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Postscript
Abstract
In lieu of a conclusion, the postscript advances the book’s main approach and arguments. It revisits the book’s goal of engendering the post-independence conflictual association of Assam with mainland India to reclaim women’s histories and reconstruct a gendered analysis of Assam’s ethno-nationalist conflicts that are the consequence of this long association. Additionally, it reassesses the pathways that the book argues will lead to engendering peace in violent geopolitical peripheries globally, while reiterating the need for combining practice, politics, and theory in building positive and organic peace. Such peace will both draw from and inform the experiences of marginalized constituencies. To that end, critical reflection on the past experiences of marginalization must accompany the hope for a just and equitable feminist future. This future must be open to constantly interrogating itself so that it does not replicate previously-existing patterns of dominance and subjugation, reigniting violence.
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This paper looks at the women of Assam in Northeast India who have been steadily marginalized in post-insurgency politics (when peace treaties have been signed, but conflicts continue). While both armed patriarchies-the state and the anti-state-wage their wars against each other or deliberate upon political power-sharing following ceasefire agreements, the women seemingly remain voiceless. Is their silent egression a symptom of civil society's large scale withdrawal from brutalized public spaces into secure private spheres following years of insurgency and counter-insurgency operations alone? How does their withdrawal impact possibilities of conflict transformation/transcendence and ultimately, peace? Through extensive fieldwork, the paper finds that in their noiseless existence away from the state-sponsored processes of peacebuilding, the women of Assam are, in fact, undermining the forces and agencies, state and non-state, that prop up the conditions of protracted conflicts. They are proving that peace and conflict transcendence can be equally rewarding. The women are also problematizing the 'post' in post-conflict by demonstrating that reconciliation and reconstruction can begin while violence persists.
Longkumer offers a preliminary examination of how the BJP has been able to negotiate its status in the region. Based on ethnographic data and media reports, Longkumer argues that the BJP honed a self-sufficient and dynamically structured political machine and adopted an agenda that transcended religious, social and cultural boundaries. Longkumer focuses on two aspects of the BJP’s approach: its utilization of key alliances that have emerged in reaction to the failures of regional and central governments, and its projection of itself as a secular party that encompasses, but also moves beyond, exclusively ‘Hindu’ sentiments. The chapter highlights this ‘double-think’ – the situational/ regional differences in political self-presentation that demonstrate the malleability of Hindu nationalist ideology, while at the same time managing the BJP’s complex relationship with the RSS.
Background
The context of this study is the predominant global paradigm for measuring national progress, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which has resulted in an over-emphasis on production and consumption that in turn, is exhausting the planet’s capacity to sustain life. This study examines the potential for a new paradigm of development that can propel human society in a more meaningful, sustainable direction.
Results
Critiques of the GDP are overviewed, but the key critique is that if sustainability, human survival, is our key goal, then GDP, aiming at boundless material wealth, is driving us in the wrong direction. To drive a new sustainable, more meaningful way of life, we need an overarching paradigm with integrated, localized indicators that are internationally accepted as the measures of each nation’s progress. Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness (GNH) Index exemplifies this. Based on the lived experience of a key GNH instigator, its nine domains are explained: Living standard, Health, Education, Ecological diversity and resilience, Cultural diversity and resilience, Community vitality, Time use, Psychological wellbeing, and Good governance. These have informed and been informed by the Sustainable Development Goals. It is outlined how the GNH Index guides development, allocates resources according to the targets set, measures people’s happiness, and measures progress over time and geography.
Conclusion
The economic paradigm underlying the GDP - that the purpose of life is to become rich - is enabling our unsustainability. To enable future sustainability, we need to reconceptualize our concept of national progress. Moreover, since sustainability is effectively a euphemism for survival, then surely, as intelligent, sensitive beings, shouldn’t we be pursuing a higher, shared goal? For the Bhutanese, this is ‘happiness’ - a paradigm that encompasses the pursuit of meaningful societal progress by balancing the physical with mental, the material with spiritual, within a safe and stable environment, with the purpose of realizing happiness. Though the Bhutanese do not claim to have reached a state of national happiness, Bhutan has maintained happiness as its overriding goal, with the tool’s philosophy, authority and accountability driving this in everyday life.
