Sports, Bodies, and Futures: An Epilogue

Since their invention in mid-nineteenth century Britain, modern sports have traveled: first, as they were exported to all regions of the world, often piggybacking on colonial projects; second, as sports are often brought to troubled economies and states in the context of development and reconciliation projects; and third, as athletes moved across national and other borders to play and seek a livelihood by playing. Athlete mobility is more alive than ever in the contemporary world, and Pacific Islanders’ participation in this mobility is disproportionate to the visibility of their nations on the global stage. Understanding the meaning of sport in the region, however, raises important questions whose implications reach beyond the confines of sport: the workings of power in a world in which bodies become commodities; the conflicts that arise between different epistemologies of development and resource use; and the clashes between different conceptualizations of the future

Epilogue. Indeterminacy: Between Worth and Worthlessness

In the early days of a discipline whose origins were inspired by the taxonomic impulse of the natural sciences, anthropology attempted to understand different human societies in relation to Western civilization within an evolutionary framework. Anthropologists thus described and organized their empirical observations in categorical bundles. Nevertheless, the data always exceeded the categories that anthropologists devised, which prompted the researchers to come up with new categories or, alternatively, disregard, silence, or miscategorize what did not fit

Crise, valor e esperança: repensando a economia

Crisis, valor y esperanza son tres conceptos cuya intersección y mutua constitución permiten repensar la naturaleza de la vida económica, tomando distancia de los modelos abstractos alejados de las realidades cotidianas de las personas comunes –modelos cuyas deficiencias quedaron dramáticamente expuestas con la actual crisis económica mundial–. Esta propuesta busca poner de relieve los complejos modos en que las personas intentan construir "vidas que merecen ser vividas", tanto para sí mismas como para las generaciones futuras. Esto supone no solo el trabajo asalariado, sino también estructuras de aprovisionamiento, relaciones sociales, relaciones de confianza y cuidado, así como una multiplicidad de formas de acción social que los modelos económicos dominantes consideran triviales, marginales o incluso contraproducentes. Una comprensión holística de los modos en que las personas organizan sus vidas económicas implica considerar al mismo tiempo la temporalidad del valor y la relación entre sus diferentes escalas. Supone, además, atender a la configuración espacial de la vida económica de muchas sociedades, en las que el futuro se ha convertido en sinónimo de movilidad geográfica. Así como al hecho de que “ganarse la vida” supone producir personas en sus dimensiones físicas, sociales, espirituales, afectivas e intelectuales.Crisis, value, and hope are three concepts whose intersection and mutual constitution open the door for a rethinking of the nature of economic life away from abstract models divorced from the everyday realities of ordinary people, the inadequacies of which the current world economic crisis has exposed in particularly dramatic fashion. This rethinking seeks to bring to center stage the complex ways in which people attempt to make life worth living for themselves and for future generations, involving not only waged labor but also structures of provisioning, investments in social relations, relations of trust and care, and a multitude of other forms of social action that mainstream economic models generally consider trivial, marginal, and often counterproductive. A holistic understanding of how people organize their economic lives is attentive to both the temporality of value and the relationship between different scales of value. It is attentive to the spatial configuration of economic life in many societies in which the future has become synonymous with geographical mobility. Also to the fact that making a living is about making people in their physical, social, spiritual, affective, and intellectual dimensions.Crise, valor e esperança são três conceitos cuja interseção e constituição mútua abrem as portas para repensar a natureza da vida econômica, afastando-se de modelos abstratos divorciados da realidade cotidiana das pessoas comuns, cujas inadequações foram expostas pela atual crise econômica mundial de maneira particularmente dramática. Estse repensar procura trazer ao centro das atenções as maneiras complexas pelas quais as pessoas tentam tornar a vida digna de ser vivida para si e para as gerações futuras, envolvendo não apenas o trabalho assalariado, mas também as estruturas de aprovisionamento, investimentos em relações sociais, relações de confiança e cuidado, e uma infinidade de outras formas de ação social que os modelos econômicos dominantes geralmente consideram triviais, marginais e frequentemente contraproducentes. Uma compreensão holística de como as pessoas organizam suas vidas econômicas está atenta à temporalidade do valor e à relação entre diferentes escalas de valor. Está atenta à configuração espacial da vida econômica em muitas sociedades nas quais o futuro se tornou sinônimo de mobilidade geográfica. Ela está atenta ao fato de que ganhar a vida significa produzir pessoas em suas dimensões física, social, espiritual, afetiva e intelectual

En las fronteras del género: política y transformaciones de la no-heteronormatividad en Polinesia

  En las sociedades polinesias, las personas con un género o sexualidad no-heteronormativos ocupan, a un mismo tiempo, posiciones marginales y lugares centrales en la estructura social: forman una categoría social extremadamente visible, pero cuyas fronteras son a la vez borrosas. Esta duplicidad nos insta a pasar desde una aproximación que pretende aislarlos en tanto categoría identitaria a otra aproximación que se centra en las prácticas sociales, culturales y políticas. Esta aproximación comienza con la historia de los contactos entre Isleños y Occidentales, una historia que parece haber cumplido un papel central en la emergencia social de la no-heteronormatividad en la región. Rechazando los modelos simplistas que enfrentan “tradición” y “modernidad” para abrazar en su lugar la complejidad de estas categorías, pretendemos localizar la no-heteronormatividad polinesia en la convergencia de fuerzas locales y globales y en los intersticios entre moralidades diferentes que, sin embargo, funcionan simultáneamente.

Crisis, value and hope: rethinking the economy. An Introduction to Supplement 9

Crisis, value, and hope are three concepts whose intersection and mutual constitution open the door for a rethinking of the nature of economic life away from abstract models divorced from the everyday realities of ordinary people, the inadequacies of which the current world economic crisis has exposed in particularly dramatic fashion. This rethinking seeks to bring to center stage the complex ways in which people attempt to make life worth living for themselves and for future generations, involving not only waged labor but also structures of provisioning, investments in social relations, relations of trust and care, and a multitude of other forms of social action that mainstream economic models generally consider trivial, marginal, and often counterproductive. A holistic understanding of how people organize their economic lives is attentive to both the temporality of value and the relationship between different scales of value. It is attentive to the spatial configuration of economic life in many societies in which the future has become synonymous with geographical mobility. It is attentive to the fact that making a living is about making people in their physical, social, spiritual, affective, and intellectual dimensions

Violent masculinities: Gendered dynamics of policing in Rio de Janeiro

Historically, policing in Rio de Janeiro has been shaped by the equation of racialized violence and masculinity. Attempts to reform the police have paradoxically drawn on forms of male violence that are centered on the rational and professional use of force and on “softer” practices, such as dialogue and collaboration, symbolically coded as feminine. The failure of police reform reflects the cultural salience of understandings of masculinity centered around violence within the police, historical patterns of policing in Rio, and political actors’ strategic cultivation of male violence. Through Rio de Janeiro's failed attempt at police reform, we theorize the relation between racialized state violence, authoritarian political projects, and transgressive forms of male violence, arguing that an important appeal of authoritarianism lies in its promise to carve out a space for performing what we call wild masculinity. [masculinity, race, police, violence, gender, politics, favela, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil]publishedVersio