Tag Archives activism

COVID-19 and Conflict | Pandemic responses in Brazil’s favelas and beyond: making the invisible visible

The inaction of the Brazilian government during the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed some members of Brazilian society into an even more vulnerable position. Yet many of these groups seem to know what they need to do to fight the virus. Here, we highlight the capacity of some domestic workers and residents of favelas to organize both quickly and innovatively during the pandemic. Importantly, we show that favelas can be a site for empowering transformation, rather than just a place of misfortune.

“I watched a report on the TV. They were interviewing an upper-middle class family about the lockdown. But the domestic worker could be seen in the background, working. “Oh, this family is isolated”. But what about that worker back there? Isn’t she someone?” (Cleide Pinto, from FENATRAD, domestic workers union).

Sharing videos of life in quarantine has become a commonplace during the pandemic in Brazil. Television personalities have provided a glimpse of their lives at home, showing what it has been like for them to be in quarantine. Yet, staying home in Brazil is a privilege and not possible for more than 50 million Brazilians[i]. Although a large part of the population is dependent on informal jobs and must continue to leave their houses every day, they are virtually invisible—to most.

This scenario is just another reflection of the abysmal inequality where the richest 10% hold 41.9% of the country’s total income[ii]. In the labour market—where around 36% of employed people work under informal conditions—domestic workers number approximately 7 million[iii]. Despite these numbers, their jobs remain precarious—domestic work was finally recognized as formal work in 2015[1], but most of domestic workers still do not have formal contracts.

To aggravate this state of affairs, during the pandemic domestic work was declared an ‘essential service’ in several states of Brazil[2], forcing a large number of women to continue working and having to risk being infected whilst taking public transport or whilst toiling in the households of the elites. In cases where employers allowed them not to work for their own safety, many were also not paid or feared losing their jobs.

Crowded BRT by the reopening of commerce in Rio de Janeiro during the pandemic, on June 9th, 2020. Image: Yan Marcelo / @ yanzitx. Authorized by authors.

However, Brazilian civil society was organized and often vocal, playing an active and central role in the fight against COVID-19[3]. Collaborative initiatives based in solidarity emerged in various settings to provide temporary support for those in need. Civil society used existing networks and infrastructure of support, but was also innovative in its actions, forging new and strengthening existing solidarity networks. The trigger was the knowledge that the state was not going to see them, nor take care of them. On top of that, many of these workers, including domestic workers, live in communities with poor socioeconomic conditions, often known as favelas (informal settlements).

As a response to the pandemic, the national association of domestic workers (FENATRAD) organized national campaigns, such as the Cuida de quem te cuida (‘care for those who care’)[iv] to pressure public institutions not to consider domestic work as essential during the pandemic and to encourage employers to put workers on paid leave. FENATRAD published videos on social networks to raise awareness and promote other forms of support, such as gaining access to the online platform for the federal government’s emergency fund. Such organization played a crucial role in informing workers about their rights, particularly how to protect themselves.

Leaders from within the favelas took charge, organizing online fundraising campaigns and the distribution of primary goods. The Favela of Paraisópolis, situated next to a rich neighbourhood in São Paulo, made it to the Dutch news as an example of a community that managed to fight COVID-19 using its own means. Vital to this success has been a partnership with the network ‘G10 das Favelas’[v], an organization that supports entrepreneurship within different communities across the country. Their lemma is based on the idea of favelas as a place for empowering transformation rather than a place of misfortune, according to Gilson Rodrigues, a community leader in Paraisópolis.

Through the partnership, civil society created the idea of ‘presidents of the street’, employing 542 volunteers as ‘street presidents’ responsible for distributing food and hygiene products in their allocated areas. A further deficiency in social assistance is that of SAMU, public service for ambulance urgencies, as noted below:

“SAMU does not get to Paraisópolis. It did not do so even before the pandemic, even less so now” (Gilson Rodrigues).

As many public services were not available, they trained 240 first aid brigades within the community, hired private ambulances and medical staff, and organized information campaigns on hygiene procedures and on how to recognize symptoms of the disease.

Two schools in the neighbourhood were transformed into centres to host those who tested positive for the virus, allowing them to be in isolation, with food, a TV room, and a proper space in which to recover. To support domestic workers of the community, they created the program ‘Adote uma diarista’ (‘adopt a domestic worker’), providing financial resources, hygiene material, and/or food for more than one thousand informal workers.

These examples show an exceptional response from civil society in Paraisópolis[4]. However, not all favelas have the same level of organization. Although these initiatives temporarily alleviated the burden of the pandemic for the people in these communities, they do not offer structural solutions for their situation. Domestic workers unexpectedly became frontline workers. An optimistic future would be to imagine that these initiatives would result in greater recognition of domestic work and greater empowerment and rights for the people in these communities. However, with the present political scenario, this future is hard to imagine.


[1] http://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2015/06/dilma-assina-regulamentacao-dos-direitos-das-domesticas-diz-planalto.html

[2] Governments of the states of Pará, Maranhão, Rio Grande do Sul and Ceará are among some of the states in which domestic work was declared as essential during the pandemic.

[3] This is the second out of three posts to be published on Bliss presenting the main findings of the research work about COVID-19 in Brazil for the project ‘When Disaster Meets Conflict’. We performed desk research and a qualitative comparative analysis of in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with members of three civil society groups in Brazil: residents of favelas (informal settlements), domestic workers, and indigenous peoples of the Amazon. Interviews took place in July 2020, at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic in Brazil.

[4] For more info, please see: https://g1.globo.com/sp/sao-paulo/noticia/2020/04/07/paraisopolis-se-une-contra-o-coronavirus-contrata-ambulancias-medicos-e-distribui-mais-de-mil-marmitas-por-dia.ghtml and https://newsus.cgtn.com/news/2020-04-19/Favela-fights-coronavirus-PNzcVTweKk/index.html

[i] IBGE – Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística. Síntese de Indicadores Sociais 2017.

[ii] https://cee.fiocruz.br/?q=node/1090

[iii] According to FENATRAD.

[iv] The campaign Cuida de quem te cuida (Care for those who take care of you) is an attempt to pressure the Public Ministry to forbid states from filing decrees declaring domestic work as essential work. Despite the campaign, the decrees continued to happen and with the reopening of the economy, it became even hard to implement a monitoring system that would guarantee a safe work condition for these women.

