thus lending discursive power to the railway protection camp in its game of political chess with the Qing court. Meanwhile, the government's weak discursive power was an important factor in the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty by the revolutionary tide triggered by the Sichuan Railway Protection Movement. The discursive strategies in vernacular texts on railway protection (including the particularly strategic discourse on the late emperor) spread, transformed, and were reborn to varying degrees over the course of history.     

The inclusion record of fluid evolution,crack healing and trapping from a heterogeneous system during rapid cooling of pegmatitic veins (Dronning Maud Land; Antarctica)

Granitoid (pegmatite and aplite) veins in metamorphic rocks and intrusive syenites of central Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica, are flanked by conspicuous light‐coloured alteration halos, which represent the damage zone of fracture propagation. The damage zone is characterized by a high density of sealed or healed microcracks, about 1 order of magnitude above background. Fluid inclusions along healed microcracks in quartz of both pegmatite and alteration halos are inspected by optical and scanning electron microscopy, and their composition is analysed by microthermometry and quadrupole mass spectrometry. The similar inclusion record in the granitoid vein and in the damaged host rock indicates the derivation of the fluids from the hydrous melt phase. The aqueous inclusions bear abundant daughter crystals, mainly silicates, and may represent a hydrous melt. The volatile composition is variable in the system H₂O–CO₂, with mostly subordinate amounts of N₂. Phase separation with partitioning of CO₂ into the fluid phase coexisting with the hydrous melt, and possibly immiscibility in the subsolidus range, govern fluid evolution during cooling. The variable CO₂/N₂ ratio suggests mixing with fluids from an external source in the host rock and vigorous circulation at an early stage of high transient permeability. Experiments have shown that healing of microcracks at high temperatures is a matter of hours to weeks, hence similar in time scale to the cooling of the cm‐ to dm‐thick granitoid veins. In this case, rapid cooling and concomitant crack healing in a system undergoing phase separation causes a broad compositional variability of the inclusions due to necking down, and the underpressure developing in closed compartments precludes a meaningful thermobarometric interpretation.     

Hybrid finite element–finite volume discretization of complex geologic structures and a new simulation workflow demonstrated on fractured rocks

The generation of computational meshes of complex geological objects is a challenge: their shape needs to be retained, resolution has to adapt to local detail, and variations of material properties in the objects have to be represented. Also mesh refinement and adaptation must be sufficient to resolve variations in the computed variable(s). Here, we present an unstructured hybrid finite element, node‐centred finite‐volume discretization suitable for solving fluid flow, reactive transport, and mechanical partial differential equations on a complex geometry with inhomogeneous material domains. We show that resulting meshes accurately capture free‐form material interfaces as defined by non‐uniform rational B‐spline curves and surfaces. The mesh discretization error is analysed for the elliptic pressure equation and an error metric is introduced to guide mesh refinement. Finite elements and finite volumes are represented in parametric space and integrations are conducted numerically. Subsequently, integral properties are mapped to physical space using Jacobian transformations. This method even retains its validity when the mesh is deformed. The resulting generic formulation is demonstrated for a transport calculation performed on a complex discrete fracture model.     

Champions of the Movement or Fair‐weather Heroes? Individualization and the (A)politics of Local Food

We ask to what degree consumers who act out movement practices (eg local food consumption) may do so without regard for larger environmental and social justice implications, and how focus on individual concerns reflects the partial (but increasing) neoliberalization and depoliticization of the alternative food movement. Coupling narratives from five citizen‐consumers with analysis of organizational discourse from a major food movement organization in Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley, we examine the interplay of individual and collective identity to point to places where modified discourse and movement tactics may produce more fruitful outcomes (eg greater community food security). Ultimately, we argue that individualistic interpretations of alternative food are reinforced by organizational campaigns that shape collective identity, casting “buying local” as a heroic act, thereby re‐casting others as anti‐heroes. Counteracting individualization with a new politics of possibility should be prioritized, as citizen‐consumers will inevitably determine future landscapes of food, environmental sustainability and social justice.     

Buddhism,Democracy and Power in the 1932 Thai Revolution

The People’s Party toppled the Siamese absolute monarchy and introduced constitutional democracy in Thailand in June 1932. Scholars have generally denied that the revolution had any popular resonance, but this article shows that in Buddhism, the country’s premier cultural form, democratic rhetoric in the 1930s resonated among young monks marginalised by the ecclesiastical hierarchy. A group of young monks within the Mahanikai, or Great Order, rebelled against the palace-established Thammayut order that exercised the most power in institutional Buddhism. A “thin” or formal democracy established in 1932 – one displaying the main trappings of a regime of popular sovereignty but purposefully limited in scope by the People’s Party – thus inspired an assertion of a “thick” democracy, or democracy as a much older social value that governed both the Sangha internally and its relations with local communities, which the Mahanikai activists claimed was the core of original Buddhism.

