Opposing the opposition? Binarity and complexity in political resistance

The point of departure for this article is the question of how to pursue and encourage political contestation from a position that acknowledges the significance of binary conceptualisations, but that is at the same time uncomfortable with a mode of politics that is exclusively geared towards them. The limitations of this traditionally modern conceptualisation of politics – and life more generally – calls for an ontological move away from the prioritisation of bounded entities and clear-cut (oppositional) identities in order to explore other dimensions of political action. While there has been a turn to such new ontologies – in critical geography and beyond – in the last decades, there has been less exploration of what this could mean concretely for a political activism that aims to go beyond mere ‘micropolitical’ transformation. To address this lack, this article examines the tensions between binarity and complexity through an engagement with political resistance against genetically modified organisms (GMOs). This brings to light that the ontology of complexity pursued by some anti-GMO activists is ultimately grounded in a binarisation of both politics (one is either ‘for’ or ‘against’ GMOs’) and life (which is either ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural’). Whilst problematic in its limitation and specification of what kind of politics and life is considered ‘right’ and ‘natural’, this binarisation also informs the success of anti-GMO activism. An engagement with the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, especially through the notion of the ‘encounter’, brings out this paradox and serves to radicalise the ontology of complexity argued for by anti-GMO activists in order to open up different avenues for thinking about and ‘doing’ political resistance.

Documenting the Migration Crisis in the Mediterranean Spaces of Transit, Migration Management and Migrant Agency. CEPS Liberty and Security in Europe No. 94 September 2016

This article sets out the main findings of the research project Documenting the Humanitarian Migration Crisis in the Mediterranean, which maps migration trajectories and transit points across Europe in order to develop a humanitarian response to the Mediterranean migration ‘crisis’. On their long journeys, people seeking refuge in Europe pass through various places of transit, both informal spaces such as railways stations, parks and makeshift camps, and institutionalised spaces such as reception centres, detention centres and hotspots. The focus on transit points helps to understand migrants as subjects rather than objects and journeys as fractured and complex movements rather than linear routes from A to B. In addition, it sheds light on the effects of migration management policies on people on the move and puts forward a set of recommendations to EU policy-makers

Collective discussion: fracturing politics (or, how to avoid the tacit reproduction of modern/colonial ontologies in critical thought)

This article engages in an experiment that aims to push critical/post-structuralist thought beyond its comfort zone. Despite its commitment to critiquing modern, liberal ontologies, the article claims that these same ontologies are often tacitly reproduced, resulting in a failure to grasp contemporary structures and histories of violence and domination. The article brings into conversation five selected critical scholars from a range of theoretical approaches and disciplines who explore the potential of the notion of “fracture” for that purpose. The conversation revolves around political struggles at various sites—migrant struggles in Europe, decolonial struggles in Mexico, workers and peasant struggles in Colombia—in order to pinpoint how these struggles “fracture” or “crack” modern political frames in ways that neither reproduce them, nor lead to mere moments of disruption in otherwise smoothly functioning governmental regimes. Nor does such “fracturing” entail the constructing of a “complete” or “coherent” vision of a politics to come. Instead, we detail the incoherent, tentative, and multiple character of frames and practices of thought in struggle that nevertheless produce an (albeit open and contested) “whole.

Émergence d’un nouveau péronisme ? Analyse des discours à la Nation de Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007)

L’étude des discours de Néstor Kirchner permet d’identifier les représentations sociales qu’il a mobilisées, et de montrer comment il s’inscrit dans le contexte du « virage à gauche » qui singularise aujourd’hui l’Amérique latine. Ses allocutions devant l’Assemblée nationale peuvent s’analyser sous l’angle de l’héritage péroniste, et particulièrement de l’imaginaire de la génération des années soixante-dix, et lui ont permis de transformer son image d’homme politique non charismatique en celle d’un leader providentiel.The analysis of Néstor Kirchner’s speeches enables us to account for the social representations he has deployed and show to what extent he lies within the scope of the currently prevailing « shift to the left » context in Latin America. His speeches before the members of Parliament can be analysed within the framework of the Peronist legacy and more particularly the 1970’s generation’s worldview. Thanks to those speeches, his public image has undergone a real transformation from one of a politician with little charisma to that of a providential leader.El estudio de los discursos de Néstor Kirchner permite identificar las representaciones sociales por él movilizadas y mostrar de qué modo el mismo se inscribe en el proceso de « viraje a la izquierda » que hoy define al contexto político latinoamericano. Sus discursos ante el Parlamento pueden ser analizados bajo la vigencia de la tradición peronista, sobre todo del imaginario de la generación del setenta, transformando su imagen de líder político no carismático en la figura de líder providencial

Violent Governance, Identity and the Production of Legitimacy: Autodefensas in Latin America

This article examines the intersections of violence, governance, identity and legitimacy in relation to autodefensas (self-defence groups) in Latin America, focusing on Mexico and Colombia. By shifting focus from the question of where legitimacy lies to how it is produced and contested by a range of groups, we challenge the often presumed link between the state and legitimacy. We develop the idea of a field of negotiation and contestation, firstly, to discuss and critique the concept of state failure as not merely a Western hegemonic claim but also a strategic means of producing legitimacy by autodefensas. Secondly, we employ and enrich the notion of violent pluralism to discuss the pervasiveness of violence and the role of neoliberalism, and to address the question of non-violent practices of governance. We argue that the idea of a field of contestation and negotiation helps to understand the complexity of relationships that encompass the production of legitimacy and identity through (non)violent governance, whereby lines between (non)state, (non)violence, and (il)legitimacy blur and transform. Yet, we do not simply dismiss (binary) distinctions as these continue to be employed by groups in their efforts to produce, justify, challenge, contest and negotiate their own and others’ legitimacy and identity

Politics of (In)visibility:Governance-Resistance and the Constitution of Refugee Subjectivities in Malaysia

AbstractThis article explores the relationality of governance and resistance in the context of the constitution of refugee subjectivities in Malaysia. Whilst recognising their precarity, the article moves away from conceiving of refugees merely as victims subjected to violence and control, and to contribute to an emerging body of literature on migrant resistance. Its contribution lies in examining practices of resistance, and the specific context in which they emerge, without conceptualising power-resistance as a binary, and without conceiving of refugees as preconstituted subjects. Rather, drawing on the thought of Michel Foucault, the article examines how refugee subjectivities come into being through a play of governance-resistance, of practices and strategies that may be simultaneously affirmative, subversive, exclusionary, and oppressive. The relationality and mobility of this play is illustrated through an examination of practices surrounding UNHCR identity cards, community organisations, and education. Secondly, governance-resistance is conceptualised as a play of visibility and invisibility, understood both visually and in terms of knowledge production. What I refer to as the politics of (in)visibility indicates that refugee subjectivities are both constituted and become other than ‘the refugee’ through a continuous play of coming into being, becoming governable, claiming a presence, blending in and remaining invisible.</jats:p