[v] http://www.g10favelas.org

About the authors:

Fiorella Macchiavello is an economist and holds an MA degree in Urban and Regional Development from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Brazil. Currently, she is a PhD researcher in the third year of a Joint Degree between the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam and UnB, University of Brasilia, Brazil.

Renata Cavalcanti Muniz is a full time PhD researcher at ISS in the last year of her research. Her PhD research was funded by CNPQ-Brasil, and she is part of two research groups at ISS, DEC and CI.

Lee Pegler

Lee Pegler spent his early career working as an economist with the Australian Labour Movement. More recent times have seen him researching the labour implications of “new” management strategies of TNCs in Brazil/ Latin America. This interest expanded to a focus on the implications of value chain insertion on labour, both for formal and informal workers. Trained as an economist and sociologist (PhD – LSE), he currently works as Assistant Professor (Work, Organisation and Labour Rights) at the ISS.

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COVID-19 | There’s no stopping feminist struggles in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic

As the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign draws to a close today, Agustina Solera and Brenda Rodríguez Cortés reflect on the challenges women in Latin America have faced over the past year and how, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, they have stood strong as ever, braving the particularly difficult conditions that they have had to face this year.

During an academic retreat in late August, we reflected on feminist struggles in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic. We recalled that the last time we had seen each other in person before the retreat was during the International Women’s Day march in Amsterdam as part of ‘Feministas en Holanda’, a collective of self-identified feminists from Latin America living in the Netherlands. ‘

The foundation of ‘Feministas en Holanda’ dates back to the summer of 2018, when we joined a group of other Latin American women to demonstrate outside of the Argentinian Embassy in The Hague in favour of the decriminalization of abortion. Even though the bill that could have decriminalized abortion in Argentina wasn’t passed, the protest was a moment for feminist women from Latin American living in the Netherlands to meet face to face. It was there where we realized that there were many of us who have the same commitment to gender issues and that we weren’t alone in our struggles; on the contrary, we embraced each other, and from that day on the movement continued to bloom, both online and on the streets.

Some of the most pressing issues that women face in Latin America include feminicides and disappearances, gender and sexual violence, racial discrimination, the lack of access to sexual and reproductive health services and rights, violence targeted against environmental defenders and activists, poverty, and the precarization of work and employment for women. The multiplicity of struggles of Latin American women has also brought boundless ways of fighting back and resisting. Examples include the feminist performance ‘Un violador en tu camino’ (‘A rapist on your path’) in Chile denouncing violence against women and state violence, the #EleNão (‘Not him’) movement in Brazil against Jair Bolsonaro’s sexism and fascism, the #NiUnaMenos (‘Not one woman less’) movement that started in Argentina against gender-based violence and feminicides and quickly spread to other Latin-American countries, and Mexico’s #MiPrimerAcoso campaign denouncing sexual harassment and violence even before the #MeToo movement captured global attention.

Importantly, the COVID-19 pandemic has not stopped the feminist struggles in Latin America. While the pandemic has clearly shown us the interconnections between different systems of oppression and its effects on marginalized communities, women and racial and ethnic minorities, it has also magnified and deepened several social inequalities, including gender inequality.

The massive scope of the virus highlights the unequal access to basic services like safe water, sanitation and hygiene, as well as public services such as health and education, access to affordable housing, food and decent work. Quarantine became a privilege accessible only to those who have a house or who could lock themselves up and work remotely. Moreover, in many cases, seeking refuge from the danger of the virus meant being locked up in a situation no less dangerous for some women: a situation of domestic violence and abuse. Protection of life during the COVID-19 pandemic requires that we stay inside our homes. However, this puts many women in greater risk by living 24/7 with their abuser. Unfortunately, due to social distancing and protective sanitary measures, women’s shelters soon reached full capacity, thus preventing women from seeking refuge.

Moreover, household and care work—activities that primarily fall on women’s shoulders—have also increased since the outbreak of the pandemic. Women now have to ensure total hygiene, constantly clean the house, look after their children and elderly relatives, and assist children in virtual schooling, which overburdens them even more. The most is being asked of those who have been guaranteed the least (Maffia, 2020). The pandemic has brought the domestic sphere to centre stage. Many of the issues that feminist movements had already been denouncing and that were not visible precisely because they were in the realm of the intimate today emerge strongly. We see that all of this work is essential for society to continue and, above all, for life to be preserved.

And the pandemic has also disrupted the already limited access to sexual and reproductive health services that women have in Latin America. A UN policy brief reported that an additional 18 million women in the region would cease to have access to contraceptives because of the pandemic (UN, 2020). The ongoing lockdowns, lack of access to birth control and family planning in addition to an increase in gender-based and sexual violence could lead to an estimated 600,000 unintended pregnancies in the region (Murray and Moloney, 2020).

Despite having some of the strictest lockdown measures in the world, feminist groups in Latin America put their bodies on the line and went out on the streets to demand justice for social problems that existed even before the pandemic and those that have intensified because of it.

In Mexico, for example, women and family members of victims of gender and sexual violence and disappeared women, together with the support of feminist collectives, have occupied the headquarters of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) since early September as a response to the inability of the government to provide access to justice and the impunity of such crimes. In Quito, Ecuador, as in other cities in the region, hundreds of women went out on the streets on 28 September, International Safe Abortion Day, to demand access to legal and safe abortion. And in Colombia, feminist collectives started the campaign ‘¡Estamos Putas! ¡Juntas somos más poderosas!’ to support cis and trans women sex workers who have been affected by the coronavirus-related ban on sex work during the lockdown.

These are just some examples of how the feminist movements in Latin America continue to transform society and to enact social change and social justice, even throughout a pandemic. As two migrant women, feminists from Latin America living in Europe and working in academia, we acknowledge our privileges and choose to use our voices to amplify those of our compañeras back home and make visible their struggles and contributions. The enormous efforts by women who, collectively, support victims of gender violence, accompany women to abortions, report police brutality, look for disappeared people and fight extractive industries, were being made before the COVID-19 pandemic and will continue to be made. We hope that now women’s fundamental contributions become even more visible and valued by the whole of our society.