As we approach Feminism & Psychology’s 30th anniversary, we reflect on and explore what makes the journal distinctive – its emphasis on critical feminist psychology. In this article and the accompanying Virtual Special Issue, we outline five methodological considerations that we believe are at the heart of critical feminist scholarship: 1) the politics of asking questions; 2) attention to language/discourse; 3) reflexivity; 4) representation and intersectionality; and 5) mobilizing research for social change. We then draw across a set of 15 articles published in the archives of Feminism & Psychology that showcase one or more of these key features and demonstrate the ‘doing’ of critical feminist psychology. These articles are housed on the journal’s website, as is an additional paper developed for students or those in a position of learning, which explores central ideas and debates that have culminated in critical feminist psychology.
Conventional wisdom would have us believe that Assam is a state where the status of women is comparatively better off than that of their counterparts in the rest of India, that they suffer from fewer instances of domestic violence. The geographical contiguity of a region which contains some matrilineal tribal societies, significant female mobility, and a near absence of practices such as dowry or sati as part of tradition, might lend some credibility to this belief. However, present indicators and crime statistics have actually shown a high incidence of overall crimes against women in Assam. A complex socio-political milieu, characterised by increasing militarism and insurgency, continuing ethnic and group conflicts in an overall environment where ‘market forces’ dominate, has in its own way posed serious challenges to the security of women and led to the opening up of more and more ‘violent spaces’ –the home being one one of them. The present study endeavours to explore the socio-structural dynamics and contexts rooted in Assam that perpetuate domestic violence against women. The study underscores the necessity of informed policy-level interventions and a holistic approach to address structural constraints that underpin such violence.
The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958 (AFSPA) forms the core of the Indian Government's relationship with the Northeast region. Fifty years after its inception violence in the region is increasing rather than decreasing. While the AFSPA is central to the ways the state relates to citizens in the region and has been a major catalyst for increasing violence, this paper will not treat the AFSPA as the sole instance of the Indian state's skewed security regime in the Northeast region, but will instead argue that the act is only a symptom of a larger malaise characterised by alienation, militarisation, and a dangerous counter-insurgency strategy. The fallout has been not merely a brutalisation of the security forces, but a legitimisation of violence. A vicious cycle has been set in motion punctuated by three main dynamics: violence giving birth to more violence, brutalisation eroding ideologies, and state-sanctioned terror engendering a disregard for peaceful alternatives. It is argued that unless the Indian state bases its approach to the region on a proper understanding of the nationalistic aspirations and indigenous and ethnic identities of the people there, this cycle cannot be stopped.
Previous research in the domain of attitude change has described 2 primary dimensions of thinking that impact persuasion processes and outcomes: the extent (amount) of thinking and the direction (valence) of issue-relevant thought. The authors examined the possibility that another, more meta-cognitive aspect of thinking is also important - the degree of confidence people have in their own thoughts. Four studies test the notion that thought confidence affects the extent of persuasion. When positive thoughts dominate in response to a message, increasing confidence in those thoughts increases persuasion, but when negative thoughts dominate, increasing confidence decreases persuasion. In addition, using self-reported and manipulated thought confidence in separate studies, the authors provide evidence that the magnitude of the attitude-thought relationship depends on the confidence people have in their thoughts. Finally, the authors also show that these self-validation effects are most likely in situations that foster high amounts of information processing activity.
The recent post-insurgency years in Assam, one of the eight states of India’s northeastern periphery, are marked by a strong desire for peace, reconciliation and reconstruction. This paper, however, contends that advances in this direction were already being made during the most violent decades of Assam history. It delves into the transformative impact of violent ethno-nationalist conflicts and argues that they caused, among other changes, a realignment of ethnic relations and redistribution of political rewards and holdings; attempts by civil society organisations at identity reformation and redefinition of ethno-nationalist goals; the mainstreaming of ‘ethnic’ and fusion music, jewellery and clothing; and an unprecedented growth of local, successful entrepreneurial ventures. Violent conflicts are sustained because they are lucrative for everybody: armed forces, insurgent armies and state machinery alike. This paper argues that peace and reconciliation can also be equally rewarding. The need is for an adjustment of approach and a reframing of the conflict narrative. This might prevent violent conflicts from erupting in future besides having a salutary effect on the ones that are ongoing.
