The Politics of Debt and Europe's Relations with the 'South'

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Essential Feature ◽  
The South ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Past Injustice ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Global North ◽  
The Individual ◽  
North And South

While debt has the capacity to sustain social relations by joining together the two parties of a debt relation, it also contains the risk of deteriorating into domination and bargaining. Throughout history, different understandings of debt have therefore gravitated between reciprocity and domination, making it a key concept for understanding the dynamics of both social cohesion and fragmentation. The book considers the social, spatial and temporal meanings of this ambiguity and relates them to contemporary debates over debts between North and South in Europe, which in turn are embedded in a longer global history of North-South relations. The individual chapters discuss how debts incurred in the past are mobilised in political debates in the present. This dynamic is highlighted with regard to regional and global North-South relations. An essential feature in debates on this topic is the difficult question of retribution and possible ways of “paying” – a term that is etymologically connected to “pacification” – for past injustice. Against this backdrop, the book combines a discussion of the multi-layered European and global North-South divide with an effort to retrieve alternatives to the dominant and divisive uses of debt for staking out claims against someone or something. Discovering new and forgotten ways of thinking about debt and North-South relations, the chapters are divided into four sections that focus on 1) debt and social theory, 2) Greece and Germany as Europe’s South and North, 3) the ‘South’ between the local, the regional and the global, and 4) debt and the politics of history.

The Two Faces of Debt

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Stefan Nygård
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Bonds ◽  
The North ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Global North

This introductory chapter surveys the notoriously ambivalent concept of debt. It connects different approaches to debt in social theory and anthropology to the book’s focus on how past debts are mobilised in political debates in the present, and how the ‘North’ has been portrayed as indebted to the ‘South’ for its development, and vice versa. Both questions are framed by the way in which understandings of debt tend to gravitate towards reciprocity or domination. In view of its fundamental ambiguity, debt thus underpins both social cohesion and fragmentation. While it has the capacity to sustain social relations by joining together the two parties of a debt relation, it also contains the risk of deteriorating into domination and bargaining. A tension between debt as the glue of social bonds and debt as hierarchy consequently runs through the social history of the concept. Applied to regional and global North-South relations, discussions on debt have often centred on the question of retribution, involving difficult disputes over possible ways of settling debts in the present for injustices incurred in the past.

Debating the South in Unified Italy

2020 ◽  
pp. 186-214
Author(s):  
Stefan Nygård
Keyword(s):  
Nation State ◽  
The South ◽  
National Politics ◽  
The North ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Catching Up ◽  
History Of ◽  
South Axis ◽  
Nation State Formation ◽  
North And South

The history of modern Italy is an illustrative example of the different social and spatial layers of the North–South divide. Since unification in 1861, Italy has struggled to overcome regional imbalances, mainly although not exclusively along a North–South axis. With an emphasis on the period following unification, when North-South was placed at the centre of national politics, this chapter surveys the lingering debates on Italy’s so-called Southern question and the dynamics of nation-state formation in which it is embedded. The contested history of this process includes debates over economic and moral debts caused by the uneven distribution of gains and sacrifices between North and South as a result of unification. Socio-economically, two North–South divides developed in parallel after unification; the more significant one between Italy and transalpine Europe, and the initially minor but eventually growing divergence between the northern and southern regions within Italy. The ideas of development, catching-up and “Europeanization” were recurring themes in the intellectual and political debates discussed in the chapter. The contested issue was whether the North was developing the South, or vice versa.

