Alberta Strong and Free: The effect of oil on political narratives

by Cai Williams

I sure hope none of you were wasting your time following the Alberta provincial election earlier this year. I, however, was biting my nails at the contest, a potentially historic moment in the history of Alberta’s political development, yet one that may also reveal shifts and nuances in global understandings of political labels.

Okay, maybe I should get a life and tell you about the Potlatch instead. Having said that, Alberta is actually pretty important, and here’s why.

Alberta is home to the infamous Athabasca oil sands and contains within its borders the 2nd largest recoverable oil reserves on the planet. Alberta has become something of a punching bag for environmentalists, and with good reason. For those who are engaged in university-level politics, Alberta represents what may well be your nemesis on more or less every issue. Alberta is neoliberal, inefficient, polluting, conservative, extremist, patriarchal (Van Herk, 2010) and anything else you can fit under a wide prairie sky. However, as anthropologists, I’m sure it goes without saying that this picture is too black and white. In fact, as I will argue, some of it’s downright wrong.

Western Canada, like the western USA, is a land of straight lines. Lines which at once mean nothing, and everything. Alberta is a province that was created, somewhat arbitrarily, in 1905, by the Canadian federal government. It is distinguished as its own province from Saskatchewan, the North-West Territories, and Montana by three straight lines. The existence of an Albertan provincial, even at times national, identity is testament to the fact that even when political entities seem to have been artificially created by a few people in positions of power, the bonds of shared experience lead to real feelings of affiliation and identity which reconstruct those same arbitrary borders as cultural and even ethnic divisions.

As if by accident, Alberta is a land blessed and cursed by its plentiful natural resources. The discovery of oil at the Leduc No.1 well in 1947 spearheaded the solidification of the province’s identity and politics, allowing for political and financial realities that don’t exist anywhere else in Canada. These realities lead many within and sometimes without Alberta to have unrealistic expectations of other economies.

 Alberta is stereotyped as a conservative province, this we know. However, this stereotype is fundamentally incorrect, and not just for the simple reason that it is rarely correct to say that X region is politically conservative or liberal or whatever. In terms of policy specifics, Albertans regularly display strong support for high levels of social spending, as well as socially liberal policies such as support for gay marriage above the levels of many European countries. According to a poll for the CBC, 78% think more should be done to reduce the gap between rich and poor. Calgary and Edmonton are both cosmopolitan cities with a similar proportion of visible minorities to London. One of the most popular Alberta premiers in (its admittedly short) history was Peter Lougheed (1971-1985), who was a Progressive Conservative, and yet who nationalized an airline in an attempt to diversify the economy, created a sovereign wealth fund similar to the Norwegian model, and drastically raised royalty rates, to the chagrin of private oil companies. This is far to the left of anything that the modern day left wing would dare to do. 

And yet, most Albertans are described as ‘fiscally conservative’, which means they favour balanced budgets. What gives this aversion to debt its special vigour in Alberta is not just Alberta’s agrarian nature and historical cultural ties to the libertarian Western USA, but it is also the product of the ways in which individual premiers and ministers of finance manipulated the provincial budget to realize the dream of a debt free province.

 In Alberta it is politically toxic to suggest raising taxes. This toxicity is partially explained by the idea of the Alberta Advantage, a combination of low taxes and high spending that is only possible with a ready supply of easy money from oil and gas royalties. This policy’s principal exponent was former premier, ‘King Ralph’ Klein (1993-2006), a man largely responsible for the stereotype of the bombastic, macho, conservative Albertan.  By the end of his mandate, oil and gas royalties constituted 40% of all government revenue, while provincial income taxes were levied at a flat rate of 10% for all earners (unthinkable in other provinces). All the while, Alberta had some of the highest social spending in Canada. This set of policies created unrealistic expectations of what is fiscally possible.

In the recent Alberta election, the premier-elect Jason Kenney campaigned on a promise to both eliminate the deficit and implement a 9% flat tax rate, however with only marginal spending reductions on ‘efficiencies’. All this sounds very neoliberal, and you’d be right. However we must remember that Kenney was not necessarily elected for his policies. Kenney was elected mainly because outgoing Premier Rachel Notley was not seen as having been tough enough on the federal government, supposedly resulting in the Trans Mountain pipeline, touted as Alberta’s economic saviour, being delayed. Kenney, due to his pugnacious and populist style of rhetoric, was seen as the only credible option on this file. The carbon tax and the perceived need for its abolition was also a hugely important issue, and Jason Kenney was the only viable candidate promising its abolition. All this has little to do with political philosophy. Albertans seem to like to characterize themselves as practical people at heart, who see the word ‘ideological’ as an insult. As such it should come as no surprise that the political philosophy of Albertan politicians should be so far removed from the concerns of large numbers of voters.

This bizarre fiscal reality therefore has the effect of consolidating Alberta’s borders, arbitrary though they are, as borders of economic rationality in the face of the external threat of chaotic, debt-fuelled liberalism found in the rest of Canada, especially the East. These circumstances have also had the effect of reinforcing the feeling that Canada or the federal government act as constraints on Alberta’s (and Western Canada’s) economic development. 