References

Bartels-Bland, E. (2020) “COVID-19 Could Worsen Gender Inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean”, World Bank. In https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.worldbank.org%2Fen%2Fnews%2Ffeature%2F2020%2F05%2F15%2Fcovid-19-could-worsen-gender-inequality-in-latin-america-and-the-caribbean&data=04%7C01%7Cbliss%40iss.nl%7Cdfad3f9f62124c4b6ab008d89cf034c5%7C715902d6f63e4b8d929b4bb170bad492%7C0%7C0%7C637431902783559546%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=oFG0rjBqELfmooAtieUHMxzk79Cw7WmpehUCQsVB7Pg%3D&reserved=0

Lugones, M. (2007) “Heterosexualism and the Colonial/Modern Gender System”. Hypatia 22(1), 186-209.

Maffia, Diana (2020) “Violencia de Género: ¿La otra pandemia?” In El futuro después del COVID-19. Argentina Unida. In https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.argentina.gob.ar%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fel_futuro_despues_del_covid-19_0.pdf&data=04%7C01%7Cbliss%40iss.nl%7Cdfad3f9f62124c4b6ab008d89cf034c5%7C715902d6f63e4b8d929b4bb170bad492%7C0%7C0%7C637431902783559546%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=I9IPssiI8Rzzzvran9Okzrqa813asSwkZcIDtUkOVkk%3D&reserved=0

Murray C. and Moloney, A. (2020). “Pandemic brings growing risk of pregnancy, abuse to Latin American girls”. In https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reuters.com%2Farticle%2Fus-health-coronavirus-latamgirls-trfn-idUSKCN24W1EN&data=04%7C01%7Cbliss%40iss.nl%7Cdfad3f9f62124c4b6ab008d89cf034c5%7C715902d6f63e4b8d929b4bb170bad492%7C0%7C0%7C637431902783559546%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=BZZcVyhhahmxGJA6T3GfMZ%2FBtOkPOkjcQtaNB1DN4KM%3D&reserved=0

UN (2020), “Policy Brief: The Impact of COVID-19 on Women”. In https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.un.org%2Fsites%2Fun2.un.org%2Ffiles%2Fpolicy_brief_on_covid_impact_on_women_9_april_2020.pdf&data=04%7C01%7Cbliss%40iss.nl%7Cdfad3f9f62124c4b6ab008d89cf034c5%7C715902d6f63e4b8d929b4bb170bad492%7C0%7C0%7C637431902783559546%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=WGB6vwEiIhYhoZD1FToyYjjfN18NWpL%2Ff%2F64mq%2B5dIE%3D&reserved=0

UN Women (2020) “COVID-19 and ending violence against women and girls”. In https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unwomen.org%2Fen%2Fdigital-library%2Fpublications%2F2020%2F04%2Fissue-brief-covid-19-and-ending-violence-against-women-and-girls&data=04%7C01%7Cbliss%40iss.nl%7Cdfad3f9f62124c4b6ab008d89cf034c5%7C715902d6f63e4b8d929b4bb170bad492%7C0%7C0%7C637431902783559546%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=V5koQXaTqs9850PnQF%2Bty5gw%2FL7Btzrjsi357Dmw1ZE%3D&reserved=0

This blog article was first published in DevISSues and has been modified for publication on Bliss.

About the authors:

Agustina Solera is a researcher in Latin American Social Studies and a visiting researcher at ISS.

Brenda Rodríguez Cortés is a PhD candidate at ISS working on issues of gender and sexuality.

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Revisiting ethnographic sites as an ongoing knowledge production practice

Is it important for ethnographers to revisit the sites where they conduct their research once their projects have been completed? Returning to the site where I conducted my fieldwork six months later indicated that the answer is both yes and no. It makes me believe that ethnography practice is an ongoing knowledge production project, as people’s perspectives and practices are always evolving.

In January 2020, just before COVID-19 was classified a global pandemic, I made a journey to the site where I did my research six months prior. I had fruitful discussions with those I had engaged with for my research: about their definition of art as a form of activism (a main finding of my research), research as a knowledge production process where researchers and participants can work together, as well as about the dialogue between academic discourse and practices in the field.

When I conducted fieldwork for my Master’s degree at ISS in Pemenang village in Indonesia in July 2019, my ethnographic objective was to explore how a small art community called Pasir Putih navigated life after an earthquake devastated Lombok, the island on which the village is situated, in 2018. I immersed myself in the community for a month, stayed in their houses in order to observe their daily life activities, and conducted semi-structured interviews with them. I consider my study a mini-ethnography because while one month was quite short and what I did cannot be considered an exhaustive ethnography, I did more than interviewing the Pasir Putih artists. I did participant observation to investigate “the strange in the familiar” in the artist’s everyday lives—and to help me understand what’s beyond the things the research participants explicitly mentioned in the interviews.

As an organization, Pasir Putih strongly values knowledge production and knowledge-sharing activities, and so the initial agreement was that because they let me to stay with them for a month, I had to come back and share the research results with them. They often asked me, “What does the outsider think of us? About our conceptions of the arts?” Furthermore, for them it was important to have a conversation about the research that involved them as participants. As Sibawaihi, one of Pasir Putih artists, told the other people in community before I presented the research results, he believed that research would help them to reflect on their position as artists in the village community.

Pasir Putih is a small art community formed in January 2010 by five undergraduate students in Pemenang village and now comprising 13 active members, of which only two are women. Most of the research community members have a Bachelor’s degree in different fields, such as communication and education studies, and none of them have attained an art degree through formal education. They have attained their skills in art by doing. When I was in the field, the artists also contributed to the community as teachers for extracurricular art subjects in junior high schools in North Lombok. On their website, Pasir Putih define themselves as an “…organisasi nirlaba egaliter berbasis di Kecamatan Pemenang, Lombok Utara, Nusa Tenggara Barat oleh pegiat kultural, aktivis media dan seniman sejak tahun 2010” (“an egalitarian non-profit organization initiated and run by cultural and media activists and artists in Pemenang District, North Lombok since 2010”).[1]

After discussing my research with the community, they told me they felt my research encouraged them to define what it is that they do as artists. Sibawaihi mentioned that being involved in the research and hearing about the findings has made them realize that what they do as artists is important for people around them. I saw their work as ‘art as activism’, while the community used art as a way to express their value in the society around them. This idea of ‘art as activism’ was based on the theories I had engaged with during my Master’s research, and it differed from the idea the research participants had of themselves. Yet they found it an interesting observation. For them, art is what they do—not just for the village community, but also from and by the village community. They rejected the term ‘activist’ to avoid being considered superior to other people in the village.

