The tent: The uncanny architecture of agonism for Israel–Palestine, 1910–2011

Urban Studies ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 316-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yael Allweil

Mass social protest erupted in Israel in 2011 around the banner of housing, with citizens pitching hundreds of tents in urban public spaces all over the country. The tent, as a symbol of and the architecture for political action, aligned communities deeply alienated from each other – the middle class and very poor, renters and homeowners, Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, Jews and Arabs-Palestinians – in a shared demand for housing. Solidarity revolving around shared bodily discomfort over the precarious dwelling situation deepened as communities faced the uncanny realisation that tents invoke the dwelling history of each of them: Ashkenazi Zionist pioneers of the 1920s credited as founders of the nation, Palestinian refugees’ facing dispossession and negotiating right of return, and Mizrahim who were marginalised and racialised in immigrant absorption camps. In 2011 protest tents materialised the competing narratives of these conflicted social groups while simultaneously serving as a shared space for political action. This paper explores the history of tent dwellings in Israel–Palestine since the 1910s as the uncanny architecture of nation building and object of shared, though conflicting, narratives of gain and loss. Architectural space emerges from this study as the ‘matter that matters’, producing a political community of conflicted groups, as proposed by Chantalle Mouffe and Bruno Latour. Mouffe and Latour identified the social role of designed spatial objects as crucial for understanding ways in which politics and space are affected by changes to the material world. This paper’s contribution expands on the architectural history of Israel–Palestine and adds to scholarship of the political meaning of architecture as a social ‘object of concern’, applicable beyond this case.

2021 ◽  
pp. 42-83
Author(s):  
Andrea Mariani

The article presents the social role of Jesuit pharmacies in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth based on the sources of religious provenance and inventories of Jesuit colleges drawn up as a result of the dissolution of the Society of Jesus in 1773. In the first part, the author analyzes the ecclesiastical and secular legislation and its impact on the activities of Jesuit pharmacies. Canon law did not forbid clergymen to deal with medicine, but only limited the possibility of obtaining academic education in this field and conducting surgical procedures. By adopting these rules, Jesuit legislation placed the main emphasis on superiors’ control over the finances of pharmacies and limited the sale of drugs to protect the order from being accused of unfair competition by the townspeople. In the context of state pharmaceutical law, the privilege of June 30, 1662, which allowed for the liberation of journeymen by Jesuit pharmacists, was of great importance. In this way, a path of professional education in the field of pharmacy under the management of the Society, an alternative to the guild system, was created. The second part of the article discusses the social factors that favoured the establishment of monastic pharmacies. Particularly noteworthy is the uneven distribution of Jesuit pharmacies in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. While in Royal Prussia the Jesuits did not run pharmacies to avoid conflicts with the Protestant bourgeoisie, in the eastern borderlands of the Polish-Lithuanian state, Jesuit pharmacies were often the only institutions of this type. The third part of the work presents the financial situation of Jesuit pharmacies. They had significant income, but also required considerable investments related to the purchase of raw materials and equipment in the Baltic ports. The fourth part of the article concerns the social scope of the activity of Jesuit pharmacists, who not only provided medicines to the poor, but also treated nobles, magnates and high church dignitaries. Not being obliged by guild regulations, apart from preparing medicines, they also diagnosed them, performed minor surgical procedures and assisted women during childbirth. The last part of the article discusses drugs and raw materials in terms of their availability to the broadly understood clientele. The offer of Jesuit pharmacies included both cheap products derived from the local flora, intended for the treatment of the poor, and expensive raw materials from abroad. Moreover, among the medical matter there were preparations for women and infants, as well as for people suffering from syphilis. In the end, the author emphasizes the centrality of pharmacies in the Jesuit pastoral strategy. Thanks to their high level, pharmacies not only corresponded to the ideal of mercy, but also contributed to gaining the favour and trust of representatives of social elites. In this context, the dissolution of the Society is an important turning point not only in cultural and religious life, but also in the history of medicine and pharmacy in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.


