Farmers’ Suicides as Public Death: Politics, Agency and Statistics in a Suicide-Prone District (South India)

2014 ◽  
Vol 49 (5) ◽  
pp. 1580-1605 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIEL N. MÜNSTER
Keyword(s):  
South India ◽  
The Political ◽  
Smallholder Agriculture ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Statistical Knowledge ◽  
South Indian ◽  
State Practice ◽  
Indian State ◽  
The Media

AbstractThis paper argues that Indian farmers’ suicides may fruitfully be described as public deaths. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the South Indian district of Wayanad (Kerala), it shows that farmers’ suicides become ‘public deaths’ only via the enumerative and statistical practices of the Indian state and their scandalization in the media. The political nature of suicide as public death thus depends entirely on suicide rates and their production by the state itself. But the power of representations complicates the ethnographic critique of statistical knowledge about suicide. In a context like Wayanad, which had been declared a suicide-prone district by the Indian state, public representations of suicides have taken on a life of their own; statistical categories and the media interpretations of these statistics have had a curious feedback—mediated by development encounters—onto the situated meanings of individual suicides. Local interpretations of individual suicides mostly commented on personal failures of the suicide and on the perils of speculative smallholder agriculture. Ethnography of farmers’ suicide based on case studies alone, however, would soon encounter limitations equally grave as the limitations of statistical analysis. Not only is the meaning of suicide (intentions, causes, motives) at the actor level off limits for ethnography, but in addition to that the (public) meaning of suicide is co-determined by state practice including statistical accounting.

Un modelo para analizar la representación simbólica del escándalo de corrupción política desde la teoría del framing: aplicación al ‘caso Umbra’ | A model to analyze the symbolic representation of the political corruption scandal from the framing theory

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rocío Zamora ◽  
Juan Antonio Marín Albadalejo
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Political Corruption ◽  
Symbolic Representation ◽  
Public Image ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Power ◽  
Political Scandals

Resumen Lo que algunos ya llaman una cultura política del escándalo (Barkin, 1999; Thompson, 2001; Castells, 2009) ha supuesto el reconocimiento del poder de los medios en la construcción simbólica del escándalo, a partir del énfasis en ciertos marcos interpretativos con los que se narran las conductas que condicionan la percepción pública de los escándalos políticos. Este trabajo se centra en la representación simbólica de los escándalos de corrupción política. El análisis de la cobertura periodística sobre un caso de gran actualidad en Murcia, el ‘caso Umbra’, demuestra que, además de por el relato político-técnico, legal y moral, los escándalos de corrupción política pueden ser también enmarcados desde el enfoque reputacional, es decir, a partir de preocupación por el deterioro de la imagen que la proliferación de escándalos de corrupción política ofrece sobre un territorio concreto y  sus instituciones.Palabras clave Escándalo político, corrupción política, framing, cultura política, poder político.AbstractWe live in, as some scholars called, a scandal political culture (Barkin, 1999; Thompson, 2001; Castells, 2009) that has supposed the recognition of the media power in the symbolic construction of scandals, where the emphasis in certain interpretive frames with which behaviours are narrated determine public perceptions of the political scandals. This article focuses on the symbolic representation of political corruption scandals. The analysis of the media coverage on this great current importance case in Murcia, called the ‘Umbra’ case, demonstrates that, besides the political- technical, legal and moral, the political corruption, scandals can be framed also from the reputation approach, that is to say, from the worried deterioration on the public image that political corruption scandals proliferation supposes on a concrete territory and his institutions.Keywords Political scandal, political corruption, framing, political culture, political power.

scholarly journals What Does a Constitution Expect from Immigrants?

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 1641-1656 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uwe Volkmann
Keyword(s):  
National Culture ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Political System ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
Clear Idea

It is a long-established commonplace in any debate on immigration that immigrants should integrate into their receiving society. But integrate into what precisely? Into the labor market, into the legal order, into the political system, into a national culture whatever this might comprise? The Article tries to approach the question from the legal point of view and looks for hints or clues in the constitution which might help us with the answer. For this purpose, it explores the general theory of the constitution as it has been shaped by its professional interpreters as well as by political actors, the media and the public. The main intuition is that “constitution” is not only a written document, a text with a predefined, though maybe hidden meaning; instead, it is a social practice evolving over time and thereby reflecting the shared convictions of a political community of what is just and right. Talking about constitutional expectations toward immigrants then also tells us something about ourselves: about who we are and what kind of community we want to live in. As it turns out, we may not have a very clear idea of that.

scholarly journals I Don't Want to Be a Citizen (if it Means I Have to Watch the ABC)

