Duke University Press Log

Academics and the Occupy Movement

It's May Day, also known as International Workers Day. May Day is a holiday in more than 80 countries and the occasion for marches and protests in many others. This year, May Day celebrations in the U.S. are also linked to the Occupy Wall Street movement. A large rally is planned in New York City's Union Square that hopes to harness some of the energy of that movement and link it to unions and immigrant solidarity groups. As Jennifer Scheussler of the New York Times reports, another group that will be out in force on May Day are academics, "notebook-wielding social scientists hoping to get a more precise understanding of the nebulously organized individuals marching under the banner 'We are the 99 percent.'" Scheussler interviews Jeffrey Juris, author of Networking Futures: The Movement against Corporate Globalization. Juris helped set up Occupy Reserach, an online clearinghouse for academics to share data and tools. Juris tells the Times that he worries that the Occupy movement is too focused on gathering large numbers of people in prominent locales. "It’s critical to broaden tactics,” he says. "But how do you do that when the movement is called Occupy?" Juris and other scholars will examine how academics can use ethnography to study movements like Occupy in a new book coming out in 2013: Insurgent Encounters: Transnational Activism, Ethnography, and the Political. 

Another Duke Press author active in the Occupy movement is Nicholas Mirzoeff, author of The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality. Mirzoeff writes daily in a blog called Occupy 2012, musing on history, aesthetics, and the movement's future, among many other topics. His Twitter feed (@nickmirzoeff) is also a lively place to follow the movement. Mirzoeff will be at the Union Square rally today. Happy May Day to workers and scholars around the world!

Veiled Constellations

Almost exactly a year after France’s controversial ban of the niquab, and weeks after the attacks committed by French-born Muslim, Mohammed Merah, Muslim women who wear veils in France are in the news again for the public scorn they are receiving, and are afraid they will continue to receive, as a backlash to the attacks. 

 A special section in the most recent issue of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, called “Veiled Constellations: The Veil, Critical Theory, Politics and Contemporary Society,” dedicates attention to the complex and very public politics of the veil.  Contributors look at veiling and feminism in both Europe and the Middle East, through lenses of politics, art, literature, and philosophy.  Read the introduction to the section for free, here. 

Karen Ho Discusses the Culture of Wall Street on MSNBC

Watch anthropologist Karen Ho, author of Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street, on this great segment of MSNBC's "Up with Chris Hayes." Ho clearly lays out how Wall Street's "culture of smart" and "I'll be gone, you'll be gone" attitude is partly to blame for the financial collapse.

Eben Kirksey Calls on Obama to Do the Right Thing in West Papua

Guest post by Eben Kirksey, author of Freedom in Entangled Worlds: West Papua and the Architecture of Global Power.

Barack Obama meeting with President Yudhoyono of Indonesia.

Today five indigenous leaders in West Papua, the half of New Guinea under Indonesian rule, were charged with “treason.”  Hours ago they were each sentenced to three years in prison for peacefully protesting the government.  Barack Obama raised the issue of human rights in West Papua last November when he met with President Yudhoyono of Indonesia.  It is time for the President to once again raise his voice to support human rights in this seemingly remote territory.    

    

Obama’s interest West Papua stems, in part, from personal experiences growing up in Indonesia with his mother, Ann Dunham Soetoro, a cultural anthropologist.  In his autobiography,Dreams from My Father, he recalls a conversation with his step-father, Lolo Soetoro, who had just returned home after a tour of duty with the Indonesian military in West Papua.  Obama asked his step-father: “Have you ever seen a man killed?” Lolo responded affirmatively, recounting the bloody death of “weak” men.  West Papuan intellectuals and political activists, kin of the “weak” men killed by Lolo Soetoro, have read Obama’s autobiography with keen interest.  Even as many Americans have lost hope in their President, many West Papuans still embrace the message from the 2008 campaign, “Yes We Can.”  

