Acta Sociológica最新文献

This work proposes an interpretation of the performance of organized social groups in Oaxaca, based on the idea of constructing spaces for the cultural and political participation and recognition of Black and Afro-descendent communities. The analysis is part of a critical stance toward the classical approach on civil society, which argues its conceptual scope from within a context of racialization and the coloniality of power. The reflexive intention is to generate an epistemic destabilization through proposing a dialogue between the interpretive frameworks whose discourses put into question our own racial perceptions, both personal and academic, regarding these new social actors and their collective actions.

Civil society is a concept which consolidates during xvi and xviii centuries. Since then it has been useful to designate a part of society which, among other features, is separated from government spaces, that's why it is considered in a different place from politics. However the history seems show us something different, it is the case of some of the civil society organizations, which have changed its objective: from specifically productive issues, to the influence on the politics spaces. This paper show the peasant autonomous organization sample, which, in specific social moments, have transgressed the specific productive space, and show its capability to work in the civil and politic context. This analysis try to give some clues about what imply civil society nowadays, specially in rural context.

This paper focuses on the presence of violence repertoires, particularly of repression and resistance, in conflicts over nature in indigenous territories in México. Through the case of the Ikojt people of San Dionisio del Mar, Oaxaca, the paper illustrates the articulation of these repertories with non violent on the conflict trajectory. Based on empirical data obtained in interviews with members of the opponents assembly to the wind park project on its territory, the paper retrieves its centrality for the becoming of the processes as in the lived experiences of the subjects involved. In addition, it questions the dominant analytical perspective of civil society that neglects the study of violence by considering it outside of the scope of politics.

The main objective of this article is to discuss the current situation of rural collective action in Mexico from the scope and theory of civil society. More particularly, this text offers an analysis about if the concept of civil society is useful and sufficient to describe and to study the activities and practices of varied and diverse alternatives of organized action that are set in motion in the rural sphere in Mexico. This is a theoretical article in which, nonetheless, some empirical references are offered to think the present and future of rural Mexico in terms of human collectivities and the associative world.

When territorial conflicts arise, from what positions are territories being defended? What is in dispute? What projects are carried out through the conflict? To answer to these questions, the present work offers an analysis of cases of socio-environmental conflict that pose territorial claims. I am interested in several points: firstly, to problematize the concept of territory, not to give it as something given and preexistent to the confrontation; Secondly, to know the various arguments upon which the defense is justified and to understand the place that the protagonists claim to have, and finally, to give an account of the actions and socio-historical horizons that are drawn and constructed from these processes. I consider that although these demands are inserted in long-term processes, there is no timeless subject - fixed in time and space-that seeks self-assertion through these struggles, nor there is a preexisting and clearly delimited territory as an object of defense. The hypothesis of departure is that both the subject and the territory, which are mutually involved, are constructed in the conflictive action, are (re) defined, are (re) affirmed and projected socially and temporally. Thus, the objective of this work is to understand the processes of constitution of the place-subject.

The purpose of this work is to present a theoretical-methodological approach to the study of environmental conflicts and to show a possible way to study their longerlasting effects, an aspect we call social productivity. The methodological approach has been organized around two case studies: the “conflict over the pulp mills on the Uruguay River” and the “conflict for the environmental restoration of the Matanza-Riachuelo basin.” These cases were selected for being outstanding disputes in Argentina's public environmental debate. The text poses questions as well as considerations for further discussion on the effects of environmental conflicts, the responses of state authorities and the debates over alternatives to development.

Causal analysis of vulnerability aims to identify root causes of crises so that transformative solutions might be found. Yet root-cause analysis is absent from most climate response assessments. Framings for climate-change risk analysis often locate causality in hazards while attributing some causal weight to proximate social variables such as poverty or lack of capacity. They rareland ask why capacity is lacking, assets are inadequate or social protections are absent or fail. This contribution frames vulnerability and security as matters of access to assets and social protections. Assets and social protections each have their own context-contingent causal chains. A key recursive element in those causal chains is the ability –means and powers– of vulnerable people to influence the political economy that shapes their assets and social protections. Vulnerability is, as Sen rightly observed, linked to the lack of freedom –the freedom to influence the political economy that shapes these entitlements. In the Anthropocene, human causes of climate hazard must also now be accounted for in etiologies of disaster. However, attention to anthropogenic climate change should not occlude social causes of (and responsibility for) vulnerability –vulnerability is still produced in and by society.