Migration and the critique of ‘state thought’: Abdelmalek Sayad as a political theorist

This article argues for reading the Algerian-French sociologist Abdelmalek Sayad (1933–1998) as a political theorist of migration. Various contributions have recently called to move away from the court-like assessment of claims by host states and foreigners and to engage more frankly with empirical work more attentive to concrete experiences and power relations. I contend that Sayad’s sociological work constitutes a substantial empirical and normative resource for ethical and political theory of migration, pointing to the persistence of ‘state thought’ and presenting original normative perspectives on emigration, inclusion in democracy, naturalization or postcolonial relationships. Such a reading of Sayad from a political theory perspective would then constitute a prime example of the cross-fertilization of empirical and normative approaches.

The poetics of labour, birth, and bodies

This commentary responds to Bagelman and Gitome’s article, ‘Birthing Across Borders: “Contracting” Reproductive Geographies’, in the context of the growing attention paid to an increasingly diverse set of work on ‘reproductive geographies’. Their call for more South-South stories of birth, and of birth in liminal places, resonates with the growing body of literature exploring dimensions of abortion, fertility, reproductive technology, childbirth, and miscarriage by geographers. Their development of the concept of ‘contraction’ from the collection of accounts of birth in the Dadaab camp illustrates the generative potential of theorising with and from the bodily sensations of labour. The commentary concludes with a discussion of the concept of ‘dilation’ by political theorist Jane Bennett, who in seeking a new conceptual language for affective encounter also draws on the affirmative potential of poetic expression.

A QUESTION OF RECOGNITION AND REDISTRIBUTION: UNDERSTANDING DOM AND MUSAHAR CASTES OF BIHAR

The paper attempts to look into the issues of marginalisation and exclusion of Dom and Musahar castes of Bihar from the perspective of recognition and redistribution as argued by political theorist Nancy Fraser. She explains that a theory of social justice must be constructed and articulated in a way in which redistribution and recognition play equal and interwoven parts. Issues of marginalisation and exclusion of Dom and Musahar castes are discussed here as denial of recognition for these groups that have been subordinated for centuries by the caste structures, and, as disparities in redistribution, that has resulted in gross inequality of opportunities, wealth and income. Non-recognition/misrecognition and mal-distribution are the typical experience of Dom and Musahar that are marginalized and excluded. The data and discussion of this paper is based on the research entitled “Social Psychology of Marginalisation and Exclusion: A Study of Dom and Musahar Communities of Bihar” (2016-18)

HUMAN RIGHTS AS NATURAL RIGHTS

The concept of human rights has always been a burning and one of the most significant concepts in the field of Social Sciences and Humanities. Human rights are the basic and birth rights of every individual. These individualistic rights are important in order to lead a dignified life in society. These rights guarantee to all round developments of an individual. The article Human Rights as Natural Rights, written by the American political theorist Jack Donnelly, is a depiction of the meaning and nature of human rights. In the article Donnelly tries to draw our attention to the theoretical premises of human rights. He basically discusses the concept of human rights from three premises- human rights as natural rights, natural rights and human rights and a social justice theory of human rights whereas the author emphasizes on the questions of what human rights are and how human rights work according to the existing theories of human rights and what the basic differences exist between these different kinds of theories.

Recalling and/or Repressing German Marxism? The Case of Ernst Fraenkel

I spent a few unseasonably hot summer days in 1996 digging around in the German Federal Archives in Koblenz for what later became a lengthy essay on Ernst Fraenkel (1898–1975), the neglected German socialist political and legal thinker. I still recall struggling to justify my efforts not simply as an historian of ideas but also as a political theorist who, at least in principle, was expected to make systematic contributions to contemporary debates. The problem was that Fraenkel had focused his acumen on investigating liberal democratic instability and German fascism, matters that did not seem directly pertinent to a political and intellectual constellation in which political scientists were celebrating democracy's “third wave.” With Tony Blair and Bill Clinton touting Third Way politics, and many former dictatorships seemingly on a secure path to liberal democracy, Fraenkel's preoccupations seemed dated. Even though Judith Shklar had noted, as late as 1989, that “anyone who thinks that fascism in one guise or another is dead and gone ought to think again,” political pundits and scholars in the mid-1990s typically assumed that capitalist liberal democracy's future was secure. When I returned to the US and described my research to colleagues, they responded, unsurprisingly, politely but without much enthusiasm.