 One of the more bizarre implications of Alberta’s wealth is its undercurrent of nationalism. There have been two moments in history in which Alberta separatism became a serious political possibility. The first was in 1982, during an oil price crash which left many unemployed, and some homeless.  The culprit was a decline in the oil price internationally, after the province had got accustomed to the boom in the wake of the 1973 Yom Kippur war, and OPEC’s decision to hike prices. The policy which received a large part of the blame, however, was the decision of then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to implement a National Energy Policy (NEP), which forced Alberta to sell its oil to Eastern Canada below market rates. The second moment came in the aftermath of the 2014 oil bust. Once again, the culprit was a decline in the international price of oil. Once again, it was a piece of policy made at home, the carbon tax, which got the blame. And of course, it doesn’t help that the current prime minister is Pierre Trudeau’s son.

We can therefore see how Alberta’s nationalism comes alive at times when Eastern Canada is perceived as a hindrance to Alberta’s interests, especially to the ability of the oil industry to survive. Albertan populists are therefore required to ‘stand up’ to anyone jeopardizing the industry, be they liberal policymakers in Ottawa, environmentalists campaigning against the oil sands, or neighbouring provinces trying to block the construction of export pipelines. Alberta nationalism is thus economically based, and strongly linked to one industry. Anybody seeking to negotiate with Alberta is therefore going to have to accept this political and cultural reality for the time being. My worry for the present is what this means for the thousands of Albertans who don’t have anything to do with the oil industry, for those in the burgeoning tech sector, for those who, in the wake of the crisis, retrained as windfarm technicians, and for those cycling from Calgary to Ottawa to protest the lack of action on climate change. My worry for the future is what happens to Alberta’s sense of itself when the economy shifts from fossil fuels, and international investors look at Alberta’s oil, conclude that it’s too deep or too unconventional to extract economically, then turn around and ride off down to the Permian basin. Alberta’s arbitrariness allows Alberta to experiment with its identity, however it also doesn’t give a lot of guidance. Alberta, without a sustainable oil industry, may have very little to fall back on culturally, at least for now.

REFERENCES

• CBC news (2019) Activist and her dog set off on walk from Alberta to Ottawa to demand climate action (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/climate-change-walk-calgary-ottawa-1.5105674) (22/04/2019)

• CBC news (2018) Albertans aren’t as conservative as you might think, poll suggests (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/albertans-not-conservative-road-ahead-survey-1.4639232) (21/04/2019)

• Global News (2017) Helicopter pilot opens up about Jane Fonda’s oilsands tour: ‘she was being given so much misinformation’(https://globalnews.ca/news/3180460/helicopter-pilot-opens-up-about-jane-fondas-oilsands-tour-she-was-being-given-so-much-misinformation/) (22/04/2019)

• Global news (2019) Kenney’s threat to ‘turn off the taps’ to B.C. ‘doesn’t make any business sense’: experts  (https://globalnews.ca/news/5172942/jason-kenney-trans-mountain-pipeline-bc/) (22/04/2019)

• Palmer, Howard; Palmer, Tamara (1982) The Alberta Experience in Journal of Canadian Studies 

• Rocky Mountain Outlook (2019) UCP leader Jason Kenney prepared to hold referendum over equalization payments (https://www.rmoutlook.com/article/ucp-leader-jason-kenney-prepared-to-hold-referendum-over-equalization-payments-20190314) (22/04/2019)

• Van Herk, Aritha (2001) Aggravating, Awful, Awkward, Awesome Alberta in Mavericks: An Incorrigible History of Alberta

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Paving the way for a post-racial France : Interview with Rokhaya Diallo

by Anton Mukhamedov

The concept of race will never not arouse heated debate in France, where just in July of this year the National Assembly removed the word itself from the Constitution.

From the perspective of French republican universalism, for all French nationals to be treated as citizens with equal rights, their ‘particular’ characteristics, such as ethnicity or gender, must be omitted, rendered invisible, which justifies an official ban on ethnic statistics.

Yet, French national identity is inextricably linked to the social construct of race, whether we are talking of systemic racism,—the denouncing of which cost activist, researcher and journalist Rokhaya Diallo her place at the French Digital Council—the police violence against the non-white population of the suburban neighbourhoods, or the nation’s attitude to their diverse football team.

So when I met Rokhaya Diallo in Paris as she welcomed the arrival of a solidarity walk heading from the French border with Italy to Calais, we talked about making French identity more inclusive at a time when Emmanuel Macron’s government is increasingly reneging on its progressive promises.

Anton Mukhamedov: In 2010, you co-authored the “Call for a Multicultural and a Post-racial Republic” with public personalities including retired football champion Lilian Thuram. Will solida-rity with migrants who arrive to France to escape political violence or poverty help pave the way towards such a republic?

Rokhaya Diallo: These mobilisations certainly lead up to that ideal, which conceives of France as a multicultural nation. This country is composed of all of the descendants of the historical waves of immigration, whether those were forced or voluntary. There has been immigration caused by slavery which has nourished the Carribean territories and today—continental France.

A post-racial France will be that nation for which the racial divides won’t carry the same meaning that was historically attributed to them. So we are certainly on a path feeding that ideal.

