Category Archives: Blog

Malay Firoz and Pedro Silva Rocha Lima: Taxonomies of Difference in Global Humanitarianism

Humanitarian action is marked by a striking disjunction between the universalising humanist vocabulary that undergirds its ethical commitments, and the taxonomies of racialised difference that govern its dispensation of moral concern and material aid. This disjunction is not merely indicative of the inevitable discontinuity between principle and practice. Rather, the valuation of the human as […]

József Böröcz: Out of Place

From Andheri to Goregaon—it’s five kilometers. Half an hour by Ambassador in the north Mumbai traffic. Windows down—through them, the usual fumes: chai, wood smoke, diesel exhaust. Plus, the blinding, crunchy, almost chewable dust of the industrial area, a landscape half abandoned, half under-construction. Taxiwala grows edgy—why, Toma can’t fathom. Dumps passengers on an impulse: […]

Walden Bello: The Mess in Argentina

At the heart of Buenos Aires lies the lovely Calle Florida. The experience of walking through this street that is exclusively dedicated to pedestrians was anything but lovely though since in the one kilometer from one end to the other I was besieged—albeit politely–by some 200 men and women barking, “cambio, cambio,” competing to give […]

Jacob Engelberg: The Palestine solidarity encampments in Amsterdam: “We must refuse this cynical ploy” (introduced by Luisa Steur)

In the morning of the 6th of May, inspired by the swelling global wave of student solidarity encampments for Palestine, a group of students set up tents on a field of the University of Amsterdam Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences. The aim was to push university management to meet the students’ long-standing demands to […]

Interview with Prof Helder Macedo: 50th anniversary of the Portuguese Revolution

Prof Helder Macedo is the emeritus Professor of Portuguese Literature at Kings College London. He is a highly regarded writer who has received many honors in Portugal. He was Secretary State for Culture in Portugal shortly after the Carnation Revolution. Portugal celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the revolution on the 25th of April 2024. Prof […]

Julia Soul: Between Confrontation and Silent Discipline: Working-Class Dilemmas under Javier Milei’s Far-Right Government in Argentina

With the triumph of Javier Milei in Argentina’s November 2023 national election, the country has followed the contemporary global trend of electing far-right governments. Through his frequent television appearances as an “economic expert”, Milei successfully mobilized voters against the country’s dominant political elites, which he denigrated as “la casta” (“the caste”). Ordinary Argentines, in this […]

Susann Kassem: Israel’s Looming Threat: Death, War and Displacement in Lebanon

“I cannot listen to the sound of the warplanes anymore, it sounds like they are flying over our roofs,” as a resident of a south Lebanese border village described the situation in South Lebanon on October 8. She, her family, and her extended family evacuated their villages of Mais el Jabal and Blida shortly afterwards. […]

Letter of support for Prof. Ghassan Hage from Israeli scholars

12.02.2024 Prof. Dr. Patrick Cramer, President of the Max Planck Society Old Town, 80539 Munich, Germany CC: Dr. Ursula Rao, Dr. Biao Xiang, Dr. Marie-Claire Foblets MPI for Social Anthropology, Halle Dear colleagues, We write as Israeli Jewish scholars, working in Israel and worldwide, in support of Prof. Ghassan Hage and in protest of the […]

Maddalena Gretel Cammelli: Reflections on contemporary fascism

It was 2009 when, while living in a squatted house in the Montreuil, a leftist banlieue on the East side of Paris, I was asked how it was possible that there were people occupying buildings in Rome, Italy who self-defined as fascists. The activities of the CasaPound movement were coming to be known on the […]

Giacomo Loperfido: Austerity, Charisma, and the Attacks on Reason

I do not want to focus too much on the definitions of social phenomena because I find it more interesting to look at the structures (synchronic and diachronic) and contexts (at various scales) underpinning them. It is – I believe – analytically more productive to compare those, instead of sticking to what a categorical label […]