2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 252-279
Author(s):  
Maria Cristina Tortti ◽  

This paper aims at outlining the main processes that, in Argentina’s recent past, may enable us to understand the emergence, development and eventual defeat of the social protest movement and the political radicalization of the period 1960-70s.Here, as in previous papers, we resort to the concept of new left toname the movement that, though heterogeneous and lacking a unified direction, became a major unit in deeds, for multiple actors coming the most diverse angles coincided in opposing the vicious political regime and the social order it supported. Consequently, we shall try to reinstate the presence of such wide range of actors: their projects, objectives and speeches. Some critical circumstances shall be detailed and processes through which protests gradually amalgamated will be shown. Such extended politicization provided the frame for quite radical moves ranging from contracultural initiatives and the classism in the workers’ movement to the actual action of guerrilla groups. Through the dynamics of the events themselves we shall locate the peak moments as well as those which paved the way for their closure and eventual defeat in 1976.


Author(s):  
Duncan Kelly

This chapter binds the book together, recapitulating its general argument, and offering pointers as to how the study relates to some contemporary questions of political theory. It suggests that a classification that distinguishes between Weber the ‘liberal’, Schmitt the ‘conservative’ and Neumann the ‘social democrat’, cannot provide an adequate understanding of this episode in the history of political thought. Nor indeed can it do so for other periods. In this book, one part of the development of their ideas has focused on the relationship between state and politics. By learning from their examples, people continue their own search for an acceptable balance between the freedom of the individual and the claims of the political community.


2019 ◽  
pp. 196-206
Author(s):  
Kimberley J. Hockings ◽  
Robin I.M. Dunbar

Humans and alcohol have shared a very long history. In this final chapter, we highlight some of the key findings that emerge from the chapters in this book, in particular the evolutionary history of our adaptation to alcohol consumption and the social role that alcohol consumption plays, and has played, in human societies across the world. This raises a major contradiction in the literature, namely the fact that, despite this long history, the medical profession typically views alcohol as destructive. We draw attention to several avenues that would repay future research and how humans’ relationship with alcohol stands to change and evolve.


2020 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-94
Author(s):  
Kostas Vlassopoulos

Pride of place in this review goes undoubtedly to Sally Humphreys’ monumental study of kinship in ancient Athens. A work in progress for four decades, it is finally published in two volumes of almost 1,500 pages. The book's coverage is vast: the first volume focuses on interactions among kinsfolk (legal, social, economic, and ritual), while the second volume explores the various Athenian corporate groups which employed kinship as their organizing principle (phratries, gene, tribes, and trittyes) and provides an exhaustive discussion of kinship networks attested across all Athenian demes. As a result of its size and encyclopaedic coverage, I suspect that most readers will approach this work in a piecemeal fashion, looking for a particular phenomenon or searching for a particular kinship network; the lack of a detailed introduction or conclusions – features that would have been essential in a work of this size and ambition – does not help in this respect. But this work needs to be assessed as a whole, for three main reasons. The first is that households were the main organizing units of Athenian society, while most Athenian groups were organized on a kinship principle. Their roles were crucial, and they need to complement the social models of Athenian society we employ, alongside class and status. The second reason is that Humphreys makes a very good job of exploring the various contradictory tendencies at work in how Athenian kinship operated: the interests of male heads; of wives, children, and relatives; of wider kinship networks; and of the political community. The third is the combination of literary, epigraphic, and material evidence of Athenian kinship, which reveals in often impressive ways the contradictions and gaps of our various sources: not only will this work be essential reading for those working on Athenian oratory, archaeology, or economy, but its accumulated detail offers the basis for writing a novel history of Athenian society. Of course, a work gestated for forty years will also show the unavoidable flaws of its piecemeal construction; but these are largely of secondary importance, compared to the value of the end product.


Author(s):  
Florence Le Cam

From the end of the 19th century until the present, journalists have created associations, trade unions, clubs, and major international networks to organize workers, defend their rights, set out their duties, establish rules of good conduct, and structure their professional journalistic skills. These journalistic organizations are central actors in the history of the professionalization of journalistic groups around the world. They have enabled journalists to make their demands public, exchange views with journalists from other countries, and sometimes even promote and achieve legal recognition of their profession. In general terms, they have provided journalists with fora to discuss their working conditions, their profession, and the social role of the media and journalism. In this way, they have helped to structure not only discourses and practices, but also networks of solidarity at both national and international levels. These organizations can exist in different arenas: within media companies, at the national level, or internationally. And, despite their variety over time, they have often pursued similar objectives: protect journalists’ pay and employment conditions and status; conceive strategies to maintain a certain form of autonomy in authoritarian political contexts; nourish international networking ambitions that have made it possible to disseminate ways of doing and thinking journalism; and finally generate a set of actions that aims to defend the ethics of journalism, the quality of news, and the lives of journalists.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 198-203
Author(s):  
Gennadiy G. Bril’ ◽  
Ekaterina I. Bogdanova