If you had to write a similar call or manifesto today, would you change anything in the original text?

Diallo: I believe that the hundred proposals which we formulated at the time with public personalities of all different walks of life are as relevant today. Unfortunately, we have even regressed on certain subjects: some views audible back then are today completely unthinkable, inconceivable even. Eight years after its original publication, this call is still as meaningful and I would advise everyone to re-read it.

What are you referring to when you say that we have regressed on certain issues? Islamophobia?

Diallo: Islamophobia has become a central and an obsessive topic,—which is sad, really. Several of our proposals back in the day were related to that. Perhaps as a society, we progressed on the question of media representation [of ethnic and racial minorities], but not significantly so.

Your call was published at the time of Barack Obama’s election in 2008. Today, with Donald Trump empowering white supremacists across the Atlantic, do you believe this echoes any transformations of the French society?

Diallo: There is an echo, which is the fear of a “great replacement”. Indeed, there is this fear that between 2040 and 2050 white people will have become a minority in the US. The fear of becoming a minority has expressed itself in Donald Trump’s election,—so basically, a response to that of Obama.

In today’s France, those who talk about closing all borders, who sometimes actually go out on boats to prevent migrants from coming, demonstrate that they’re afraid of being invaded and replaced by the people who they consider are strangers to the nation. The boats [of these identitarian groups] are financed through crowdfunding, and some funds are coming from the U.S. So there is a pretty explicit ideological convergence.

How can we counter this movement, apart for demonstrating in the streets?

Diallo: Mobilisations don’t only take place in the streets. There are those who help in very concrete ways by hosting migrants at home or by helping and supporting them in other ways. In certain cases, this may lead to confrontations with the judiciary [interviewer’s note: such as when Amnesty volunteer Martine Landry was arrested in summer 2018 for helping underage migrants cross the French-Italian border]. In my view, such actions are fundamental.

When it comes to public personalities such as myself, who appear in the media a bit more often, not only do we have to continue to bring the issue up, but we must also write about it, document it and try to be physically present at events such as this solidarity walk. Walking is a very simple form of mobilisation, but it still works and can attract public and media attention.

In 2017, the government removed you from the National Digital Council (an advisory council on digital development) just a week following your nomination. To what would you attribute this back-lash?

Diallo: In France, it’s very difficult for a black woman to be accepted in an official institution while denouncing institutional racism, even on a purely voluntary basis. France is not fully ready to let minorities freely discuss all social issues. I believe that my speech was rejected not just because of the contents of the speech itself, but because such a speech was formulated by a black person.

Do you believe that the government of Emmanuel Macron has regressed on the issue of racial equality?

Diallo: Let’s just say that from the start, there was a lie: we have a president who presented himself as a progressive and who is—when it comes to immigration at least—responsible for the harshest policy since the end of the Second world war. When Macron travelled to the U.S., his immigration policy was even [praised by Trump], as in ac-cordance with Trump’s own. Let’s not forget that Trump is capable of separating families at the borer, using parents’ attachment to their children to dissuade migrants from coming to the U.S.

Last May, a TV appearance of veiled student union leader Maryam Pougetoux provoked a scandal, and the then-Minister of the Interior tweeted outrage at her veil. How can we counter these negative representations of French Muslims?

Diallo: This polemic mostly ridiculed the people who started it. Maryam Pougetoux was elected to her position as student union president and is therefore fully legitimate to express hersef in the name of her organisation.

There really is a generational divide between these fifty-year olds who had nothing better to do other than post photos of a nineteen-year-old on Facebook and a more progressive, young generation of her student union, for whom the legitimacy of Maryam Pougetoux is not even in question. She is a student, she won her union’s elections, so for them, she’s legitimate and this is not even subject to a debate!

Even though many young people join the far right, there are lots of others who see things very differently.

Photo credits : Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images

Recognising the Shared Similarities in Eurasian History and Culture

by Bingxing Liu

The continental term “Eurasia” has become ever more strange to us. It is rarely mentioned in news or schools and the term is itself becoming ever more ambiguous. Geographically speaking, Eurasia is a mega continental block, which is shared between continental Asia and Europe. Yet, there are no physical boundaries to separate Asia and Europe. Perhaps due to its given ambiguity in both geographical and historical sense, the article aims to use this particular example to discuss how differences have been drawn out to make Europe distinct from Asia. In doing so, such analysis can lack the nuances derived from treating the similarities and differences of the two continents equally and thus may propose some very interesting questions.  

One of the most cited differences between Asia and Europe is that the latter has experienced Renaissance between 14th – 17th century.  Some suggest this phenomenon is unique to Europe. It led Europe into intellectualisation and secularisation which gave raise to capitalism and modern science. However, this claim ignored the interrelated nature of Eurasia at this point of history. For example, Europe benefitted significantly from the Chinese invention of paper. The invention fastened the process of academic discussions and the establishment of schools in the Renaissance period. Moreover, there was continuous trade between Asiatic cities and Europe since the Roman period, such as from the ports in Palmyra and Apamea. The trade also included imports from India and China, which made use of human labour such as artists and doctors. The Renaissance was influenced much by the imports of arts, knowledge and culture from the Eastern countries as much as by the scientific experimentation back home. 

