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Winter/Spring 1996/1997: How To Survive? Analyses Of Social Practices In Situations Of Chaos
Behaviour and Representation in a Context of Dislocation of Social Regulations: the Hyperinflation in Argentina (PDF, 37 pages, 109 KB) , by Gabriel Kessler & Silvia Sigal
Silvia Sigal and Gabriel Kessler have well emphasised the link between the experience of hyperinflation, Menem's access to power and his re-election following a change in the Constitution. Menem is not the man of the historical perronism renewal. He has first and foremost been the craftsman of hyperinflation damping down, i.e. the re-institution of a strong social regulation represented by monetary stability. Such situations do not exclusively appear as coextensive of a drastic reduction of the actors' scope. They appear as particularly difficult to put into sense. The impression of being confronted to an "anonymous power" conducts to the naturalisation of a phenomenon. Hyperinflation or generalised violence are in this sense considered as natural cataclysms, be they earthquakes or twisters. This naturalisation can be accompanied, as for Argentina, by a moral reflection reintroducing ancient myths. In this sense has hyperinflation been perceived by Argentineans as a "perverse effect" that revealed the sickness thousands of them suffered from: selfishness. Consequently does the "inflationist rationality" become an "immoral action" and the people - the anonymous Argentineans trapped in the prisoner's dilemma - the "enemies of society". Such schemes of perception take their entire power only by being linked to a more ancient doubt regarding society's capacity to auto-regulate and auto-organise. This doubt has been perfectly illustrated by the "Civilisation or barbarism" formulated by D.F. Sarmiento. Hyperinflation is thought as the specifically Argentinean illness symptom that "decadence" would be.
From the Banality of Violence to Terror: The Colombian Case , by Daniel Pecaut
Most analyses of the Bosnian conflict tend to either lessen its internal dimensions (the inter-communalist relationships) or to reduce them to a mere territorial clash. However, in order to understand the origins and development of this conflict, one ought to stress the deeply rooted reality of communalism within the social, political and cultural life of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Between 1989 and 1992, the conversion of institutionalised communalism into territorial and exclusive nationalisms led to the dismantling of the State and the breaking out of armed conflict. The latter provoked the further crumbling of the communities themselves. Paradoxically, this second stage of decomposition might be the preliminary condition to a restoration of the State and of the communities around it.
The Memory of the Survivors and the Rebellion of the Shadows: the Disappeared in Chilean Society (1973-1995) , by Antonia Garcia Castro
More than once has the Chilean society been affected by forced disappearings. The effects produced by the occultation of the victim's body on the latter's family and friends have had such effects that the military have used the disappearing as a means of repression. The families previously transgressed the law of silence by making visible the absence of the close ones: their revolt left a mark in a society that today has to pronounce on the crimes of the past and the norms which are to rule democracy.
Analysing chaos (PDF, 6 pages, 25 KB) , by Gilles Bataillon
In stead of analysing situations of violence, of hyper-inflation or of social identity decline in terms of disorder, Gilles Bataillon tries to seize them through their relation to the social space where they manifest, and through the revealing forms of sociability. He shows how important it is to take into account both the objective forms of violence and the meaning given by social actors. This would enable to contextualise the situations and to percieve their singularities. Such an approach would require a micro-historical study as well as it would need labels to be deconstructed : words like "chaos", "anarchy" dissimulate particular experiences and local singularities. This method would allow showing the very short term survival strategies as well as the transformations of the collective action repertories that are linked to it.
The 'goat-riders': Banditry and Repression in the Basse Meuse region (France) 1730-1778) (PDF, 23 pages, 71 KB) , by Anton Blok
Organised bandirty is rarely tackled by studies on collective violence, though this aspect is truly interesting because it generally simultaneously reveals two forms of collective violence. These two forms are banditry itself, and the public authority repression. Anton Blok analyses in this contribution the ascent of the goat-riders ("cavaliers du bouc"), these 18th Century riders who raged in the French Basse Meuse region, and the repression they suffered from. The author shows that even if these forms of violence were new to the region, they had relatively weak effects: the 'goat-riders' were eventually military defeated and the former social order thus re-established. Thereby, the author shows that forms of massive violence can remain geographically and historically circumscribed. Concerning these horsemen, this circumscribtion was such that they have been forgotten by the official history.
Chaos or Social Change? Notes on the Turkish crisis in the 1970s (PDF, 20 pages, 61 KB) , by Hamit Bozarslan
Hamit Bozarslan analyses the Turkish 1975-1980s crisis, which was both a political crisis and an economical recession. In this context, the confrontation between left-wing and right-wing radical groups generated a civil war climate to the point that the army massively intervened in 1980. Though this crisis has long been analysed as a situation of chaos, progressively becoming independent from any control, the author insists on the actors' alliance or confrontation strategies in the deployment of violence. Violence is not the result of unpersonal and anonymous forces but results from political and social processes, which actors and interactions ought to be understood.
The Russian Army: Survival Strategies and modes of Action in a Situation of Chaos , by Elisabeth Sieco-Kozlowski
The author highlights the various strategies of adaptation generated by the deregulation and uncertainty situation amonst the Russian army since the dissolution of the Varsovy pact. These strategies generate individual profesional reconversions as well as organisational transformations within the military institution. But they also result in transformations of the values that constituted the military institution. These values progressively differ from traditional values. In this context of an imperative adaptation to a new situation, pressure groups emerge, in favour of the military institution. They are part of the frame of survival strategies that progressively transform the institutional Russian landscape.
Disorder and Legitimacy of the Political in Afghanistan (PDF, 21 pages, 64 KB) , by Gilles Dorronsoro
The 1980 to 1989 Afghanistan violence has often been analysed through a geopolitical reading insisting on the role played by regional forces. One generally considers a cultural, ethnical, or tribal reading to explain the perpetuation of this violence after 1989. But the local political dimension is in both cases denied. Gilles Dorronso resituates this violence within the local political context, in opposition to these analyses. He also insist on the role played by battles for power and local political perceptions. One can neither explain this violence by an external instrumentalisation or a profound cultural atavism. This violence is inscribed in fights for power at the heart of the fragmented Afghani political space.
Strategic Violnce and Disorganised Violence in Urabà(Colombia) , by Gérard Martin
Since the end of the 1980s, the Colombian region of Urabà and more generally the whole country has been faced with a crisis of violence one could qualify of generalised violence. The author shows that this crisis was firstly not percieved as a group of deviant behaviours but as an carrer opportunity in a new sector of the informal economy. Thus, many strategies of violence are short term strategies in an immediate poximity. The action does not unfurl in a regional context but rather in very small local contexts. The stakes of the action are the control of legal or illegal ressources. But the complexity of the situation and the resulting social disorganisation make it more difficult for people to give a meaning to violence. Violence is therefore experienced as a situation of terror.
Strategies of Adaptation and New Russia (PDF, 13 pages, 44 KB) , by Kathy Rousselet
Russia has often been persented in discourses as a country at the limit of chaos though empirical studies show its relative stability. Kathy Rousselet tries to explain this paradox by spoting the light on the social mechanisms that allow the Russian society to adapt to a new situation in spite of crisis factors. She shows, in this regard, the central role played by informality in the Russian society. The importance of inter-individual relations, of social adaptation strategies, and of solidarity relations draw the outlines of a self-regulating society, out of the central power. The analysis of political institutions as they are presented by the offical speeches do not allow to correctly approach the situation. Indeed, despite the evident political crisis, the situation is not as explosive as the many discourses try to describe it.