Sosiologiens Vankunnskap

 

Av Alf Gunvald Nilsen

“Vi har lært, både i og utenfor klasserommet, at det finnes en enhet som kalles Vesten, og at man kan tenke om Vesten som et samfunn og en sivilisasjon som er uavhengig av og som står i motsetning til andre samfunn og sivilisasjoner.” Dette skrev den østerrikske antropologen Eric R. Wolf i sin klassiske bok Europe and the People without History (University of California Press, 1982). Boken fremsetter en krass kritikk av samfunnsvitenskapens tendens til å tenke seg at historiske prosesser og sosiale relasjoner deler grenser med nasjonalstaten: ”Hvert enkelt samfunn blir så en ting, som beveger seg i forhold til sitt egne, interne urverk.”

Wolfs bok var på mange måter et frempek mot den mer nylige kritikken av metodologisk nasjonalisme, som har blitt fremsatt av sosiologer som Daniel Chernilo og Ulrich Beck, og her i Norge har blitt målbåret av blant andre Mette Andersson og Hans Erik Næss. Denne kritikken har ofte vært artikulert i forhold til samtidige, globaliserende prosesser som migrasjon, miljøødeleggelser, transnasjonale sosiale bevegelser, og overnasjonale styringsinstitusjoner. Spørsmålet Wolf reiser er derimot av en mer historisk karakter, for som han sier – hvis sosiale relasjoner på noe som helst tidspunkt har respektert territorielle grensedragninger, hvordan kan det da ha seg at det var flere grekere som slåss under persiske konger enn det man fant i styrkene til den hellenistiske alliansen under Perserkrigene (500 fvt. – 448 fvt.)?

Det er nettopp denne historiske tilnærmingen som preger argumentasjonen i ett av de absolutt viktigste innleggene i debatten om sosiologisk tenkning de siste årene, nemlig Gurminder K. Bhambras bok Rethinking Modernity: Postcolonialism and the Sociological Imagination (Palgrave, 2007). Bhambras kritikk retter seg mot den grunnleggende forståelsen av moderniteten – og modernitetens sentrale politiske, økonomiske og kulturelle institusjoner – innenfor den historiske sosiologien. Problemet som Bhambra fokuserer på kan kalles en eurosentrisk metodologisk nasjonalisme i den historiske sosiologiens konseptuelle dypstruktur: moderniteten forstås som en manifestasjon av et kvalitativt historisk brudd, frembrakt av sosiale endringsprosesser på tvers av flere samfunnssfærer, som var unikt for den vestlige kulturelle og geografiske sfære. Den moderne nasjonalstaten vokste ut av Frankrikes borgerlige revolusjon; industrikapitalismen har sitt opphav i britenes industrielle revolusjon; den kritiske vitenskapen kan spores til Opplysningstiden og Europas kulturelle enhetlighet til Renessansen. Dette er en velkjent fortelling – selv har jeg, dog med betydelig ubehag, presentert den for sosiologistudenter over en rekke semestre – og den er også dypt problematisk.

For i det den klassiske sosiologien opprettet sitt analytiske skille mellom tradisjon (fortid) og modernitet (nåtid) og trakk opp sine grenser mellom Vesten og Resten skrev den også kolonialismen ut av den store fortellingen om modernitetens fremvekst. Derfor lærer vi at den politiske moderniteten – den suverene nasjonalstaten – vokser ut av den franske revolusjonen, men ikke at nasjonalstaten vokste frem parallelt med kolonistaten, og at mange av de politiske og administrative teknologiene som sees som betegnende for europeisk statsmakt først ble utviklet i dette totalitære laboratoriet; ei heller at en rekke av de tidlige moderne, ikke-vestlige statene – for eksempel, Indias Mughal-rike – var langt forut for Europa i utviklingen av politisk og administrativ infrastruktur. Vi lærer at den økonomiske moderniteten – den dynamiske industrikapitalismen – vokser ut av Storbritannias industrielle revolusjon, men ikke at vestlige stater var marginale størrelser i globale handelsnettverk dominert av Asia i det tidlige moderne verdenssystemet; vi spør oss heller ikke hvorvidt Vestens evne til å bevege seg fra periferi til sentrum i dette systemet i løpet av en kort tidsperiode ble muliggjort av en ressursflyt av råvarer og mennesker (les: slaver) understøttet av militær tvangsmakt. Og til sist – vi lærer om Renessansen som arnested for Europas kulturelle integritet, men ikke om hvordan de kunnskapsformene og kulturuttrykkene som hylles i denne sammenheng utviklet seg i et kulturelt og geografisk rom som ikke på noen troverdig måte kan fremstilles som vestlig.

Men så kan svaret bli at dette er jo en ting av fortiden – nå snakker vi tross alt om moderniteten i flertall: multiple moderniteter, alternative moderniteter, regionale moderniteter, og hybride moderniteter. Vi anerkjenner at det finnes mange måter å være moderne på. Men dette, hevder Bhambra, er ikke godt nok, for den underliggende logikken er fremdeles at moderniteten først utviklet seg innenfor Vestens grenser, og så spredde seg utover disse grensene, hvor den så har blitt omformet i det den har passert gjennom ikke-vestlige filtre. Den eurosentriske metodologiske nasjonalismen utgjør fremdeles dypstrukturen i dette perspektivet, og det er dette som er sosiologiens vankunnskap.

Spørsmålet vi da må stille oss – og finne svar på – er som følger: hva om moderniteten ikke først var vestlig og så ble global? Hva om moderniteten alltid har vært global? Hva innebærer det for måten vi tenker, praktiserer, og ikke minst underviser sosiologi på?

Gurminder Bhambra foreleser 06.06 over temaet ”What is the Theoretical Purchase of ‘the Global’ in Global Sociology?” ved seminaret Interrogating the Global: Challenges for the Social Sciences, organisert av forskningsgruppen for Migrasjon, Utvikling og Miljø ved Sosiologisk Institutt, UiB. Kontakt artikkelforfatteren for nærmere informasjon.

En kosmopolitisk marxist – et intervju med Alf G. Nilsen

En kosmopolitisk marxist – et intervju med Alf G. Nilsen

Av: Hans Erik Næss

 I vår uhøytidelige serie om «den nye vinen» i norsk sosiologi har turen kommet til en uvanlig internasjonalt orientert forsker med sterkt engasjement for globalhistorisk politisk økonomi.

 Gratulerer, hvordan føles det å være del av den nye vinen?

- Slett ikke verst – men jeg synes også det fort kan bli problematisk å trekke opp altfor sterke skiller mellom nye viner og gode, gamle årganger. De aller fleste av oss har hatt flotte og viktige læremestre som har vært helt avgjørende med hensyn til å lære oss å bruke den sosiologiske fantasien på en kritisk og kreativ måte. Vi fortsetter vel også å operere i rom der tradisjoner og nyskaping kan sameksistere uten altfor store problemer, men dog med friske meningsbrytninger. Og den kombinasjonen er ikke å forakte i det hele tatt.

Nilsen er for tiden postdoktor ved Sosiologisk institutt, Universitetet i Bergen. Publikasjonslisten vitner om interesse for å kombinere feltarbeid i det globale sør, aksjonsforskning og en problemorientert empirisme. Blant bøkene kan nevnes Dispossession and Resistance in India: The River and the Rage (Routledge, 2010) og antologiene Social Movements in the Global South: Dispossession, Development, and Resistance (Palgrave, 2011, med Sara Motta), samt Marxism and Social Movements (Brill, 2012, med Colin Barker, Laurence Cox, og John Krinsky). Hvordan kom denne internasjonale orienteringen til?

- Det følger vel først og fremst av tematikkene som står sentralt i forskningen min. Jeg har helt siden jeg var grunnfagsstudent vært opptatt av empiriske felt og faglige tematikker som ligger ganske langt utenfor «det norske»: historiske utviklingsprosesser i det globale Sør, spesielt Asia; sosiale bevegelser som mobiliserer mot nyliberal politikk i forskjellige verdensdeler, men igjen først og fremst i Sør og i India; marxistisk teori og det som man kanskje kan kalle globalhistorisk politisk økonomi. Det at jeg har valgt å forholde meg til faglige tematikker som har et globalt tilsnitt er til syvende og sist et resultat av politisk engasjement. I tenårene var jeg veldig engasjert i politiske spørsmål som knyttet seg opp til global utvikling og solidaritet, anti-rasisme i Europa og USA, og antikolonialisme i land i Sør. Jeg oppdaget relativt tidlig i studiene at dette var ting jeg måtte til utlandet for å fordype meg i, og reiste til Storbritannia, nærmere bestemt University of East Anglia, etter endt grunnfag ved Sosiologisk Institutt i Bergen i 1999. Det ble da uunngåelig slik at jeg orienterte meg i retning av et internasjonalt fagfellesskap, om man kan bruke en slik benevnelse, og videre at jeg etter hvert bygget opp faglige nettverk med sterk internasjonal karakter. Dette har selvfølgelig også blitt ytterligere forsterket av lange forskningsopphold i India, samt at jeg også jobbet som forsker ved Universitetet i Nottingham i to år etter at jeg var ferdig med PhDen min i 2006.

Marxisme, i dag

Boktitlene indikerer en fellesnevner for hans forskning: relasjonen mellom sosiale bevegelser, stat, politisk økonomi og maktstrukturer – for ikke å glemme alternative (les: marxistisk inspirerte) former for organisering av lokale utviklingsløp. Her er det flere interessante aspekter vi skal se nærmere på. Hvor ortodoks marxist vil du si at du er?

- Svaret på det spørsmålet kommer selvfølgelig helt an på hva du mener med ortodoks marxisme. Om det henvises til den deterministiske og teleologiske læren som så altfor mange lærebøker i sosiologisk teori våger å påstå at har noe med marxisme å gjøre, så er jeg vel så uortodoks som det går an å få blitt. Om det imidlertid henvises til en historisk-materialistisk ontologi som har brutt ny grunn ved å bevege seg forbi objekt-subjekt dualismen som har preget så mye vestlig sosialteori, og en filosofisk antropologi som vektlegger dialektikken mellom sosial struktur og menneskelig handling i historiske utviklingsprosesser, kan jeg ikke se at det er spesielt problematisk å henge på seg merkelappen ortodoks marxist. Jeg er også av den oppfatning av at Marx sin analyse og kritikk av kapitalismens politiske økonomi slik denne er utviklet i Grundrisse og Kapitalen spesielt er blant de viktigste perspektivene vi har tilgjengelig i dag for å forstå den omfattende krisen som det kapitalistiske verdenssystemet så uomtvistelig befinner seg i.