“American Gothic” | Source: Wikipedia

Critically, Max Weber explained in his profound book “The Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism” how Europe reached capitalism development before other continents on Earth. The claim must be credited for its verstehen method which draws inference and observation from real life samples to examine an ideal model and theory. Simplistically, Weber suggests the rise of capitalism, industrial revolution, rationality and scientific development was due to the ethics of Protestantism in Europe. It is debatable whether this is the case given that the rise of capitalism reduced the numbers of the Protestant church. Also, it is clear that Weber mostly assumed the feelings of anxiety he claimed were spread among the Protestants of Europe, especially with his analysis’ lack of ethnographic evidence. And when Weber assessed the mercantile and commercial activities in Asian towns, they were dismissed as being insignificant. On the contrary, historical scripts have shown that in Sung and Qing dynasty of China, the bureaucratic officials had actively engaged in financial and commercial affairs during both their time in office and in retirement. This emphasis on Europe’s capitalist development by Weber should make one wonder what were the similarities or differences in the Asian towns’ commercial affairs which later turned out to be different from Europe’s history. Perhaps, the distinctive difference between the Europe and Asia is more nuanced than what has been suggested, after all.

The consequence of thinking predominately and narrowly about the developments in the continent of Europe runs the risk of ignoring the similarities between Europe and other continents or exaggerating the differences between Europe and other continents. Thus, it leads to situations such as the Needham’s problem. Joseph Needham was a biochemist, historian and sinologist. He studied Chinese early inventions and scientific knowledge extensively, as well as its civilisation. Needham’s question in his own words is as below:

“Why did modern science, the mathematisation of hypotheses about Nature, with all its implications for advanced technology, take its meteoric rise only in the West at the time of Galileo [but] had not developed in Chinese civilisation or Indian civilisation?” (1)

However, what Needham assumed was that China is a timeless civilisation and it was largely untouched by capitalism in the past, even though Needham saw inexplicable evidence of the commercial and financial affairs that took place in Chinese towns. He further assumed that capitalism and modern science development appeared mutually. One does not occur without another. Thus, for China, a modern scientific revolution did not happen. This, however, is of course oversimplifying the situation. Jack Goody in his book called ‘Theft of History’ suggests that the Chinese agricultural system was already successful in feeding its population. Therefore, a scientific development would be redundant for this matter. The more interesting question would be if scientific revolution was really sought in the Antiquity of China and what were the developments in response. The answer has been explored and it certainly will complicate history, which adds nuances in our understanding of the differences between Europe and Asian civilisations such as China. 

Source: Say What?

Another risk for exaggerating the differences between Europe and others is that we end up overly simplifying our understanding of ourselves. For example, sociologist Norbert Elias claimed in his influential book “The Civilising Process” that rationality, emotional restraint and control were the key ideas which changed sociality after the Medieval - Feudal period. However, his argument denies that rationality and emotional management exist in a much ‘simpler society’, which was reflected in his fieldwork in Ghana. In fact, Evans-Pritchard’s ethnography on the Azande in South Sudan suggests that rationality and emotional restraints appear in situations such as witchcraft. The Azande, of course, do not believe that witches actually exist but witchcraft does. It is used to explain the coincidences and unexplainable events. For example, one of the events mentioned in Pritchard’s writings is that of a person walking into the stumble on the floor, despite being very careful and having already spotted the stump on the floor. Azande appreciate rationality and causation, especially when something goes wrong, they look for other reasons such as taboos, moral rules and sorcery. Only when someone has been careful and followed lessons from trial and errors, but still ended up in failure, the causation is contributed to witchcraft. As Evans-Pritchard said this is ‘rational appreciation of nature’. Thus, rationality or emotional restraints can exist in many forms and ways. The study of other cultures such as Azande in Africa shows there is much similarity between us and them. The similarity, in return, demonstrates a more nuance understanding of ourselves and of our situations.

Conclusively, Eurasia is a continental space shared closely between Asia and Europe, yet a historical social construct suggests Asia and Europe to be different and two separate continents. Though much of the differences between the two continents are valid, there are also similarities between the two continents which should not be ignored. The same is true with cultures in Africa and Europe. The comparative study between countries of either Eurasia or other continents adds nuances to our understanding of history and pose a variety of interesting questions. We should aim to treat all cultures as having the same value and when differences between societies get exaggerated, we may be at risk of accepting a skewed version of history. 

(1) Joseph Needham (1969). The Grand Titration: Science and Society in East and West.  

References

​Elias, N. (2000). The civilizing process : sociogenetic and psychogenetic investigations (Rev.ed ed.). (J. G. Eric Dunning, Ed.) Oxford : Blackwell. 

Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1976). Witchcraft, oracles, and magic among the Azande . Oxford : Clarendon Press . 

Goody, J. (2006 ). The Theft of History . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press .

Weber, M. (2003). The Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism . New York : Dover Publication.

A Marxist Analysis of the Recent Political Turmoil in Hong Kong

Source: Time’s Twitter Account.