They were also interested in how research could be seen as a part of the “documentation of knowledge” that might be useful now or in the future. They saw my research as “an archive for what we do that can be consulted in the future”. Interestingly, they were curious about what my lecturers at my university thought of art. “Did your teachers agree with our definition of art?” one asked. In other words, Pasir Putih artists were engaged in knowledge production not only during the research process, but also after that.

Oka, one of the artists who was a research participant as he initiated a film screening project to re-engage village communities after the 2018 earthquake, said that he was interested in the term ‘ethnography’. He related the methodology to what they do as community artists, such as staying in different villages to screen films. From Oka’s perspective, living in communities for several months is key to an ethnographic research methodology, because it helps the researcher to understand the research subject by regarding their daily practices as well as through daily conversations. Yet he felt that my stay should have been longer for me to be able to get a better grasp of their activities.

From my perspective, it was fascinating to have follow-up discussions with the research participants and to learn that they also benefited from (if I can use this term) the exchange of knowledge during the research project. As some of them expressed in the discussion, the findings of the research help them to reflect more on their perspectives and practices as artists/activists in the community. In addition, they saw my research as “archiving initiatives” related to what they had been doing, although the language barriers (I wrote the thesis in English) meant most of them could not access what I wrote. I saw the discussion that emerged about their art perspectives and practices among the Pemenang village community when I revisited the site as an interesting dialogue between academic research and practices in the field. Furthermore, ‘revisiting the site’ can be seen as an attempt to create more equal relations between researchers and the research participants in the field.

If I think back to the fieldwork, however, I realize that it was difficult to make the artists fully engaged in the research and vice versa. Given the time constraints, it was difficult for me to be fully involved in their projects. The data mostly came from semi-structured interviews rather than informal conversations with the artists. This means that my initial plan to create more equal relations with the participants was not fully successful. Despite that, the observations of the artists’ daily activities enriched the findings from the interviews.


[1] http://pasirputih.org/tentang-organisasi/, accessed on 27 September 2019


Image: Lize Swartz

About the author:

Daya Sudrajat is a researcher and policy advocate in inclusive education issues based in Jakarta, Indonesia. She has a strong interest in knowledge production in marginalized communities and this led her to write a thesis about art as alternative development practice in North Lombok, Indonesia. She holds a MA degree from ISS Erasmus University of Rotterdam.

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What is happening to civic space in India? by Nandini Deo, Dorothea Hilhorst and Sunayana Ganguly

We were fortunate to be part of a two-day workshop on civil society relations in India, organised in the framework of a research on advocacy in the Dutch co-financing programme. There were fascinating presentations of research on civil society and civic space with a loose connection to the Dutch development programme of ‘Dialogue and Dissent’. In the fantastic company of some of India’s most outstanding civil society activists and scholars, we discussed the diverse realities of organisational life in today’s India. Here are some take-aways…


Is Civic Space Shrinking or Changing?

This is definitely a period of the shrinking of civic space.  Some argued that it is simply a part of the normal cycles of opening and closing space, while others suggest that there is something particularly worrying about the current moment. One of the participants stated that there is hardly any space left to talk about human rights or to criticise the government. But the picture remains varied. The Indian government selectively provides civic space, inviting NGOs to co-create policies, that may or may not be implemented. However, other parts of civil society are oppressed, and jail-time or violence against social activists is no exception. ‘It takes a lot of sacrifice today to be an activist’. Newspapers worldwide observe how central identity politics have become in India and how religious minorities face increasing discrimination. What was interesting in this respect were the testimonies of participants of the workshop who explained that the harshest treatment is not for the identity movements, but for those movements that fight to protect their natural resources against national or multinational companies aiming to exploit forests, water reserves or mineral deposits.

However, civil society is also changing. NGOs adapt and find different roles, varying from facilitating or implementing government schemes to groups that retain more confrontational strategies. While participants of the workshop grieved for the loss of space for critical development discourses, they conveyed a sense of determination to make the best of the space that was still available and some were even optimistic about the transformative power they may have. One of the dualisms that was questioned in the workshop was the distinction between co-optation and autonomy. One of the participants made a strong claim that  one can always seek transformative power, even if one is merely contracted to implement a welfare scheme of the government. ‘In every policy it is the implementation that matters, and showing a different practice is already transformational’.

With the government retreating from the key areas of governance, civil society’s role becomes even more crucial at a time when their operational space is shrinking. It was also felt that despite the need to defend the constitution and to uphold dissent in public life, civil society must engage with policymakers in order to not only promote people-friendly policies but also to prevent a policy-hijack by the powerful. There was a lively debate on civil society’s legitimacy and its role as a representative or a translator between marginalized groups and policy-makers.

Importance of Case Studies and Context

A recurring message from the activists was that the research on civil society needs to be embedded. On the one hand, the case of India is unique, with millions of  NGOs, many of them with a long history of commitment to social transformation. But India can also be analysed as a case of several ‘somethings’. India is a case of a diverse and strong civil society. It is also a case standing for the many countries where civil society needs to operate in a shrinking space and a controlling government. It is also a country facing the pressures of neoliberalism to adopt ‘business-friendly’ policies while trying to reduce poverty and create environmentally sustainable practices.  To study these broader phenomena, participants argued that it is most powerful to do case studies. In that way, ‘readers are invited to picture and even smell the local realities’, and most people learn more from a case than from a pile of aggregated, dislocated data.

Hate is in the air

In between the fine-grained presentations on the roles, complementarities, and everyday practices of development agencies, the conversation kept drifting back to civic space. When we say that civic space is shrinking, this usually refers to legislative measures, human rights violations, and other oppressive practices to curb the space for civil society. But what we see today in many places, including India, is a change in atmosphere. People seeking social justice find themselves increasingly operating in restricted spaces, where populist speech demonises reformers, and legitimises opinions that were until recently unsayable in public. As someone said: ‘Hate is in the air, in many ways and against many‘. Hate of all kinds of ‘others’ extends to hate for people who promote inclusion. How to survive as an ‘NGO’ in a time when the Indian government excludes millions of Indians with Bengali roots from citizenship, when the US president shamelessly advertises his white American dream, and when increasing numbers of Europeans opine that those rescuing drowning Africans in the Mediterranean should be imprisoned? One coping mechanism is simply to make sure that we keep seeking out the company of the likeminded. Ending the workshop with an evening of songs, poetry and beauty was a healing experience indeed, refilling us with the courage to invent new spaces and redefine our roles in a changing world.


