Reference no: EM133932019

Question

When author writes about the mobilization of power outside of state control, what comes to mind in our culture today that demonstrates this phenomenon? How Do People Mobilize Power Outside the State's Control? Systems of power, including the state, are never absolute. Their dominance is never complete. Even when a culture's dominant groups and institutions are very powerful in terms of their ability to exercise force or to establish control through hegemony, they do not fully dominate people's lives and thinking. Individuals with less power or no power may still contest the established power pue relationships and structures through political, economic, religious, or military means and challenge and change cultural norms, values, symbols, and institu- sdno18 tions. This power is a potential that anthropologists call agency (sce Holland individuals and Lave 2001). In such displays of human agency, we see the way culture becomes the realm in which battles over power are waged; where people contest, negotiate, and enforce what is considered normal and what people can say, do, and even think. Because of human agency, cultures do not remain rigid and static. They change. Efforts to change cultural patterns take various forms, which we will con- sider further. Human agency may be expressed through individual strategies of resistance, such as the "weapons of the weak" discussed in Chapter 2, collective efforts such as social movements, and alternative institutions to the state such as those based on religion. SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Social movements are collective, group actions in response to uneven devel- opment, inequality, and injustice that seek to build institutional networks to transform cultural patterns and government policies. Social movements engage in contentious politics, usually outside the mainstream political process, to address specific social issues, although they usually do not seek to overthrow the social order. The study of social movements is interdisciplinary, engaging not only anthropologists but also sociologists, political scientists, and historians (Edelman 2001). Recently, the anthropological analysis of social movements has focused on the responses of local communities to the forces of globalization. Factors such as the worldwide movement of capital and production through fHexible accumulation, the increasing migration within and across national borders, and rapidly increasing yet uneven rates of development have spurred the emer- of social movements as local communities organize to protect their land, environment, human rights, and cultural identities in a changing economic and political context. Simultaneously, time-space compression has facilitated increased communication and cooperation among individuals, social move- ments, and NGOS, thus creating opportunities for a "globalization from below" gence (Falk 1993, 39). pGR DI Rural Social Movements. In the last 30 rural social movements years, have drawn anthropologists' attention as farmers struggles to resist the impact of globalization on their land, livelihood, and way of life. As one example, Marc Edelman's Peasants against Globalization engage in creative political (1999) examines the of the rural poor in Costa Rica, Central America, during the 1980s and 1990s. Edelman recounts a story that reflects the belea- guered experience of rural agricultural workers elsewhere across the globe in recent decades. Having gained independence from Spain in 1821, Costa Rica is one of the most politically stable countries in the Americas. By the early 1980s, Costa Ricans had built a strong, economically self-sufficient democracy and taken the radical step of abolishing the nation's military in order to invest in programs of national development. Such programs aimed to provide education, health care, tariff tections for local products, and price supports for basic foodstuffs to ensure a basic livelihood for all citizens. The programs also provided government-backed loans to farmers to stabilize agricultural production. During the mid-1980s, however, Costa Rica was drawn into the civil wars of its neighbors, serving as a key ally of the United States on the Central American peninsula as war and upheaval spread in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Panama. Simultaneously, a debt crisis affecting most of Latin America shook Costa Rica's economy and spurred rapid inflation. Under the auspices of providing foreign aid to an ally, the U.S.-sponsored Food for Peace program delivered massive quan- tities of subsidized corn, wheat, and rice-purchased from U.S. farmers-to the Costa Rican market. The subsidized food, however, undercut Costa Rican farm prices, making it increasingly difficult for local farmers to sell their own products at the price needed to break even. Ultimately, these changes in the Costa Rican food market drove many small- scale farmers out of business, lowered the country's overall food production, and ended its history of food self-sufficiency. Structural adjustment loans offered by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to help Costa Rica through the crisis required the government to eliminate price supports, tariff protections, and government-backed loans while drastically reducing invest- ments in health care and education. These measures further deepened the coun- try's crisis. Edelman retells the stories of local, small-scale farmers-often called peas- ants in the anthropological literature-and their national umbrella group, UPA Nacional, as they fought these threats to their way of life. The peasants marched, blocked highways, and held street demonstrations. They built alliances with vealthy farmers, lobbied national politicians, and promoted charismatic activist figures into national prominence to speak on their behalf. The climax of the Costa Rican peasants' collective action and direct pressure tactics came as several dozen farmers and movement leaders occu- pied government buildings in June 1988. At the conclusion of the standoff, the activists were arrested; however, the negotiated settlement extracted a government commitment to provide access to low-interest credit for Costa Rica's rural farmers. This was a significant victory in response to the peasants' demands. Edelman concludes that the Costa Rican peasants may not have stopped the effects of globalization on their nation's rural population, but through collective action they were able to soften the harshest blows (Gudmundson 2001; Welch 2001). Occupy Wall Street. Anthropologists seek to understand how social movements arise, mobilize, and sustain themselves. Even though conditions of inequality and injustice are widespread in many parts of the world, the activation of movements for social justice occurs in only certain situations. Anthropologists have investigated the material, human, cognitive, technical, and organizational resources necessary for social movements to succeed (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996). Recent attention has turned to the framing process of movements- specifically, how shared meanings and definitions arise to motivate and justify collective action. Actions by the Occupy Wall Street movement beginning in September 2011 illustrate the role of the framing process. How did Occupy protestors capture the attention of a nation (and beyond) and build a consensus for social action? What factors led to their success? Anthropologist