Hong Kong, a place generally thought of as the Oriental Pearl, has suffered from unrest and disorder in recent years. The most famous of these movements is the Umbrella Movement of 2014, which made the cover of Time magazine. Several subsequent, but lesser known examples would include a somewhat violent attempt to interfere with Legislative Council proceedings and the ‘Fishball Revolution” in Mong Kok. Many of these movements were caused by dissatisfaction with the Chinese authorities’ suspected infiltrations of local politics, e.g. the Umbrella Movement was a response against suspected Chinese influences in local election laws. While many believe the recent chaos has been caused by a standoff between the Chinese authorities and the Hong Kong locals, this might not necessarily be the case. To give a brief background of this tension, Hong Kong was ceded to the British for over a hundred years following China’s defeat in the Opium Wars. Upon its return to the Chinese government in 1997, Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region with its own set of laws, allowing it to remain capitalist and democratic even if the Chinese Republic is supposedly socialist and authoritarian. A diachronic analysis of the situation would point to the fact that the chaos and disorder in Hong Kong in recent years, contrary to public understanding, is not so much a battle between the Chinese government (or its allies) and the Hong Kong locals, but more of a battle between ideologies—a battle between neoliberalism and the desire for a welfare government.

One glance at the last Policy Address sheds light on the government’s neoliberal leanings. Housing, a top concern of the society, and justly so considering how Hong Kong has consistently topped the charts when it comes to rents (in some analysis even higher than London, see Business Insider, UK, 2017), has been dealt with in an alarmingly Thatcher-like fashion by the government. Instead of building more affordable housing, the government proposes incentives for the middle-class to buy off public housing. In the contemporary development trend of ‘self-help’ and the hands-off tendency of governments all over the world (Elyachar, 2002), this again shows how powerful neoliberalism has become. As Wacquant (2008) has analysed, a punitive turn usually follows an invasion by neoliberalism. Movements are termed as riots even when they are largely peaceful, and protesters are increasingly brought to court. Police arrests become tools of punishment, an end in itself instead of means (Fassin, 2015), as evident in the battering of the Pro-democracy protester Tsang by seven police officers. Public sentiment turns increasingly nostalgic of the golden years at the end of the 20th Century, when the government provided basic necessities and opportunities were plenty. Many more exhibitions are held showcasing old crafts, old buildings and old ways of life, which is common among areas that have experienced a neoliberal turn, such as in post-Fordist Italy (Muehlebach, 2011), though in Hong Kong this nostalgia is manifested in a more straightforward, artistic way.

A screenshot of the Hong Kong news report on TV, showing several police officers kicking and beating protestor, Tsang. Source: Hong Kong Economic Times

This conflict between neoliberalism and a desire for welfare lies not only within the government—between the pro-Beijing camp and the pro-democracy camp—but also embodied within many citizens. People fight for more welfare and more rights, which they believe should have been promised to them by ‘democracy’, but are at the same time seriously offended when their economic interests are disrupted. My parents, to cite an example, agreed with the students’ fight for democracy during the Umbrella Movement, but condemned them for blocking the roads— as Girling et. al has written, “understanding without condoning was a common refrain” (1998: 484). However, there are practical difficulties for the government to do both at the same time: to retain minimal government intervention (put down during the colonial years by Sir Philip Haddon-Cave and enshrined in the government’s administrative guide ever since), and to provide extensive welfare. As many keen to travel would know, Hong Kong’s sales tax is close to non-existent; and we offer some of the most generous income and corporate tax rates in the developed world (KPMG, 2018). A major part of the government’s income thus comes from land sales, and for the government to maintain a steady stream of revenue it cannot allocate too much land to the building of public housing. When it was done, the results were disastrous—property prices dropped for over 70% from 1997 to 2003, leaving the property-holding middle-class in desperation. In other words, extensive welfare is essentially incompatible to a big market in Hong Kong. To simply accuse the government of kowtowing to big corporate interests when it sells land to luxury property developers to build villas would be like blaming the South African governments for the bad structural decisions made in New York (Elyachar, 2002). The government is but a scapegoat for neoliberalism, and along that line, we are all complicit in upholding and maintaining the neoliberal discourse.

I am certainly not saying that the government has been completely blameless, and I believe some degree of naiveté is involved in its operation. Its way of dealing with dissidents reflected a lack of experience in many officials and I am sure some of the tension within the society today could have been avoided (uploading a selfie during a Legislative Council meeting and calling the opposition party stupid sounds like a low blow). I would, however, like to offer a more unconventional analysis, perhaps in a Marxist fashion, and bring to attention the economic conflict underneath recent incidents.

Legislator Ho, taking a picture of the Legislative Council meeting regarding development plans of the Northeastern part of the New Territories, a controversial area adjoining the Chinese mainland. He uploaded the picture onto his Facebook account, which was against the regulations, and called the opposition party “stupid”, “idiotic”, “weak” (self-translation). Source: Mingpao.

