Communology:

2019 ◽  
Vol 118 (4) ◽  
pp. 725-746
Author(s):  
Ugo Mattei ◽  
Mark Mancall
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
End Of History ◽  
The Status ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The End Of History ◽  
Positivist Approach

Against the spectacle of environmental, economic, social, and institutional crises spawned by capitalism, the authors advocate the urgency of a radically new social science: the nascent field of communology. As Marxism did in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, communology challenges orthodoxy. This article presents communology’s evolving terminology, historical perspective, and intersections with law, politics, technology, and social sciences. The commons are subversive to the status quo; they do not assume—as given—sovereignty, statehood, boundaries, or territorial or property structures. That is precisely why their study within the positivist approach dominant today is inadequate, often misleading, and even dangerous to projects of emancipation. Commoners constantly struggle for a different world, for a radically inclusive alternative to all patterns of capitalist exclusion, both private and public. Neither capitalism nor socialism, in any of their forms, constitutes “the end of history.”

Theses on the Commons

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (93) ◽  
pp. 62-67
Author(s):  
Peter Hitchcock ◽  
Christian P. Haines
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Knowledge Economy ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Institution Building ◽  
Final Word ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Commons

These theses are meant not as the final word on the concept or praxis of the commons but as words inspiring readers to imagine alternatives to the status quo. They cover topics including social reproduction, the knowledge economy, cultural heritage, affective attachments to property, the Anthropocene or Capitalocene, the legacy of communism, and the politics of institution building.

Dialectics of Sovereignty, Compromise, and Equality in the Discourse on the “Tibetan Question”

boundary 2 ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 153-179
Author(s):  
Tsering Wangmo Dhompa
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Real Solution ◽  
The Status ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Cultural Project ◽  
East And West ◽  
Hearts And Minds

Since 1950, the Chinese government has determined the status and position of Tibetans, but it has not won the battle for Tibetans’ hearts and minds. Ongoing Tibetan resistance under Chinese rule points to serious fissures in the Chinese state’s ideological and cultural project of “liberating” Tibet. Wang Hui’s article “The ‘Tibetan Question’ East and West: Orientalism, Regional Ethnic Autonomy, and the Politics of Dignity” analyzes the March 2008 “riots” in and around Lhasa in order to understand the impediments to a real solution to the crisis in Tibet. This piece suggests that although Wang Hui offers productive ways of moving beyond the status quo, his analysis of Tibet is limited by multiple ideological contradictions that ultimately fail to lift Tibet out of the advanced/backward binary that typifies late nineteenth-century orientalism.

Towards an African Qur'anic Hermeneutics

2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-76
Author(s):  
Michael Mumisa
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Sacred Texts ◽  
Christian Perspective ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Status ◽  
African Perspective

The 20th century has been witness to great developments in theology, philosophy of language and the social sciences. Postmodernism has emerged as an influential philosophical thought. All of these 20th century phenomena have influenced how people approach sacred texts and how they comprehend and interpret them. Muslims have not been immune to these developments, and accordingly there has been a realisation among Muslim theorists that the existing interpretations of the Qur'an and Sunnah (imitado Muhammadi) may be limited and not able to suffice the needs of a changing world. The Islamic world has also been rapidly expanding to incorporate races, cultures and environments of various kinds. Consequently, racial and cultural problems have emerged causing a great need among progressive Muslims, particularly the youth, women, people of colour, and other concerned Muslims for a re-reading of the sacred texts so that they become existentially meaningful in the here and now. Such a reading will have to take into consideration differences of perspective and social location. Although this article proposes an African Qur'anic hermeneutics within the liberative discourse, it is not necessarily proposing an African Muslim perspective of liberation since there can be no such a thing as an ‘African perspective’, ‘feminist perspective’ or even ‘Christian perspective’ of liberation. By confirming the ‘us’ versus ‘them’, or dominant versus ‘other’ in the liberation process, it serves to confirm the status quo which we seek to change.

scholarly journals Hear my screams: An auto-ethnographic account of the police

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 205979911988427
Author(s):  
Aliraza Javaid
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Male Rape ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Personal Reflections ◽  
The Way

Other writers, notably police researchers, infrequently discuss the problems and difficulties that they encounter in and outside of fieldwork when doing research on the police. In this article, I piece together some critical and personal reflections of researching the police to provide nuanced information that can help other writers to learn from my own experiences of researching the police and also help them to navigate their own experiences of working with the police for research purposes. These reflections of mine emanate from fieldwork notes and my research diary. I use Ahmed’s The Promise of Happiness as a lens to theorise and make sense of such experiences, understanding how my presence gets in the way of the happiness of others because of my affiliation to sexual violence work. By naming a problem, rape as a problem, I became the problem. The article outlines some of the chief ethical, personal and pragmatic issues that can surface when researching the police. For example, I frequently encountered interrogative questions whereby officers questioned my sexuality, asking ‘are you gay?’ I became a nuisance for the police, a problem by highlighting the issue of male rape as a problem given that it challenges the status quo of normative heterosexuality. I argue that, doing research on the police, which can involve sensitive and challenging work that affects one emotionally, socially and physically, impacts not only the officers being interviewed, but also the researchers themselves. The latter group should be identified much more readily than seems to be the case in the social sciences.

“Just the Status Quo?”