Kan du utdype det?

- Sentrale vestlige samfunn som USA, Storbritannia og store deler av EU opplever en ulikhetsutvikling uten sidestykke, sterk økning i fattigdom og stagnasjon i sosial mobilitet. I tillegg kommer fremveksten av en «reservearmé» av arbeidsledige som i enkelte land omfatter minst 26 prosent av befolkningen. Derfor er det vel nettopp de som har avfeid marxismens samtidige relevans som konfronteres med et betraktelig forklaringsproblem.

Hvordan stiller du deg til marxismens og eventuelt interessegruppenes politiske slagsider?

- Om jeg skulle peke ut en slagside, er det i den horisontalistiske tilnærmingen til politisk strategi at man etter min mening finner denne. Jeg har mye til overs for horisontalismens kritikk av det demokratiske underskuddet i etablerte organisasjons- og mobiliseringsstrategier på venstresida, men jeg synes også der er helt klart at horisontalismen har vanskelig for å bygge bærekraftige sosiale bevegelser som utvikler nok slagkraft til å kjempe frem konkrete seire som kan virke som springbrett for videreutvikling av radikale politiske prosjekter for progressiv samfunnsendring. For meg og andre som opplevde store deler av 1990-tallet som en politisk ørkenvandring er det selvfølgelig gledelig at motstand og opprør blir et stadig vanligere skue, men vi – både akademikere og aktivister – bør også huske på det vi ser nå er en fase i et mobiliseringsbølge som i alle fall strekker seg tilbake til protestene ved WTOs toppmøte i Seattle i 1999, men det er fremdeles bankene og ikke «folk flest» som får statlig hjelp i krisetid. Det sier noe om styrkeforholdene og utfordringene vi står overfor.

En annen grunn til at jeg spør er en artikkel i tidsskriftet Capital & Class med undertittelen «Towards a Marxist Theory of Social Movements». Er det dette du ønsker du å utvikle?

- Nåvel – det blir fort å ta seg vann over hodet, for ikke å si litt tåpelig, å hevde at man skal utvikle Den Marxistiske Teorien om Sosiale Bevegelser. Men det jeg har lyst til å gjøre, og har forsøkt å bidra til gjennom ymse skriverier, er å få i gang en kritisk dialog blant politisk engasjerte akademikere og teoretisk orienterte aktivister om hvordan og hvorvidt marxistisk teori kan hjelpe oss til å analysere og forstå sosiale bevegelser. Spesielt på en måte som faktisk er relevant i forhold til det disse bevegelsene forsøker å oppnå med sine kollektive prosjekter.

Øye for det globale

I boken redigert sammen med Sara Motta skrives det for eksempel at økonomisk og sosial utvikling politiseres i det nyliberale hegemoniets tidsalder. Casestudiene er sosiale bevegelser i Afrika, Sør-Asia, Latin-Amerika og Midtøsten. Med såpass ulike land får jeg assosiasjoner til kritikken fra Rolf Dahrendorf og hans Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society fra 1959 (og sikkert andre før ham), basert på premisset om at Marx’ analyse ikke er tilpasset sosiale konflikter i moderne samfunn. Hvordan inkorporere dette mangfoldet i en marxistisk teori om sosiale bevegelser?

- Først og fremst har jeg lyst til å påpeke at jeg ikke synes at samfunnsmessig mangfold er noe som skal inkorporeres i en teori. Det er heller noe man skal ta utgangspunkt i. Med andre ord mener jeg at det er viktig å utvikle en teoretisk tilnærming som unngår fellen som den marxistiske antropologen Eric Wolf mente var så betegnende for den moderne samfunnsvitenskapen: at man forstår samfunn som klart avgrensede enheter hvis utviklingsdynamikk kun kan forstås med utgangspunkt i mekanismer og relasjoner som eksisterer innenfor disse enhetenes grenser, som igjen gjerne defineres i nasjonale termer. Det er nettopp slike perspektiver som kan få noe så meningsløst som å tenke om samfunn i absolutte dikotomier som vestlige/ikke-vestlige, moderne/tradisjonelle, utviklede/underutviklede til å fremstå som en meningsfull tilnærming til sosiologisk analyse.

Så hva er alternativet?

- En alternativ tilnærming vil heller ta utgangspunkt i globale prosesser og strukturer som beveger seg på tvers av til dels svært porøse grenser og som gjennom nettopp dette vever sammen utviklingsdynamikker i forskjellige verdenshjørner, men som samtidig antar egenartete former i spesifikke tid-rom kontekster. Med henhold til analysen av sosiale bevegelser må det grunnleggende utgangspunktet da være at kollektiv mobilisering finner sted på et terreng der kapitalismen, som fra barnsben av har vært en global politisk-økonomisk prosess, har vevet sammen territorier, befolkninger og naturmiljøer på komplekse måter. Videre må man så bestrebe seg på å forstå hvordan dialektikken mellom «det universelle» og «det spesielle» gjør seg gjeldende i en gitt sosial bevegelse som utspiller seg i et spesifikk tid-rom kontekst.

Betyr dette at din forskning også er relevant utenfor det globale sør? Jeg tenker spesielt på forholdet mellom sosiale bevegelser og økonomisk uro i Europa.

- De protestene man ser i Europa i dag, som retter seg mot raseringen av velferdsordninger og den graverende sosiale polariseringen som har fulgt i nyliberalismens kjølvann har mye til felles med de såkalte IMF-protestene som fant sted i store deler av det globale Sør på 1980 og 1990-tallet. Men en analyse som nøyer seg med å bekrefte fellestrekk på makronivå på denne måten går glipp av så mange av de særegenhetene og forskjellene som på den ene siden preget strukturtilpasningspolitikken og protestene mot denne i det globale Sør fra 1980 og fremover og, på den andre siden, nedskjæringspolitikken i eurosonen og de nye protestbevegelsene i Europa at den i beste fall vil være av passerende og begrenset interesse. Det blir først substansielt når vi begynner å utvikle perspektiver som ser relasjoner som strekker seg over tid og rom, men som samtidig fremhever og forklarer forskjeller og særtrekk. Og i så måte mener jeg marxismen er meget godt skodd, nettopp fordi den vektlegger en analytisk tilnærming der man hele tiden beveger seg mellom det abstrakte og universelle og det konkrete og spesielle, og vektlegger viktigheten av historisk kontekstualisering.

Man kan vel også argumentere for at sosial mobilisering er «stedløs» i den forstand at det er et politisk verktøy som gjenfinnes over hele verden?

- De strategiene og mobiliseringsformene som benyttes av sosiale bevegelser i seg selv er transnasjonale. Dette er på ingen måte noe nytt – opposisjonelle politiske prosjekter har trosset landegrenser i svært lang tid til tross for samfunnsviternes til dels iherdige forsøk på å tvinge dem inn i en eller annen avgrenset territoriell ramme. Men i 2011 var det interessant å legge merke til at mange av de strategiene og metodene som ble benyttet på Tahrir-plassen også var sentrale på Puerta Del Sol og i Zucotti Park, på Syntagmatorget, og i Wisconsin. Og om man graver litt ser man fort at dette er en «horisontalistisk» tilnærming til mobilisering nedenfra som sist gjorde seg gjeldende da vanlige argentinere gjorde opprør mot elitenes økonomiske vanstyre ti år tidligere. Utvider man horisonten kan man se det som en videreutvikling av en kritikk av etablerte mobiliseringsformer på venstresida som oppsto i en tidligere opprørsperiode som beveget folkemasser på tvers av Nord-Sør aksen, nemlig 1968.

Stat og samfunn

Skillet mellom stat og samfunn er et annet, svært aktuelt tema ettersom Forskningsdagene 2012 (19-30 september) har «Samfunn» som hovedfokus. Da undertegnede nylig har vært medredaktør på en antologi om hva et samfunn er, dels basert på premisset om at det ikke nødvendigvis er synonymt med nasjonalstaten, slik mange sosiologer tar det for gitt, er det nærliggende å stille spørsmålet til Nilsen: I lys av din forskning – hva er et samfunn?

- Den typen spørsmål har en tendens til å frembringe mer stotring og kremting enn gode svar, men for meg er det viktig å forstå fremveksten av en gitt type samfunn, eller en gitt sosial formasjon, i relasjon til makrohistoriske prosesser som dypest sett drives frem av sosiale bevegelser. Disse kan komme nedenfra, fra grupper som på forskjellige vis innehar en underordnet posisjon i maktrelasjoner, og ovenfra, det vil si fra grupper som kan sies å inneha en hegemonisk posisjon i samfunnet. Alain Touraine har som så mange andre franske sosiologer hatt en del poetiske øyeblikk i løpet av sin karriere, og i klassikeren The Voice and the Eye skriver han at sosiale bevegelser er flammen som brenner i samfunnets hjerte. Det er mye sant i dette. I mer jordnære termer kan man si at om man kikker på riktig måte vil man i ethvert samfunn kunne forstå de rådende sosiale strukturer som et uttrykk for en «våpenhvile» mellom sosiale bevegelser som har vært drivkreftene i de historiske prosessene hvor det kjempes om hvordan menneskenes kollektive aktivitet skal organiseres. Dette burde egentlig være ABC innenfor sosiologien, som er en fagtradisjon som er så opptatt av å forstå en sosial formasjon – altså det moderne samfunnet – som har sitt opphav i en bue av revolusjonære omveltninger som strekker seg fra Holland og England på 1500 og 1600-tallet, via Frankrike og USA på 1700-tallet, til Haiti i 1804 og de antikoloniale bevegelsene på første halvdel av det tjuende århundre. Men det er dessverre ikke det.

Hvorfor ikke, tror du?