Taking inspiration from the people of Tunisia who rose up to depose President Ben Ali last year, and the populist spirit that spread out from Tunisia with the Arab Spring, West Papuans are harboring seemingly impossible dreams.  After 50 years of living under a brutal Indonesian military occupation, West Papuans are hoping to reach a peaceful political solution to this conflict.  

 

 

    Forkorus  Yaboisembut moments before he was arrested.

One West Papuan leader, Forkorus Yaboisembut, remains hopeful against all odds.  He was detained last October, moments after being elected President during the Papuan People’s Congress, and is among the men who were convicted today for “treason.” Thousands rallied behind him, demanding independence from Indonesia, at this event that was peaceful by all accounts. As the Congress was concluding, the delegates were surrounded by some 500 Indonesian police and military personnel with a cordon of armored cars.  Scores of my friends, people who I know from working as a cultural anthropologist in West Papua, were in the crowd.  I had a sleepless night as I monitored Facebook and text messages from the other side of the world, following the developments in real time.  Markus Haluk, the leader of a Papuan youth group, sent a text message saying “in these next few moments we might see a massacre and a bloodbath.”

Videos circulating on YouTube show Indonesian troops firing assault rifles into a crowd from armored personnel carriers, while others pistol whip and kick delegates.  Unarmed civilians desperately tried to clamber into their cars while uniformed police officers and plain clothes thugs beat them.   In 1998 I witnessed a massacre in West Papua that killed upwards of 150 civilians, so I feared the worst. 

When the dead were counted from the violent crackdown at the Papuan People’s Congress, I was relieved to learn that the carnage was minor by local standards.  Human Rights Watch concluded that three civilians were shot dead by Indonesian police on October 19th, 2011. Over 300 delegates to the Papuan People’s Congress were initially detained by Indonesian security forces.  On the heels of these arbitrary detentions, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced alarm. She said that the United States has “very directly raised our concerns about the violence and the abuse of human rights” in West Papua. 

Most of the delegates to the Papuan People’s Congress were quickly released, except for five leaders who were charged with inciting rebellion.  Forkorus Yaboisembut is among these five, along with Edison Waromi, the newly elected Prime Minister.  Today they joined upwards of 90 West Papuans in Indonesian jails who have been identified by Amnesty International as prisoners of conscience. Indonesia is the fourth largest country in the world.  The United States regards Indonesia as a “Strategic Partner” and has considerable influence in the country’s political, economic, and strategic affairs.

Clearly tales of Indonesia’s ongoing war in West Papua troubled Barack Obama as a young man.  Now, as an adult, he is in a position to support the “weak” power of non-violent resistance with a few carefully chosen words.  President Obama should join Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in calling for the unconditional release of West Papuan political prisoners.

This is cross-posted on Eben Kirksey's blog, where you can read more about his work and experiences in West Papua.

 

Reflections on the Madison Uprising

Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the 2011 Wisconsin protests, which made national news when as many as 100,000 protestors (many of whom were public servants) rallied to oppose the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill. These protests are being hailed a year later as a predecessor to the Occupy movement, as well as being considered the future of the labor movement.

The Winter 2012 issue of SAQ’s “Against the Day” section reflects on these protests and asks questions about their implications for the future.  Read Stanley Aronowitz’s “Reflections on the Madison Uprising,” for free here. 

High Stakes in Elections in Nicaragua Today

Longtime Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega seeks re-election in Nicaragua today despite a constitutional amendment prohibiting him from running for a third term. Despite the ban, Ortega has popular support as well as financial support outside the country from Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. Sergio Ramírez served as vice president under Ortega from 1985-1990 but became dissillusioned by the corruption within the Sandinista movement. He has written a book about his experiences during Nicaragua's revolution, Adiós Muchachos. First published in Spanish in 1999, we are pleased to bring the first English edition, including timely updates, into print. Ramírez told Le Monde that Ortega is leading because his family has the most economic power in Nicaragua. In an interview with La Vanguardia, Ramírez commented that although this may seem like political fiction, it's not. Ortega will limit civil liberties, and increase policy and military power. Nicaraguan democracy is at stake in today's elections. Read Adiós Muchachos to get an insiders account of Nicaraguan politics. They're about to get even more interesting.