Image Credit: SiamlianNgaihte on Pixabay


About the authors:

photo nandini

Nandini Deo is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Lehigh University.  She is working on a book about  corporate influence over civil society in India.  Her previous books are Postsecular Feminisms: Religion and Gender in Transnational Context, Mobilizing Religion and Gender in India: The role of activism, and The Politics of Collective Advocacy in India: Tools and Traps (written with Duncan McDuie Ra).  She has been collaborating with a group of researchers on a study of representation and collaboration by civil society organizations in India sponsored by the Dutch foreign ministry.  She is spending a sabbatical year in Mumbai and can be reached at ndd208@lehigh.edu.

TheaDorothea Hilhorst is Professor of Humanitarian Aid and Reconstruction at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is a regular author for Bliss. Read all her posts here

photo sunayana

Sunayana Ganguly is currently Assistant Professor at the Azim Premji University in Bangalore. She has previously worked with the Industrial Ecology Group, University of Lausanne (Switzerland) and the German Development Institute (Bonn). Her work explores environmental governance, civil society, deliberative democracy and sustainable consumption with a focus on South Asia. Her book ‘Deliberating Environment Policy in India – Participation and the role of Advocacy’ was published by Routledge in 2015. She can be reached at Sunayana.ganguly@apu.edu.in.

Creative Development | “Do I exist”? Miktivism for Land Rights and Identity in Ethiopia by Tatek Abebe

Miktivism—the use of music for the purposes of activism and social change—has become a popular strategy of resistance among Ethiopian youth. I use the term miktivism to refer to the practice of employing music to advance causes of social justice by youth who do not claim to be activists, at least not openly. This blog explores an example of miktivism: young musicians deploying what they regard as their talents and resource—music and microphone—to highlight questions of land and identity in the Oromia region, Ethiopia.


Land grabbing in the Oromia region  

The Oromia region is the largest of Ethiopia’s nine federal regions. Its inhabitants, the ethnic Oromo people, account for about 35% of the country’s population. Oromo people inhabit lands surrounding Addis Ababa and also in west, central, and south Ethiopia. Due to its proximity to Addis Ababa, the Oromia region has been subjected to continuous encroachment by industrial and real estate developments driven by Ethiopian and international investors and suffered from land grabbing driven by foreign agri-investments (e.g. Lavers 2012).

Maalan Jira? / Do I exist?

The struggle to retain agricultural land has been at the core of widespread youth protests in the Oromo region during the period 2015-2018. Music plays a key role in these protests and the song Maalan Jira by Oromo artist Hacaaluu Hundeessaa serves as a prime example.

Maalan Jira is a social-political song disguised by love lyrics in Affan Oromo language. The song was released in 2015, at the beginning phase of the youth protests and has had close to 6 million views on the YouTube.

Land grab as an existential threat

Maalan jiraa, maalan, jiraa, maalan jiraa, Yaa Gaa-laa-nee…
Maalan jiraa maalan, caccabsee na nyaatee jiraa
Ani hin jiruu… Ani hin jiruu, Ani hin jiruu… Yaa Ga-laa-ne, Ani hin jiruu Kukkutee na nyaate xurri

Do I exist Galaane? No Galaane I do not exist; they chopped and ate my liver [vital organs].
What is left of me Galaane? They broke up my bones and ate them.

Koo Galaanee tiyyaa, Sululta loon hin tiksuu darabaatti galchiisa, 

My dear Galaane, Sululta cannot let the cattle to graze freely; they have to fence them.

 The lyrics present contemporary land grabs as an existential threat. This is done by drawing an analogy between the human body/anatomy and land as a vital means of existence for the rural population. Hacaalu Hundessa repeatedly expresses that his ‘bones are broken up’, bit by bit, in order to exemplify how agricultural land is slowly becoming a scarce resource for farmers. Phrases like ‘vital organs chopped away’ and ‘eaten up’ represent first of all the grabbing and selling of rural land to investors. These existential metaphors also resonate with one of the most popular chants during the protests: ‘lafti keenya lafee keenya’ (‘our land is our bone’). Secondly, the music video and the lyrics refer to the need to fence cattle because of declining open pastures. Oromo people have a long tradition of letting their cattle unfettered in the field. Cattle is brought home only when they are to be milked or slaughtered. This is just one example of illustrating intensified land grab in the name of development, experienced by local population not as a mere change in livelihoods, but as a compromise to what it means to be Oromo.

Historical repetition of grabbing of Oromo lands

Laal Galoo-too, Gullalleen kan Tufaa, gaara Abbichuu turii, Galaan Finfinnee..see.
Laal Galoo-too, Silaa akka jaalalaa Laal Galoo-too, wal irraa hin fagaannuu Laal Galoo-too, Jarraa nu fageessee.

Look my Galoo, Gullallee belonged to Tufaa, Abbichuu was on the hills, Galaan farmed Finfinnee.
We, the lovers, should have never been separated, but those people separated us.

The main protagonist in the song is a woman named Gelaanee, who is affectionately referred to as ‘Galoo’. Gelaanee also refers to a queen of one of the Oromo clans which was conquered by Emperor Menellik II during his expansion in the 20th century. Following this conquest and resembling contemporary developments, queen Gelaanee’s land became incorporated into Ethiopia’s capital.

Malaan Jira recounts the violent expansion of Finfinnee into Addis Ababa through the gradual pushing away of indigenous Oromo clans. The song laments how—through land grabs—people are losing not just their land but also their rural mode of life. It refers to localities like Gullelle, Abbichuu, Galaan and, Sululta etc; places where Oromo clans lived for generations. These areas are now either part of Addis Ababa or suggested for incorporation into Addis Ababa’s Integrated Development Plan. This development plan, locally known as the master killer plan, is the main trigger for the ‘Ethiopian Spring’.

‘Separation of lovers’

Diiganii gaara sanaa, Gaara diigamuu hin-mallee,
Nu baasaan addaan baanee, nuu addaan bahuu hin-mallee. 
Seeqanii sesseeqanii, kan gar gar nu baasan jaraa—yii
 
They dug that hill, a hill that should never have been dug/destroyed.
They separated us, the people who should never have been separated.
Little by little, they cut us apart [alienated us].