2002 ◽  
Vol 103 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan McKee
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Social Organisation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper argues that much writing about media and citizenship tends to rely on a set of realist or structuralist assumptions about what constitutes a state, a citizen and politics. Because of these assumptions, other forms of social organisation that could reasonably be described as nations, and other forms of social engagement that could be called citizenship are excluded from consideration. One effect of this blindness is that certain identities, and the cultural formations associated with them, continue to be overvalued as more real and important than others. Areas of culture that are traditionally while, masculine, middle-class and heterosexual remain central in debates, while the political processes of citizens of, for example, a Queer nation, continue to be either ignored or devalued as being somehow trivial, unimportant or less real. The paper demonstrates that this need not be the case — that the language of nation and citizenship can reasonably be expanded to include these other forms of social organisation, and that when such a conceptual move is made, we can find ways of describing contemporary culture that attempt to understand the public-sphere functions of the media without falling back into traditional prejudices against feminised, Queer, working class or non-white forms of culture.

scholarly journals Emancipation as social equality

Focaal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (76) ◽  
pp. 15-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Indrajit Roy
Keyword(s):  
Political Party ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Equality ◽  
Cultural Organization ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Indian State

The ethnographies presented in this article point to the ways in which members of oppressed communities imagine emancipation. Instead of analyzing emancipation as stemming from statist precepts of citizenship, I want to direct attention—along with other articles in this special section—to the “arcadian” spaces in which exploited, marginalized, and discriminated populations forge membership in the political community in contentious engagement with both state and society. I draw on ethnographic fieldwork with Musahar landless laborers in the Indian state of Bihar during the winter and spring of 2009–2010, with follow-up visits in September 2013 and July 2014. I focus on their engagement with two organizations, one a leftist political party and the other a cultural organization, to advance my claims. The ethnography reveals that, for the Musahar laborers, ideas of emancipation are anchored in reclamations of social equality rather than a telos of state-centered citizenship.

The Emergence of Authenticity Talk and the Giving of Accounts: Conversion as Movement of the Soul in South India, ca. 1900

2013 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rupa Viswanath
Keyword(s):  
Tamil Nadu ◽  
South India ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
The Public ◽  
Religious Conversions ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Public Scrutiny ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Public Imagination ◽  
Legal Interventions

AbstractIn 2002, the Indian state of Tamil Nadu passed a law that illustrates the centrality of what may be called “authentic religious selves” to postcolonial Indian statecraft. It banned religious conversions brought about by what it termed “material allurement,” and it especially targeted those who might attempt to convert impoverished Dalits, descendants of unfree laborers who now constitute India's lowest castes. Conversion, thus conceived, is itself founded upon the idea that the self must be autonomous; religion ought to be freely chosen and not brought about by “allurement.” Philosophers like Charles Taylor have provided accounts of how selfhood of this kind became lodged in the Western imaginaire, but how was it able to take hold in very different social configurations, and to what effect? By attending to this more specific history, this essay brings a correlated but widely overlooked question to center stage: under what distinctive circumstances are particular selves called upon to actively demonstrate their autonomy and authenticity by divulging putatively secreted contents? In colonial South India, I will argue, the problem of authentic conversion only captured the public imagination when Dalit conversions to Christianity in colonial Madras threatened the stability of the agrarian labor regimes to which they were subject. And today, as in nineteenth-century Madras, it is Dalit selfhood that remains an object of intense public scrutiny and the target of legal interventions.

scholarly journals THE RIGHTS OF NATIONAL MINORITIES TO INFORMATION

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-53
Author(s):  
Aid Mršić ◽  
◽  
Larisa Softić-Gasal ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Service ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Pressure ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Trends ◽  
National Minorities ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Guardian

The public service, which should be the guardian of the identity of national minorities, fell under the political pressure. In this way, it came out of the scope of its actions. Leading people in independent media believe that the role of the public service is crucial in protecting national minorities.But the media can not do it alone. First of all, the state must regulate, and respect what it has brought. With strong strategies and the inclusion of national minorities in all social trends, it is possible to achieve, not fully, but partially, the equality of all those who liveon the territory of BiH.On the other hand, the public service must respect what the state says. The Communications Regulatory Agency is obliged to impose rules in an adequate manner and at the same time to monitor how much the media (public service) meets its obligations.

scholarly journals Representation of Youth in the Public Debate in Greece, Italy, and Spain: Does the Political Leaning of Newspapers Have Any Effect?

