Book•
Selections from the prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci
01 Jan 2015-
TL;DR: The first selection published from Gramsci's Prison Notebooks to be made available in Britain, and was originally published in the early 1970s as discussed by the authors, was the first publication of the Notebooks in the UK.
Abstract: Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks, written between 1929 and 1935, are the work of one of the most original thinkers in twentieth century Europe. Gramsci has had a profound influence on debates about the relationship between politics and culture. His complex and fruitful approach to questions of ideology, power and change remains crucial for critical theory. This volume was the first selection published from the Notebooks to be made available in Britain, and was originally published in the early 1970s. It contains the most important of Gramsci's notebooks, including the texts of The Modern Prince, and Americanism and Fordism, and extensive notes on the state and civil society, Italian history and the role of intellectuals. 'Far the best informative apparatus available to any foreign language readership of Gramsci.' Perry Anderson, New Left Review 'A model of scholarship' New Statesman
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw on Gramsci's concept of hegemony to examine and explain the circumstances leading to the re-emergence of the public accounting profession in China in the early 1980s.
85 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that instead of creating a fairer world, development can only serve to perpetuate uneven power relationships, and propose a post-development practice in which aspirations toward social justice and emancipation can coexist alongside the messy realities of development work.
Abstract: Development is a project of hope, guided by the aspiration for greater social justice and emancipation of the poor and disadvantaged in the world. Over the past decade postdevelopment critics have argued that this project of hope has failed, and, instead of creating a fairer world, development can only serve to perpetuate uneven power relationships. Emerging work by postdevelopment authors reinvigorates the positive promise of development as a project toward emancipation and social justice. Discursive practices of development professionals in northern Thailand illustrate how one might conceive of a postdevelopment practice in which aspirations toward social justice and emancipation can coexist alongside the messy realities of development work. Drawing on contemporary discourse theory, Ernesto Laclau's conceptualization of hegemonic struggle provides conceptual tools for thinking beyond the bind of development-as-power. Using hegemony to reimagine development as first and foremost a form of politi...
85 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the micro politics of gardening activism, arguing that the social backgrounds and motivations of those involved in guerrilla gardening and their relationship with other users of the space surrounding the dig site are also important aspects of gardening.
Abstract: Despite an emerging literature on guerrilla gardening as a political practice in public spaces, with few exceptions, these accounts theorise it as working against many corporate
and bureaucratic forms of power. Using the example of ‘F Troop’—a group of gardeners operating on a site in an English midland city—this paper focuses on the practices of urban guerrilla gardening in order to illustrate that these are perhaps not as ‘resistant’ or ‘celebratory’ as previous accounts have suggested. Rather, this paper draws on ethnographic data to focus attention on the micro politics of garden activism, arguing that the social backgrounds and motivations of those involved in guerrilla gardening and their relationship with other users of the space surrounding the dig site are also important—but largely underacknowledged—aspects of guerrilla gardening.
84 citations
TL;DR: The concept of civil society is used in a variety of different ways, but usually refers to the emergence of new patterns of political participation outside of formal state structures and one-party systems.
Abstract: The concept of civil society has gained currency in African studies. It is used in a variety of different ways, but usually refers to the emergence of new patterns of political participation outside of formal state structures and one-party systems (Bratton 1989, 407). In the absence of capable state institutions, the literature on Africa has started to shift attention away from the state and governing elites, and towards social actors who are devising various strategies to survive the nested crises of state action, economic development, and political legitimacy (Doornbos 1990). As an alternative conceptualization of possibilities of economic and social development, civil society is becoming an all encompassing term that refers to social phenomena putatively beyond formal state structures—but not necessarily free of all contact with the state. Virtually no theoretical work, however, has been done on the concept as it relates to an African environment, with the exception of Bayart (1986) and, more recently, Bratton (1989). This essay explores in a more theoretical manner than has hitherto been the case what such a notion means within an African context by asking whether the growing use of the term contributes substantively to our understanding of new forms of participation and associational activity in Africa. The answer is affirmative, provided that this concept is elaborated and specified in ways which take into account the complex interaction between normative, economic, and organizational dimensions of civil society.
84 citations
01 Jan 2019
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors trace the musical constitution of moral, economic, material, and social relations between rural communities and the state in the Sultanate of Oman and argue that communities embedded within the authoritarian state hegemony of the country form and affirm social relations with the state through its embodied proxy, via the reciprocal exchange of state-directed giving and praise poetry responses.
Abstract: Poems to Open Palms: Praise Performance and the State in the Sultanate of Oman by Bradford J. Garvey Advisor: Jane C. Sugarman This dissertation traces the musical constitution of moral, economic, material, and social relations between rural communities and the state in the Sultanate of Oman. I argue that communities embedded within the authoritarian state hegemony of the Sultanate form and affirm social relations with the state through its embodied proxy, Sultan Qābūs bin Ṣa‘īd Āl Bū Ṣa‘īd, via the reciprocal exchange of state-directed giving and praise poetry responses. The circuit of exchange catalyzes the social production of political legitimacy and ensures continued generous distribution by mythopoetically presenting such cyclicity as resulting from elite and non-elite mutuality. This praise poetry is rendered within two song and dance complexes: al-razḥa, a collective war dance with drumming and antiphonal choral singing, and al-‘āzī, a choral ode with a solo singer, tight poetic structure, and a chorus of responders. Through a close analysis of the content and context of praise poems sung by Arab men’s performance troupes experienced over a year of participant observation fieldwork, I argue that praise poetry is an overlooked site for the construction and negotiation of state political legitimacy. Drawing on heterodox and Gramscian political economy, I show how musical performance operates within broader circuits of exchange by functioning as a site wherein non-market economic logics are fused with moral, performative, and political norms. Instead of simply tracing a circuit of utilitarian exchange (praise for gifts for praise), I focus on the how gifts and their responses reciprocally negotiate social relations between state elites and non-elites. By focusing on the words and actions of nonelites as they integrate the various proffered benefits of a distributive state into their own
84 citations