De Bodin a Rousseau. Derecho y política de la ciudadanía en la Francia del Antiguo Régimen

De Bodin a Rousseau: Dret i política de la ciutadania en la Franca de l'Antic Règim Aquest article exposa la teoria i la pràctica de la "ciutadania" des de la formació d'un model absolutista en l'obra del jurisconsulte francès Jean Bodin fins a l'inici de la "revo lució en la ciutadania" de mitjan segle XVIII. Es centra en l'anomenat droit d'aubaine, el dret que els reis francesos tenien d'apropiar-se dels béns d'un estranger que hagués mort en el regne sense hereders nadius. Considera el procés pel qual aquesta prerrogativa reial en el dret civil sobre facultats successòries es va convertir en un instrument de la cons trucció de la monarquia absolutista francesa al llarg del segle XVII, i la manera en què va esdevenir part del model post absolutista de ciutadania després de la dècada de 1760. La desaparició de la noció absolutista de ciutadà no només va tenir lloc en els escrits de Jean Jacques Rousseau, en especial el Contrat sociale (1762), sinó també en l'esfera del dret internacional privat i en les abolicions mútues i recíproques del droit d'aubaine entre França i les potències europees durant les últimes dècades del segle XVIII.From Bodin to Rousseau. The Law and Politics of Citizenship in Ancien Régime France This article outlines the theory and practice of "citizenship" from the formation of an absolutist model in the work of the sixteenth-century jurisconsult Jean Bodin until the begin ning of the "citizenship revolution" of the mid-eighteenth century. It focuses on the so-called droit d'aubaine, the French king's night to seize the property of a foreigner who died in the kingdom without native heirs. It considers how this regal prerogative over successoral capa cities in civil law became a tool in the construction of the French absolutist monarchy through the seventeenth century, and how it became part of the post-absolutist model of citi zenship after 1760s. The unmaking of an absolute citizen took shape not only in the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, especially the Contrat sociale (1762), but also in the sphere of international private law and the mutual and reciprocal abolitions of the droit d'aubaine bet ween France and the European powers during the last decades of the eighteenth century.-

The Regeneration Games: Commodities, Gifts and the Economics of London 2012

This paper considers contradictions between two concurrent and tacit conceptions of the Olympic ‘legacy’, setting out one conception that understands the games and their legacies as gifts alongside and as counterpoint to the prevailing discourse, which conceives Olympic assets as commodities. The paper critically examines press and governmental discussion of legacy, in order to locate these in the context of a wider perspective contrasting ‘gift’ and ‘commodity’ Olympics – setting anthropological conceptions of gift-based sociality as a necessary supplement to contractual and dis-embedded socioeconomic organizational assumptions underpinning the commodity Olympics. Costbenefit planning is central to modern city building and mega-event delivery. The paper considers the insufficiency of this approach as the exclusive paradigm within which to frame and manage a dynamic socio-economic and cultural legacy arising from the 2012 games

Anthropology in the Clinic: The Problem of Cultural Competency and How to Fix It

RefereedMichael Crichton FundHarvard Medical SchoolNational Institute of Mental Health Training Grant on “Culture and Mental Health Services” (5T32MH018006-21

The bashful and the boastful : prestigious leaders and social change in Mesolithic Societies

The creation and maintenance of influential leaders and authorities is one of the key themes of archaeological and historical enquiry. However the social dynamics of authorities and leaders in the Mesolithic remains a largely unexplored area of study. The role and influence of authorities can be remarkably different in different situations yet they exist in all societies and in almost all social contexts from playgrounds to parliaments. Here we explore the literature on the dynamics of authority creation, maintenance and contestation in egalitarian societies, and discuss the implications for our interpretation and understanding of the formation of authorities and leaders and changing social relationships within the Mesolithic

‘Buying a path’: rethinking resistance in Rwanda

In this essay, I tell the story of Jean-Baptiste, the president of a motorcycle taxi drivers’ co-operative, and his struggle against the machinations of certain high officials in Kigali City Council. Crucial to this story is the way in which Jean-Baptiste’s attempts to retain his position in the face of powerful opposition pit certain agencies of Rwanda’s party state against others. I use this ethnographic narrative to question the way in which much scholarship on popular resistance in Rwanda, drawing on Scott’s simplified opposition between the powerful and the powerless, opposes ‘ordinary Rwandans’ to ‘the state’ as monolithic entities with opposed interests. Theorising Jean-Baptiste’s story in terms of Rwandan idioms of relative power and influence, I suggest that such a Manichean view of power and resistance in Rwanda oversimplifies social realities. I propose instead a model of power and resistance that sees the state as a field of capacities and possible relationships that it presents for certain people, where ‘paths’ to influence and security may by ‘bought’ – especially, but not exclusively, by those who are ‘strong’ and ‘high’

Between Security and Mobility: Negotiating a Hardening Border Regime in the Russian-Estonian Borderland

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies on 27th Feb 2015, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2015.1015408Since the end of the Cold War order post-Soviet borders have been characterised by geopolitical tensions and divergent imaginations of desirable political and spatial orders. Drawing upon ethnographic research in two border towns at the Russian-Estonian border, the article makes a case for a grounded examination of these border dynamics that takes into account how borders as sites of ‘mobility and enclosure’ are negotiated in everyday life and shaped by the differentiated incorporations of statecraft into people’s lives. Depending on their historical memories, people interpret the border either as a barrier to previously free movement or as a security device and engage in correspondingly different relations to the state – privileging local concerns for mobility or adopting the state’s concerns over security and sovereignty. Analysing these border negotiations and the relations between citizens and the state, articulated in people’s expectations and claims, can provide us with a better understanding of how people participate in the making of borders and contribute to the stability and malleability of political orders