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (5) ◽  
pp. 620-637
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Bosi ◽  
Anna Lavizzari ◽  
Stefania Voli
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Adult World ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Political Differences

Recent scientific studies have reached the near-unanimous conclusion that the media produce a stereotypical representation of young people. However, research in this area has not often scrutinized whether there are any significant differences in the coverage of the subject matter. Notably, this article examines whether the political leaning of newspapers has any impact on the levels of plurality in the news coverage of youth. On the basis of political claim analyses of six newspapers from three countries (Greece, Italy, and Spain), we find that the coverage of youth in the public debate is very similar if we compare center-right to center-left newspapers. This suggests that the social construction of the concept of youth dominates in the adult world, regardless of any political differences. Nonetheless, differences emerge when young people are given the opportunity to speak for themselves; center-left newspapers are more likely to recognize the agency of, and give a voice to, young people.

Technological Illusions and Educational Resistances

2016 ◽  
pp. 428-443 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo Villanueva-Mansilla
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Class ◽  
The Public ◽  
One Laptop Per Child ◽  
Counter Narrative ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The One

OLPC, the One Laptop Per Child initiative, was accepted by just a few countries, including Peru. The largest acquisition of computers has produced a fairly low impact in education and is now being quietly phased-out. Peru's government decision to adopt the computers, back in 2007, was not contested or questioned by the political class, the media or even teachers, with just a rather small number of specialists arguing against it. This chapters discussed the political and argumentative processes that brought OLPC into the public sphere, through the use of a specific narrative, that of hackerism, i.e., the hacker attitude towards computers, and how social and political validation resulted in adoption. An assessment of the process of framing OLPC as a hacker product and the perils of such reasoning lead to discuss the need for a counter-narrative about the role of computers in society.

THE SETUPATIS, THE DUTCH, AND OTHER BANDITS IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY RAMNAD (SOUTH INDIA)

2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 540-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lennart Bes
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
South India ◽  
East India Company ◽  
The Political ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
South Indian ◽  
Marginal Power ◽  
Culture Politique

AbstractIn Ramnad, bandits could be king. The open-ended political culture of this South Indian kingdom presented even people on the margins of society with opportunities to attain political power. Likewise, the VOC (Dutch East India Company), operating from the coastal frontier of the kingdom, played a significant role in the political arena of Ramnad. Given this similarity, it may be asked whether the Dutch were regarded as neutral outsiders (as they themselves thought they were) or rather as an indigenous marginal power. By comparing the internal and regional relations of Ramnad with its contacts with the VOC, this article attempts to determine the kingdom's perception of the Company. In Ramnad, could the Dutch be bandits? En Ramnad, un royaume dans l'Inde méridional, il arrive que le bandit se fait roi. La culture politique, ainsi que les avenues du pouvoir y furent en principe ouvertes à tous; aux marginaux indigènes, vivants dans les terres sèches périphériques, autant qu'aux fonctionnaires de la compagnie néerlandaise des Indes Orientales, la VOC, qui avait un comptoir sur le littoral. Elle se considerait neutre. Toutefois elle allait jouer un rôle important dans l'arène politique de Ramnad. Or, au niveau conceptuel la question se pose si la perspective indigène différenciait entre le roturier indigène d'au-delà de la terre de grande culture, et l'aventurier étranger, ou par contre les confondait l'un l'autre. Cet article se propose d'y voir plus clair par l'étude des liens internes et régionals entretenus par le centre politique de Ramnad, en comparant ceux-ci avec les relations vis-à-vis la VOC pour en déduire le statut social des Hollandais dans la société indigène.

“Sultan among Hindu Kings”: Dress, Titles, and the Islamicization of Hindu Culture at Vijayanagara

1996 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 851-880 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip B. Wagoner
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
South India ◽  
The State ◽  
The South ◽  
South Indian ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Natural Result

When Robert Sewell inaugurated the modern study of the South Indian state of Vijayanagara with his classic A Forgotten Empire (1900), he characterized the state as “a Hindu bulwark against Muhammadan conquests” (Sewell [1900] 1962, 1), thereby formulating one of the enduring axioms of Vijayanagara historiography. From their capital on the banks of the Tungabhadra river, the kings of Vijayanagara ruled over a territory of more than 140,000 square miles, and their state survived three changes of dynasty to endure for a period of nearly three hundred years, from the mid-fourteenth through the mid-seventeenth centuries (Stein 1989, 1–2). According to Sewell, this achievement was to be understood as “the natural result of the persistent efforts made by the Muhammadans to conquer all India” ([1900] 1962, 1). Hindu kingdoms had exercised hegemony over South India for most of the previous millennium, but were divided among themselves when the Muslim forces of Muhammad bin Tughluq swept over the South in the early decades of the fourteenth century: “When these dreaded invaders reached the Krishna River the Hindus to their south, stricken with terror, combined, and gathered in haste to the new standard [of Vijayanagara] which alone seemed to offer some hope of protection. The decayed old states crumbled away into nothingness, and the fighting kings of Vijayanagar became the saviours of the south for two and a half centuries” (Sewell [1900] 1962, 1).

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