I attempt here a very broad mapping of the manner in which women
have been addressed in both the making of the Indian nation and in the
running of the Indian state. As I understand it, there are three major ways
that the national movement first and the Indian state later imagined the
role of women. These are: (a) women as agents and recipients of
development; (b) women's political participation in the nation as equal
citizens of a state that does not discriminate on grounds of gender; (c)
women as emblems of 'national culture'. These three facets of women's
location within 'nationalism' and 'nation building' reflect three aspects
of the 'national movement 'which were 'germane to the making of the
Indian nation'. One, it was based on 'a well-developed critique of
colonialism in its economic aspects and on an economic programme
leading to independent economic development' ). Economic self- reliance, sovereignty, growth with equity were part of the very identity of Indian nationalism. Two, the movement was committed to political democracy and civil liberties which were seen as building blocs of nation-making Political participation of women in the national movement and then in the running of the independent state were therefore important. Three, Indian nationalism was also a cultural critique of colonialism and an assertion of 'national culture'. History has witnessed tensions and contradictions between these visions which this paper seeks to address.
The distinctness of each person’s life and experience is an important consideration in dominant accounts of how democratic institutions should distribute basic rights and liberties. Drawing on recent social movements, philosophers like Iris Marion Young, Miranda Fricker, and Axel Honneth have nonetheless drawn attention to the distinctive claims and challenges that plurality and difference entrain in democratic societies by analysing how the dominant discourses on rights and justice tend to elide, obscure, or reify the lived experiences of individuals belonging to disadvantaged and oppressed groups. In this essay, I offer an independent justification for why we should take such lived experiences seriously. I show how the lived experiences of disadvantaged and oppressed individuals can be a resource for deep and meaningful social change. I propose a distinctive kind of social change in which the disadvantaged and oppressed themselves drive the process of transformation whereby they change the oppressive frames of difference relating to their race, class, sex, or ability. I call this kind ‘organic social change’. I also show that organic social change is distinctively important in that the disadvantaged and oppressed get to enact an empowering mode of cooperation that harnesses their singularities when they are the ones driving the process of their own and one another’s transformations.
Assam has been in turmoil since the 1970s over the issue of illegal immigration from Bangladesh. This has frequently manifested itself in attacks on the state's Bengali-speaking Muslims who are accused of not only occupying land belonging to the native population but also diluting and debasing the traditional Assamese Hindu culture through the instrument of a foreign language (Bengali) and an alien religion (Islam). Since the issue of immigration into Assam raises several questions like what is the scale of the problem, what is the division of immigrants between Hindu and Muslim, and how many illegal migrants are there in the state, this paper attempts to look for answers by applying communityspecific reproduction rates to the Muslim and non- Muslim sections of Assam's population and comparing the derived numbers with the actual number of Muslims and non-Muslims in the state. It also evaluates the contribution of Assam's immigrants to its polity and its economy.
This paper focuses on how a national culture emerges by examining the Nagas of India. To appreciate this process, the confluence of British colonialism, the postcolonial situation, and contemporary performance of Naga identity (visible in the Hornbill Festival) must be analyzed. I will argue that the colonial era representation of 'primitivism' of the Nagas continues into postcolonial narratives of 'imperialist nostalgia' disseminated primarily through travel, popular media and museum exhibitions. I will argue that the Nagas are not simply passive onlookers, but active participants in this enterprise through the strategic articulation of a distinct Naga national image. I will demonstrate that the Nagas are using these colonial era images of 'primitivism' for certain purposes, while also promoting a revitalization of traditional culture. First, this process mimics the cumulative notions of primitivism through a reverse gaze. Second, revitalization acts as a vital force in claiming historical agency predicated on the 'performance of identity' and cultural hybridity. Finally, both of these processes help illuminate how the Nagas position themselves within the larger international discourse of indigeneity whereby images, once represented as primitive, now legitimize a distinct national culture.
