Demodiversity

Demodiversity PDF Author: Boaventura Santos
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000081192
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
We are living in a time when social and political authoritarianism appear to be gaining ground around the world. This book presents the democratic practices, spaces and processes that engage directly with the theoretical assumptions advanced by the epistemologies of the South, summoning other contexts and empirical realities that attest to the possibility of a renewal and deepening of democracy beyond the liberal and representative canon, which is embedded within a world capitalist system. The chapters in this book put forward the ideas of demodiversity, of high-intensity democracy, of the articulation between representative democracy and participatory democracy as well as, in certain contexts, between both these and other forms of democratic deliberation, such as the communitarian democracy of the indigenous and peasant communities of Africa, Latin America and Asia. The challenge undertaken in this book is to demand utopia, imagining a post-abyssal democracy that permits the democratizing, decolonizing, decommodifying and depatriarchalizing of social relations. This post-abyssal democracy obliges us to satisfy the maximum definition of democracy and not the minimum, transforming society into fields of democratization that permeate the structural spaces of contemporary societies.

Demodiversity

Demodiversity PDF Author: Boaventura Santos
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000081192
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
We are living in a time when social and political authoritarianism appear to be gaining ground around the world. This book presents the democratic practices, spaces and processes that engage directly with the theoretical assumptions advanced by the epistemologies of the South, summoning other contexts and empirical realities that attest to the possibility of a renewal and deepening of democracy beyond the liberal and representative canon, which is embedded within a world capitalist system. The chapters in this book put forward the ideas of demodiversity, of high-intensity democracy, of the articulation between representative democracy and participatory democracy as well as, in certain contexts, between both these and other forms of democratic deliberation, such as the communitarian democracy of the indigenous and peasant communities of Africa, Latin America and Asia. The challenge undertaken in this book is to demand utopia, imagining a post-abyssal democracy that permits the democratizing, decolonizing, decommodifying and depatriarchalizing of social relations. This post-abyssal democracy obliges us to satisfy the maximum definition of democracy and not the minimum, transforming society into fields of democratization that permeate the structural spaces of contemporary societies.

Law and the Epistemologies of the South

Law and the Epistemologies of the South PDF Author: Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 100935356X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 823

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Book Description
Modern state law excludes populations, peoples, and social groups by making them invisible, irrelevant, or dangerous. In this book, Boaventura de Sousa Santos offers a radical critique of the law and develops an innovative paradigm of socio-legal studies which is based on the historical experience of the Global South. He traces the history of modern law as an abyssal law, or a kind of law that is theoretically invisible yet implements profound exclusions in practice. This abyssal line has been the key procedure used by modern modes of domination – capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy – to divide people into two groups, the metropolitan and the colonial, or the fully human and the sub-human. Crucially, de Sousa Santos rejects the decadent pessimism that claims that we are living through 'the end of history'. Instead, this book offers practical, hopeful alternatives to social exclusion and modern legal domination, aiming to make post-abyssal legal utopias a reality.

Demodiversity

Demodiversity PDF Author: Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367512293
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
We are living in a time when social and political authoritarianism appear to be gaining ground around the world. This book presents the democratic practices, spaces and processes that engage directly with the theoretical assumptions advanced by the epistemologies of the South, summoning other contexts and empirical realities that attest to the possibility of a renewal and deepening of democracy beyond the liberal and representative canon, which is embedded within a world capitalist system. The chapters in this book put forward the ideas of demodiversity, of high-intensity democracy, of the articulation between representative democracy and participatory democracy as well as, in certain contexts, between both these and other forms of democratic deliberation, such as the communitarian democracy of the indigenous and peasant communities of Africa, Latin America and Asia. The challenge undertaken in this book is to demand utopia, imagining a post-abyssal democracy that permits the democratizing, decolonizing, decommodifying and depatriarchalizing of social relations. This post-abyssal democracy obliges us to satisfy the maximum definition of democracy and not the minimum, transforming society into fields of democratization that permeate the structural spaces of contemporary societies.

Women's Activism in Latin America and the Caribbean

Women's Activism in Latin America and the Caribbean PDF Author: Elizabeth Maier
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813549515
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
Women's Activism in Latin America and the Caribbean brings together a group of interdisciplinary scholars who analyze and document the diversity, vibrancy, and effectiveness of women's experiences and organizing in Latin America and the Caribbean during the past four decades. Most of the expressions of collective agency are analyzed in this book within the context of the neoliberal model of globalization that has seriously affected most Latin American and Caribbean women's lives in multiple ways. Contributors explore the emergence of the area's feminist movement, dictatorships of the 1970s, the Central American uprisings, the urban, grassroots organizing for better living conditions, and finally, the turn toward public policy and formal political involvement and the alternative globalization movement. Geared toward bridging cultural realities, this volume represents women's transformations, challenges, and hopes, while considering the analytical tools needed to dissect the realities, understand the alternatives, and promote gender democracy.