In the face of an immense amount of public critique of the government, it is important to reflect on the failures of recent movements. They fail not only because they were suppressed by the Hong Kong government, or Chinese authorities. Our sometimes rather inconsistent demands impede progress as well. In Scott’s phenomenal book on development (1998), he proposed four ingredients to a political disaster: a blind faith in scientific ideologies (not science itself), an authoritarian government, legibility of society and a prostrate civil society. I would venture to say that Hong Kong has at least three of these elements. The government believes in high-handed reforms, has a good knowledge of the demography, and people are generally apathetic. Surely, the government has been actively trying to incorporate more voices into political discussion on the one hand, e.g. recruiting more young people into the governmental apparatus, but on the other hand the many petitions sent to it by the public went unheeded. Only a facade of harmony has been maintained. The only thing keeping the society from going downhill according to Scott’s logic seems to be the government’s remaining respect for core democratic values and the handful of activists fighting to keep justice intact. We would still pale in comparison to our mother country, or the neighbour of our mother country to the east when it comes to authoritarian ruling. However, this peace is in danger as long as society is prostrate—prostrate not in the sense that people are not educated, easy to be manipulated, but prostrate in the sense that people are afraid of change, afraid to let go of neoliberalism which is the cause of so many of their sufferings.

Like many other places with a colonial background, e.g. Sri Lanka (Nissan and Stirrat, 1990) and Rwanda (Mamdani, 2009), the tension between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland, bordering to an ‘ethnic’ conflict, is arguably one of colonial legacy. Under the British administration, Hong Kong has grown to become a very different place from the Chinese mainland. Our people have a different way of life, a different language, and different mannerisms (my mum was just remarking on how loud the mainlanders were in the shopping mall, while they probably just came from the rural areas where people are accustomed to shouting across the fields). The difference between the Chinese and people from Hong Kong is largely created by historical circumstances, just like the difference between the Sinhala and the Tamils in Sri Lanka, and that between the Hutu and the Tutsi in Rwanda. There is no innate opposition between the two groups. The real opposition here is that between ideologies, between neoliberalism and welfarism. I do not deny the possibility to reconcile the two in the future, but for now, to demand more government support while defending the freedom of the market sounds rather hypocritical to me.

References

Business Insider, UK (2017). The 19 most expensive cities in the world to rent a property. [Online] Available at: http://uk.businessinsider.com/most-expensive-cities-in-the-world-to-ren-2017-2/#19-melbourne-australia-1 [Accessed 28/5/2018]

Elyachar, J. (2002). “Empowerment Money: The World Bank, Non-Governmental Organizations, and the Value of Culture in Egypt”, Public Culture, 14 (3), pp. 493-513.

Fassin, D. (2015). At the Heart of the State: the Moral World of Institutions. London: Pluto Press, pp. 93-116.

Girling, E., Loader, I., and Sparks, R. (1998). “A Telling Tale: A Case of Vigilantism and Its Aftermath in an English Town”, The British Journal of Sociology, 49 (3), pp. 474-490.

KPMG (2018). Corporate tax rates table. [Online] Available at: https://home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/services/tax/tax-tools-and-resources/tax-rates-online/corporate-tax-rates-table.html. [Accessed 28/5/ 2018]

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Wacquant, L. (2008). “Ordering Insecurity: Social Polarization and the Punitive Upsurge”, Radical Philosophy Review, 11 (1), pp. 1-19.

Are We Wogs Once More?

by Konrad Stillin

Ethnicity has been defined accurately within the anthropological field as a ‘definition of differences’, superficial methods of establishing two camps within the public sphere, ‘us’ against ‘them’. Michael Moreman (1965) established this idea of entertaining cultural differences between two groups, claiming that the essence of ethnicity can only arise through an existence of separation. What then, is the driving force that creates these distinctions? Moreover, do people always wish to see a merge of their ethnic identities into one, or are they happier in having distinct cultural separations? This piece will examine European immigration into Australia and the changing patterns of ethnic understanding over the generations. I will mostly be focusing on the Croatian community, as I am a Croatian-Australian myself, but the thoughts and sentiments can be seen to be applicable to most European ethnic groups in Australia. To first grasp the generational differences on the understanding of one’s ethnicity, it would be wise to first outline a brief history of European immigration and their establishment of cultural hubs within Australia.

Though European immigrants were let into Australia from the 1950’s, it was difficult for them to establish a common network of aid due to the initial hostility created by Anglo-Australians who were the predominant nationality at the time. Australia had only recently expanded their “White Australia” policy to allow people of Eastern and Southern European backgrounds to be allowed into the country, something which native citizens viewed as an encroachment of their cultural identity. Whilst every European immigrant may have been diverse in their culture or upbringing, they were all seen as ‘wogs’ in the eyes of native Australians. Being called a wog turned you into ‘the other’, someone against the moral code of the Australian culture. It was a derogatory word used to separate people along ethnic lines. Every new immigrant was a wog and it did not matter whether they were Greek or Italian or Macedonian; they were all the same in the eyes of Australians. So, what could these new people with such diverse backgrounds and cultural identities do to prevent a collectivism of their ideals, whilst also finding a way to assimilate within Australian society, through establishing a connection with the Anglo-Australians?

The answer came through one of the few universals in the world. Football.