The Social History of confession in the Age of the Reformation

1975 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 21-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Bossy
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Historical Discourse ◽  
Traditional Church ◽  
The Social ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Individual

When I offered to read a paper on this subject, I had a particular hypothesis in mind. I thought—perhaps it would be more honest to say, I hoped—it would be possible to show that, during a period roughly contemporaneous with the Reformation, the practice of the sacrament of penance in the traditional church had undergone a change which was important in itself and of general historical interest. The change, I thought, could roughly be described as a shift from the social to the personal. To be more precise, I thought it possible that, for the average layman, and notably for the average rural layman in the pre-reformation church, the emphasis of the sacrament lay in its providing part of a machinery for the regulation and resolution of offences and conflicts otherwise likely to disturb the peace of a community. The effect of the Counter-Reformation (or whatever one calls it) was, I suspected, to shift the emphasis away from the field of objective social relations and into a field of interiorized discipline for the individual. The hypothesis may be thought an arbitrary one: we can but see. I think it will be admitted that, supposing it turned out to be correct, we should have learnt something worth knowing about the difference between the medieval and the counter-reformation church, and something about the difference between pre- and post-reformation European society. If if did not turn out to be correct, we might nevertheless expect to pick up some useful knowledge about something which is scarcely a staple of current historical discourse, though it threatens to become so.

scholarly journals Dimensions of totemic history and its related accessories among the Gumbo-Madyirapazhe clan of Gutu, Zimbabwe

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-28
Author(s):  
Gilbert Tarugarira ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Recognition ◽  
Fundamental Importance ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Blue Print ◽  
Natural Way

Ties of kinship traced through blood (consanguinity) are of fundamental importance to individuals because they enshrine historical content which cannot be ignored. The social recognition of these linkages through totems provides the individual with a blue print of interaction which forms a vital bas is for cooperation. This article challenges the so-called irrationality of totemism, taking an uncelebrated dimension of how the practice is crucial for tracing the history of a people and the cementing of domestic social relations. The study explores and traces the history behind toponyms with the intention of showing that totems are a rich heritage as a source of history and social registers through which people can identify themselves. The study has been motivated by the Afrocentricity theory which values preservation of oral history as the natural way of storing information and historical realities in many African societies.

scholarly journals The Revival of Sang Hyang Dedari Dance: A Phenomenological Approach To Social-Ecological Reconstruction in Bali

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 72
Author(s):  
LG Saraswati Putri
Keyword(s):  
Community Engagement ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ecological Value ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sacred And Profane ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ecological Reconstruction

This research and community engagement investigates an ancient Balinese ritual known as Sang Hyang Dedari. The dance is interrelated to an agricultural aspect of the traditional Balinese living. As the Balinese struggle to maintain their values from the constant threat of modernization and industrialization, this dance reveals the powerful impact of creating an awareness of socio-ecological equilibrium. The effort made by the villagers of Geriana Kauh, Karangasem, displays how local community rebuilds its environment based on their traditional ecological value. Analyzing Sang Hyang Dedari dance through phenomenological approach, thus, it can be discovered how the ritual sustains the social relations. The bodies of the dancers are the center of an elaborate nexus between people, nature and god. To understand how the dualism of sacred and profane bodies, this research utilizes the body theory by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The importance of phenomenology as a theory relates to the understanding on how the ritual works as an event in its totality. Understanding the unity between the presence of the divine, nature and human. The output of this research and community engagement is a museum built in cooperation between University of Indonesia with the villagers of Geriana Kauh, Karangasem. As the performance and knowledge about Sang Hyang Dedari appeared to be scarce, this museum is a form of collaboration to retrace the history of Sang Hyang Dedari ritual, in an attempt to conserve the ancient knowledge.

Project Report on the "Investigation of the Present Situation and Development of Ethnic Minorities in China"

2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-9
Author(s):  
Hao Shiyuan
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Warring States Period ◽  
Warring States ◽  
The Social ◽  
Spring And Autumn Period ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Shi Ji

When viewed from the perspective of history, China has not had a flourishing anthropology and ethnology. However, China's traditions of ethnographic-like perspectives have flourished for a long time. Since the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC) and Warring States Period (475-221 BC), multiethnic structure and social relations have been recorded in China's history. Ever since Sima Qian's Shi Ji (the Historical Records), the first general history of China compiled around 100 BC, the social history and cultural customs of ethnic minorities had been covered in each dynasty's history. Moreover, some special chapters had been dedicated to keeping the records of ethnic minorities. Of course such records were not completely unbiased.