- En utfordring jeg mener at vi står ovenfor i sosiologien er å forstå hvordan prosessene hvorigjennom samfunn utkrystalliserer og utvikler seg alltid innebærer en relasjon mellom forskjellige samfunn. Dette henger sammen med det jeg pekte på ovenfor, nemlig at vi har en tendens til å forstå samfunn som avsondrede og avgrensede enheter hvis opprinnelse og utviklingsdynamikk har opphav i mekanismer og relasjoner som eksisterer innenfor disse enhetenes grenser. Det internasjonale har altså ikke blitt tatt tilstrekkelig på alvor av sosiologien. Og dette medfører at vi gjerne tenderer til å tenke på et samfunns opphav som en slags sosiologisk jomfrufødsel som finner sted før dette samfunnet så etablerer eksterne relasjoner med andre samfunn. En alternativ og mer historisk korrekt innfallsvinkel vil etter min mening være å forstå at samfunn alltid eksisterer i relasjon med hverandre og at disse relasjonene er en del av samfunnets ontologiske ryggrad. Måten et samfunn oppstår, organiseres og utvikler seg på er like mye drevet av relasjonene det har til andre samfunn som av interne mekanismer og relasjoner, om det i det hele tatt er mulig og meningsfullt å operere med et slikt skille. Jeg tror at om vi velger å tenke om samfunn og samfunnsutvikling på denne måten kan vi slå to viktige fluer i en smekk – vi kan ta det internasjonale nivået tilbake fra statsvitenskapens ahistoriske forklaringsmodeller og bringe det inn i den historisk-sosiologiske varmen, og vi kan begynne å løsne det klamme grepet som den metodologiske nasjonalismen har hatt om sosiologien i altfor lang tid.

Et argument for å løsne på dette grepet er klimaendringer. Hva slags plass har det økologiske perspektivet i din forskning?

- Det har en sentral rolle i den forstand at jeg har vært og fortsetter å være opptatt av konflikter omkring naturressurser i det globale Sør. Jeg synes spesielt at det er viktig å ikke gjøre det økologiske perspektivet til en spesiell nisje eller et spesielt felt som sådan, men heller forstå økologiske utviklingsprosesser og konflikter som noe som alltid og allerede er dypt sosiale i sin karakter. Mange av de konfliktene jeg har interessert meg for, der man for eksempel ser at urbefolkningsgrupper mister landrettigheter som et resultat av utviklings- og investeringsprosjekter er dypest sett konflikter over hvordan vi sosialt og politisk skal organisere kontroll over og bruk av naturressurser. Skal naturressurser som land eller vann være fellesgoder og allmenninger, eller skal de være kapital og privateiendom? Dette er det grunnleggende spørsmålet enten det dreier seg om Adivasier som fordrives av damprosjekter i India, afrikanske småbønder som mister landbruksjord til kinesiske investorer, eller kvotehandelsprosjekter som røver ressurser fra latinamerikanske urbefolkningsgrupper. Det å synliggjøre dette, og å fremheve at konflikter og mobilisering omkring økologi er dypt knyttet til konflikter og mobilisering omkring politisk økonomi synes jeg er veldig viktig, både faglig og politisk, spesielt i en kontekst der det nyliberale hegemoniet medfører at markedslogikken har banet seg vei helt inn i atmosfæren gjennom fremveksten av karbonhandelsregimer på tvers av nord-sør aksen.

  Ditt postdoktorat ved Universitetet i Bergen ender i 2013, og da du ble intervjuet i Forskerforum 7/2011 var du ikke veldig optimistisk med tanke på fremtiden på grunn av labre rammevilkår. Hvordan ser du på det i dag?

- Jeg venter i spenning, kan man si. Og jeg synes fremdeles at det er et problem at norsk universitetssektor har så begrensede rammer for å opprette nye stillinger. Det scenarioet som er i ferd med å utkrystallisere seg nå, er at stadig flere gjennomfører doktorgradsstudiene, men at det ikke skjer en tilsvarende stillingsekspansjon på universiteter og høyskoler. Dette er jo selvfølgelig en gunstig utvikling sett fra arbeidsgivers – det vil si statens – perspektiv, i og med at man får en «reservearmé» av akademiske arbeidere som er såpass desperate at de er villige til å ta til takke med å jobbe under langt mindre gunstige betingelser enn det som har vært tilfelle for forutgående akademikergenerasjoner. Men jeg tror samtidig det er å krype baklengs inn i framtida – for å si det pent! – om det man er interessert i er å skape et dynamisk akademia som trekker veksler på det unge akademikere har å bringe til bords av idéer og evner når man skal utvikle framtidas forskningsprogrammer. Og det er også veldig trist å se at responsen fra universitetene til dette scenarioet først og fremst synes å være å snakke om at forskerutdanningen er en utdanning for arbeidsmarkedet generelt, heller enn å mobilisere for å sikre plattformer og jobber for unge forskere. Det synes jeg er et svært lite prisverdig knefall for utviklingstendenser som det er ytterst uklokt å falle på kne for.

Du sier også at selv om økningen i ph.d.-stipender er positiv, reises også «et spørsmål om hvordan disse ressursene som da skapes, kan brukes på en hensiktsmessig måte innenfor akademia her til lands.» Hva må gjøres?

- Det jeg synes er et stort problem er at mange opplever overgangsperiodene etter endt doktorgrad eller postdoktorprosjekt som svært vanskelige perioder. Spesielt er det vanskelig for de som har valgt en forskningsretning som kanskje ikke sammenfaller med etablerte og tradisjonelle felter å finne institusjonelle tilknytninger som gjør det mulig å søke midler til nye prosjekter. Dette tror jeg medfører at mye innsatsvilje, innsikt og kunnskap kastes bort. Jeg tror at det ville kunne være hensiktsmessig å vurdere om det kunne være mulig å etablere tverrfaglige institusjoner innenfor universitetene som unge forskere kan bruke som base for nye prosjekter, slik at vi faktisk dyrker frem faglige fellesskap for framtida på en dynamisk måte.

Avslutningsvis, dersom du skulle begynt på studieløpet på ny, hva ville du gjort annerledes? (Aka: hva slags råd har du til unge sosiologer som ønsker å komme seg opp og frem her i verden?)

- Jeg ville muligens tenkt enda nøyere gjennom mine faglige interesser, og prøvd å spesialisere meg på disse enda tidligere. Jeg tror generelt det er lurt å være klar over hva man er aller mest interessert i og hva man opplever det som meningsfullt å jobbe med fra et tidlig tidspunkt, og så være beredt for å oppsøke de fagmiljøene der man har best mulig sjanse til å fordype seg i dette på en god måte.

Forest Polities and Tributary States in Precolonial India

FOREST POLITIES AND TRIBUTARY STATES IN PRECOLONIAL INDIA

Of Emperors and Atavikas

“The Beloved of the Gods believes that one who does no wrong should be forgiven as far as it is possible to forgive him. And the Beloved of the Gods conciliates the forest tribes of his empire, but he warns them that he has power even in his remorse and he asks them to repent, lest they be killed.”

So spoke the great Mauryan emperor Ashoka in the 13th Major Rock Edict, in which he expresses his regret over the carnage of the battle of Kalinga in 261 BC. In the portion of the edict cited above, Ashoka was addressing the Atavikas – the forest-dwellers – who, with the development and expansion of the Mauryan Empire (321-185 BC), had come to play an increasingly salient role in processes of state formation in the subcontinent. However, the stern warning issued in the Rock Edict, in which obedience and acquiescence is demanded from the forest dwellers lest they be subjected to the military might of Ashoka’s empire, represents only one strand of a complex relationship that was woven as the Mauryan state expanded its frontiers. Another, equally significant strand can be found in the Second Separate Edict, where he exhorts his officers to strive to gain the trust and allegiance of ‘the unconquered peoples’ on the borders of his empire, as he ‘desires that they should have no trouble on his account, should trust in him, and should have in their dealings with him only happiness and no sorrow’ (Thapar, 1997: 258; see also Thapar, 1971: 418).

The fact that the balancing of consent and coercion in relation to the Atavikas had become an imperative of statecraft is expressive of a situation in which the expansion of agricultural settlements and trade in products like timber, minor forest produce and minerals had made the forests increasingly important as a source of revenue (Parasher-Sen, 1998: 178; Thapar, 2001: 10-11; Chattopadhyaya, 2004). Thus, Kautilya’s Arthashastra contains carefully crafted advice on how best to manage the clearing of forests and the settlement of peasant cultivators, and how to promote trade in forest products. Kautilya also recognized that the Atavikas could be both friends and foes in this process. In his words, they were ‘numerous, visible, brave, and could ruin a country’ (cited in Thapar, 2001: 11). Consequently, Kautilya also recommended that the emperor should harness the forest-dwellers to the state-making project by employing them as guards on the boundaries of his realms (Chattopadhyaya, 2004; Parasher-Sen, 1998: 183-4).

The two-sidedness of the Mauryan approach to the forest-dwellers can in turn be understood as originating in the fact that the actual workings of the imperial state, despite representing a quantum leap in political organization, deviated significantly from the ideals of centralized administration espoused in the Arthashastra:

Despite its size and administrative control, the Mauryan state does not appear to have attempted a restructuring of all the areas under its control. Possibly a distinction has to be made between what might be called the metropolitan state in such a system, which would be the core region or the area which initiates the conquest and control of the peripheral regions subservient to the metropolitan state but substantially continuing much as before (Thapar, 1978: 160).

The peripheries of the Mauryan state were also the forests, and the imperial centre was compelled to limit its interventions there to the tapping of resources, often in an indirect manner: ‘Thus, it is possible that the chiefs among these forest dwellers collected the forest produce demanded by the Mauryan administration and were the channels by which the administration obtained this tax in kind’ (Thapar, 2002: 198).

This scenario, in which forest-dwelling communities exist at a certain distance from, but by no means autonomously of or in isolation from the imperial state, is, I believe, a manifestation of a persistent liminality that defines the relationship between tribal groups and the ancient and medieval ‘state society’ (Chattopadhyaya, 1997) in the Indian subcontinent.