Jeffrey Juris (2012), who studied Occupy Boston, has noted that social media drew a diverse group of people with shared concerns-in this case, economic inequality-into shared physical spaces. Email lists, websites, and collaborative networking tools facilitated new patterns of protest that built on ablod and resonated with more traditional forms. Another key to Occupy's success rested on framing the movement's cause under the banner "We are the 99%." With this simple phrase, Occupy Wall Street gradually focused public discourse on questions of the fundamental fair- ness of the U.S. and global economies in light of rapidly growing conditions of inequality over the past 40 years that have steadily transferred wealth from 99 percent to 1 percent of the nation's population. Despite growing calls by polit- ical leaders and media critics demanding that Occupy Wall Street activists put forward specific policy proposals to address the problems they were decrying, the movement steadfastly refused. Instead its members focused on the underlving issue of inequality framed in their motto, "We are the 99%." Writing in the spring of 2012, Juris noted that Occupy Wall Street had already contributed to a shift in public discourse. The framing process of Occupy has successfully highlighted growing inequality and the influence of financial and corporate interests in the economy and politics. At the same time, Occupy has functioned as a laboratory for the production of alternative forms of democracy and community (Juris 2012). Where have you encoun- tered this framing of the 99 percent and the 1 percent in discussions on inequality? ALTERNATIVE LEGAL STRUCTURES In addition to overt social movements and subtle, non-overt forms of resistance, it is possible to challenge structures of power in an arena where the state usually holds clear authority: in matters of the law. But how do people organize alterna- tive legal structures outside the direct control of the modern state? What gives authority and legitimacy to alternative structures if they are not enforceable by the state's coercive power? Legal anthropologist Hussein Ali Agrama spent two years conducting ethnographic research on local courts and councils in Cairo, Egypt, to explore these questions (Agrama 2010, 2012). Islamic Fatwa Councils in Cairo, Egypt. Agrama compared the operations of two key local sources of legal authority: (1) the personal status courts operated by the Egyptian state and (2) the Al Azhar Fatwa Council, independently established in 1935 and one of the oldest and most established centers of Islamic authority. In the busy and crowded personal status courts, Egyptians of all walks of life appear before a judge, an official of the state who makes legally binding rulings that draw on the Egyptian constitution and legal codes that are based on the principles of Islamic Sharia (law). In the equally busy and crowded Fatwa Council, held in a spacious room located at the main entrance to the Al Azhar mosque, seekers approach Islamic legal scholars and interpreters of Islamic law, or muftis, for religious answers about matters of daily life. The muftis respond freely with legally nonbinding answers to anyone who asks. Their decision called a fatwa-a response to a question about how to live ethically and rightly. In comparing these two court systems, Agrama encounters a startling ters of marriage, sex, divorce, reconciliation, and inheritance. Both draw their decisions from Islamic Sharia, although the personal status courts engage dynamic. Both deal with an overlapping set of issues heavily focused on mat- Islamic law through the Egyptian constitution and legal code, whereas the What interests Agrama is that despite these basic similarities, the petition- ers' responses to the authorities' rulings are markedly different. The legally binding judgments of the personal status court are generally looked on with great suspicion. People go to great lengths to avoid the consequences of the court's decisions despite the state's ability to coerce obedience to its judg- muftis refer directly to Sharia and other Islamic traditions in their fatwas. ments. In distinct contrast, the Fatwa Council exercises great authority even though seeking decisions from the council legally binding, and once issued, a fatwa does not have to be obeyed. In fact, not obligatory, a fatwa is not Agrama's research finds that petitioners take fatwas very seriously, following the decisions even if they entail great difficulty or unhappiness-this despite no identifiable institutional enforcement mechanism. What accounts for the differentiation between personal status courts and the Fatwa Council? And how does a given fatwa acquire its authority without the threat of coercive force like that which the state makes available to the personal status courts? To understand the authority of the fatwa, Agrama explores the complex interactions and expectations between seekers of fat- was and the muftis that issue them. Contrary to popular impressions, fatwas are not merely designed dispense points of correct doctrine in obedience to prescriptions found in Islamic Sharia. Rather, the mufti seeks to apply Islamic tradition and law to resolve particular problems, identify an effective solution, and point the seeker toward a path forward. The process includes significant perplexities and uncertainties: The fatwa seeker arrives perplexed by his or her life situation, and at least initially the mufti is uncertain about how to respond. In this context, the mufti typically begins by asking for fur- ther information in an attempt to fully understand the context and facts as presented. The fatwa seeker approaches the mufti with the hope that he will have the skills to point the way out of the trouble, to offer a way discern and speak the right words. In the end, both seeker and mufti share a collective responsibility for forward-to the success of the fatwa: The mufti must be sure to speak the right words, and the seeker must apply them correctly. Although the consequences of e qeerou CAC an incorrect fatwa may be most damaging for the seeker during his or her lifetime, the mufti is believed to bear responsibility for the outcome in the hereafter. Ultimately, the fatwa is pronounced in order to put the questioner on the right path forward, to offer direction and facilitate a journey on which the seeker can advance within the range of doctrine toward a Muslim ideal. Agrama suggests that it is careful and personal navigation of these complexities that engenders trust and conveys legitimacy on the muftis and their fatwas. In the opening story of the Sundarbans march, Paris climate change demonstrations, and U.S. student fossil fuel divestment campaigns, as well as in the ethnographic examples presented throughout this chapter, we have seen the remarkable diversity of strategies that humans use to exercise power through the medium of politics. Although political upheaval in North Africa and the Middle East readily draws the focus of the world media, Agrama's work in Cairo reminds us that human political activity occurs at differ- ent levels during the course of daily life. Whether through the politics of the many state, acts of war, social movements, or small-scale resistance that James Scott (1985; see Chapter 2) labeled weapons of the weak, we have considered how anthropologists examine power and politics and the cutting edges of political activism that will continue to draw their interest in the future.