Jihad as an Individual Duty (farḍ al-ʻayn) in the Ideology of Circassian Sultans (1382–1517)

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 352-365
Author(s):  
Evgeny I. Zelenev ◽  
Milana Iliushina
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Essential Feature ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
History Of Development ◽  
Balanced Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mamluk Period ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Key Aspects

This article is devoted to the study of the development of the theory and practice of jihad during the rule of the Circassian sultans in Egypt and Syria (1382–1517). The purpose of the study is to trace the development of key aspects of jihad, to identify features of its perception in the Mamluk state. An essential feature of the theory of jihad in the Mamluk period is the interpretation of jihad as farḍ al-ʿayn (the individual duty of every Muslim). While studying the theory of jihad, the authors rely on a holistic and balanced approach justified in the papers of M. Bonner and D. Cook and their interpretation of the concept of jihad, which has a centuries-old history of development and a sophisticated, multi-layered set of meanings. Another methodological basis of the present paper was the concept of minimalism and maximalism, developed by Yusef Waghid. The source base for the study of jihad theory is the works of Ibn al-Nahhas (d. 1411), a prominent philosopher of the Mamluk era. The interpretation of jihad as an individual duty of every Muslim, substantiated by Ibn al-Nahhas, was the foundation of the volunteer movement that developed in Egypt and Syria in the 15th century. The doctrine of jihad where the concepts of justice (al-‘adl) and truth (al-ḥaqq) play a key role, was used by the Mamluks and then by the Ottomans as a powerful ideological tool to manipulate the minds of Muslims. The relevance of the study is that the findings are not only true for the Middle Ages but are directly related to the present.

Conclusion—Rousseau’s paradox

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Social Democrat ◽  
The Social ◽  
Adequate Understanding ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

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.

Co-creation and the state in a global context

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-40
Author(s):  
Sue Brownill ◽  
Oscar Natividad Puig
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
The South ◽  
Global Context ◽  
The World ◽  
Local Stakeholders ◽  
Global North ◽  
Global Nature ◽  
To Come ◽  
North And South

This chapter draws on debates about the need for theory to ‘see from the South’ (Watson, 2009) to critically reflect on the increasingly global nature of co-creation both as a focus for research and for initiatives from governments around the world. It explores whether current understandings of co-creation narratives, which have tended to come from the Global North, can adequately characterise and understand the experience from the South, and the resulting need to decolonise knowledge and conduct research into the diverse ways in which co-creation can be constituted. It goes on to illustrate these debates by exploring the differing contexts for co-creation created by state-civil society relations in the project’s participating countries. These show that, while distinct contrasts emerge, it is important to move beyond dichotomies of north and south to explore the spaces of participation and resistance that are created within different contexts and how these are navigated by projects and communities engaged in co-creation. The chapter draws on material from interviews with local stakeholders and academics involved in the Co-Creation project and project conferences in Rio, Mexico City and Berlin.

Towards a Theory of Social Assistance

2018 ◽  
pp. 335-353
Author(s):  
Lutz Leisering
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Social Assistance ◽  
Cash Transfers ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
The South ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Global North ◽  
Social Cash Transfers ◽  
North And South

This chapter sets out a theory of social assistance (including social cash transfers), which covers both the global North and South, and discusses the future of income security in the South beyond social cash transfers. It is argued that social assistance constitutes a small but vital component of social security and social citizenship—‘residual but fundamental’. It is further argued that social assistance is ‘fundamental but not comprehensive’, i.e. the challenge of universalizing social citizenship extends beyond relieving poverty. To confront the problem of inequality and get the middle classes on board, cash transfers need to be embedded in a broader, multi-tiered architecture of social security, which increases political support also for cash transfers. Still, despite the fundamental contributions of social assistance and the positive effects of cash transfers in many countries of the South, these programmes remain Janus-faced, entailing inclusions and exclusions, recognition and stigma, autonomy and social control.

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