Occupying Paulista: Housing activism, the new right and the politics of public space during the Brazilian crisis

Brazilian society has frequently been described as polarized during the country’s recent political and economic crisis. In 2018, a wave of opposition to the centre-left Workers’ Party culminated in the election of Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist who portrays the political left as a malevolent force in Brazilian society. In this paper I explore this polarization through drawing on ethnographic research with the Homeless Workers’ Movement ( Movimento de Trablhadores Sem-Teto, MTST), a large urban social movement that develops settlements on underutilized land in the city, and a prominent civil society opponent of Bolsonaro. More specifically, I examine a key site of socio-spatial tension in São Paulo, Paulista Avenue, as a new political right came to predominate on the city’s main thoroughfare during the campaign to impeach the Workers’ Party President, Dilma Rousseff. I show how the perceived intolerance of the mobilized right helped to establish new normative codes that regulated the political symbolism which could be displayed in public spaces. Lastly, I consider how the vilification of the MTST in particular and the political left in general by the new right is embedded in broader structures of stigmatization.

Spóźniona zmysłowość w twórczości filmowej Mohsena Machmalbafa

The Belated Sensuality in the Films by Mohsen Makhmalbaf. From Apology of Heroic Masculinity to Female Alternative Narratives – Return to the Roots of Aesthetics as a Way of Knowledge This article aims to describe the transformation in the films by Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf who started his career as a propaganda filmmaker in the newly established Islamic Republic of Iran. He continued his artistic search adopting polemic attitude and the new strategies based on sensual perception entered his cinema, that emphasized humans’ phenomenological reality, not theological imaginings. Instead of resorting to the traditional cinematic ploys of oppositional filmmakers, such as subversive dialogue, or political symbolism, in movies Gabbeh (1996) and Silence (1998) Makhmalbaf choses the pleasure of the interacting senses. These alternative performative strategies are characterized by individualized narration and their protagonists are far from the patterns of hegemonic masculinity and femininity.

Beyond the Sovereign State

This chapter explores efforts to rethink the meaning of political belonging. It delineates various models of citizenship found in Angloworld debate, focusing in particular on isopolitanism. The chapter examines the most authoritative account of isopolity, propounded by the famed legal theorist Albert Venn Dicey, before surveying other articulations of the idea, including those of Andrew Carnegie, W. T. Stead, and H. G. Wells. The penultimate section analyzes race patriotism. Just as citizenship was rearticulated as a form of identification with the Anglo-Saxon or English race, so too was patriotic regard: individuals owed allegiance to a nested set of communities, including their country and their race. Ultimately, the chapter offers a discussion of political symbolism, showing how race unionists designed rituals and markers of identity — from flags to public holidays — that evoked and glorified Anglo-America.

The Spread of Erlitou Yazhang to South China and the Origin and Dispersal of Early Political States

One of the major offshoots of the Jade Age and urban evolution of Erlitou is the role played by jade and stone as symbols of political order. The chapter considers how specific attributes of yazhang may be used to differentiate capital and secondary sites of influence in terms of state formation and Erlitou’s role in early Chinese history. Analysis of yazhang unearthed in East Asia suggests that one major and representative type and style of yazhang, Erlitou VM3:4, had a significant influence in south China during the Erlitou period. Erlitou appears to have had direct contact with the Jinsha culture in today’s Sichuan in southwest China and had relatively indirect interactions with southeast China’s Tai Wan culture in Hong Kong and the Hulinshan culture in Fujian. The replication of Erlitou yazhang in south China can be seen as representative of a political order spreading from a primary state to secondary states. Through analyses of Erlitou yazhang and other material evidence, it is possible to understand the political symbolism used in the early state. This is also significant in illustrating how states and political systems originated in wider East Asia. While the search for written evidence from the Xia period continues, archaeological remains and artifacts can provide scientific and crucial evidence to substantiate the early political state in China.

Animal Sacrifice

This chapter looks at animal sacrifice in the two cultures. In Greece, animal sacrifice is often presented as the single most important religious ritual and an action of great political symbolism, which can define a social group. In Hittite Anatolia, animal sacrifice was regarded as one of three types of offering, alongside libation and bread, the latter being less stressed in Greece; and there is much less emphasis on social significance, though there is some. Hittite texts are unusual in the detail with which they describe animal sacrifice, and this gives us lots of opportunities to compare and contrast it with Greek practice. Some things seem very similar, such as the distinction between modes of offering aimed at upper and lower deities. But there are also differences; for example, the form of offering with the highest prestige is not aninaml sacrifice at all, but ‘god drinking’, a form of libation in which the participants imbibed the spirit of the deity by drinking from a vessel that was supposed in some way to embody him.

The Rise of Political Symbolism in Post-Truth Era Democracies: Case Study of India during COVID-19 Pandemic

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De mobilisatie van de nègres blancs d’Amérique : Een geschiedenis van symboliek en schaamte als legitimatie van revolutionair geweld in Québec (1963-1973)

The mobilization of the nègres blancs d’Amérique. Shame and political symbolism as a legitimization for revolutionary violence in Québec (1963-1973)In research on liberation movements, or other social movements, academics tend to look at rational and material motivations ‐ economic, political, social, geographical, and demographic ‐ for revolutionary action. In this article I want to emphasize the leading role of emotions in social action. A vivid example of this is the use of the nègre blanc metaphor in the liberation struggle in Québec in the 1960s and 1970s by the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ). I argue that the devalued political, cultural, economic, and social position of Québec within Canada created a strong feeling of collective shame. To mobilize the Québécois people for its cause, the FLQ tried to address this collective shame by using the nègre blanc metaphor to describe the deplorable position of Québec. This identification led to active and passive support for the FLQ.