Volume 11, Issue 1 (2020)


Social Persons, Social Inequality and Social Death
Oritsegbubemi Anthony Oyowe
How might one make sense of the intimate but often assumed connection between social inequality and social death? In this paper, I offer an answer. It develops in stages. First, I set out in some detail an account of person prominent in sub-Saharan African thought systems, specifically the version of it found in the writings of Ifeanyi Menkiti. Second, I show how this account entails both that persons are social entities and that consequently they belong in a social ontology. Third, I suggest a perspective on Orlando Patterson's notion of social death and then show how Menkiti's account of persons as psycho-social entities can provide ontological grounding for the phenomenon of social death. Roughly, the overarching claim is that rather than merely disrespect their victims, oppressive forms of social inequality essentially depersonalise them in the sense at issue in Patterson's social death.

Women and Intersectional Inequality. A Comparative Study of Gender, Social Class, Socioculture, Ethnicity and Migration in Brazil, Germany, India, Laos, Malaysia, Nigeria and Thailand
Oluwatobiloba Adeleke, Nithiya Guna Saigaran, Emanuelle Levinson, Champathong Phochanthilath, Boike Rehbein, Reena Sehgal, Woramon Sinsuwan
The paper studies the intersection of social classes, pre-capitalist hierarchies, migration and the subordinate position of women in contemporary Brazil, Germany, India, Laos, Malaysia, Nigeria and Thailand. It makes the theoretical argument that each social class in each nation state develops a particular gender configuration but, at the same time, earlier gender configurations persist. The gender configurations are embodied and taken along in migration, when migrants enter a specific social class with a (new) gender configuration. The study researches the subordination of women empirically on the basis of around 700 qualitative interviews conducted in the aforementioned countries. The paper outlines the position of women in the social classes of Brazil and Germany, then explains the intersection of female subordination and pre-capitalist hierarchies with regard to India, Laos and Nigeria, before finally looking at international female migrants from India to Malaysia and from Thailand to Germany.

Practised Identities in the World of Ethnic Politics in Chocó
Elin Frändberg
In this article, I explore the mechanisms behind identity production among youth activist in the ethno-territorial organisation COCOMACIA in western Colombia. This particular case is just one example of countless political struggles resting on the idea of a common ethnic identity. Due to the global importance of identity in today's political arena it is essential to better understand the concept of identity, how it comes into being, what it means to people, and what role it may play in social movements and processes of change and resistance. The issue is approached with a practice theory of the self that suggests that identities are produced in everyday practice where both agency and structures play a part. It combines the study of persons with local practices and larger historically institutionalized struggles, and understands identity as constituted in a dialogic process between person and society where agency emerges in the practice of improvisation and play. The young activists in COCOMACIA are torn between the protection of traditional practices and local culture, the longing for development and modernisation, and their own dreams about the future. They navigate through different, and often contradicting worldviews, practices and ideologies, and by answering to the world in everyday practice they negotiate new ways of being, living, and identifying themselves.

Re-Approaching Social Inequality in Colombia
Francisco Javier Ardila Suarez
Research on inequality in Colombia is primarily approached from an economic point of view with quantitative methodologies. Heterodox and alternative approaches on inequality are almost absent from academic literature in that country. However, there is plenty of literature that presents theoretical and methodological alternatives on how to research inequality, especially in countries in the Global South. This paper takes a qualitative historical approach to inequality to make an argument for class replication following the works of Vester et al (2001), Rehbein et al. (2015) and Rehbein, Jodhka, and Souza (2018). It argues that the early colonial period is determinant in the formation of modern inequality in Colombia.

Epistemological Colonialism & Resistance
A Case Study of the Epistemological Colonisation of India and Gandhi's Resistance

Dara Casey Ó Siochrú
This paper begins with a brief examination of the epistemological colonisation of India during the British colonial era, using Foucault's work on the relationship between knowledge and power to explore how the modern order of knowledge came to establish itself on the sub-continent. The main part of the paper is dedicated to Mohandas Gandhi's resistance to this epistemological colonisation. We see that Gandhi not only launched a campaign against the political hegemony of the British, but also, using concepts and understandings derived from the Vedic tradition, challenged the field of 'politics' itself.

Contra o Espírito da Época - Interview with R. Mangabeira Unger
Carlos Sávio G. Teixeira
English translation by Luciana Baglioni