This liminality can be discerned as far back as during the initial processes of state formation in India that unfolded from the middle of the first millennium BC onwards. As the revenue collected from settled peasant cultivators came to constitute the pivotal material basis of socio-political organization, the contrast between ‘the … civilized and their domesticated landscape and the savages in their wild woods’ (Guha, 1999: 26) emerged as a central boundary-marking trope. The opposition between forest and village settlements was highlighted through the conceptual opposition between aryana and grama: ‘The forest was the unknown, the unpredictable, whereas the settlement was predictable and subject to human laws’ (Thapar, 2002: 56). Other oppositions invoked similar contrasts: the terms that denoted settled areas of cultivation, the ksetra, janapada, and the nadu, were ‘suggestive of spaces with greater human civilization’ compared to the terms that denoted the forest, such as vana, atavi, and jangala (Chattopadhyaya, 2004: 23). Underlying this distinction was also an intimation that the forest and its inhabitants posed a threat to the moral order of the kingdom that somehow had to be curbed. Yet, it is also the case that ‘even on recognizing the dichotomy of the vana and the ksetra, their complementarity immediately surfaces’ (Thapar, 2001: 16). This is evident in the fact that the forests appear as a site of hermitage in Vedic texts, and later on, in the Mahabharata, the forest also features as a royal hunting ground. Thus, the boundary between vana and ksetra was a porous one in ancient India; the former was liminal rather than antithetical in its relationship to the latter.

Under the Mauryas, there arguably occurs and intensification of the relationship between forest polities and the ancient state as the forest increasingly becomes ‘the recipient of the discipline and norms associated with those regarded as civilized. Above all, it was being viewed as a resource to be exploited’ (Thapar, 2001: 10). Yet, the fact that the resources of the forest could only be exploited indirectly and required a delicate balancing of consent and coercion in relation to its inhabitants is significant, because it signifies the partiality of subordination and the negotiated character of imperial incursions into the domains of the Atavikas. This can in turn only be understood if we relate it to the way in which state-making and state-craft in ancient and medieval India was characterized by ‘sharing out sovereignty along different layers of the subcontinental polity’ (Bose and Jayal, 2002: 205).

Precolonial States and the Tributary Constraint

The state, as Neil Smith (1990: 41) reminded us, ‘makes its historical appearance as a means of political control’ when a permanent surplus is being produced and class society crystallizes. Now, the sharing of sovereignty that is so characteristic of states in ancient and medieval India flows from the ways in which these states were embedded in the extraction of surplus from direct producers. On this reading, then, the sharing of sovereignty is ultimately a manifestation of what John Haldon (1993: 156) has called ‘the tributary constraint’.

Tributary modes of production, Haldon argues, were the predominant mode of production in precapitalist societies that had initiated the development of a class structure polarized between peasant producers whose labour generated the social surplus and those non-producing groups – basically state agents and landlords – who appropriate this surplus. This is of course a very wide definition, encompassing vast swathes of time and territory, but it is nonetheless useful in focusing our attention on ‘the political economy of appropriation’ (ibid.: 104) and its ramifications for processes of state formation. The crucial aspect of surplus appropriation under tributary modes of production was that it was organized in the context of what Berktay (1991: 243) calls ‘a hierarchy of interlocking land rights’, usually consisting of the king’s or emperor’s overlordship, the rights of aristocratic and bureaucratic fief-holders and landowners, the rights of the village community, and ultimately the rights of the individual peasant household. In this context, and given the nature of transport and communications technology in ancient and medieval times, the rulers of states could only secure the extraction and redistribution of surplus from peasant producers through ‘fief distribution’ (ibid.: 245) – that is, the monarchical ruler was compelled to either appoint followers and allies as fief-holders in various parts of the kingdom, or to reach an agreement with the pre-existing lordship that had been vanquished whereby the latter agreed to the revenue demands of the former ‘in return for recognition of an irreducible minimum of their traditional status and privileges’. In most cases, the ‘medieval ruling class’ was an amalgamation of these two solutions to the revenue quandary (ibid.: 245). And irrespective of its origins, this ruling class came to function as a centripetal force, as it was ‘forever trying … to extend its control over (part of) the revenue, the land itself – and therefore also trying to weaken royal overlordship or to wrest it entirely out of the hands of the most ‘statist’ faction of the ruling elite’ (ibid.: 260).

It is precisely this constellation that is the primary determinant of what Haldon (1993: 156) calls ‘the tributary constraint’. Due to its dependence on a complex lattice-work of relations with fief-holders and landowners, the power of the tributary state ‘to extract surplus in the form of tribute or feudal rent depends entirely upon its power to limit the economic and political strength of the other classes, but more precisely other fractions of the ruling class’ (ibid.: 157). There is thus an inherent and perpetual contradiction in tributary states between ‘the ruler or ruling elite and those who actually appropriate surplus on their part’ (ibid.: 157) in terms of the organization of the appropriation and redistribution of surplus, and a tributary state faces crisis when its ability to control the groups who appropriate surplus. It is for this reason that governance in the context of a tributary state does not centre so much on the extension of sovereignty outwards from a singular and central point of power and authority situated within a clearly and unequivocally bounded territorial space, but rather hinges on the ability (or lack thereof) of rulers to ‘manage the ebb and flow of this internal tension that was part and parcel of the historical dynamics of all traditional agrarian subject-peasant … societies’ (Berktay, 1991: 160; see also Banaji, 2010: 18-26).

My basic contention is that the liminality of forest-dwelling communities in relation to the monarchical states of the Indian subcontinent has to be understood in relation to the political economy of the tributary mode of production from which these states emerged and were sustained. Although the initial socioeconomic and sociopolitical organization of the Atavikas – these were, largely, kin-ordered modes of production organized politically as chiefdoms (see Ratnagar, 2003) – was distinct from that of the Hindu kingdoms, they were not the autonomous Other of these forms of state. Rather, they were partially integrated in these state societies, and the partiality of their integration was in turn a consequence of the intrinsic sharing of sovereignty in tributary states and the interstitial spaces between subordination and autochthony generated as a result of this. Now, the specific articulation and organization of shared sovereignty has assumed many different manifestations across the time period we are dealing with here, and so has the exact nature of the relationship between tribal forest polities and monarchical states in precolonial India.

Tribes and Tributary States From the Guptas to the Marathas

The imperial reign of the Guptas (300-700 AD) was characterized by yet another round of expansion of settled agriculture as rulings elites sought to widen their revenue base. Consequently, this era witnessed ‘the emergence of a peasant society in erstwhile forest regions’ (Thapar, 2001: 13). This was obviously not without consequence for the forest polities: forest clearances and the construction of road networks entailed incursions into their domains, and in some cases tribal groups were incorporated into caste structures. Nevertheless, this was not ‘a simple, linear process exploiting the forest dweller’ (ibid.: 14). More complex dynamics were at work, which is evidenced by the fact that land grantees in forest regions are likely to have married into the families of tribal chieftains. Moreover, expansion into forest domains brought about a substantial degree of cultural syncretism as Atavika practices ‘became part of Puranic Hinduism’ (ibid.: 13).

Fief distribution under the Guptas in turn established a foundation for the regional states that emerged in the wake of imperial decline in the late seventh and early eight centuries AD (Thapar, 2002: 293). These kingdoms extended their institutional reach by vanquishing and subjugating tributary princes known as Samantas, and then reinstating them on the condition that they pay tribute to the monarch (Kulke, 1995a/b; Chattopadhyaya, 1994, 1995, 1997). However, the resulting institution, the Samantacakara – that is, a “circle” of tributary princes – ensured the persistence of a centripetal impulse in the process of state formation (Chattopadhyaya, 1997: 6).

Regional state formation clearly entailed the expansion of the reach of state power in early medieval India also entailed ‘the extension of statehood into the tribal hinterland and its stepwise integration into the process of state formation increased considerably’ (Kulke, 1995b: 1). There can be little doubt that this entailed a degree of conflict and subjugation – after all, land grants and new agricultural settlements entailed dispossession of forest dwellers – but it would be far to simplistic to reduce the narrative to one of subordination and impoverishment. Whereas I will elaborate on this point in my discussion of the development of Bhil-Rajput during the formation of Mewar state, it is instructive at this point to note two features of the complex political processes that unfolded which suggest that the subordination of tribal forest-dwellers to the Hindu kingdoms of early medieval India was at best partial in nature.

Firstly, as Kulke (1978) points out in the context of Orissa, the small Hindu kingdoms that emerged between 500 and 1000 AD sought legitimacy for their rule among the forest polities by integrating tribal deities into their political culture. This was necessary as the Rajas depended on tribal support to bolster the security of internal communications and borders, and needed their land to extend settled agriculture: ‘Royal patronage of autochthonous deities seems to have been an essential supposition for the consolidation of political power and its legitimation in the Hindu tribal zone of Orissa’ (ibid.: 33; see also Schnepel, 1995). Conversely, this was also a period in which state formation took place among tribal groups in central and eastern India (Singh, 1985: Chapter 2). Surajit Sinha’s study of the Gond, Munda and Bhumij kingdoms shows that this process was rooted in social stratification in terms of ‘differential landholding and the territorial extent of political dominance’. Furthermore, rather than revolving around assertions of Otherness in opposition to Hindu kingdoms, Sinha argues that the new tribal elite appropriated the model of state developed by the Rajputs in northwestern India in 900-1000 AD: they claimed kshatriya status for themselves, promoted brahminical values, entered into marriage alliances with Rajput kshatriya families, solicited the ritual services of brahmins and so on (see also Kulke, 1976). This scenario militates against the construction of an analytical optic predicated upon a binary opposition between the ‘state-space’ of the Hindu kingdoms and the ‘non-state space’ of the tribal forest polities (see Scott, 2009). Rather, what we are confronted with is a composite field of force characterized by crosscurrents of fluidity and liminality, as well the co-existence of accommodation and conflict between tribal groups and kingly rulers.

Between the thirteenth and the early eighteenth centuries, state formation in India was propelled by Muslim conquest states seeking to centralize state administration to an unprecedented extent – first under the Delhi Sultanate (1229-1398) and then under the aegis of the Mughal Empire (1556-1707). The process reached its apogee under the Mughals, who according to M. Athar Ali (1978: 40) – a leading representative of the Aligarh school of Mughal history – orchestrated the systematization of administrative structures, a renewed emphasis on the idea of a social contract between ruler and ruled, and a restructuring of relations between kings and nobles to ensure aristocratic stability in such a way as to forge a ‘large, stable, long-lasting political structure’. Irfan Habib (1999: 364) similarly argues that the Mughal state was unprecedented in covering ‘a whole subcontinent, united under a highly centralized administration’. The institutional moorings of this achievement could be located in the mansabdar and jagirdar systems, which established the basis for ‘a centralized apparatus through which absolute monarchy could function’ (ibid.: 264).