This article examines the framing of ‘ethnic conflict’ in Northeast India, focusing on militant groups and insurgency in the hill areas of Assam and a form of political violence known locally as ‘ethnic clashes’. The article argues that ‘ethnic clashes’ have become an institutionalized form of armed violence in the region, while ‘ethnic rivalry’ is a key diagnostic frame for conflict. As enactments and imaginaries of institutiona- lized violence, ‘ethnic clashes’ are a product of actors who hold stakes in representing armed political violence as a result of ‘ethnic conflict’ between rivaling tribal com- munities. The article looks at the representation of causes of conflict as well as the framing of acts of violence as key sites of contestation, and thus as integral aspects of the conflict. This raises questions about the feasibility of scholarly efforts to make sense of specific cases of conflict via generic categories such as the ‘ethnic conflict’.
The neoliberal university requires high productivity in compressed time frames. Though the neoliberal transformation of the university is well documented, the isolating effects and embodied work conditions of such increasing demands are too rarely discussed. In this article, we develop a feminist ethics of care that challenges these working conditions. Our politics foreground collective action and the contention that good scholarship requires time: to think, write, read, research, analyze, edit, organize, and resist the growing administrative and professional demands that disrupt these crucial processes of intellectual growth and personal freedom. This collectively written article explores alternatives to the fast-paced, metric-oriented neoliberal university through a slow- moving conversation on ways to slow down and claim time for slow scholarship and collective action informed by feminist politics. We examine temporal regimes of the neoliberal university and their embodied effects. We then consider strategies for slowing scholarship with the objective of contributing to the slow scholarship movement. This slowing down represents both a commitment to good scholarship, teaching, and service and a collective feminist ethics of care that challenges the accelerated time and elitism of the neoliberal university. Above all, we argue in favor of the slow scholarship movement and contribute some resistance strategies that foreground collaborative, collective, communal ways forward.
Following Jacob Zuma's ascension to the presidency in South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) has been dogged by
rumours of escalating corruption and the personalization of power. This article documents these trends and explores three
ways of understanding neo-patrimonialism in South Africa's ruling party. First, the article addresses the possibility that
such political habits have a long history within the ANC but were restricted during its years in exile and have begun to resurface
now that the armed struggle is over. Second, it considers explanations that relate to the party's historical ties to criminal
networks and pressures arising from the transition to majority rule and contemporary electoral politics. Finally, the article
investigates whether neo-patrimonialism is a reflection of broader tendencies within South African political and economic
life. All three factors are found to have played a role in the rise of neo-patrimonial politics, and it is the confluence
of these trends that explains why these dynamics have taken such a strong hold on the party.
Gendered violence is experienced personally and systemically, including gender discrimination, domestic violence, sexual violence, conflict related violence, and wartime rape. These continuums of violence exist in times of peace, in times of war, within families, and within state institutions. While continuums of violence vary among cultures and societies, gender-based violence is ubiquitous. How one understands violence is key to understanding how the lived experiences of individuals are at once, personal and political. This chapter focusses on the links between “everyday” gender-based violence and violence associated with war as part of continuums of violence. The authors consider gender-based violence in the public and political realm as manifestations of private and personal violence, not as separate categories of violence, but as reflective of gendered social processes that form continuums of violence.
The Mizo War of Independence, also labelled as the Mizo Insurgency Movement, spanned over a period of nearly 20 years, during which significant events and developments occurred, which greatly shaped and moulded the socio-political landscape of the state. Accounts and narratives of what took place during those turbulent years are aplenty. However, not much literature or narrative could be found about the ideological dimension of the movement and its ramifications. Hence, the main aim of the article is to emphasize on the underlying two strands of nationalism, that is, the nationalistic ideals pursued by the Mizo National Front (MNF) as an organization, on the one hand, and the strand of nationalism championed by its president and leader, Laldenga, on the other hand. The first part of the article examines the strand of nationalism of the MNF, the main perpetrator of the independence movement and the role of its founding president, Laldenga, in formulating that ideology. The second section of the article traces and analyses the so-called ‘Laldenga’s nationalism’. Finally, the article attempts to draw conclusion on how the two strands of nationalism impacted the outcome of the Mizo War of Independence as a whole.
Doing Research in Design presents new ways of thinking about the relationship between design and research by positioning design as a social as well as a material practice. This approach emphasises the social consequences of design decisions as well as the importance of the efficient functioning of a design.