Was François Fénelon a Political Philosopher?

During the reign of Louis XIV, few courtiers led careers as full and consequential as that of François Fénelon. Born in 1651 to a nobleman from an ancient line but with little wealth, Fénelon was well schooled through scholarships, rising as a young priest, scholar, teacher, and administrator through the Church hierarchy. The 1685 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes gave Fénelon the opportunity to distinguish himself as an educator at a school for girls who had recently converted from Calvinism to Catholicism. A rising star in King Louis XIV's court, he was mentored by the Crown's leading theologian and political theorist, Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, and rubbed shoulders with notables like the Duc de Saint-Simon. These associations led to his appointment as special tutor for Louis XIV's three grandsons, one of whom eventually became Philip V, king of Spain. Fénelon's own ambitions were rewarded in 1695, when he was appointed Archbishop of Cambrai. Over the course of his decorated career, Fénelon wrote theology, mysticism, and pedagogy, as well as more lighthearted fictional literature. He died in 1715, a few months before Louis XIV's own death.

Political Ontology of Alain Badiou and Sylvain Lazarus

The article reviews the concepts of the French anthropologist and political theorist Sylvain Lazarus and the philosopher Alain Badiou, who suggest a new perspective on the subjective foundations of politics as thought. The focus on the subjective foundations of politics can be explained by the initial ambiguity in the works of the French theorists, who interpret the activities of the intellectual activist in different ways. The paper shows that Sylvain Lazarus is more concerned with the intellectual activity of political activists, whom he categorizes as political activists and politicians by the degree of intellectual activity. It was concluded that, according to Lazarus, politicians occupy a priority position. They are presented as professional lone thinkers with revolutionary consciousness, which allows them to think politics from the perspective of a probable revolution. In this regard, the politics, according to Lazarus, is a politics of revolutionary action. It was found that in Alain Badiou’s theory the semantic emphasis is on the participation of intellectuals in politics. Based on Plato’s thought on the development of a philosopher, Badiou formulates the idea of an exemplary subject of politics. The exemplary subject of politics is a philosopher-mathematician who is good at mathematical logic.

What Time Was It?

In Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination, University of Chicago political theorist Adom Getachew has written a revisionist account of decolonization as “worldmaking” to inspire those who follow trailblazers like Kwame Nkrumah in pursuit of what she calls an “anti-imperial future.” As with other such projects of “imagining,” as Ernest Renan once observed about nationalism, a certain forgetfulness and even historical error would appear essential.

‘Human ATMs’: M-Pesa and the expropriation of affective work in Safaricom's Kenya

This article explores the austere labour regime of Safaricom – Kenya's largest telecommunications firm and financial services provider – from the perspective of the women and men who work as ‘human ATMs’ for Safaricom's breakout service, M-Pesa. Far from women and men simply acting as ATMs, I argue that the affective and social labour of these people working at sites across the country constitutes a form of maintenance work that, while essentially free in Safaricom's accounts, critically underwrites the success of M-Pesa and Safaricom. In making this argument, I draw on the insights of feminist political theorist Nancy Fraser, who has pushed Marx's key insight that behind the sphere of exchange lies the ‘hidden abode’ of production. In contrast, Fraser argues that behind the ‘hidden abode’ of production lie domains more hidden still that constitute the ‘backstory’ of contemporary forms of accumulation. I argue that the work of ‘human ATMs’ constitutes both the ‘front story’ and the ‘backstory’ of contemporary modes of accumulation unfolding in Kenya. Their labour is formally exploited while broader forms of work required to build and maintain the social and material networks on which Safaricom depends are expropriated, forming the basis of new frontiers of accumulation. This process is mirrored in Safaricom's contemporary business strategy, which is premised on enclosing people's everyday habits and social networks in their digital forms as sites of innovation and market-making.

Incubating Human Capital

This chapter documents how the venture capital system captures yearnings for technological alternatives. It follows the workings of a foreign-funded hardware incubator program in Shenzhen that trained people to translate their commitments to social justice into a pitch for finance capital. The incubator program taught people how to see themselves as human capital. Human capital, political theorist Wendy Brown suggests, “is the next step of homo oeconomicus as a neoliberal agent that seeks to strengthen his/her competitive positioning. Neoliberal rationality remakes the human being as human capital.” The chapter then shows that the turning of the self into human capital is all but an inevitable outcome of neoliberal capitalism but has to be actively taught and learned.