This interpretation of state formation under the Mughals has come in for substantial challenges. C. A. Bayly (1983, 1998) has arguably been foremost among those who have criticized the view of the Mughal state as a tightly sutured Leviathan. Mughal expansion, he argues, resulted in the creation of a form of state in which there was a multiplicity of co-sharers in monarchical power, holding overlapping rights and obligations in such a way that there was not a singular locus of state sovereignty. Arguing along similar lines, Muzaffar Alam (1986:5) characterizes the Mughal state in a very different way than Ali and Habib: ‘The empire signified a coordinating agency between conflicting communities and the various indigenous sociopolitical systems at different levels’ (see also Subrahmanyam, 1992). Now, this is not an argument that is meant to belittle the significance of the Mughal state. It is undoubtedly the case, as Perlin (1981: 281) has argued, that the Mughl era witnessed ‘a remarkable general development in the apparatus of state rule and of the administrative ‘technology’ of appropriation’. However, the tributary constraint persisted and so did ‘the dialectic between centrifugal and centripetal tendencies’ (Haldon, 1993: 219) in the centre-periphery dynamics of the empire (see also Singh, 1988a; Hasan, 2004).

This also meant that the relationship between tribal communities and the state was still characterized by liminality and partial subordination under the Mughals. Chetan Singh (1995: 221) has called attention to the fact that ‘there was much that lay beyond the agrarian economy of the Mughal heartland … The Mughal ruling class did not enjoy an unchallenged monopoly over geographical space and natural resources even within the political confines of the empire’. Large portions of the empire remained forested and uncultivated, and in western, central and northern India, these areas were inhabited by tribal groups who derived their livelihood from a wide variety of sources such as agriculture, forestry and pastoralism (Singh 1988b, 1995). Like their predecessors, the Mughals extracted a share of the surplus wealth generated in these communities through intermediaries, in the form of forest produce and pastoral products. For example, Archana Prasad (1999: 363) writes of the relationship between the Mughals and the Gonds: ‘The nominal annual tribute which they paid to the Mughal emperor signified their loyalty to him and gave them a sufficient autonomous control over their own territories’ (see also Prasad, 2003). To the extent that a change occurred in the relationship between forest polities and the imperial state under the Mughals, it was primarily quantitative in nature. Agricultural expansion created a larger market for forest produce, and as a result of this ‘peripheral communities which had earlier been only marginally affected by the Mughal state were gradually drawn into playing an increasingly important role in its economy, as well as its political fortunes’ (Singh, 1988b: 48).

Much the same argument can also be made about the relationship between tribal communities and the Marathas, who emerged as the pivotal rulers in western, central and eastern India in the eighteenth century (Gordon, 1993). The Maratha polity, like its Mughal precursor, exhibited the simultaneous workings of centripetal and centrifugal forces in a structure characterized by what Perlin (1985: 475) calls ‘quasi-autonomies’ – that is, the presence of ‘sectors of autonomy structurally generated by, and linked up with, the larger order’ – and this also characterized the relationship between Maratha rulers and tribal communities. For example, when Bastar came under the suzerainty of the Bhonsle Marathas of Nagpur, subordination was organized primarily ‘on the basis of tribute payments’ (Sundar, 2007: 51). Beyond this, tribal communities in the region ‘retained their identity, their cults and their own form of political organization, at the same time as they adopted some of the administrative practices and royal rituals of the Mughal and Maratha states, including the patronage of temples and Brahmans’ (ibid.: 51).

Although there is much that changes throughout the historical process of state formation in India, and despite the fact that the state can be seen to expand its infrastructural power over time, the constraints that are intrinsic to ‘states dominated by tributary production relations’ (Haldon, 1993: 203) persisted throughout, generating a sharing of sovereignty that made it possible for tribal forest polities to sustain a position that was neither wholly autochthonous nor wholly subordinated to regional states and subcontinental empires. In my next post I will explore this dynamic in the context of the Bhil heartland of western India.

For a Historical Sociology of State-Society Relations in the Study of Subaltern Politics

For some time now, important new ground has been broken in the study of Indian state-society relationships by an emergent body of scholarship that shows how exploited and oppressed groups utilize the state in a myriad of ways, ranging from quotidian manipulations of the local state to the seizure of state power through participation in electoral politics, to challenge their adverse incorporation in the structures of power that constitute the political economy of contemporary India.[1]

This body of work is important for many reasons, but perhaps most of all because it helps us to move beyond the stale binaries of the Subaltern Studies project, in which elites and subalterns are thought to inhabit separate and substantially opposed political domains (Guha, 1982; see also Chaturvedi, 2000 and Ludden, 2003). In terms of their understanding of the state, this binary is inscribed in the work of Ranajit Guha (1998, 1999), Partha Chatterjee (1982, 1983, 1986, 1993) and Sudipta Kaviraj (2010, 2011, 2012) in particular. In their writings, the modern Indian state is understood to be a transmogrification of its colonial predecessor, which has failed to ‘create or re-constitute popular common sense around the political world, taking the new conceptual vocabulary of rights, institutions, and impersonal power into the vernacular discourse of rural or small-town Indian society’ (Kaviraj, 2010: 29). Indeed, even Chatterjee’s (2004, 2008) most recent work reproduces the analytical debilitations of this Manichean view of state-society relations by insisting that whereas India’s elite operates on the terrain of ‘civil society’ where the liberal precepts of citizenship reign, the country’s subaltern groups mobilize in and through ‘political society’ – that is, the domain of the state which is concerned with the security and welfare of the population. The basic problem with this perspective is, as Subir Sinha (2012: 81) so succinctly puts it, that ‘the politics of subalterns have long been transgressive of such divides’. Indeed, the movements of subaltern groups in contemporary India are commonly engaged in struggles that draw on and appropriate existing idioms of citizenship, and in doing so also they arguably also propel the expansion of meanings and practices of citizenship (see e.g. Agarwala, 2008; Subramanian, 2009; Sundar, 2011; Gudavarthy, 2012).

A key virtue of the new wave of work on state-society relations is that it has proven capable of engaging analytically with the complex and composite dynamics that characterize actually existing subaltern politics in India today.[2] It is notable that many of the key contributions to this literature draw on a Foucauldian understanding of power relations and state power.[3] Above all, Foucault’s notion of governmentality is put to use to understand how state-sponsored programmes geared towards improving the welfare and enabling the empowerment of poorer groups provide interstitial spaces where ‘new kinds of resistances’ (Gupta, 2001: 66). Key to this argument is the assertion that the state should not be conceptualized as ‘a unitary centre of power’ but rather in terms of ‘multiple and contradictory articulations of power that emanate from no fixed axis’ (Williams, Vira and Chopra, 2011: 17). And precisely for this reason, the state is riddled with ‘fissures and ruptures’ that enable subaltern groups ‘to create possibilities for political action and activism’ (Gupta, 1995: 394).

By enabling a shift of conceptual orientation away from the assumed existence of ‘hermetically sealed sites of autonomy’ towards an understanding of ‘relational spaces of connection and articulation’ (Moore, 1998: 347) in the study of subaltern politics, this body of work has clearly been of singular importance.  However, as I have argued at length elsewhere, there is a serious lacuna in this body of work, which is ultimately rooted in its theoretical underpinnings (see Nilsen, 2011, 2012a/b). The Foucauldian emphasis on the decentred nature of power comes with the limitation of not being able to properly address the questions of how and why, at specific and contingent conjunctures, the exercise of state power achieves a certain unity across dispersed sites, and the limits that this may impose upon the prospects for advancing subaltern agency in relation to the state. In order to address this shortcoming, I believe it is necessary to develop a historical-sociological approach which is capable of conceptualizing how the micro-politics of state-society relations and the political economy of capitalist development and state formation as ‘master change processes’ (Tilly, 1982) are mutually constitutive, and how this relationship ultimately circumscribes the scope for pursuing subaltern resistance via the institutional and discursive apparatuses of the state. Constraints of space prevent a full discussion of what such a perspective would look like but I will outline some of its most basic tenets.[4]

Subalternity, Fields of Force, and Hegemony: The first and most basal point is to think of subalternity not as ‘an essential characteristic of being’ (Moore, 1998: 352) but as a determinate positionality within what E. P. Thompson (1978: 151) would call ‘a societal ‘field-of-force’’. A societal field of force is in turn best understood as the outcome of those processes through which ‘the hegemony of a fundamental social group over a series of subordinate groups’ (Gramsci, 1971: 182) is constituted. Constructing hegemony entails gaining the consent of subaltern groups to ‘the general direction’ (ibid.: 12) that dominant groups seek to impose on social life. Consequently, the result is ‘a continuous process of formation and superseding of unstable equilibria … between the interests of the fundamental group and those of the subordinate groups’ (ibid.: 182).

The negotiated character of hegemony has ramifications for how we understand the positionality and agency of subaltern groups. In terms of positionality, the central point is that subaltern groups are embedded in socioeconomic relations, political institutions, and cultural forms that – despite concessions and compromises – buttress the reproduction of hegemony. The logical corollary of this is that subaltern agency will tend to proceed through contentious appropriations of what Adam Morton (2007: 92) has called ‘the social condensations of hegemony’ – that is, through hegemonic political institutions, discourses and processes, rather than at a distance from these (see Gramsci, 1971: 52-55; Green, 2002). The limitations and constrictions inherent to this experience may propel groups to develop forms of self-organization that are better suited to advance their interests. And crucially, autonomy, rather than being an intrinsic feature of subalternity, is an achievement – the outcome of struggle that ruptures hegemony and thus drives ‘the line of development towards integral autonomy’ (Gramsci, 1971: 52).