Doing Research in Design argues that design promotes social change and that, in order to understand that change, designers must turn to social science research methods. The book outlines the relationships between thinking and doing in design - and makes explicit links between design, research, philosophy and sociology - and then examines four central social research methodologies in practice.
The aim of Doing Research in Design is to provide anyone involved in the field of design with the knowledge and understanding of the best methods to plan and conduct their research.
"Majoritarian State" traces the ascendance of Hindu nationalism in contemporary India. Led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP administration has established an ethno-religious and populist style of rule since 2014. Its agenda is also pursued beyond the formal branches of government, as the new dispensation portrays conventional social hierarchies as intrinsic to Indian culture while condoning communal and caste- and gender-based violence.The contributors explore how Hindutva ideology has permeated the state apparatus and formal institutions, and how Hindutva activists exert control over civil society via vigilante groups, cultural policing and violence. Groups and regions portrayed as ‘enemies’ of the Indian state are the losers in a new order promoting the interests of the urban middle class and business elites. As this majoritarian ideology pervades the media and public discourse, it also affects the judiciary, universities and cultural institutions, increasingly captured by Hindu nationalists. Dissent and difference silenced and debate increasingly sidelined as the press is muzzled or intimidated in the courts. Internationally, the BJP government has emphasised hard power and a fast expanding security state.This collection of essays offers rich empirical analysis and documentation to investigate the causes and consequences of the illiberal turn taken by the world’s largest democracy. (Publisher's abstract)
This volume offers an empirically rich, theoretically informed study of the shifting intersections of nation/alism, gender and sexuality. Challenging a scholarly legacy that has overly focused on the masculinist character of nationalism, it pays particular attention to the people and issues less commonly considered in the context of nationalist projects, namely women and sexual minorities. Bringing together both established and emerging researchers from across the globe, this multidisciplinary and comparison-rich volume provides a multi-sited exploration of the shifting contours of belonging and Otherness generated by multifarious nationalisms. The diverse, and context specific positionings of men and women, masculinities and femininities, and hegemonic and non-normative sexualities, vis-à-vis nation/alism, are illuminated through a vibrant array of contemporary theoretical lenses. These include historical and feminist institutionalism, post-colonial theory, critical race approaches, transnational and migration theory and semiotics.
This chapter unpacks a particular gendered vision of the nation, specifically in the context of muscular nationalism in modern India. In muscular nationalism, the idea of nation is animated by an idea of manhood associated with martial prowess, muscular strength and toughness, and is reliant on the image and construct of woman as virtuous. In muscular nationalism the focus on the chastity of female bodies stems from their role as border guards. A particular interpretation of muscular nationalism has unfolded in India within a cultural milieu shaped by an assertive middle-class self-confidence fueled by “liberalization,” a process by which India has been integrated into the global political economy, coupled with the prominence of Hindutva or Hindu nationalist politics. India’s prolific commercial film industry centered in Bombay has used images of manhood to express as well as valorize these cultural changes. This chapter uses the popular and critically acclaimed film Mangal Pandey: The Rising (2005) to illustrate how history is used to rediscover and imagine an Indian legacy of muscular nationalism. Given India’s aspirations to become a recognized international player, the chapter goes on to argue that this film invents a tradition that constructs a legacy of masculinized nationalism that presumably always existed and needs to be reactivated to enable modern India’s global ambitions. Imperial effeminization of Indian men and contemporary responses to this gendered critique provides a cultural background for these films as they turn to history to challenge the discourse of effeminization that still haunts the Indian polity, as well as to reaffirm muscular nationalism in India as it seeks international recognition within this particular global moment of neoliberal capitalism and consumerism.
Globalisation and market reforms have made foreign policymaking a more inclusive and multilayered process. Para-diplomacy and emergence of empowered federating/component units engaging in international interaction call for recalibration of theories and understating of International Relations. The debate over central control versus unit autonomy raised the concern: whether para-diplomacy will turn out to be an asset or a threat for the sovereign state. While state may reap benefits of economic development, para-diplomacy may yet lead to regional imbalance, ethnic mobilisation and separatism. With the focus being shifted to Asia with respect to expanding market and sphere of influence, this article analyses the experience of para-diplomacy between India and China as well as of both with the USA. In doing so, reference is drawn to the past experiences of the West to understand how para-diplomacy took root and how is it practised in different contexts. Considering the economic, political and social implications of para-diplomatic practices in specific contexts, the article concludes with an attempt to find out the institutional space it may tread and the policy options it may hold out especially for India.
