4125 Oñati Session IV - The subjective and collective other: recognition, precariousness and reflexi
Room: C3.01
In this session we bring together studies that focuss on social change: from the tie between refugee's dignity and Luhmann's view of modern society; to the political strategy of resistance that brings new perspectives outside assemblages of oppression and exploitation to the analysis of social encounters and their transformative potential to trigger the “operation of critique” over social normativities.
Chair: Xenia Chiaramonte | Independent
Izabela Zonato Villas Boas | Instituto Internacional de Sociologia Juridica de Oñati
Human Dignity and Refugees: an analysis of the Syrians seeking asylum in Brazil migrants from the civil war, from the perspective of Niklas Luhmann
Abstract
The work deals with the human dignity of the Syrian refugee in Brazil, a migrant from the Civil War, and analyzed from the perspective of Niklas Luhmann's systems theory. First, it presents conceptual clarifications about the theory of systems in Brazilian society. It then discusses the historical synthesis of human rights with a focus on the evolution of the dignity and brief history of the dignity of the human person, where in the end a demonstration of Luhmann's vision on the subject is made. After, it demonstrates the procedure for requesting recognition of refugee status in Brazil, where a brief explanation of the reasons that lead the refugee to Brazil is also made. Finally, based on these assumptions, entering the core of his argument, he makes the tie between the refugee's dignity and Luhmann's view of modern society.
Alexander Kondakov | European University at St. Petersburg
Crip Alliances: Grassroots Politics in Repressive Situations
Abstract
Under current conditions of targeted legal repressions, queer populations suffer disproportionate policing and state sponsored violence in Russia. Starting from 2013 when the law on ‘propaganda of homosexuality’ was enacted, appearing queer on the streets or on the Internet is an act of political disobedience in itself. Yet, familiar strategies of activism fail to address this new situation of overt pressure. This paper deals with analysis of possible political responses from within precarious people’s perspective to uneven targeting of queer populations by state violence. I offer to review theories of queer/crip kinship developed in academic literature and also engage this discussions in the conceptualization of crip kinship which may be derived from everyday accounts of people. The latter position is shaped by analysis of life history interviews collected during a research project that looked at people with disabilities who identify on the LGBTIQ spectrum in Russia. The Russian context makes the situation different from many other geographical locations, but also relates to the common conditions of precarity that we all share under current version of neoliberal capitalism. The specific conditions are extreme levels of poverty among people with disabilities and overt homophobia of government in Russia. Crip kinship leads to imagining a ‘Crip Alliance’ which is understood as a prominent political strategy of resistance that brings new perspectives on our futurities outside of assemblages of oppression and exploitation that able-bodiedness, heterosexism, and misogyny provoke, sustain, and enforce.
Gabriela Farinha | ISCTE-IUL, DINÂMIA'CET-IUL
Encounters Do Matter: On Unveiling the Otherness in Oneself
Abstract
The analytical focus of this research aims to explore the potential disruptive effect of encounters over one’s inner normativities and how a “practice” of reflexivity is enhanced by the interactional order in which the usual and unconscious flow of exchanged signs might be interrupted or broken, generating the emotional commentaries that becomes part of one’s inner talk. A novel dimension in the analysis of gender inner structures is introduced through the description of the mechanism from which a subjectified subject could trigger the “politics of truth” and “operation of critique” of both his/hers external inner normativities. Through the observations and discourses that came from the encounters that occurred with sex workers, it was possible to disrupt the ontological aim of a hegemonic narrative that, not only establishes the exclusionary limits of discourse about sex workers but also the inclusionary limits of discourse about how women are.