Subalterns and State Formation in Hegemonic Processes: Gramsci (1971: 260) noted that, in contrast to the ruling groups of previous eras, dominant groups under capitalism seek ‘to construct an organic passage from the other classes into their own’. The state plays a pivotal role in this process through institutions, discourses and technologies of rule that bring about ‘an increasingly more sophisticated internal articulation and condensation of social relations within a given state form’ (Thomas, 2009: 140). There are two points that should be noted in extension of this argument in terms of the dynamics of subaltern politics.

Firstly, it is precisely because of the construction of organic passages between dominant and subaltern groups that state formation as a master change process comes to articulate with the ‘local rationalities’ (Cox, 1999; Nilsen, 2009; Nilsen and Cox, 2013) that animate subaltern politics. As Corrigan and Sayer (1985: 4) point out, state formation is predicated on forms of ‘moral regulation’ that seek to regulate social life by propagating idioms that seek to give ‘unitary and unifying expression’ to inherently variegated experiences of social life. But as and when there is a dissonance between the ‘universalizing vocabularies’ (ibid.: 7) that are at the heart of bourgeois state formation and the lived experiences of subaltern groups, these vocabularies can easily become ‘sites of protracted struggle as to what they mean and for whom’ (ibid.: 6) as subaltern groups mobilize to contest their adverse incorporation in a given social formation. Secondly, because the state is congealed from social relations characterized by ‘compromise equilibrium’ (Gramsci, 1971: 161) between dominant and subaltern groups, there will also be ‘conjunctural opportunities’ (Jessop, 1982: 225) for such contestation to advance via the modalities of state power. However, the compromises that have been struck are always ones ‘in which the interests of dominant groups prevail’ (Gramsci, 1971: 182). This in turn means that conjunctural opportunities exist in dialectical tension with ‘structural constraints’ (Jessop, 1982: 225) – the state, in other words, ‘is an ensemble of power centres that offer unequal chances to different forces within and outside the system to act for different political purposes’ (Jessop, 2008: 37). The challenge before a historical-sociological approach to the study of subaltern politics is thus to trace the links between a specific set of state-society relations and the conflictual unfolding of capitalist development and state formation as master change processes in order to illuminate the achievements and limitations of particular trajectories of mobilization.

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[1] Some representive examples of this body of work include Heller (1999), Jaffrelot (2003), Desai (2007), Fuller and Harriss (2001), Corbridge, Williams, Srivastava and Véron (2005), Sharma (2009), Gupta (1995, 1998, 2001, 2012), Michelutti (2008), Madhok (2003, 2008, 2012), Williams, Vira and Chopra (2011).

[2] See Nilsen 2012c for a comprehensive discussion of these perspectives.

[3] In particular, Harriss and Fuller (2001), Corbridge et al. (2005), Gupta, (1995, 1998, 2001, 2012), Sharma (2008, 2009), Gupta and Sharma (2006, 2008) and Williams, Vira and Chopra (2011).

[4] See Nilsen (2012c) for a full discussion of what a historical sociology of state-society relations in the study of subaltern politics would look like.

Review of Adam Morton’s “State and Revolution in Modern Mexico”

Adam David Morton: Revolution and State in Modern Mexico: The Political Economy of Uneven Development

 

(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011; 301 pp: 9789742554894 (hbk) £49.95)

 

Reviewed by Alf Gunvald Nilsen, University of Bergen, Norway

 

First published in Capital and Class, October 2011

(http://cnc.sagepub.com/content/36/3/559.full.pdf+html?etoc)

 

In Revolution and State in Modern Mexico: The Political Economy of Uneven Development, Adam Morton has produced a study that is nothing short of seminal. Building a compelling theoretical dialogue between the revolutionary theories of Gramsci and Trotsky, Morton argues that ‘the struggle-driven course of uneven and combined development and modern state formation in Mexico can be best understood as a set of constructed and contested class practices characteristic of a passive revolution, that is, a condition in which capitalist development is either instituted and/or expanded, resulting in both a “revolutionary” rupture and a “restoration” of social relations’ (p. 4).

 

The first part of the book presents a magisterial map of the contested trajectory of Mexican state formation from the revolution of the early 20th century, via developmentalism centred on import substitution industrialisation (isi), to the contemporary regime of neoliberal capitalism.

 

In a context of long-standing feudal stagnation, the Mexican revolution of 1910 was ‘the first passive revolution of the twentieth century in Latin America’ (p. 47). Popular agency was a central driving force in the revolution, but its trajectory was ultimately defined by a state-directed expansion of capitalist relations of production. With the advent of Cardenismo, the project of national modernisation was expanded through a partial incorporation of peasants’ and workers’ organisations so as to ensure what Morton refers to as ‘a bourgeois minimal hegemony under the single state-party system’ (p. 58). In an effective analysis, the book brings out how the era of isi developmentalism witnessed a continued deepening of capitalist property relations, driven by a state that rapidly became ‘the fulcrum of capital accumulation’ (p. 67). Morton details the spatial unevenness of capitalist development across Mexico’s regions and argues that this period was one in which Mexico witnessed the emergence of a ‘state in capitalist society’ (p. 72) that – despite its limitations as a less than fully-functioning capitalist state – was capable of ‘tying the nurturing and consolidation of a national bourgeoisie to state intervention, within a world context dominated by foreign capital’ (p. 86).

 

Morton then details the unravelling of isi developmentalism and the onset of neoliberal restructuring – a process which finally brings about ‘a capitalist type of state’ (p. 76) in Mexico. A key feature of the analysis of this transition is the emphasis put on ‘the articulation of capitalism through multiscalar relations’ and the ways in which states come to function as ‘political nodes in the global flow of capital’ (p. 110). Developed through a critical engagement with William Robinson’s theory of the transnational state, Morton’s analysis is arguably at its finest and most significant in deciphering how the neoliberal turn was orchestrated by a Mexican technocratic elite that effectively internalised ‘certain transnational class interests’ and put the state to work in ‘producing the spatial configurations of the neoliberal accumulation process’ (p. 120). Attention is also given to how the ‘minimal hegemony’ of the Mexican state is reconfigured through, on one hand, a turn to more overt uses of coercion against oppositional elements and, on the other hand, anti-poverty programmes like the Programa Nacional de Solidaridad (pronasol), which displaced radical popular agency and modernised populism in a direction that was commensurable with the neoliberal policy regime.

 

Within the space of these three chapters, Morton has not only produced a rich and sophisticated analysis of the trajectory of state formation in postcolonial Mexico. He has also produced an exemplary approach to the study of development more generally. As Colin Leys (2009: 43) has noted, the study of development has increasingly been reduced to a ‘policy-oriented social science within the parameters of an unquestioned capitalist world order’. By bringing back in perspectives from critical historical sociology, Morton has provided significant resources for those who wish to shift the focus of attention of development research towards the contested political economy of this world order. As such, comparative work across the regions of the Global South, crafted according to the analytical mould that Morton constructs here, will doubtlessly be a highly fecund endeavour for critical students of global development.

 

The second part of the book presents three chapters that comment on and analyse different aspects of Mexican state formation: the literary work of author and public intellectual Carlos Fuentes; the democratic transition in Mexico in the 1980s and 1990s; and, finally, the Zapatista uprising.Drawing on the cultural and literary theory of Gramsci and Trotsky, Morton’s analysis of Carlos Fuentes focuses on how his work initially served a ‘critical social function’ that ‘highlighted how certain class forces thwarted the progressive aspects of the revolution to culminate in the reorganisation of capitalism of Mexico’ (p. 144).

 

This, of course, resonates with the wider theme of the blocked dialectic of revolution and restoration that is at the heart of passive revolution, but, as Morton points out, Fuentes has served this function in a contradictory and partial manner. His writing retains an elitist character in which the lifeworld and subjectivities of the masses remain opaque and distant. In other words, Fuentes and his work have, in Morton’s assessment, become ‘fully assimilated into the capitalist project’ (p. 158).

 

Morton moves on to discuss the end of one-party dominance in Mexico. As Morton makes clear, liberal theories of democratisation are flawed in a number of ways, and not least in terms of their disconnection from the ‘social power relations in which institutions are rooted: the very structures of power, authority, interests, hierarchies and loyalties that make up socioeconomic and cultural life’ (p. 172). As an alternative, Morton draws on William Robinson’s concept of ‘polyarchy’ – a form of low-intensity democracy – well suited for resolving conflicts between dominant groups, whilst avoiding the disruption of mobilisation from below. Calibrating the concept to capture the specificities of the Mexican context, Morton argues that the promotion of polyarchy can be discerned in substantial US funding of governance reforms and civil society organisations, as well as the value attributed to restricted popular participation in politics by some actors in this process. Not least, the internalisation of democratic discourses that can underpin ‘a neoliberal state attuned to establishing a series of mechanisms conducive to resolving disputes within the remit of a polyarchic system’ is highlighted (p. 191-2).

 

In the final part of the book, Morton turns to the Zapatista uprising. Analyzing ezln resistance in the context of uneven agrarian development, he articulates an important critique of Eric Hobsbawm’s theory of ‘the death of the peasantry’ by focusing on how the upsurge of popular struggle in the Chiapas highlands has to be understood in terms of ‘the constitution and reproduction of peasants through the dynamics of capital accumulation’ (p. 200). A particular virtue of the analysis is the fact that he inserts the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (ezln) into a specific regional context – a welcome change from the bland and disembodied bird’s-eyeview accounts of the Zapatista movement that are all too numerous in the literature on alterglobalisation, for example – in which forms and relations of production have been changing rapidly since the 1970s, and in turn giving rise to new forms of peasant organisation. Morton proceeds to show us the complex set of achievements and limitations of a movement that has activated both national and international civil society, vindicated indigenous peoples’ rights whilst simultanously moving beyond narrow ethnic claims, and campaigned for the deepening of democracy and new spatial forms of governance in Chiapas. In what is easily the most captivating part of the book from the point of view of understanding subaltern praxis, Morton provides an illuminating analysis of the ezln in terms of the workings of ‘the three spaces of its autonomous practice of resistance’ (p. 203) – namely, alternative economic organisation, educational projects, and healthcare provision. This dynamism, he argues, holds the potential to ‘propel new cycles of class struggle’ that may generate ‘new ways out of the structure of passive revolution’ (p. 250).