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-313
Author(s):  
Michele Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Progressive Era ◽  
Documentary Film ◽  
Gilded Age ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The Status ◽  
Sex And Sexuality ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Abstract*As much as recent scholarship, popular outlets, and even a documentary film have asserted that we find ourselves in another “Gilded Age” since the 1980s, such a conceit has its limits. Indeed, we should proceed with caution when it comes to embracing analogies that posit a “new” or “second” Gilded Age. We might instead profitably think about the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as being a period of high capitalism and our current moment as reflecting a particular, if not peculiar, phase of capitalism. And, as much as our understanding of gender and sexuality during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries might actually be hindered by separating “Gilded Age” and “Progressive Era,” considering gendered dynamics of our current moment—a moment that has been termed late-stage capitalism—deepens our analysis of the low-wage economy. When it comes to sexuality, we should be careful in drawing parallels between the Gilded Age and the present given that contemporary understandings of sexuality began to coalesce during the late nineteenth century. Still, debates about sex and sexuality certainly shaped the Gilded Age and they continue to inform our current moment in dynamic and even unprecedented ways. We might not find ourselves in another Gilded Age, but we should arguably build upon current interest in histories of capitalism as a means think about the significance of progressive social movements within capitalist societies.

scholarly journals On Recent Developments in the New Historiography of (Neo)Liberalism

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-124
Author(s):  
Iain Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Cold War ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
End Of History ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
The End Of History

Over the last twenty years or so several new waves of research on the history of liberalism have emerged. The novelty of this should not be exaggerated as broad scholarly interest in liberalism has in fact been increasing at a remarkable rate since the 1980s. Nevertheless, it is clear that the historiography of liberalism has broken much new ground since around the turn of the century. This has been driven partly by the influence of larger developments in the humanities and social sciences. The global and post-colonial turns, for instance, have helped to reshape the historiography of liberalism by provoking debates over the extent of its complicity in slavery and colonialism, while also drawing attention to the contribution of theorists from the global south. But even much of this ‘normal’ innovation has been driven at least indirectly by a growing sense that liberalism is in crisis. The War on Terror, the financial meltdown of 2008 and the global rise of populist authoritarianism are the obvious staging posts in liberalism's journey from post-Cold War triumphalism to contemporary fears for its imminent demise. And it is not a coincidence that the end of the end of history has seen the beginning of a new historiography of liberalism. Since the early 2000s the emergence of new sub-fields like the histories of ‘Cold War liberalism’, human rights and neoliberalism can all be seen in different ways as responding to liberalism's unfolding crisis.

scholarly journals Radical changes are needed for transformations to a good Anthropocene

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Timon McPhearson ◽  
Christopher M. Raymond ◽  
Natalie Gulsrud ◽  
Christian Albert ◽  
Neil Coles ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Cognitive Behavioral ◽  
Urban Systems ◽  
Planetary Boundaries ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Governance Systems ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Cultural Shifts

AbstractThe scale, pace, and intensity of human activity on the planet demands radical departures from the status quo to remain within planetary boundaries and achieve sustainability. The steering arms of society including embedded financial, legal, political, and governance systems must be radically realigned and recognize the connectivity among social, ecological, and technological domains of urban systems to deliver more just, equitable, sustainable, and resilient futures. We present five key principles requiring fundamental cognitive, behavioral, and cultural shifts including rethinking growth, rethinking efficiency, rethinking the state, rethinking the commons, and rethinking justice needed together to radically transform neighborhoods, cities, and regions.

The Primacy of Labor in American Constitutional Development

1995 ◽  
Vol 89 (2) ◽  
pp. 377-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Orren
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Labor Relations ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Constitutional Development ◽  
The Status ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The U.S

As demonstrated in landmark decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, American constitutional development has been fueled since the framing by disputes arising from changing labor relations in both private and public settings. This pattern is explained by the original provisions of the Constitution, the English background of its emergence, and the primacy of labor as a theoretical concept for studying political change. The Court's decisions protecting property express the status quo, the establishment against which transformations proceed. However, the property cases may also be reinterpreted along the lines indicated.

scholarly journals Independent Community Archives: Challenging the Status Quo of Private and Public Archives

Atlanti ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-215
Author(s):  
Anne J. Gilliland ◽  
Tamara Štefanac
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
North America ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Community Archives ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Status ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Legislative Framework ◽  
Public Archives

The community archives movement has emerged as a prominent, and often critical, presence within, and also outside the archival traditions and practices in North America and the United Kingdom. They can take many forms and often contest how both public and private archives in these regions have historically been understood, structured and operated. This paper first presents a brief review of some of the ways in which community archives have been framed in the archival literature. It then considers several questions regarding how such framings of community archives might challenge the status quo of private and public archives as currently defined and organized under the recently revised Croatian legislative framework and proposes a more conciliatory approach.

scholarly journals Legal ideology and the commons: Why are jurists falling behind?

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-218
Author(s):  
Filippo Valguarnera
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
General Point ◽  
Fundamental Field ◽  
Legal Ideology ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Commons ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Peculiar Case

The last quarter of a century has featured a surge in interest and studies on the commons, spearheaded, of course, by the efforts of Elinor Ostrom. These efforts have problematized the once well-established paradigm of the tragedy of the commons most clearly described by Garrett Hardin in 1968. One could say that the commons, thus, have become a fundamental field of study in most social sciences. This is not the case in the field of legal scholarship (with one noticeable exception that I will discuss later), which leads me to the overarching issue of this essay, namely the difficult relationship between jurists and the commons. The phrase ?difficult relationship? does not refer to an explicit antagonism, but to something even worse: complete indifference and a scandalous lack of knowledge. While my main purpose is to try to explain this sorry state of affairs, I also hope to make a more general point on the nature of law and legal change. In this sense, the commons can be considered a case-study in legal theory. The main issue of this paper is to tackle following sub-questions. What is the status of commons in the Western European legal discourse? Why do most legal scholars pay such a poor attention to the growing literature on the commons in other disciplines? What factors contribute to this peculiar case of cultural deafness? What promise of improvement does the future hold?

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