Out of the cauldron: lessons from Cedric Robinson

This is an abbreviated account of the UK webinar launch in October 2021 of the biography, Cedric Robinson: the time of the Black Radical Tradition, written by Joshua Myers. Moderated by James Pope, panellists, including Myers, Colin Prescod, John Narayan, Avery Gordon and Elizabeth Robinson present their takes on Robinson in relation to the UK and especially his relationship with the Institute of Race Relations and the journal Race & Class. They discuss key aspects of Robinson’s work, including the meaning of racial capitalism, his understanding of time, and how for him historical materialism was grounded, not in the mode of production but in the primacy of social struggle and in a dialectic of power and resistance to its abuses.

The Shifting Legitimacies of Price Measurements: Official Statistics and the Quantification of Pwofitasyon in the 2009 Social Struggle in Guadeloupe

In 2009, Guadeloupe experienced a historic 44 day-long strike against the high cost of living. The union-led collective (LKP) leading the strike used calculations and figures as a weapon to prove that players holding dominant market positions captured undue profits (“pwofitasyon”). Also, official price indexes were subjected to radical political criticism by the LKP actors. Yet, by using averages, these calculations could not account for the existence of individual abusive prices. The “statactivistic” momentum resulted in a shift of the legitimate price measurement methods. Calculation was, however, also the collective’s Achilles heel. LKP members’ use of numbers established only a temporary favourable balance of power in the negotiations. It was not enough for them to compete with the state’s calculative skills on an equal basis.

“Facing the virus” anaphora in political speech: a faircloughian analysis of president Xi Jinping’s address to United Nations general assembly

This research study aimed at the analysis of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s political discourse (his speech) delivered via video link at the annual General Debate of the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly. The focus of analysis is the president’s speech using Norman Fairclough’s modal of three levels or dimensions of discourse. Results show that the speech uses anaphora and pronouns which position an inclusive society of togetherness with differences and competitions among nations, as part of natural order of things. Social determinants like the need to belong, the use of politeness in a context of formality and the appeal to class sentiments against social struggle. These practices contribute in gaining legitimacy and power in the speech. While the speech is considered a powerful tool in unpacking the speaker’s ideologies, behind the personas – international persona as juxtaposed with the national persona, the realities of political struggle, national or international, the stabilization of power and the struggle for multilateralism remain a challenge.

The legal field as battleground for social struggle: Reclaiming law from the margins

Scepticism towards law’s potential of fostering social change has been widespread in critical theory and contributed to strengthen social movements’ mistrust vis-à-vis the use of legal tools to advance their claims. Such “anti-law” posture is based on the assumption that law would formalise existing relations of domination and posits the need for a political praxis liberated from “legalistic drifts”. This article discusses how legal tactics in favour of social change have been employed by social movements exerting a counter-hegemonic use of law in the post-2008 economic crisis conjuncture. The example of the struggle for the commons will be analysed as paradigmatic of how the interests of the marginalised can be protected by resorting to existing property arrangements, and how it is possible to reclaim law from the margins.

Diaspora organizations, political settlements, and the migration-development nexus: the case of the Indonesian Diaspora Network

This article examines the Indonesian Diaspora Network (IDN), an organization that seeks to ‘facilitate’ and ‘empower’ Indonesia’s diaspora and enhance its contribution to the country’s development. IDN portrays itself as an expression of the collective will of a unified and coherent Indonesian diaspora that is working to promote development-for-all, while critics suggest it is the instrument of elite and professional elements within the diaspora pursuing narrower interests and agendas. By contrast, this article suggests that IDN is a political settlement between these and other elements within the diaspora, each of which has distinct interests and agendas with regard to Indonesia’s development. Its impact on Indonesia’s development is consequently much less clear-cut than existing analyses suggest while also being contingent on processes of political and social struggle. In theoretical terms, the article encourages an understanding of diaspora organizations in terms of political settlements analysis.

Sociology versus economics: Economic life as social fact and social struggle

This review essay critically engages with recent works by Mark Granovetter, an American sociologist whose articles about social networks are among the most cited in the history of the discipline, and Thomas Piketty, a French economist whose early, illustrious career turned to worldwide public recognition with the publication of le Capital au XXieme siècle in 2015. The contrast is therefore between a well-known sociologist, one of the foremost scholars in economic sociology in the English language, and an economist of international renown who has challenged mainstream economics with his research on economic inequality and his call for participatory public involvement in economic decision-making. Both insist on the economic as social, but in distinctive ways. In this essay, first, I consider Granovetter’s long-awaited Society and Economy: Framework and Principles and Piketty’s recent Capital et idé ologie, a follow-up to his earlier, best-selling book, on their own terms. Second, I think through how each scholar might understand and critique the other, pointing to complementarities and important differences in their approaches. I conclude that although both Granovetter and Piketty challenge mainstream economistic accounts of economic life, while emphasizing human agency and so the contingency of given economic relationships, they differ significantly in their respective analytical and political-normative focus. For Granovetter, what matters is that economic life is a social fact, while for Piketty it is a social struggle.

Protest News and Facebook Engagement: How the Hierarchy of Social Struggle Is Rebuilt on Social Media

This content analysis expands protest paradigm research, examining the relationship between Facebook user engagement and newspaper protest coverage. Stories not posted to social media housed more negative frames that delegitimized protesters. For select protests, Facebook users engaged more with articles with legitimizing content, suggesting users, like journalists, follow a paradigm that legitimizes some protests and marginalizes others. We discuss these implications and consider how engagement plays a role in a protest’s ability to gain visibility and public support. Findings show the media and the public marginalize movements within a framework that rebuilds a hierarchy of social struggle on social media.