Beyond Development
Almost two years after the first protests and shortly after the 2020 Bastille Day: What to make out of the Yellow Vests and the state of French democracy? What to take away from the recently Macron-initiated citizens’ assemblies? Have the Yellow Vests and other protest shaken the French political establishment?
Initially launched as a protest against rising fuel prices, the yellow vests in France quickly turned into a popular form of protest that raises deeper issues at the heart of marginalization: democracy and economic justice. ...
read more "What mark have the Yellow Vests left on French democracy?"
read more "What mark have the Yellow Vests left on French democracy?"
Raw material extraction, transportation and waste disposal are triggering environmental conflicts worldwide. All types of material throughput in the global economy bear consequences for social justice and sustainability. Yet very few materials better represent the economic, social and moral tensions intertwined in societal metabolism, i.e. material and energy use of human societies, than coal.
Data collection on environmental conflicts – including coal conflicts (Roy 2018) – has emphasised the ...
read more "Overcoming crises of representation? Arts in anti-coal struggles in Colombia and California"
read more "Overcoming crises of representation? Arts in anti-coal struggles in Colombia and California"
Lessons from the transition from social-movement-driven to state-legislated consultations on extractive projects in Peru
Over the last two decades, various consultation practices regarding extractive activities have emerged and been implemented throughout Latin America. Some practices adopt a completely autonomous and communitarian approach, some are based on alliances between civil society and local government, while others are also increasingly centred around national governments in connection with new legislation as per ...
read more "“For the democratic production of democratic societies”"
read more "“For the democratic production of democratic societies”"
Learning democracy under pressureAbstract
If we imagine democratic education as entire school communities practising participation, to what extent can schools escape the current approach taken in the public education system? What if they encounter hostility and restrictions? Can we learn democracy through transgressions and resistance? This article tells the story of three school communities where participation and solidarity are growing under pressure.
First published in: ...
read more "Resistance and devotedness"
read more "Resistance and devotedness"
Case study of the Monkoxɨ peoples of LomeríoAbstract
The adoption of Bolivia's new political Constitution in 2009 marked the birth of a new plurinational state. One of the most important constitutional changes was a new state system of territorial division that recognises departmental, municipal, regional and indigenous autonomies as new plural forms of political organisation seeking to decentralise decision-making power and the management of public funds, wresting them away from central government. Whereas ...
read more "Challenges to intercultural democracy in the Plurinational State of Bolivia"
read more "Challenges to intercultural democracy in the Plurinational State of Bolivia"
Introduction
Mainstream governance and development models – characterised by seemingly democratic but inherently centralised and top-down governance systems and extractive, commercially motivated, capitalist economic policies – have failed to achieve minimum levels of well-being for a very large part of humanity. They have in fact caused large-scale human and environmental injustice. However, there are also countertrends either resisting current models or developing and defending alternative forms of governance and ...
read more "On the Cusp: Reframing Democracy and Well-Being in Korchi, India"
read more "On the Cusp: Reframing Democracy and Well-Being in Korchi, India"
Abstract
A fisher community leaving in Bargny at 15km from the city of Dakar is facing the consequences of an industrialization program of the Senegalese state praised to be the way for economic emergence. The socioeconomic change and mutations resulting from the series of projects have deep impacts on the community’s livelihoods.
First published in: https://beyonddevelopment.net/community-resistance-to-a-power-plant-in-senegal/
The Zapotec word Guendalizá or Guelaguetza means “familiarity”, “friendship” or “neighborhood”; It is mutual help and is expressed when an person is with the others in the crucial moments of life, the happy and the sad. It is a cultural pattern that comes from the deepest roots from the towns of Oaxaca, Mexico (let’s think about 11 thousand years ago). Today, in the Oaxaca Isthmus and other places of the region (under other names, such as “communality” or “kazuuaro luu yetzi keriu”) it is the daily flag – not ideological ...
read more "Guendalizaá: The reconstruction of the “We”"
read more "Guendalizaá: The reconstruction of the “We”"
Beyond the “democratic” nation stateIn these pages, I explain why it is not possible to eliminate the despotic nature of the “democratic” nation-state. Recognizing its limits opens up the exploration of many options for the people to rule themselves.
Democratic despotism
Small groups of people have ruled themselves, freely formulating the norms of their ways of living and dying in their localized settings. This democratic idea has been in fact used as a principle of social organization from time immemorial in human history, in the most diverse cultures and ...
read more "New Political Horizons"
read more "New Political Horizons"