Maalan Jira effectively mobilizes a number of metaphors to express social critique in a guarded manner. For example, the phrase ‘Separation of lovers’ refers to the growing rift between Oromia region and Finfinnee brought about by the allocation of its land for the development of Addis Ababa. The metaphor also stands for the ethnic-based federalism pursued by the Ethiopian government, amplifying differences rather than shared interests. Both the song and music video tell stories of several generations of farmers who went on to cultivate vast areas of land, yet the present generation does not even have a ‘ground to sleep on.’ The music video alludes to systemic dispossession, i.e. the process of political economy altering the material grounds of life as well as the ways in which people struggle for control of social reproduction.

Maalan Jira is a prime example of the miktivism embraced by Oromo youth. It shows how youth mobilize historical references and powerful metaphors, describing the loss of identity, way of life, livelihoods and lands of Oromo people. Yet, by using ‘Galoo’ they can just claim it is an innocent love song. This strategy enables youth to elude the risks engendered by voicing political issues openly.


Reference
Lavers, T. (2012). ‘Land grab’ as development strategy? The political economy of agricultural investment in Ethiopia. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39 (1), 105-132.

This article is part of a series on Creative Development.


About the author:

Tatek AbebeTatek Abebe is a professor at the Norwegian University of Sciences and Technology (NTNU) where he convenes the MPhil in childhood studies. His current research focuses on generational implications of development/poverty with an emphasis on young people’s lives and transitions into adulthood. He conducts ethnographic and participatory fieldwork in diverse African contexts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(How) should scholars say what humanitarians can’t? by Roanne van Voorst and Isabelle Desportes

In January this year, a long day of interviewing aid workers involved in the Myanmar Rohingya crisis revealed that these aid workers often refrain from talking about the human rights violations in Myanmar. Out of fear to be forced to cease operations or to get fired, they keep silent and carry on. This raises the question: should the scholars engaging with them speak up in their stead? This blog provides a reflection of whether and how scholars can get involved in the entanglements of humanitarianism and conflict. It also provides insights into the ethical and practical reasons why both aid workers and scholars sometimes hesitate to become more engaged.


The time we were doing fieldwork relating to the governance and the accountability of aid in Myanmar coincided with a massive exodus of the Rohingya Muslim minority fleeing persecution and the destruction of their homes in the northwestern Rakhine province. Yet, as we asked broader questions relating to the accountability of aid, the stories of humanitarian aid workers resounded with us. Stories of frustration and powerlessness, as they felt barriers were posed to their work not only by authorities, but also by their own organisations. As scholars, we felt determined that we wanted to ‘do something’. But along with this urge to act came insecurities and concerns.

Providing aid in restrictive settings

Local and international relief agencies that work in restrictive conflict settings are doing something that is intrinsically difficult. Often perceived as a threat by authorities involved in violence, agencies need to make sure they remain tolerated and even supported by these same authorities in order to operate effectively and deliver aid to those in need. In practice in Myanmar, aid agencies are stuck in the middle of two discourses: that of the United Nations that from afar qualifies the military offensive in Rakhine as a « textbook example of ethnic cleansing », and that of Myanmar authorities, who claim they were fighting Rohingya militias only and deny targeting civilians.

Faced with the overwhelming need for support to continue operating in the field, most humanitarian agencies refrain from being overtly critical of human rights violations and prefer to assert their position as impartial and neutral aid providers. Only very few are allowed by the government to work in Rakhine, and those who may, generally keep silent about what they observe. No wonder: when in 2014 Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said that it was deeply concerned about the tens of thousands of people it was treating, the government forced it to cease operations in Myanmar. In order to avoid that for their own organisations, most aid agencies active on the ground thus strictly do and say what they’ve agreed to in (obligated) memoranda of understanding with the government—even if that does not match needs on the ground.

The personal dilemmas of humanitarians

These strategic decisions, however understandable, can have major consequences for the people whom agencies come to assist, but also have psychological implications for relief workers. Many suffer from what Hugo Slim has termed ‘bystander anxiety’. And this was also evident during our interviews: many of those we talked to in Yangon felt anxious and frustrated by the violence they observed in the field and the self-censorship they observed within their own organisations.

One field officer of a large international organisation felt that his agency was « sacrifying its principles and moral authority » in exchange for Rakhine field access and status, which was not even alleviating suffering on the ground because the government forbade actual activities. After he anonymously spoke to journalists, the whole team received a serious warning never to speak to the press again. He lamented the complete lack of internal discussions on these dilemmas, even as many of the staff, including Rohingya, « begged the organisation to speak out ».

We heard many similar stories from humanitarians working for INGOs or the UN. They could not openly discuss, let alone act upon, what they observed in the field. Particularly in meetings attended by the government, they knew « not to be critical ».

Here is where the scholars could come in, but often don’t do so.

Four broad arguments can motivate scholars to engage in the humanitarianism-conflict debate. First, as independent researchers in the field, scholars have more freedom to speak up. Second, many will argue that ‘speaking the truth’ is a scholarly duty. Third, scholars’ voice might carry differently than that of human rights organisations or journalists, as scholars are supposed to adhere to rigorous scientific and ethical standards that grant their research some credibility. Last, academics increasingly vary their channels to seek ‘societal impact’. Newspaper articles, debate evenings, social media and blogs such as this one can help convey to a wider audience what would otherwise remain obscured.

But this freedom comes with responsibilities. Scholars, somewhat like humanitarians, tread a fine line between engaging in effective action and making their own work—or worse, that of relief agencies or local research partners—harder or even impossible to carry out. Discussions about the role of researchers are by no means new. Take the discussions on scholar activism and action research (combing research and social change work), or the divide in the field of anthropology, amongst others, between those who believe they should retain distance in the field and those who support local activism or other types of involvement.

Ethics aren’t the only reason scholars often don’t speak up. Many of the issues that came up during our Myanmar discussions were practical, concerning safety, future access to visas and research permits, academic integrity, and access to non-academic channels, both in terms of networks and skills. Myanmar is a complex setting to work in, not only for humanitarians. Scholars and journalists also face difficulties in accessing the field, while some have been deported or arrested.

