Holocaust lists and the Memorial Museum

The article looks at Holocaust related death lists in the permanent exhibition of the Bergen-Belsen Memorial Museum. The museum opened to the general public in October of 2007. I argue that Holocaust lists are best understood as memorial objects which project a particular kind of aura. This aura also surrounds the sacral and criminal landscape of Bergen-Belsen, which the lists have come to represent and mediate. It is the relationship of list to landscape that structures their shared auratic resonances, in the interplay between presence (what is documented in the list) and absence (names that have been destroyed, never to be retrieved). In the case of the lists of Bergen-Belsen this is even more nuanced, in that there were two landscapes where the detritus of the genocide unfolded: the iconic mass graves of Belsen and the displaced persons camp, several kilometers down the road from the concentration camp, where the sick and dying were transported after the liberation. Given that there is no original list of the dead in the mass graves of the concentration camp, the death lists in the displaced persons camp take on a more complex memorial meaning. In conclusion, I make the argument that the memorial experience of Bergen-Belsen is a useful template from which to view other transnational sites of destruction and crimes against humanity

Les limites de la démocratie, les frontières de l'autonomie

L'examen des rapports entre la ville de Montréal et l'État québécois permet de cerner les limites de la démocratie et les frontières de l'autonomie municipale. Le développement des institutions politiques à Montréal s'inscrit dans la rationalisation du système étatique québécois; les mouvements sociaux urbains remettent en cause les limites de ces institutions municipales et leurs pratiques sont la base d'une nouvelle citoyenneté urbaine.The relationship between the city of Montreal and the Quebec state is a rich terrain for posing questions about the limits of democracy and the frontiers of municipal autonomy. This paper examines the development of formal political institutions in Montreal as part of the rationalization of the Quebec state System. I argue that the types of citizenship practices that have emerged in Montreal, particularly through the actions of urban social movements, test the limits of these institutions. This is the sociopolitical foundation for what I call the «new urban citizenship», a contemporary conflictual field for claims-making

The New Urban Left: Parties Without Actors

One of the hallmarks of late political modernity may be that grassroots groups and urban social movements are fixed in increasingly distal relations with left of center parties. We examine the history of these relations in the city of Montreal, where there has been an historic progression from left parties, with significant constituencies, to parties without local actors. The 1994 municipal election in Montreal is reviewed in this light. Our findings indicate, however, that urban movements have developed a 'transfunctionality'. This places them in a conflict-laden stance to urban social policy, by signaling that which has been excluded from that relationship, through the arbitrariness of the service function they have taken on. These transformations have ushered them away from protest activities and towards a politics of everyday life (needs satisfactions, well-being), increasing their base constituencies, while lowering their ideological and rhetorical positions. Grassroots groups are bringing an unaccustomed political diversity into the discourse of the traditional and new urban left. These are not programmatic rehearsals, in search of a reworked or revised totality, but rather represent strategically placed claims to appropriate greater political, social and cultural spaces around issues of mutuality, self-help and effective local power Copyright Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998.

Reimagining Social Movements. From Collectives to Individuals

The social scientific study of social movements remains largely shaped by categories, concepts and debates that emerged in North Atlantic societies in the late 1960s and early 1979s namely resource mobilization, framing collective identity, and new social movements. It is now, however, increasingly clear that we are experiencing a profound period of social transformation associated with online interactivity, informationalization and globalization. Written by leading expert around the world, the chapters of the book explore emerging forms of movement and action not only in terms of the industrialized countries of the North Atlantic, but recognizes the importance of globalizing forms of action and culture emerging from other continents and societies.The book analyses the transformations of the twenty century social movements consisting of commune actions of individual subjects aiming to affirm their dignity and universal human rights in front of global systemic powers –as financial power- that both shape the evolution of individual life and disintegrate the social life. It includes essays of important scholars working in research centres and universities different continents, who analyze the transformation of social movements in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America

Introduction: Subjectivity and Collective Action

Reimagining Social Movements: From Collectives to Individuals raises critical questions about how movements are constituted, and the contesting role of subjectivity within a vast array of contemporary collective action processes unfolding on both local and global levels. This collection examines the shifting landscapes of movements. It analyzes the internal dynamics within protest action(s) evolving in a globalizing world characterized by accelerating rates of fragmentation and the dislodging of traditional forms of asymmetrical and vertical power. Then the book shows some collective mobilizations experiencing new form of sociability in a world where identities are more and more replaced by subjectively experienced—both digitally and otherwise—forms of meaning-making around personalized strategies and techniques of dissent. This work present also experimental paradigms to study these new forms of collective action and their cultural features regarding the individual involvement within the labyrinthine interiors of movements of the early twenty-first century

Enjeux institutionnels et action collective

Dans le contexte de la modernité avancée, les mouvements sociaux ont dû revoir leurs cadres d'action, leurs représentations du social et du politique de même que leurs rapports aux institutions. Le paradigme traditionnel auquel renvoient la majorité des travaux sociologiques ne permet pas de saisir toute la complexité et l'ambivalence qui caractérisent les relations que les acteurs construisent dans leurs rapports aux institutions. En se démarquant de la thèse de l'institutionnalisation partielle et de la perspective interactionniste, les auteurs proposent une nouvelle problématique des enjeux institutionnels et de l'institutionnalisation des mouvements sociaux qui prend en compte les changements majeurs caractéristiques de la modernité avancée. C'est ce qui les conduit à examiner trois processus significatifs à cet égard, à savoir la réflexivité, la globalisation et l'authenticité.Social movements, within the context of advanced modernity, have had to reexamine their frames of action, their representations of social and political phenomena as well as their relations with institutions. The traditional paradigm to which most sociological studies refer cannot account for all the complexity and ambivalence that characterize the relationships actors construct in their dealings with institutions. In distancing themselves from the thesis of partial institutionalization and the interac-tionist perspective, the authors propose a new approach to the institutional issues and the institutionalization of social movements that takes account of the major changes that characterize advanced modernity. This leads them to examine three significant processes in this respect: reflexivity, globalization and authenticity.En el contexto de la modernidad avanzada, los movimientos sociales debieron revisar sus marcos de acción, sus representaciones de lo social y de lo político, así como sus relaciones con las instituciones. El paradigma tradicional al cual se refieren la mayoría de los trabajos sociológicos no permite comprender toda la complejidad y la ambivalencia que caracterizan los lazos que los actores construyen en sus relaciones a las instituciones. Diferenciándose de la tesis de la institucionalización parcial y de la perspectiva interaccionista, los autores proponen una nueva problemática de los desafíos institucionales y de la institucionalización de los movimientos sociales que tiene en cuenta los cambios mayores característicos de la modernidad avanzada. Esto los conduce a examinar tres procesos significativos, a saber la « reflexividad », la globalización y la autenticidad