"Wild Capitalism" and "Ecocolonialism": A Tale of Two Rivers

The development and pollution of two rivers, the Danube and Tisza, have been the site and subject of environmental protests and projects in Hungary since the late 1980s. Protests against the damming of the Danube rallied opposition to the state socialist government, drawing on discourses of national sovereignty and international environmentalism. The Tisza suffered a major environmental disaster in 2000, when a globally financed gold mine in Romania spilled thousands of tons of cyanide and other heavy metals into the river, sending a plume of pollution downriver into neighboring countries. In this article, I examine the symbolic ecologies that emerged in the two moments of environmental protest, as well as Hungarian activists' reflections on the changing political ecology of the region in their discourses of "ecocolonialism" ( ökógyarmatosítás ) and "wild capitalism" ( vadkapitaliszmus ).     

Who's invited to the (political) party: race and party politics in the USA

ABSTRACT

From the political behemoths of the Democratic and Republican Parties, to the Civil Rights Era racially progressive Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and reactionary American Independent Party, to the contemporary third party Green and Libertarian Parties, party politics in the USA has a long and storied relationship to the reproduction and contestation of racial domination. Recent works illuminate the strategic use of racial discourse by major party political elites, their deployment of racialized political platforms, and the relationship of these phenomena to power dynamics and racial interests but have yet to fully move beyond the two-party system and engage with innovations in political and cultural sociology. We outline openings for an empirically-grounded sociology of political parties that would reveal the micro- and meso-level features of racialized party politics and the operations of discursive and performative power within both major and minor political parties.     

Discursive Shifts in Dutch River Management: ‘Deep’ Institutional Change or Adaptation Strategy?

This paper argues that a discursive shift is taking place in Dutch water policy, from ‘a battle against water’ to ‘living with water’ or ‘accommodating water’. Yet we ask ourselves whether this shift is just an adaptation strategy of the existing elite group of water managers, who pay lip-service to new management approaches in order to maintain their vested interests, as some authors claim, or whether it implies ‘deep’ institutional change, e.g. in terms of the emergence of new water institutions, power relations and procedures. While investigating this question, we make use of the ‘policy arrangement approach’, which pays attention to institutional and discursive aspects of policy making alike. Our conclusion is that we are currently observing institutional changes beyond ‘policy talk’, particularly in terms of new legislation and procedures. However, it is too early to speak of ‘deep’ institutional change in Dutch water management, because the former water institutions are still maintaining their power positions, despite the availability of additional resources for policy and research as well as the emergence of several new modes of governance.     

Books received 1 May to 31 July 1990

Abstract

Rather than discourse this article argues that the challenge facing anti-racist scholars is to grasp the visceral, atavistic nature of the differential social imaginaries and deep-seated psychological fears of difference and sameness that constitute contemporary racisms and their historical mutations. Is it the case, as Said argued, that essentialized, contrastive racist constructions of Islam and Judaism persist over many centuries or is it possible that current affairs – globally transmitted violent encounters such as 9/11 or the Gaza Cast Lead operation – can transform racist imaginaries about the essential and unchanging nature of protagonists, Jewish and Muslims, and in doing so, unconsciously reverse earlier stereotypes? Depicting three paradigmatic racist folk devils, the paper examines the particular conundrums associated with anti-Zionism and its equation with the ‘new’ anti-Semitism. It concludes by exploring the implications of self-critique in seeking peace between Muslims and Jews.     

Discursive constructions of race talk among Black men and women living in the United States

Race talk within discourse analytic traditions have largely focused on the discursive construction of racism in majority groups. This article extends this work by examining how Black adults discursively engaged in race talk. Across focus groups, two conversations emerged: explanations of racialized experiences and how racialized experiences should be dealt with. In explanations of racialized experiences, participants highlighted their own negative behaviours or constructed experiences as imprecise or an artefact of ignorance. These discourses functioned to circumvent inequitable relations premised on White normativity. In explanations of how racialized experiences should be dealt with, participants constructed themselves as having responsibilities, downplayed their racialized experiences or framed them as inevitable. Each of these discourses functioned to construct racialization as something that could be corrected through good behaviour or they placed ideological limits for what is possible for Blacks in society. Implications for the existing literature on race talk are discussed.     

Why Germany’s guestworkers were largely Europeans: The selective principles of post-war labour recruitment policy

This article will argue that in late 1800s Russian Pan-Orthodox and Pan-Slav activists portrayed their Balkan co-religionists and co-ethnics as both the same as and different from the Russians. By bridging the class divisions of Russian society, this kind of propaganda contributed to the making of a Russian national identity centred on the self-image of powerful virile crusaders for the only true form of Christianity and saviours of the emasculated and feminized Slavs from cruel foreign domination. These attitudes precluded the formation of a horizontal community and help explain the high-handed policies leading to the break between Russian liberators and ‘ungrateful’ Bulgarians in the aftermath of the Russo-Ottoman war of 1877–8. The article will also relate Russian Pan-Orthodoxy and Pan-Slavism to the larger phenomenon of irredentism to encourage similar explorations along this new avenue of research in that field.     

Cyprus,ethnic conflict and conflicted heritage

This article examines the dominant heritage discourse in Cyprus concerning preservation and destruction, and its implications for ethno-cultural identity construction and promotion. By exploring two heritage sites (one north and one south of the Buffer Zone) it suggests that heritage practice is more complex than commonly presented. Specifically, it shows how ethnic conflict has not only been responsible for heritage destruction but also for the preservation of it as an unintended consequence of ‘freezing’ development. It also examines how ethnic groups and individuals may come to evaluate their ‘own’ heritage negatively, specifically as an inconvenient cultural load, in efforts to develop ideologically specific or socially ‘progressive’ identities.     

Conflicting categories? Women,conflict and identity in Northern Ireland

Women's involvement in ethno-national conflicts is often overlooked, due partly to gender expectations. The gendered nature of ethno-nationalist identities and the salience of gender categories during conflict both work to render women ‘invisible’. However, women do frequently engage directly in ethno-national conflict. Such engagement can provide a space to disrupt gender ideologies, but is typically evaluated by others with reference to gender norms. This paper examines direct conflict engagement by a group of loyalist women in Northern Ireland, a region noted for both ethno-national conflict and gender conservatism. Using discourse analysis, it explores how the women themselves understand their central role in street protests and confrontations. It examines: (1) how they construct their identities as women in this situation; (2) the extent to which they refer to gender in explaining the conflict; and (3) how they see their actions affecting gender norms and relations within their community.     

The invader,the enemy within and they-who-must-not-be-named: how police talk about minorities in Italy,the Netherlands and France

How people talk about ethnic minorities is a sensitive subject, especially in law enforcement. We know little about it as far as continental Europe is concerned. This article is about how police officers talk about minorities in France, in Italy and in the Netherlands. How do speech norms (‘political correctness’) apply outside the anglophone world? Is there a relation between speech norms and practices? This exploratory study is based on interviews with fifty-five police officers from France, Italy and the Netherlands. In these countries, police officers are aware that displaying overt racism is not socially desirable. Interviews show that there are vastly different speech norms governing decent race talk in the three countries. Specifically, we compare: how police use ethnic categories; how police anticipate accusations of discrimination; and how police theorize the over-representation of ethnic minorities in crime. French respondents respect much stricter speech norms than Dutch or Italian ones.     

Black-Fired Pottery

Abstract

Thomas Sowell. Inside American Education: The Decline, The Deception, The Dogmas. The Free Press, 1993. 303 pages; $24.95 hardback.