Dependency Theory and the Aesthetics of Contrast in Fernando Solanas’s La hora de los hornos and Memoria del saqueo

This paper is a comparative analysis of two key documentaries by Fernando Solanas: La hora de los hornos / The Hour of the Furnaces (1966–68) and Memoria del saqueo / Social Genocide (2003). It argues that Solanas produces documentaries when the representative link that ties the political representatives to the represented (the people) is suspended or breaks down, as experienced during the times of the proscription of Peronism (1955–73) and in the more recent crisis of representation in Argentine institutional politics (1989–2001). The comparison follows two axes: political arguments and the aesthetics of contrast. Regarding the first criterion, the paper highlights the current persistence, in Solanas’s political argumentation, of externalist-mechanistic versions of dependency theory of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In relation to the aesthetics of contrast, it analyses the stark oppositions in Solanas’s documentaries as a visual rhetoric which can be read as an essentialist false-bottom economy that opposes ‘appearance’ to ‘reality’. The article concludes that these political and aesthetic polarizations are essentializing and literalizing discursive strategies that denounce the excesses of political representation from an unmediated and transparent site of full popular presence. Within such strategies, there is no room for the constitutive opacity intrinsic to representation and articulatory politics

A imanência consegue explicar os conflitos sociais?

Numa entrevista recente (vide RANCIÈRE, “Peuple ou multitudes: Question d'Eric Alliez à Jacques Rancière”, Multitudes n. 9, maio/junho 2002: 95-100), Jacques Rancière contrapõe sua noção de “povo” (peuple) (vide RANCIÈRE, La Mésentente. Paris: Galilée, 1995) à categoria de “multidão” como é apresentada pelos autores de Império. Como se sabe, Rancière distingue entre os dois sentidos da palavra “política”, sendo o primeiro a lógica de quantificar e designar a população a lugares diferenciados, enquanto o segundo subverte essa lógica diferenciadora por meio da constituição de um discurso igualitário que coloca em questão as identidades estabelecidas. “O povo” é o sujeito específico da política [politics] e pressupõe uma divisão expressiva no corpo social que impede o retorno a qualquer tipo de unidade imanente. A abordagem de Império, em contrapartida, faz da imanência sua categoria central e o fundamento último da unidade da multidão

Golo življenje ali družbena nedoločenost

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(A)notando la brecha: el sujeto de la política.

Traducción de Daniel Groisman y Juan Manuel Reynares

Política, hegemonía y populismo: diálogos con Ernesto Laclau

En esta entrevista, los académicos Mauro Salazar y Alejandro Osorio conversan con el teórico político argentino Ernesto Laclau, cuya obra ha sido de especial relevancia para comprender una oleada de gobiernos nacional-populares en América Latina durante las últimas décadas. En tal sentido, el alcance de esta entrevista versa sobre aspectos generales y específicos de la tradición (post-)marxista, pero con un acento en los usos y abusos de la noción de hegemonía, dada la naturaleza discursiva del enfoque en cuestión. Es así que, junto con repasar una diversidad de materias políticas, la noción de hegemonía de Laclau abre el espacio para pensar las mixturas del populismo.In this interview, academics Mauro Salazar and Alejandro Osorio talk with Argentine political theorist Ernesto Laclau, whose work has been of special relevance in understanding a wave of national-popular governments in Latin America in recent decades. In this respect, the scope of this interview deals with general and specific aspects of the (post-)Marxist tradition, but with an accent on the uses and abuses of the notion of hegemony, given the discursive nature of the approach in question. Thus, along with reviewing a diversity of political matters, Laclau's notion of hegemony creates a space from which to think about the mixtures of populism.   Nesta entrevista, os acadêmicos Mauro Salazar e Alejandro Osorio conversam com o teórico político argentino Ernesto Laclau, cuja obra é de especial relevância para compreender a onda de governos nacional-populares na América Latina durante as últimas décadas. Nesse sentido, trata de aspectos gerais e específicos da tradição (pós-)marxista, mas com ênfase nos usos e abusos da noção de “hegemonia”, tendo em vista a natureza discursiva da abordagem em questão. Assim, junto com revisar a diversidade de matérias políticas, a noção de “hegemonia” de Laclau abre o espaço para pensar as misturas do populismo

From Passive to Radical Revolution in Venezuela’s Populist Project

In December 2001, Hugo Chávez and others changed Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolutionary project, which consisted of replacing a corrupt and elitist constitution with a fair and popular one, into a radical one. In its early stages the project corresponded to what Gramsci called a “passive revolution.” Attempts by opposition forces to crush the construction of a new populist hegemony (a coup in April 2002 and an indefinite strike in December 2002) were met with popular mobilization that reaffirmed Chávez’s hegemonic project. The radical revolution consisted of social programs designed to alleviate the suffering of the poor and consolidated a new hegemonic structure among Venezuela’s lower classes. The concept of “radical revolution” provides a theoretical alternative for assessing the extent to which a political project can be described as populist