Mediterranean Quarterly on Libya

News outlets are reporting the as-yet unconfirmed death of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi near his hometown of Sirte this morning. This could signal the end of Qaddafi’s forces in power, and victory for the Libyan uprising that has been ongoing since February 2011. 

For some background on the uprising, an article in the most recent issue of Mediterranean Quarterly, “Libya: Dream versus Reality,” gives a very accessible historical overview of the situation in Libya and what is at stake in the current struggle. The article explains that Libya emerged under United Nations auspices as a stillborn, failed state dependent on Western subventions, and that the civil war in which it is now embroiled was inevitable.

Read the article for free here.

Duke University Press to Publish Tikkun

Duke University Press is pleased to announce the addition of the magazine Tikkun to its list of titles. Edited by Rabbi Michael Lerner, Tikkun provides provocative analyses of American politics, culture, and social theory, and serves as a unique source of discourse about Israel and Palestine. Tikkun offers fresh ideas for those seeking to assist in the magazine’s goal: to heal and transform the world.

“Tikkun is a welcome addition to our publishing program,” says Duke University Press director Steve Cohn. “For the past twenty-five years, the magazine has been known as a powerful intellectual voice for the spiritual left and for taking on important and at times controversial topics.”  

While continuing to be the preeminent voice of liberal and progressive Jews, Tikkun has evolved into a major interfaith magazine and seeks to build bridges between religious and secular progressives. Tikkun’s editorial direction and mission will remain the same after the transition in publisher. Duke University Press will begin publishing the quarterly magazine in 2012 with volume 27.

About the transition, Rabbi Lerner says, “the new partnership with Duke University Press will bring Tikkun additional publishing and sales expertise as well as a shared commitment to publishing risk-taking and innovative intellectual work.”

Subscriptions for individuals, as well as reduced-price subscriptions for members of Tikkun’s Network of Spiritual Progressives, will be handled by the Tikkun editorial office at tikkun.org. The title will be included at no cost in the 2012 e-Duke Journals Scholarly Collections and will also be available through Project Muse. Institutions can subscribe by contacting Duke University Press at subscriptions@dukeupress.edu or by calling 888-651-1022 (toll-free in the US and Canada) or 919-688-5134.

Bipartisan Policy Center Urges Research Into Geoengineering

Today the Bipartisan Policy Center's Task Force on Climate Remediation Research issued a report that urges the United States to step up research into geoengineering techniques that might help slow or stop the progress of global climate change. In interviews with the New York Times, "some of the panel members said they hoped that the mere discussion of such drastic steps would jolt the public and policy makers into meaningful action in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which they called the highest priority." Climate change expert Orrin H. Pilkey believes "the potential for adverse side effects" in any geoengineering project is "high and unpredictable." His new book, Global Climate Change: A Primer, written with his son Keith C. Pilkey, features a chapter on geoengineering that lays out some of the potential technologies, such as seeding the oceans to provide cloud cover, carbon sequestration machines, and the pumping of aerosols into the stratosphere. Pilkey ultimately comes down against geoengineering, writing: "that climate change is so dire a challenge as to propel some in the scientific community to seriously consider geoengineering should scare us all the more. The anthropogenic climate change criss that we face requires a political rather than a geoengineering solution."

Single-payer healthcare in the news again

The New York Times featured an op-ed by Nicholas Kristof this week that was focused on health care in the U.S. military. Kristof writes, “This is a rare enclave of single-payer universal health care, and it continues with a veterans’ health care system that has much lower costs than the American system as a whole.”

The single-payer health-care model was covered in-depth in “Exploring the Concept of Single Payer,” an issue of Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law. The issue is a collection of papers presented at a conference dedicated to the topic of single payer health systems hosted by the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and the Academic Health Center at the University of Minnesota in 2008. This issue of the journal publishes several of the papers presented at that conference, along with thoughtful commentaries by some of the conference participants.