Alternative View of Modernity: The Subaltern Speaks

This article derives from my 2021 ASA presidential address. I examine how sociologists including Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and white American sociologists have omitted key determinants of modernity in their accounts of this pivotal development in world history. Those determinants are white supremacy, western empires, racial hierarchies, colonization, slavery, Jim Crow, patriarchy, and resistance movements. This article demonstrates that any accounts omitting these determinants will only produce an anemic and misleading analysis of modernity. The central argument maintains that the sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois developed a superior analysis of modernity by analytically centering these determinants. I conclude by making a case for the development of an emancipatory sociology in the tradition of Du Boisian critical sociological thought.

Fortes in Fide—The Role of Faith in the Heroic Struggle against Communism

Repression and persecution by the totalitarian communist regimes have significantly affected the fates of Christian churches and believers in the countries of the “Eastern Bloc”. Many members of the clergy and laypersons were incarcerated, tortured and persecuted, several bishops suffered exemplary punishment in the propaganda-driven show trials and a few of them were later beatified or canonized across the world (by the Catholic Church). Focusing on the literature originating in Slovakia, this meta-report aimed to summarize the key authors’ essential works and to examine the question as to whether—and to what extent—faith was a contributing factor in the collapse of the communist regime. What was the role of the churches and believers in the struggle against communism? How and to what extent believers were involved in the resistance movements and the political and economic transformation of their countries that were set in motion by the collapse of those regimes? Based on an analysis of hundreds of books and articles on the subject, essential ideas were extracted, categorized and presented. The works of the persecuted authors were the subject of a detailed qualitative content analysis. Thus, four overarching dimensions (philosophical, intimate, personal and social/political) and fourteen categories related to the experience of faith were identified.

Sufism Between Asceticism and Jihad: A Conceptual and Historical Review

In the picture of ordinary people, Sufism teaches Zuhud and distances itself from the world in theory and practice. But this is different from reality. Sufism orders in the archipelago also appeared in the vanguard to fight and repel the invaders. The history of Islamic civilization records a series of resistance movements led by Sheikh Sufism with his followers to fight against the Dutch colonialists. For this to become evident to us, we must examine some of their words and actions: Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali wrote his book (Reviving the Sciences of Religion) during the period of the Crusaders victory over the Levant, and the author remembered everything from the works of hearts and did not remember to write a chapter on jihad. We conducted literature studies and verified and interpreted the descriptions in the literature. With a descriptive analysis, the approach is obtained. The conceptual ambiguity that afflicted Sufism regarding the concepts of jihad and the application of Islamic law" played a major role in the emergence of some analyses that suggest Sufism playing a safe alternative to extremist Islamic movements. Therefore, in this article, we try to answer a complex question, which is the degree of The link between the Sufi orders and the concepts of jihad and the application of Islamic law, and is it possible for the Sufi orders to adopt a form of political violence to implement their goals?

Lone Star Wars: LNGs, communities and globalization versus local resistance in the Laguna Madre region of coastal South Texas

Purpose This study aims to theoretically contextualize the liquefied natural gas (LNG) issue using Bauman and Debord. More generally, this research provides a theoretical and qualitative context to understand the LNG issue in discussions of environmental management, globalization and local government. Design/methodology/approach This study uses Boje’s narrative case study approach to analyze the politics around localized resistance movements to LNG production in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV). Specifically, this study examines the data collected from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, personal interviews and public declarations (newspapers, blogs, social media) to create an historiographical account of LNGs in the RGV to analyze the Laguna Madre resistance case regarding three LNG companies. Findings The development of LNG in Laguna Madre has been at least temporarily halted. This is considered partially because of the pandemic, reduced demand and local resistance. In the Laguna Madre case, controlling narratives by the LNG resistance appeared to be an essential component of their overall strategy. Originality/value Understanding the impact of energy development locally and globally becomes increasingly important, as access to fossil fuels become more limited. This case helps understand the overall adverse actions taken by LNGs to exploit communities, individuals and the environment while illustrating practical tools being used to resist the less desirable elements of energy development.

Contesting Spaces and Civil resistance movements: A case study on India's #FeeMustFall Movement

The paper intends to conduct a spatial reading of civil resistance movements taking Jawaharlal Nehru University’s (JNU) #FeeMustFall in India as the case study. Amidst penetration of neoliberal politics in public goods like health and education, the pay-per-user principle is not limited to the argument of efficiency of allocation of resources. It can be comprehended as the larger strategy of the ruling dispensation to deplatform dissent and homogenise state space on an ideological singularity catering to majoritarian and hegemonic nationalism. The paper shall focus on the spatial reading of civil resistance movements using Lefebvre’s characterisation of state space and Gramsci’s understanding of hegemony and nationalism locating in the context of JNU’s #FeeMustFall movement.

Contesting Spaces and Civil resistance movements: A case study on India's #FeeMustFall Movement

The paper intends to conduct a spatial reading of civil resistance movements taking Jawaharlal Nehru University’s (JNU) #FeeMustFall in India as the case study. Amidst penetration of neoliberal politics in public goods like health and education, the pay-per-user principle is not limited to the argument of efficiency of allocation of resources. It can be comprehended as the larger strategy of the ruling dispensation to deplatform dissent and homogenise state space on an ideological singularity catering to majoritarian and hegemonic nationalism. The paper shall focus on the spatial reading of civil resistance movements using Lefebvre’s characterisation of state space and Gramsci’s understanding of hegemony and nationalism locating in the context of JNU’s #FeeMustFall movement.

Contesting the Colonizer or Hopeless Submission? Colonialism, Indigeneity, and Environmental Thinking in India, 1857–1910

This article examines in detail how the forms of national or indigenous consciousness emerged in the sphere of Indian political ecology between 1857 and 1910. The subjects of “ecological indigeneity” and “dispossession” formed as defining characteristics in the articulation of this ecopolitical thinking. The scholarship to date has produced voluminous writings on the political, economic, and social dimension of the histories of colonial unrest, but it has not adequately addressed the issue of how the subtext of environmentalism greatly mattered in shaping some of the resistance movements. Focusing on the period between the 1857 revolt and 1910, this study evaluates three groups – (1) the 1857 Indian rebels and the Gonds; (2) the ādivāsī tribes of Bastar in 1910; and (3) the early Indian Congress Nationalists in the 1880s – to elucidate the emergence of environmentalism and indigenous dispossession in colonial India, which became foundational in critiquing British interventionist policies.