The Rise of the Global Left

The Rise of the Global Left PDF Author: Boaventura De Sousa Santos
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1848137745
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Leading sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos makes an impassioned case for the politicisation of the World Social Forum, arguing that its full potential as a force for social, economic and political change can be achieved only by taking a stand against neo-liberal globalization, war, famine and corruption. However, since its inception in Porto Alegre in 2001, the World Social Forum has refused to adopt political positions on world events, preferring instead to provide a platform that facilitates cooperation between diverse social movements. Through a detailed analysis of the WSF's history and organization, he demonstrates that it has always been an inherently political organization, and argues that if the WSF is able to realise its potential as an institution for a new form of politics, it will become a global power to be reckoned with in the 21st century.

New Institutions for Participatory Democracy in Latin America

New Institutions for Participatory Democracy in Latin America PDF Author: Kenneth E. Sharpe
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137270586
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
This volume describes and analyzes the proliferation of new mechanisms for participation in Latin American democracies and considers the relationship between direct participation and the consolidation of representative institutions based on more traditional electoral conceptions of democracy.

From the Pandemic to Utopia

From the Pandemic to Utopia PDF Author: Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000855732
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
The coronavirus pandemic forces us to rethink our contemporaneity. It has brought to the surface dimensions of human fragility that partially contradict the euphoria and human hubris of the fourth industrial revolution (artificial intelligence). It has also aggravated the social inequality and racial discrimination that characterize our societies. The book argues that the virus, rather than an enemy, must be viewed as a pedagogue. It is trying to teach us that the deep causes of the pandemic lie in our dominant mode of production and consumption. The systemic overload of natural resources creates a metabolic rift between society and nature that destabilizes the habitat of wild animals and the vital cycles of natural regeneration whereby pandemics become an increasingly recurrent phenomenon. In trying to take seriously this lesson the book proposes a paradigmatic shift from the current civilizatory model to a new one guided by a more equitable relationship between nature and society and the priority of life, both human and non-human.

Democratizing Democracy

Democratizing Democracy PDF Author: Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 178960317X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 843

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Book Description
The majorconflicts between the Global North and the South can be expected toresult from the confrontation of alternative conceptions of democracy,mainly between liberal or representative democracy and participatorydemocracy. The hegemonic model of democracy, while prevailing on aglobal scale, guarantees no more than low-intensity democracy. Inrecent times, participatory democracy has exhibited a new dynamic,engaging mainly subaltern communities and social groups that fightagainst social exclusion and the suppression of citizenship. In thiscollection of reports from the Global South-India, South Africa,Mozambique, Colombia, and Brazil-De Sousa Santos and his colleaguesshow how, in some cases, the deepening of democracy results from thedevelopment of dual forms of participatory and representativedemocracy, and points to the emergence of transnational networks ofparticipatory democracy initiatives. Such networks pave one of the waysto the reinvention of social emancipation. This is volume 1 of the Reinventing Social Emancipation project, edited by Boaventura de Sousa Santos.

Knowledges Born in the Struggle

Knowledges Born in the Struggle PDF Author: Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000704939
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
In a world overwhelmingly unjust and seemingly deprived of alternatives, this book claims that the alternatives can be found among us. These alternatives are, however, discredited or made invisible by the dominant ways of knowing. Rather than alternatives, therefore, we need an alternative way of thinking of alternatives. Such an alternative way of thinking lies in the knowledges born in the struggles against capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy, the three main forms of modern domination. In their immense diversity, such ways of knowing constitute the Global South as an epistemic subject. The epistemologies of the South are guided by the idea that another world is possible and urgently needed; they emerge both in the geographical north and in the geographical south whenever collectives of people fight against modern domination. Learning from and with the epistemic South suggests that the alternative to a general theory is the promotion of an ecology of knowledges based on intercultural and interpolitical translation.

Democratic Delusions

Democratic Delusions PDF Author: Natalie Fenton
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509548491
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
A free media is inextricably linked to a healthy democracy, but in many parts of the world liberal democracies are deemed to be dying or on the demise – a demise that many forms of media have enabled while heralding themselves as democracy’s saviour. The hollowing out of democracy in these ways has left many people questioning the value of (neo)liberal democratic societies. What can we do about it? Democratic Delusions explores the potential of our media and tech systems to be democratic and contribute to a just and transformative democracy. This is only possible, Natalie Fenton argues, by first situating our political systems and mediated worlds within global capitalism. By interrogating different media and their relationship to seven key elements of democracy – power, participation, freedom, equality, public good, trust, and hope – the book asks: What is the response of society when the ability of news media to speak truth to power has been restricted by corporate logic? And, how do we tackle a deep-rooted market logic that shifts public debate towards private interest and marginalizes progressive perspectives? The book explores how these elements can be reimagined through newly conceived media and tech landscapes and, ultimately, what democracy might be in a future mediated world that places more power in the hands of more people. This is essential reading for students and scholars of media and communications, journalism, political communications, political science, and sociology.