 

Yet it is precisely here that one possible criticism of the book emerges. And that is that the analysis would arguably have been further enhanced if it had delved even more deeply into the lifeworlds and struggles of subaltern groups as these have been constituted by and constitutive of the political economy of revolution, state formation and uneven development in modern Mexico. Morton presents a penetrating and valuable analysis of the accumulation strategies and hegemonic projects of dominant social groups, and deftly decodes the ways in which subaltern groups were woven into the ‘unstable equilibria’ (Gramsci 1971: 182) that undergirded these strategies and projects. However, the lived experiences of subalternity in Mexican capitalism – and the lived reality of the collective efforts to overcome this subalternity – remain somewhat muted throughout the book. This, however, is a very minor quibble in the face of what is, without a shadow of a doubt, a work of considerable and substantial merit. Revolution and State in Modern Mexico combines theoretical sophistication and innovation with a thoroughgoing understanding of empirical complexities in an analysis that, when it comes time to construct a canon of Marxist historical sociology, will sit comfortably and appropriately among the classics on whose insights it draws and to whose legacy it contributes.

 

References:

 

Gramsci A (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. and trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith. London: Lawrence and Wishart.Leys C (2009)  The Rise and Fall of Development Theory. Bloomington,  in: Indiana University Press.

 

Author biography

 

Alf Gunvald Nilsen is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Sociology, University of Bergen. His work focuses on social movements in the Global South and Marxian approaches to the study of global development. He is the author of Dispossession and Resistance in India: The River and the Rage (Routledge, 2010) – a comprehensive study of popular resistance to dam-building in the Narmada Valley, India.

Review of “Dispossession and Resistance in India: The River and the Rage”

A review of my book Dispossession and Resistance in India: The River and the Rage (Routledge, 2010) recently appeared in Economic and Political Weekly:

Resisting Development, Theorising Resistance

Vol – XLVII No. 33, August 18, 2012 | Budhaditya Das

Dispossession and Resistance in India: The River and the Rage by Alf Gunvald Nilsen (London and New ork: Routledge) 2010; pp 242, price not mentioned.

Budhaditya Das (das.budhaditya@gmail.com) is with the department of social work, University of Delhi.

Protests and social movements in opposition to developmental pro­jects, particularly those involving acquisition or transfer of agricultural/forestland, have become part of everyday politics and social reality in India. They have led to debates regarding the kind of development practices followed by the Indian state, the influence of neoliberalism on policymaking and discussions about issues of justice, efficiency and the role of the state in acquiring land (and other resources) for industrial purposes. There has been more focus on the causes and raison d’être of such protests, rather than a study of the “actors and authors” of these protests.¹ The book under review, Alf Gunvald Nilsen’s Dispossession and Resistance in India: The River and the Rage, bridges this significant gap by studying one of the most well-known anti-displacement struggles of the Global South, the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA). Although there is no dearth of scholarly or activist literature on the politics and political economy of dam-building on the Narmada River in central India, this book is an in-depth study of the anti-dam movement itself, the movement process, and how it came to be constituted through a long and complex procedure of interactions and negotiations between different groups, interests and demands.

Marxism and Social Movements

Based on ethnographic fieldwork and ­research in the Narmada Valley, the book is a valuable work of scholarship for another reason as well. It attempts to analyse the anti-dam movement using a Marxist theoretical framework, and works towards constructing a Marxist theory of social movements. Nilsen’s work makes two important contributions: first, in his own words, it tries to resolve the paradox that Marxism, a body of theory emanating from and crafted for proletarian struggles, does not possess a theory that explains the emergence, character and development of social movements (Nilsen 2009: 110). Second, it also contributes to the study of social movements in general, by offering an alternative to dominant North American and European social movement theories, whose insights are often of little relevance for the movements and movement actors. The author conceptualises social formations as “internally contradictory totalities that constantly undergo change as a result of contention between dominant and subaltern social groups over the structuration of needs and capacities” (pp 13-14). Social movements then are viewed as forces that can and do emanate from dominant as well as subaltern groups, referred to as “social movements from above” and ­“social movements from below”, respectively. This is a radical departure from the conventional understanding of ­social movements as a “collective, organised, sustained and non-institutional challenge to authorities, power holders, or cultural beliefs and practices” (Goodwin and ­Jasper 2003: 4). The merits of this depar­ture become apparent as Nilsen is able to locate both dam-building and the organi­sed resistance against it in the wider and contradictory processes of postco­lonial capitalism in India. What is not clear though is how the “dominant and subaltern social groups” referred to by him throughout the book correspond to the antagonistic economic classes of a ­Marxian framework, which are bound to each other by historically specific relations of production. Similarly, a discussion of how social movements from above and below are connected to class struggle, a central component of the Marxian understanding of social transformation, is conspicuously absent from the book.²

The Andolan: Location, Emergence and Transformation

The first chapter of the book introduces the quarter century-old conflict in the Narmada Valley, positions NBA firmly within India’s new social movements (NSMs) and presents the theoretical framework of the study. This two-sided framework, mentioned above, enables the author to analyse dam-building and the Narmada Valley Development Pro­ject as an expression of the interests of dominant groups in postcolonial India, and thus, an example of social movements from above. The NBA, hitherto studied only as an environmental movement or anti-displacement movement, is understood as a social movement from below, part of the social totality and a challenge articulated by the subaltern social groups.

In Chapter 2, the distributional biases of the costs and benefits associated with Sardar Sarovar Project and Maheshwar Hydroelectric Project (MHP), the two big and controversial dams on the Narmada River, are examined as a case of “accumulation by dispossesion” (Harvey 2005). Synthesising David Harvey’s well-known thesis with his own under­standing of social movements, the ­author argues that dam-building is an outcome of the collective action of dominant ­social groups: in this case, the agro-­industrial elites of central and southern ­Gujarat and the domestic and transnational corporations and financial institutions, who have also benefited from the privatisation of India’s power sector and the liberalisation of its financial sector. This is located within a broader narrative of postcolonial capitalism, which though brief, draws upon the work of scholars like Harvey, Partha Chatterjee, Sudipta Kaviraj, Francine Frankel, Vivek Chibber, Stuart Corbridge and John Hariss. The explanatory framework adop­ted is the “passive revolution of capital” in ­India after 1947, with state-directed planning acting as the chief instrument of accumulation for the holders of property rights, the industrial-commercial bourgeoisie and the rich peasantry. It is arguable though that any Marxian expla­nation of transition and postcolonial ­development in India ought to engage with and benefit from the modes of ­production debate that occur­red from the late 1960s to 1980s, which finds no ­mention here.

The third and fourth chapter discuss the decade of 1980s, and the emergence, politics and constituencies of local groups which ultimately went on to form the NBA in the riparian states of Gujarat, ­Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. In particular, Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath (KMCS), the adivasi organisation in Alirajpur, western Madhya Pradesh, is studied in detail through interviews with its activists and members. Nilsen’s work is notable for introducing concepts like “everyday tyranny” and “rightful resistance” to describe processes of criminalisation, denial of rights, state violence and confrontation which are familiar to all students of adivasi history in colonial and contemporary India. Other concepts have been used to analyse different phases of the movement, from demand for information about the dam projects to individual struggles for resettlement and rehabilitation, and the ways in which linkages were built between villages, and the anti-dam campaigns at the ­national and international level. The ideas presented hold promise for illuminating the strategies and trajectories of other protests and anti-displacement struggles as well, thus contributing to the theoretical literature on social movements.

Chapter 5 documents the process of how demands for adequate resettlement and implementation of state pro­mises eventually transformed into a pan-state anti-dam campaign, “embedded in a ­generic critique of dams as a ­development strategy” (p 108). That this was not a smooth or unilinear transition, and the fact that the Andolan had to ­negotiate between the pressures of urban-based activist groups and the ground ­realities of the movement, is pointed out with ­insight and sufficient nuance. The role of urban-educated acti­vists in building the anti-dam campaign in and beyond the Narmada Valley is brought out clearly in Nilsen’s research. The voices of activists, including Medha Patkar, Chittaroopa Palit and others, feature prominently in the book as there is an attempt to understand the critical role of “movement ­intellectuals”, especially in cons­tructing “counter-expertise as a discourse of ­resistance” (p 97). The discussion leads one to wonder about the part played by urban-educated activists in social movements in general, and its implications for the strategies and ideologies adopted by them. These difficult questions are dealt in subsequent chapters when the trajectory of the Andolan is traced in the last decade of the 20th century and its atte­mpt to put forward an alternative development as a social movement project underpinned by Gandhian philosophy and politics is critically examined.

Sardar Sarovar, Supreme Court and Jury Politics

Chapter 6 is devoted to understanding the reasons for the “defeat of the NBA’s campaign to stop the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP)” (p 117). The defeat, in this case, refers to the infamous judgment of the Supreme Court, delivered in 2000, when it ordered the completion of the SSP and accorded judicial legitimacy to the state’s strategy of big dams-as-­development. The public interest litigation filed by the Andolan, which resulted in this judgment, was a part of its decade-long effort to approach and agitate with various state actors and inter­national ­institutions to review and withdraw the project, a strategy referred to by the author as “jury politics”. The ­Andolan succeeded in forcing the World Bank to constitute an independent ­review and later withdraw funding from the SSP, but its appeal to the highest court of the country ended in failure and starkly revealed the limitations of jury politics. The tactics adopted during this phase, ranging from non-violent direct action (road blockades, hunger strikes) to activities like village non-cooperation and Jal Samarpan (voluntary drowning in the rising Narmada waters), have been analysed as symbolic-communicative practices of resistance (p 126). The author traces the genealogy of such tactics in India’s freedom struggle and Gandhian satyagraha, and outlines their ­efficacy in providing moral force, legitimacy and a distinctive position to the ­Andolan ­vis-à-vis the state as well as ­other movements.