This article aims to assess the impact of microfinance through a government-sponsored SHG–bank linkage programme (SBLP) of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in India, on poverty alleviation, employment, and achievement of financial inclusion in the Bodoland area of Assam. Empirical results from an impact evaluation showed that the programme had a positive and statistically significant impact on the monthly income, employment days, and financial inclusion level of participants of the SHG programme, compared to a control group of non-participants.
Since the 1950s, China and India have been locked in a monumental battle for geopolitical supremacy. Chinese interest in the ethnic insurgencies in northeastern India, the still unresolved issue of the McMahon Line, the border established by the British imperial government, and competition for strategic access to the Indian Ocean have given rise to tense gamesmanship, political intrigue, and rivalry between the two Asian giants. Former Far Eastern Economic Review correspondent Bertil Lintner has drawn from his extensive personal interviews with insurgency leaders and civilians in remote tribal areas in northeastern India, newly declassified intelligence reports, and his many years of firsthand experience in Asia to chronicle this ongoing struggle. His history of the “Great Game East” is the first significant account of a regional conflict which has led to open warfare on several occasions, most notably the Sino-India border war of 1962, and will have a major impact on global affairs in the decades ahead.
A central figure in the turbulent recent history of the region, Zapuphizo was the mastermind behind the Nagas' Demand for sovereign independence in 1947, the year when the British government transferred control to India and Pakistan. Steyn's book focuses on Zapuphizo's life, looking at his collaboration with the Japanese in World War II, his fight against India's military suppression of the nationalist Naga army, and his lifelong struggle to secure Magaland's independence. "Zapuphizo: Voice of the Nagas" also offers a fascinating look at a little known culture very different from those of the Hindus and Muslims of the area. In the years before Britain quit the Indian subcontinent, the Nagas of the far Northeast were held to exemplify an exotic and quixotic society; radically different in culture and beliefs from the better-known Hindus and Muslims of the plains, they were renowned for their spirited independence and diversity. Along with a historical perspective of the Naga people, Steyn surveys the condition of the region today and its prospects for the future.
As the activities of individuals, organizations, and nations increasingly occur in cyberspace, the security of those activities is becoming a growing concern. Political, economic and military leaders must manage and reduce the level of risk associated with threats from hostile states, malevolent nonstate actors such as organized terrorist groups or individual hackers, and high-tech accidents. The impact of the information technology revolution on warfare, global stability, governance, and even the meaning of existing security constructs like deterrence is significant. These essays examine the ways in which the information technology revolution has affected the logic of deterrence and crisis management, definitions of peace and war, democratic constraints on conflict, the conduct of and military organization for war, and the growing role of the private sector in providing security.
The major protests in Guwahati on 22 June against the Government of Assam's attempts to evict settlers on the hills around the city reflect a much wider and deeper sense of insecurity amongst the masses arising out of land alienation in the region. The Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti, led by activist Akhil Gogoi, has emerged in the past few years as a major plank of mass protest. The KMSS has added a completely new dimension to the politics of protest in the state, but can the organisation translate the mass support into an alternative political platform?
Confronting the State: ULFA's Quest for Sovereignty examines the complex nuances and dynamics that make ULFA (United Liberation Front of Assam) a formidable insurgent group in India. It argues that to understand the phenomenon of insurgency, one has to understand the genesis of conflict between the Indian State and the state of Assam right from the very inception of the nation-state. The author claims that the ideological and identity issues between India and Assam have remained unresolved, and ULFA is a manifestation of that unresolved crisis. He explains that ULFA represents a mindset, a suppressed voice, which is deeply engrained in Assam's psyche. The declining support base of ULFA is not to be seen in its numerical strength; it represents the unmet aspirations of the tribal and ethnic groups of Assam. The book tries to go beyond a ULFA-centric solution and dwells upon the issues of illegal migration, human development and the need for the protection of a composite society in Assam. It also deals with the 2012 (July-September) violent conflict in Bodoland over the issue of illegal migration and quest for a homogenous homeland. It tries to bring forward a framework of durable solution to the illegal migration issue in the state by contesting the existing discourse.