     

Market Liberalism,Marginalised Citizens and Countermovements in India

How has neo-liberalism transformed the economic structure and policies of India? And what are the politico-economic implications of such policies for marginalised populations? Following Karl Polanyi’s theory of “double movement”, this paper argues that while market liberalism has helped India overcome the slow so-called “Hindu rate of growth”, it has adversely affected the economic interests of the poor. It further argues that the expansion of the market (first movement) has led to various social dislocations in the lives of the poor. Such dislocations have generated several countermovements (second movement), which have found expressions not just in electoral politics but also in various grassroots movements. While it may be true that such countermovements have not always been successful in overturning the tide of neo-liberalism, they have certainly influenced the policy priorities of the state in favour of the poor and the marginalised in India.     

The moral ecology of colonial infrastructure and the vicissitudes of land rights in rural Pakistan

For the last 10 years, the Pakistan army has not been able to collect rent from tenant farmers on its military farms in central Punjab. In this article, I analyse the historical and cultural significance of this contested land by using insights from recent literature on the politics of infrastructure to examine the contingency of rule in Pakistan, a postcolonial state, which is dominated by its army. I illustrate these dynamics by exploring the challenge brought up by a peasant movement to tacit cultural understandings about land and political subjectivity in central Punjab, the folkloric heartland of Pakistani nationalism. I argue that place-based movements, like the Punjab Tenants Association, can radically challenge our sense of place by giving a relational account of land as both a material substance and a crucial link in the set of relations that define moral, economic and political life. This approach broadens the emerging study of infrastructures by engaging insights from science/technology studies and subaltern studies to examine how cultural legacies of colonial infrastructure projects shape state–society relations in Pakistan.     

‘It's for the best’: child movement in search of health in Njabini,Kenya

Previous studies produced on the movement of individuals with HIV/AIDS for the obtainment of medical services have rarely been conducted in the Global South and have neglected the experiences of child patients. This article presents a new type of travel for medical care, where HIV+ children in Kenya are being placed or choose to be placed in orphanages in order to obtain constant access to antiretroviral (ARV) therapy, proper nutrition, and education. Through participant observation and photo-elicitation interviews with children in orphanages and their immediate family members in the surrounding Njabini community, this study focused on documenting children's agency in influencing movement decisions to orphanages for better health outcomes. Photo-elicitation interviews in particular allowed for greater insight into children's lives, their motivations for moving to an orphanage, and as a tool to facilitate discussion. Qualitative methods utilized with family members similarly privileged their interpretations of how child movement out of the house would help achieve the ‘best’ possible future for their children, particularly those living with HIV. Study findings shed light on the active role played by children in decisions to move to orphanages, the visualization of these facilities as the best place to secure access to ARV therapy and ensure proper child health, and the interaction that continues to take place between children and their family members once they enter these spaces.     

Role of compressive tectonics on gas charging into the Ordovician sandstone reservoirs in the Sbaa Basin,Algeria: constrained by fluid inclusions and mineralogical data

Structure‐ and tectonic‐related gas migration into Ordovician sandstone reservoirs and its impact on diagenesis history were reconstructed in two gas fields in the Sbaa Basin, in SW Algeria. This was accomplished by petrographical observations, fluid inclusion microthermometry and stable isotope geochemistry on quartz, dickite and carbonate cements and veins. Two successive phases of quartz cementation (CQ1 and CQ2) occurred in the reservoirs. Two phase aqueous inclusions show an increase in temperatures and salinities from the first CQ1 diagenetic phase toward CQ2 in both fields. Microthermometric data on gas inclusions in quartz veins reveal the presence of an average of 92 ± 5 mole% of CH₄ considering a CH₄‐CO₂ system, which is similar to the present‐day gas composition in the reservoirs. The presence of primary methane inclusions in early quartz overgrowths and in quartz and calcite veins suggests that hydrocarbon migration into the reservoir occurred synchronically with early quartz cementation in the sandstones located near the contact with the Silurian gas source rock at 100–140°C during the Late Carboniferous period and the late Hercynian episode fracturing at temperatures between 117 and 185°C, which increased in the NW‐direction of the basin. During the fracture filling, three main types of fluids were identified with different salinities and formation temperatures. A supplementary phase of higher fluid temperature (up to 226°C) recorded in late quartz, and calcite veins is related to a Jurassic thermal event. The occurrence of dickite cements close to the Silurian base near the main fault areas in both fields is mainly correlated with the sandstones where the early gas was charged. It implies that dickite precipitation is related to acidic influx. Late carbonate cements and veins (calcite – siderite – ankerite and strontianite) occurred at the same depths resulting from the same groundwater precipitation. The absence of methane inclusions in calcite cements result from methane flushing by saline waters.