However, the focus of the chapter is the Andolan’s shift to “jury politics” in this phase, its positive results and negative outcomes, and the resultant debates. For social movement praxis in India, this debate is of considerable importance, since most movements for the defence of rights and protection of entitlements are confronted with the choice of devoting their resources, skills and energies to appro­aching judicial and quasi-judicial institutions (for example, the recently constituted National Green Tribunal) or towards mass mobilisation, although these are not exclusive binaries. Jury politics in the form of public hearings and independent tribunals, wherein documentary evidence and oral testimonies are presented to a committee of experts and specialists (including retired judges and bureaucrats) for their verdict, is a common strategy among social move­ment groups today. Nilsen demonstrates how the NBA’s decision to app­roach the judiciary in 1994 was influenced by the limits of its capa­city for mass mobilisation, the inadequate results of village-based symbolic-communicative protests as well as the perceived “activist” orientation of the Supreme Court at that time. The awareness that judicial autonomy is relative and circumscribed by the nature of state power, which, in turn, is determined by the outcome of struggles bet­ween dominant and subaltern social groups, can enable movements to exp­lore possibilities of acting through the state and its agencies while being conscious of the limits to such possibilities.

While discussing the Andolan’s failure (in stopping the SSP), Nilsen compares it with the “relatively successful” experience of KMCS in Alirajpur. The reason for this, he argues, is that KMCS was ­enga­ged “in a local struggle” for customary, civil and political rights of adivasis to which “the higher echelons of the state-system could concede without undermining its own authority”. In contrast, the campaign against the SSP was a systemic challenge, which directly attacked the interests of proprietary elites of south and central Gujarat, critiqued the wider model of development and sought to build a nationwide alliance around this critique (p 144). Thus, “the intended ends of the campaign were too radical relative to the means through which they were pursued” (p 119, ­emphasis mine). Now, the measure to which the state has conceded the rights of adivasis is a ­matter of debate, especially when we consider the experiences of adivasi and forest dwellers’ organisations in Madhya Pradesh and elsewhere. Also, the characterisation of KMCS as a local struggle as distinguished from the structural challenge posed by the NBA, perhaps, overlooks how both movements, in different ways, have asserted the rights of adivasis and local communities over ­water, forest and land resources. Indeed, this has become a common rallying point for many social movements across the country today, struggling against dams, special economic zones, industrial pro­jects and ­unjust forest laws with varying degrees of successes.

Prospects and Limitations of Alternative Politics

Chapters 7 and 8 examine the campaign against the MHP, the role of Nimadi farmers and women in this campaign, the attempts at alliance building and alter­native development (Nav Nirman) undertaken by the Andolan, and the connections between India’s new social movements and its postcolonial development project. Nilsen takes up crucial questions regarding the relationship of the anti-dam movement with wider struggles against globalisation, caste, class and gender.

Anti-displacement move­ments often represent the interests of landowners in villages and are led by sections of rich and middle peasantry, as in the case of the anti-dam campaign against MHP. To what extent can such movements ­address inequalities and ­discrimination in other realms? What could be their possible role in an agenda for a radical social change? These questions assume importance in view of the peasant protests for higher monetary compensation or against land alienation due to special economic zones, expressways and other infrastructure projects, which have become the key markers in the struggles against neo-liberalism in India.

They are especially important for NSMs like the NBA and alliances like ­National Alliance of People’s Movements, which seek to challenge the postcolonial development project through imagining and articulating socially just “alternatives to development”. In the case of the campaign against MHP, although the participation of influential rich peasantry of the Nimad region expedited the protest mobilisation, it also reinforced the caste and class divisions of the region and created a core-periphery structure in the campaign, with the dalit and landless ­labourers remaining at its margins. Nilsen attributes this neglect of inter- and intra-group divisions partly to the kisan consciousness of leading village ­activists in Nimad, which ignores such divisions within rural communities, and partly to the exigencies of the anti-dam campaign. In this case, it would perhaps also have been useful to cast a critical gaze at Gandhian politics, which has i­nfluenced much of the ­Andolan’s ­meth­ods of resistance, to understand the ­(relative) lack of emphasis upon ­redis­tribution and inversion of hierarchies ­within communities.

For Nilsen, as well as scholars like ­Amita Baviskar, the contradictions ­bet­ween ­Nimadi farmers and adivasis, ­between landowners and the labourers, between the ideals of environmental sustain­ability and the reality of commercial agriculture in Nimad, represent the limitations of the Andolan’s movement project. In his words, “the claims for social justice cannot simply be directed outward; they are equally valid vis-à-vis relations and practices of caste and class internal to and between the commu­nities…” (p 182). The question that then confronts such movements in the long run is how can relationships of ­exploitation and dominance within a movements’ heterogeneous mass base be ­challenged and overturned, while maintaining a united front against a common enemy?

The other significant issue raised by Nilsen in the penultimate chapter (Chapter 8) is regarding the nature and politics of “alternative development” put forward by NSMs like NBA. Here, he ­disagrees with anti-development critics like Arturo Escobar, Vandana Shiva and ­Gustavo Esteva, as well as the Andolan itself, who argue that the new social movements have rejected development completely and are searching for or are creating alternatives to development. Like Sinha (2003: 307) has argued in the context of the Chipko movement in ­Uttarakhand that it “operated within the accumulation-legitimisation dialectic of development planning rather than outside it”, Nilsen too argues that the ­community development efforts of the Andolan are not completely at odds with the parameters of Nehruvian nation-­building or present state claims of participatory development. Social movements from below like the NBA, in his view, constitute an immanent challenge to the postcolonial development project because they arise from its internal contradictions.³ They reclaim and reinvent, rather than reject, the idioms and practices of this project to favour the experiences and aspirations of subaltern groups. To the extent that this does not take into account the divisions within and among these groups and sets up simplistic binaries (like elite/people), it remains a project of “oppositional populism” (pp 178-81).

One of the constraining factors of the movement, pointed out by Nilsen, is the discrepancies between the articulations of movement intellectuals (and leaders) and the subjective understandings of different groups within the movement. Although he argues this only in the context of the claim of alternative development, it would be useful to extend this discussion to the principles, strategies and methods of the Andolan. Nilsen ­argues correctly that processes through which movements are produced are too complex for simplistic binaries of ­“imposed” or “organic” ideologies. And yet, one wonders to what extent do the ideologies of movement intellectuals, in this case urban, educated activists (many of whom were social workers and action researchers committed to Gandhian ­politics), determine the strategies and course adopted by a social movement? And how can this be related to democratic ­decision-making within move­ments for participatory democracy and social justice? The description of move­ment process by Nilsen as a journey where activists “start from the inside and work their way out” (p 193), i e, a move from concrete lifeworlds of people to an abstract conception of the social totality, begs this question: do not acti­vists already possess a conception of social totality when they begin to intervene in everyday routines and struggles to build a social movement project? How does this initial perception then affect and impinge upon the movement ­pro­cess ­itself? Nilsen’s work is admirable ­because it creates the possibility of raising such questions through its insights and detail, questions that maybe considered by scholars with respect to other social movements, and that maybe of some ­relevance to movement participants.

Some Questions

Perhaps the most important theme that recurs through the book is the relationship between social movements from ­below and the state. The Andolan serves as the perfect site for investigating this, since it has consistently engaged with the state, through dialogue, protest and negotiations, in the attempt to make it abide by its own promises and consti­tutional obligations. Reflecting on the ­experiences of KMCS and the Andolan, Nilsen asks himself again and again: to what extent can the goals of social movements be achieved by acting through the state, its agencies, institutions and ideo­logies? (p 148). His answer, in the concluding chapter of the book, is that there are possibilities as well as limits to ­subaltern empowerment within India’s ­polity. Therefore, he argues, that it is “necessary to steer a strategic course ­between anti-statism on the one hand, and state-centrism on the other…”, to have an “instrumental rather than a committed engagement with the state-system”, to interact with and approach the state based on limited expectations of what can be gained, a clear perception of what cannot, and the potential risks of pur­suing this avenue (p 200). This is sound advice for social movements, ­especially those that place dispro­portionate ­emphasis on constitutional promises, ­judicial redressal and ameliorative ­legislations.

However, several questions arise from the prospect and experience of “instrumental engagement” with the state. What happens when state institutions, on their part, appropriate the spaces and oppositional projects of social movements from below? How do configurations ­between state and social movements change, when the demands of the latter are recognised, conceded and institutionalised in the form of legislations like Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled ­Areas) Act 1996, Right to Information Act 2005 and the Scheduled Tribe and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006? Can the discourse of rights-based governance be utilised to advance the projects of ­social movements without succumbing to state-centrism? Anti-displacement stru­ggles and alliances like NAPM are confronted with these questions at a time when the century-old law on land acqui­sition is about to be scrapped and a new, “more progressive, rights-based” law on acquisition, resettlement and ­rehabilitation is on the anvil.⁴ Nilsen’s research paves the way for exploring these questions from the point of view of ­social movements which share the agenda of social transformation.

In the end, Nilsen reminds us that the possibility of radical social change ultimately lies in building alliances between different social movements, in developing a capacity for counter-hegemony and posing systemic challenges to the present socio-historical totality. As he notes, the material basis for such alliances has been created in the present neo-liberal phase by locating “diverse processes of dispossession within the framework of primitive accumulation” (p 201). How far such alliances materialise and succeed will determine the future course of India’s development and its outcomes for the oppressed and struggling groups of the country.

Notes

1 The phrase has been borrowed from Nilsen (2009).

2 This is attempted by the author elsewhere (Nilsen 2009), but is not present in the book under review.

3 The fact that the need for social justice, environmental sustainability and participatory ­democracy have arisen as part of the project of development, and yet cannot be satisfied ­within its present framework, is identified as one of the main contradictions.

4 The example can be extended to other spheres as well, as in the case of extractive mining in adivasi areas where there is a pending proposal for sharing of 25% profits of mining companies with local communities.

References

Goodwin, Jeff and James M Jasper (2003): “Introduction” in Goodwin, Jeff and James M Jasper (ed.), The Social Movements Reader: Cases and Concepts (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers).

Harvey, David (2005): A Brief History of Neolibera­lism (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Nilsen, Alf Gunvald (2009): “The Authors and the Actors of Their Own Drama: Towards a Marxist Theory of Social Movements”, Capital and Class, No 99, Autumn, pp 109-39.

Sinha, Subir (2003): “Development Counter-Narratives: Taking Social Movements Seriously” in K Sivaramakrishnan and A Agrawal (ed.), ­Regional Modernities: The Cultural Politics of Development in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press)

Link to the review: http://www.epw.in/book-reviews/resisting-development-theorising-resistance.html