In asymmetrical wars the asymmetry does not refer to a quantitative difference in belligerants’ strength or power, but to the qualitative differences in means, behavioral standards, goals, and values of conflicting parties. In the asymmetrical conflicts it seems that war functions have changed.
The purpose of this paper is to put in evidence the various expertises and skills that a soldier must have to operate in such a changed context.
In order to reach this purpose, the diversity model has been applied to the new conflicts, as already used to analyze the difference between CROs and the traditional soldiers’ job. To these respect, the definition of the further evolution of the role of a soldier called upon to intervene in the new operational environments can be considered as a preliminary finding: such a soldier must always be flexible and able to operate in a Constabulary context, but with more points in common with the warrior ideal type than with the peacekeeper one. A soldier who has to be able to gear his action in terms not of “dissymmetry” but of asymmetry as defined above. This implies a perception of the qualitative as well as quantitative differences in their own characteristics and in those of the adversary. In particular behavioral style, values, and strategic culture. However, there is no question of a return to the past, but the latest evolution in the range of flexible soldier that is so important in the asymmetric conflicts.
Practical implications of this analysis are bound to offer a deeper understanding of the events concerning asymmetrical conflicts, in the education as well as training of soldiers deployed in these kinds of conflict theaters.
North-east India has been experiencing severe internal displacement since it entered into the postcolonial phase over the past five decades. It also received a steady flow of refugees from neighbouring East Pakistan/Bangladesh, Tibet and Myanmar, fleeing political, social, economic, ideological and environmental persecution. In recent years, however, another problem that has been engaging the attention of social scientists and policy analysts is that of internal displacement. […] For us: ‘Internally displaced persons are persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or leave their homes or place of habitual residence, in particular, as a result of, or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalised violence, violation of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognised state border’. […] Society in Assam has historically been multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-caste, multi-class and multi-lingual in composition wherein the Asamiyas have constituted the majority national group. Sociologically speaking, Assam's society has been extraordinarily plural in its composition and highly uneven in structure. Here, we conceptualize the north-east/Assam as a periphery within a larger periphery (India) in the global context. Its peripheral location and its resultant underdevelopment and distorted political response to underdevelopments have made the society in Assam perpetually vulnerable to various kinds of violence, conflict and displacement.
The 1992-95 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina following the dissolution of socialist Yugoslavia became notorious for "ethnic cleansing" and mass rapes targeting the Bosniac (Bosnian Muslim) population. Postwar social and political processes have continued to be dominated by competing nationalisms representing Bosniacs, Serbs, and Croats, as well as those supporting a multiethnic Bosnian state, in which narratives of victimhood take center stage, often in gendered form. Elissa Helms shows that in the aftermath of the war, initiatives by and for Bosnian women perpetuated and complicated dominant images of women as victims and peacemakers in a conflict and political system led by men. In a sober corrective to such accounts, she offers a critical look at the politics of women’s activism and gendered nationalism in a postwar and postsocialist society. Drawing on ethnographic research spanning fifteen years, Innocence and Victimhood demonstrates how women’s activists and NGOs responded to, challenged, and often reinforced essentialist images in affirmative ways, utilizing the moral purity associated with the position of victimhood to bolster social claims, shape political visions, pursue foreign funding, and wage campaigns for postwar justice. Deeply sensitive to the suffering at the heart of Bosnian women’s (and men’s) wartime experiences, this book also reveals the limitations to strategies that emphasize innocence and victimhood. © 2013 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. All rights reserved.
This book is on the political subject, the conditions of its emergence, and the theoretical implications of this emergence, particularly the implications for our history. It seeks to change the way in which we understand our modern political history and the way in which it inquires into life, truth, and collective existence. The book not only marks by dense contentions different and varying histories of turbulent political moments in modern Indian history, but also presents a startling picture of the emergence of the political subject, which has been repeatedly sought to be brought under submission, but has repeatedly emerged as a mark of autonomy and agency in life.
A discussion of the process by which some ethnic groups manipulate values, myths, symbols and ceremonials from their traditional culture in order to develop an informal political organisation. This organisation is then used as a weapon in the struggle for power and privilege within contemporary society.