The article examines the process of the origin and development of pawnshop activity in the Russian state in the pre-revolutionary and Soviet periods. Special attention is paid to improving the conditions for granting loans to the population secured by property. The authors investigated the normative legal acts regulating the activities of pawnshops. It is noted that the creation of pawnshops was due to the need to rid the population of usurious oppression and the search for new sources of replenishment of the state treasury. The analysis of the sources of legal regulation shows that in the pre-revolutionary period there was a gradual transfer of the work of pawnshops from the public sphere to the private – the organisational and legal forms of pawnshops were improved, the system of control over their activities changed. The chronological framework of the study also includes the Soviet stage of the formation of pawnshop activity, which is poorly studied. After the temporary cessation of pawnshops, the process of its revival began within the framework of a new economic policy in order to improve consumer services for the population. The authors reveal the contribution of pawnshops to the preservation of citizens' property during the Axis-Soviet War. The analysis of the history of pawnshop activity allowed us to conclude about the social role of pawnshops and their importance for maintaining the financial situation of the population, which indicates the need for the development of pawnshop activity at the present stage.


2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (40) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vicente De Paula Faleiros

Resumo – Este artigo de micro-história reflexiva refere-se à história da mudança do paradigma do Serviço Social funcionalista no processo de reconceituação vivido na Escola de Trabalho Social da Universidade Católica de Valparaíso, no Chile, de 1970 a 1973. Tem por objetivo discutir a fundamentação e a prática do paradigma reconceituado no contexto da experiência chilena de transição para o socialismo com liberdade e da articulação com o marxismo. O relato histórico tem como referência a escrita de uma micro-história na perspectiva de uma análise da totalidade, com base em narrativa pessoal e em documentos da época, conforme sugere Burke (1992), numa perspectiva da sociologia reflexiva (MELUCCI, 2005). A discussão da experiência aponta para a construção de uma articulação do Serviço Social com a ação política comprometida com a transformação das relações de dominação. Palavras-Chave: Reconceituação do Serviço Social; Funcionalismo; Dialética; Experiência Chilena.  Abstract – This reflective microhistory article refers to the history of the paradigm shift of the functionalist social service in the process of reconceptualization lived in the Social Work School of the Catholic University of Valparaíso - Chile from 1970 to 1973. Its purpose is to discuss the fundaments and the practice of the paradigm reconceptualized in the context of the Chilean experience of transition to socialism with freedom and this articulation with Marxism. The historical account has as reference the writing of a microhistory in the perspective of an analysis of the totality, based on personal narrative and documents of the time, as suggested by Burke (1992), from a perspective of reflective sociology (MELUCCI, 2005). The discussion of experience points to the construction of an articulation of social work with political action committed to the transformation of relations of domination.Keywords: Social Work Reconceptualization; Functionalism; Dialectics; Chilean experience.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
鬼谷 子

The research focuses on how the Nguyen dynasty it became the first to have the largest territory in the history of Vietnam in its nearly 60 years of establishing and reigning over the unified country in the first half of the 19th century. It is seen that in terms of organizing the state apparatus, Gia Long and Minh Mang retained the system of agencies of the previous dynasties and continued reforms to ensure socio-political stability in their governance at that time. The study also clarifies the social role of Confucianism in the Nguyen dynasty, i.e. in the first half of the 19th century, which, in our opinion, is theoretically and practically significant, with the hope of further unraveling the role of Confucianism in that period.


2014 ◽  
pp. 131-157
Author(s):  
Nilo Cerqueira

It is important to museology, museums and especially for visitors to define concepts about the social role of the museum and the museum as an organization. For museums is important from the point of view of its delineations of activity and modes of dialogue. To Museology has value because it gives the mission often propose new guidelines to improve and moments between the museum and society. And finally, for the visitor, it is the reason, the nature of the museum settles. At the headquarters of understanding that this not called. A simple walk in the guideline of the history of advent museum, and you can notice the dissonance between theory, the θεωρία Greek, is the purely rational descriptive knowledge . And the prâxix , 'action' . ] S.f.2 n.1 . Practical activity; action exercise use. In the course of these lines, we note, in the spectrum of branding, the various inconsistencies between theory and practice, the first image and the target image, between the rational and emotional, between being what want to be. Or as the article suggests, between the being or not being of museums.


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