Moreover, the ‘hard evidence’ was thin. There would not be enough informants allowing for the rigorous cross-validation of statements. Interviews could not always be recorded and informants insisted that they, their agency and the locality where they operated should remain confidential to avoid raising colleagues’ or authorities’ suspicions. Were these stories even convincing enough for people who hadn’t been here, let alone fulfilling academic standards? Wouldn’t journalists after all be a better fit to relay them?

The answers might differ for each scholar, for each person. We share them to stir up a conversation and to share our doubts with researchers and (inter)national practitioners alike. Even with intentions to change local realities for the better, it’s not easy to take the leap from scholar to messenger. Yet, who else would fulfil that role?

This blog is a first attempt to support humanitarians who can’t speak up.


chantal-ariens-portret-high-res.jpgAbout the authors:

Roanne van Voorst is a postdoctoral researcher involved in the research projectisa”When disaster meets conflict. Disaster response of humanitarian aid and local state and non-state institutions in different conflict scenarios” at the ISS.

Isabelle Desportes is a PhD candidate working on the governance of disaster response, in particular the interplay between humanitarian and local actors.

 

Confronting authoritarian populism: building collaborations for emancipatory rural resistance by Sergio Coronado

Authoritarian populism is increasingly resisted across the world. Such contestations and expressions of resistance against oppressive authoritarian regimes are being understood as emancipatory rural politics. The Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI) through a conference hosted by ISS on 17 and 18 March 2018 sought to explore the dynamics of authoritarian populism and pathways of resistance.


 

The ERPI Conference: A meeting place for activists

The phrase ‘a new political momentum is underway’1 was embodied on 17 and 18 March 2018 when more than 250 scholars, activists, practitioners, and policymakers representing more than 60 countries gathered at the International Institute of Social Studies to discuss the rise and effects of authoritarian populism at the ERPI’s ‘Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World’ conference.

Authoritarian populism is a contested and highly debated concept. In a recent blog by Ian Scoones, it is described as follows: ‘In Gramscian terms, authoritarian populisms can emerge when the “balance of forces” changes, creating a new “political-ideological conjuncture”. Drawing on populist discontents, a transformist, authoritarian movement, often with a strong, figurehead leader, is launched, mobilising around “moral panics” and “authoritarian closure”, and being given, in Hall’s words, “the gloss of populist consent”.’

On the surface, it seems that academics, practitioners, and the media use this concept to broadly describe political circumstances within different countries. One of the primary expectations of the conference was to capture the attention of a wider community of scholars and activists to promote a collective reflection about the ongoing political momentum surrounding this topic, and mainly to figure out whether the proposed definition of authoritarian populism is useful to understand what is happening.

At least three academic debates captured the attention of the participants of the conference. First, some conference participants critiqued the use of the notion of authoritarian populism to describe the uprising of conservative politicians after the crisis induced by the undelivered promises of neoliberal governments. Trump, Duterte and other populists are seizing political power in their countries partly because of the failure of neoliberal regimes to successfully transform poverty and to deliver the fulfilment of social and economic rights for the vast majority of poor classes.

Second, the debates focused on the use of this concept to generalise uneven and even contradictory situations, particularly concerning matching, yet different kinds of political regimes regardless of their political orientation. Notably, in the Latin American context, there could be an apparent coexistence of left-wing and right-wing populist regimes with different goals and political dynamics that prevent them from being comparable in these specific terms.

Third, the debates reflected on the accuracy of the concept to understand the current political phenomenon. For instance, some argued that the conceptualisation of authoritarian populism by Stuart Hall is more nuanced and specific than that by the authors of the ERPI framing paper, but they argue that Hall’s definition does not necessarily inform the complex dynamics of the current rural world.

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The result of the conference was an endowment of the debate around this concept. Authoritarian populism has been challenged by scholars, activists, and scholar-activists participating in the conference. Different critiques of this mode of governance have enriched understandings of the concept in multiple, innovative and exciting ways. During the conference’s first working groups session, participants discussed the realities of authoritarian populism via the cases and contexts described in the 70+ conference working papers.

Despite the lack of consensus on the concept, significant commonalities were found: even though the contexts of countries such as Indonesia, Brazil and Turkey differ significantly, authoritarian modes of governance are recognisable in all of these contexts: the shift toward nationalism; the existence of iron-fist leaders concentrating political power; the legitimation of repressive policies by appealing to the presence of external threats; and increasing human rights violations committed against people demanding democracy. Therefore, although these are clearly different situations, the existence of standard features helps illuminate common ground for comparing, understanding and confronting this problematic.

Making alternative rural politics visible

Alternatives to authoritarian populism are also visible in the rural world. One of the most important political forces confronting the rise of conservative populism is agrarian social movements such as La Via Campesina—a paradox, because populists seek social legitimation by appealing to traditions deeply rooted in the countryside. This contradiction vividly illuminates how rapidly the rural world is transforming, not only because of the enlargement of large-scale capitalist agriculture and the dispossession of the rural poor, but also because of the emergence of alternatives to such developments, constructed by rural people and social movements.

In her recent blog on Open Democracy, Ruth Hall describes how in South Africa rural social movements, like the Alliance for Rural Democracy, are contesting the state, market and chiefly power through claims for the protection of communal rights over land. Particularly, such movements focus on the demands for the democratisation of customs that currently enable chiefs to subscribe to prejudicial agreements with private investors, affecting the rights to land of people that depend on its access for their subsistence.

Such contestations and expressions of resistance against oppressive authoritarian regimes are being understood as emancipatory rural politics. This conference explicitly aimed to bring together academics and activists, and discuss ways in which emerging emancipatory politics can be supported. However, a huge challenge remains of providing security to the people on the front lines of such struggles. A shocking amount of violence is exerted against movement leaders, and threats against their lives are increasing globally. Social movements have constructed innovative strategies for self-protection.

A way to promote and support alternatives to the effects of authoritarian populism on people living in the countryside is through facilitating a deeper understanding of the phenomenon and clarifying the nuances between different regions and countries. Resistance towards authoritarian populism has multiple expressions; although social mobilisation is the most prominent, other kinds of political activities are taking place everywhere.