Each ethnic group created their own football club within Sydney, which in turn created a barrier to protect their nuanced identity whilst also creating an avenue in which they could interact with Australian society and create a way to assimilate. One only needs to look at the logos used by each club to know which country they originated from. Sydney United was the hub for Croatians, Sydney Olympic was the home base for Greeks, Bonnyrigg Football was home for the Serbians, Rockdale City Suns were Macedonian, and so on. In the various clubhouses you would barely hear English; the music in Sydney United was always a mixture of Psihomodo Pop or Oliver Dragojević. Even the food served at the Sydney United home ground were mostly delicacies of Croatian cuisine, such as Ćevapi (beef mince rissoles in buns). The clubs were a microcosm of their original traditional culture within in the new land of Australia. The distinction was also shown on the pitch, players generally played for their national team. It was more likely you would play for Sydney United if you were Croatian. If you weren’t Croatian, you could not play for Sydney United. The football clubs also became the community centre of not only porting and social activity but also a hub for business networking and supporting members to assimilate through English classes. So, it held a balance for people who wished to assimilate as well as maintain their heritage.

Whilst the initial reasoning and application of such a cultural hub made sense for the first-generation immigrants on Australian shores, what about the newer generations who entered the club decades after its inception? This is where my personal fieldwork comes into effect for this piece, as I will be using the 4 years I spent at Sydney United every weekend as ethnographic evidence to share my thoughts. I will admit that this piece will most definitely hold some inherent bias, especially as my father was the president of the club for that period. However, I also do believe that being of a younger generation changed my perception of this communal and cultural hub as a way to keep European communities connected to their heritage and history. The overall question I wish to ponder is whether these football clubs were successful in their original intent to preserve cultural identity whilst also assimilating within the new Australian context.

I believe that initially the club (Sydney United) provided an avenue for assimilation of Croatian migrants within Australia, but now the modern variation of the club is completely different. It has swung in the opposite direction and is now an avenue for Croatians to reconnect with and maintain their ‘Croatian-ness’ or connection with the Croatian community, culture and heritage. This isn’t a detrimental thing, as I believe that cultural identity is important to the creation of one’s personal identity. However, evidence shows that the European football clubs today are not maintained to aid assimilation but instead to maintain a connection with one’s heritage or sense of loyalty to one’s country of origin, such as Croatia is for me. I believe this is because the newer generations of Croatian-Australians no longer need to assimilate as they are indeed more representative of the Australian culture than their parents and grandparents of Croatian culture. Thus, they seek to find ways to express and connect, to reconnect and reconstitute their Croatian ties and culture which they may not completely represent today through the ethnic hub that was once established for them.

This can clearly be seen through the language spoken within the clubs. For instance, at the Sydney United Club, every weekend upon entering, one would expect to hear and speak Croatian. Whilst some members may revert to English when they could see another person struggling with understanding the language, older generations were more stalwart in their use of the Croatian language. What is more interesting is the complete lack of Croatian spoken outside of the club itself. When I entered the car with my father after a match, he would immediately return to using English and barely spoke Croatian. If a place was to aid assimilation one would assume that both languages would be used more equally within the club, but the supremacy of the Croatian language shows that the club was a place to assert and maintain one’s Croatian identity.

Interestingly, the issues created and defended in various European countries translated to the behaviour of the members of ethnic communities in Australia. For instance, during the War in Croatia in the 1990s, both the Croatian team supporters through Sydney United and the Serbian team supporters through Bonnyrigg FC increased their hostility toward each other, especially during matches. Riots were frequent between both communities of supporters at games. It is strange to think that a decade after the war had ended violence had increased so much from these football supporters in Australia, for a conflict on another continent from which these members weren’t physically affected. There can be several reasons for the surge of culturally based hostility between these clubs, but I believe the largest contributor of this was an inherent sense of guilt felt by the newer generations of Australian citizens with strong cultural ties to their homeland.

The people who perpetrated the hostility in Sydney United were members who were too young to have been able to fight in the war for independence, a war that was so crucial to the establishment of a free Croatia. The weak connection they might have had with Croatian identity was re-strengthened by the turmoil back in Europe and it was exacerbated through the fact that they could not be a part of that exact turmoil. This sentiment encompasses more than just the riots between football clubs in Sydney. It seems there is a continual need by some community members to prove their cultural and historical identity and origin. It may be that these people felt guilty for not being in a position to protect their homeland by sacrificing themselves for the cause of a free Croatia and thus expressed their Croatian-ness through their connection to football, the social connector.

Source: gettyimages.com

Newer generations seem to enjoy this divide of identity. They embrace the term ‘wog’ now as a term of endearment towards people who wish to be known as having deeper cultural richness beyond being simply Australian. I am proud to be a wog, it is fulfilling to have an ancestry to attach to and be anchored within, yet I am aware that this connection is maintained by having a secondary and significantly different cultural grounding in being Australian which I also hold dear. It seems we are wogs once more, though this time it is by choice.

What's a White Yardie, Mum?

by Harry Compton

Trends change constantly as a new generation strives to instil a new cultural element into its existence. With the hippies of California dreamin’ across the 60’s, the skinheads shaving their mark into British punk culture in the 70’s and 80’s and an era marred with change until the noughties, what do the current trends say about us?