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Sin fiesta no hay revolución”

“Sin fiesta no hay revolución”: without a party, there is no revolution. After the conference, the ERPI collective aims to continue growing as an expanded community of activists and scholars, aiming to construct critical understandings of authoritarian populism and to critically engage with emancipatory politics emerging in the rural world. Artists like Boy Dominguez and Rakata Teatro are now part of this process of the enlargement of the ERPI community and show how to diversify ways of expressing resistance.

We hope to take this initiative even further: follow us on Twitter @TheErpi, and Facebook to become involved and stay updated.

 


1This expression opens the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI) framing paper, published almost one year ago in the Journal of Peasant Studies. The article aims to raise awareness among a global community of academics and activists working in the rural world about the rise of populist politics around the globe and the agrarian origins and the impacts of these politics on rural lives.
Main picture: Populismo by Boy Dominguez, launched at the ERPI conference.

Also see: Confronting authoritarian populism: challenges for agrarian studies by Ian Scoones


IMG_0160 2About the author:

Sergio Coronado is a PhD researcher affiliated with both the Free University Berlin and the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS). Currently, he is writing his dissertation on peasant agency and institutional change in Colombia, and co-coordinates the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI) secretariat. Email: sergio.coronado@fu-berlin.de.

 

 

Trump’s ‘doublespeak’—why academics should speak out by Jeff Handmaker

U.S. President Donald Trump in January 2018 delivered his first State of the Union Address (SOTU). At first glance, he sounded more presidential than ever following his tumultuous first year in office. However, his careful words hid an agenda that is hostile to most of us, and to academics in particular. As scholars, we have a responsibility to take notice, and to speak out. 


The SOTU Address – Trump’s doublespeak

During much of his SOTU address, Trump made an effort to reach Americans, beyond his more familiar, albeit dwindling ‘base’ of support, composed of evangelicals, the elderly and whites without a university degree. His presentation was peppered by American proverbs and even managed to come across as compassionate.

But gaps and contradictions blatantly revealed Trump’s doublespeak. While Trump refrained from referring to countries as “shitholes” as he had done a few weeks earlier, his contempt for foreign nations was evident. He praised the Iranian peoples’ “struggle for freedom”, while failing to mention the travel ban in place against all Iranians.

Trump also praised his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a decision condemned by most nations in the United Nations General Assembly. Trump said that “friends” of the US would receive support, while “enemies” would not. While these were not explicitly specified, there was a clear reference to how nations voted at the UN concerning Jerusalem.

Capping off a dizzying array of international law violations, Trump insisted that the notorious detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, associated with torture and indefinite detention without trial, would remain open. He affirmed that the US military would continue its operations in Afghanistan, ominously, under unspecified “new rules of engagement”.

So how is this all relevant for scholars?

The overall response from media commentators to Trump’s SOTU address was disappointing. Most focused on its tone rather than its content. In the Netherlands, some even referred to Trump’s address as “brilliant” and “politically, very clever”. The NRC Handelsblad offered perhaps the best commentary, emphasising its ‘polarising’ content, but this was an exception.

The fact remains that a significant majority of Americans have consistently disapproved of Trump’s job as president. There has been a public outcry in countries around the world, particularly after Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. So why have there been so few critical analysts, particularly in the mainstream media?

In my own observations at academic gatherings in the US and abroad, since Trump first came to office in January 2017, it appears that most academics tend to dismiss Trump, rolling their eyes, ignoring his statements, mocking him, or even suggesting that he doesn’t really have all that much power. A handful of academics have even openly supported him.

There are, of course, notable exceptions. Those in the immigration law field have written persistently on the Trump administration’s persecution of immigrants. Apart from the alternative media, such as Mondoweiss, Democracy Now and MSNBC, The Conversation has produced in-depth articles by scholars condemning the Trump administration’s policies. But even critical media outlets, such as De Correspondent in The Netherlands have acknowledged that, while news outlets have tended to reflect daily indignation, they have rarely produced sustained resistance to the policies of the Trump administration.

A position of ambivalence in these circumstances is not tenable. As Professor Harris Beider has poignantly observed: “we live in an age of volatility and scepticism … As academics we find ourselves in the dock of public opinion too … we as universities and academics can also be part of the problem”.

Accordingly, with the rise of ethno-nationalist administrations in the USA and the United Kingdom, Beider has issued an appeal to academics to be less self-absorbed and “to question received wisdom and follow the people rather than expect them to follow us”.

What Trump says publicly should matter a great deal to us, if only in view of the vast military and nuclear arsenal at his disposal and the message to other world leaders that Trump’s behavior should in any way be regarded as acceptable.

Trump’s specific threats to academics

Alongside general concerns around Trump’s policies, there are at least three specific examples that are pertinent to academics worldwide.

First, Trump’s travel ban on nationals from specific countries has made it impossible, and even dangerous for academics from these countries, some of whom are regarded as scholars at risk, to share their knowledge and in extreme cases obtain safe refuge in the United States. Several vice chancellors (rectors magnificus) of Australian universities have protested Trump’s travel ban, joining thousands of other scholars worldwide.

Second, while Congress has so far pushed back on Trump’s proposals to slash health research, Trump’s refusal to accept the scientific consensus concerning a link between carbon emissions and climate change is having a devastating global impact in restricting access to crucial research funding. Research funding cuts in other areas are also likely.

Third, the harassment of scholars by right-wing groups has been steadily rising against scholars, particularly following the election of Donald Trump. Such harassment is even described as “becoming normal” by the American Association of University Professors, which has set up an on-line platform for reporting incidents of harassment.

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Picture Credit: Newtown grafitti

This would not be the first time scholars have stood up in protest against regimes whose policies have threatened society at large, and academics specifically. This includes South Africa’s persecution of non-whites and critical scholars in the 1980s, the persecution of scholars by the government in Turkey and Israel’s persecution of Palestinian scholars.

Whether as scholars of climate change, international law, race relations or many other related areas, we should all be shocked. Alarmed. Indeed, appalled at Trump’s SOTU speech. And we should speak out at every opportunity, particularly outside our close-knit community that largely holds the same views we do.


Also see: Scholars at risk: precarity in the academe by Rod Mena and Kees Biekart


Picture credit: DonkeyHotey


JeffHandmakerISS_smallAbout the author:

Jeff Handmaker teaches law, human rights, development and governance and conducts research on legal mobilisation at the ISS. He is also an associate member of the Faculty of Law at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, Editor-in-Chief of the South African Journal on Human Rights and a member of the EUR INFAR Project.