Les Back’s ethnography “The ‘White Negro’ Revisited: Race and Masculinities in South London” invites us to consider a perspective which I feel is valuable for defining our current cultural identity that a younger generation, especially white males, converge towards. We are witnessing a racially driven era, one in which white individuals are appropriating ‘black’ mannerisms and style in order to make use of its attractive features and potent masculinity. Back writes,“the existence of an interlocked dualism of ‘fear and desire’ is an essential feature of white constructions of black masculinity” (Back, 2017). There is an overt desire to actualise qualities of ‘blackness’ in consolidating this newly constructed identity of the ‘white negro’. Instead of embracing and integrating their culture into ours, we are trying to replicate it and practice key desirable features of it.

Historical events have acted as catalysts to these interests. For instance, the area of South London in which Back conducted fieldwork “has a long history of migration from the 1950's onward” and “by 1981 black people constituted 25 per cent of the overall population of the borough and in some districts between 40 per cent and 50 per cent” (Back, 2017). Migration to the UK, and especially London, saw an influx of Caribbean migrants occupying large areas of estates which used to be impoverished areas with high crime rates. Such areas included Peckham, Tottenham and Hackney which have a notoriety for ‘Yardie’ gang culture and were focal areas for the London Riots in 2011. The riots, which followed in response to the shooting of Mark Duggan, saw London descend into uncontrollable episodes of looting and crime. However, more revealing than the violence itself was the demographic of people who were arrested and interviewed following the riots. Tim Newburn, Professor of Criminology and Social Policy at the LSE, cites the following in his report with the name ‘Reading the Riots’: of those interviewed, 47% were of ‘black’ origin whilst 26% were of ‘white’ descent. These statistics allude to the fear that the British public has towards certain racial groups. This is also reflected in policing, more specifically New Scotland Yard has been criticised for its racial tendencies. Continuous black-targeted stop and searches in an effort to solve the wielding of offensive weapons reflects this mere fact. Newburn’s report itself displays an important confusion. It reffers to these racial groups by ‘ethnicity’ that does not adhere to a nationality or a skin tone, but to a shared practice of customs. It would be fair to say in reflecting on Back’s ethnography that white men are trying to culturally appropriate a ‘negro ethnicity’. However, it is necessary to acknowledge that it has become racialized and to not recognise this would not come off as being socially ignorant.

Now here is my point, and don’t expect it to be a socially transforming one. Beyond the estate which Back describes, I hold that the cultural climate of adolescents, including a substantial majority of young white people, in Britain have been raised in tune with the growing attraction and fear of a potent and racialised ‘black ethnicity’. Back’s informant, a seventeen year old girl called Delora,  states “Yeah, I remember one white boy talking about going out with black girls, it was like ‘once you go black, you never turn back’ ” (Back, 2017) . The above quotation reveals that white adolescents are curious and attracted to the “mysterious” and “elusive” black cultural identity, which seemingly stems from demographically deprived settings and only represents a small transect of black individuals. So the question I ask is: why does this attraction or appropriation exists  in the world beyond the estate, in the riots for example, where ethnic origins have become racialised? We only have to look at a few stereotypes of white adolescents appropriating a ‘black’ racialised ethnicity to understand and realise the extent of it. To illustrate this further, I will present a few examples from my own observations and assess to what extent they have been appropriated.

The Woking Roadman

 Sliding both Super-off peak return from Woking to Guildford and railcard into his Nike side bag, this middle-class ‘Yute’ has seen harsher days. Stuck in the breadline at the shopping centre waiting for their NY Vanilla cheesecake milkshake from Shakeaway, his posse have to let everyone know that their beverage of choice is both ‘Peng’ (meaning delicious) and that they are ‘gassed’, implying their excitement for it. Not even their favourite Grime rapper ‘Giggs’ could have put it any better, ‘you dunno’. Back to their five bedroom cul de sac they go for dinner.  

The Minted Mandem

“Take this one with the flash on… there should be a setting which would really go well with the derelict theme we’re going for” unable to hide under the shade of their quaffed curtains and signature Nike Air Max kicks, a derelict council estate in Bermondsey is where you’ll find these privileged posers. Advertising a brand of streetwear on their themed Instagrams, that would equate to the same cost as a months rent for a two bedroom house. They are blissfully unaware of the irony they represent; this wasn’t taught at their boarding school in Sussex. These posh hipsters adore the gritty aesthetic the estate offers, whilst not knowing a single person who actually lives in them. The only thing they’ve ever given to the estate are the half eaten ends of their Tennessee chicken wings. I’d say a toast with a can of Red stripe would be more than appropriate for the Russell group Rasclat..

Although I have used these stereotypes in a comical manner, there is one significant cultural influence that is noticeably idolized, especially by young white people beyond South London. The use of London slang, descending from Patwah as mentioned in the first example, to the finessing of a gritty estate image in the latter, are both clear indications. However, it is of vital importantance to acknowledge the irony as the ethnic image has progressively become racialised. Is it morally correct to masquerade in their image, since ethnicity has become conjoined with complexion? Or is it essential that white people appropriate it, to help reduce the racial connotations that ethnicity imposes upon blacks? Is it acceptable even if its roots stem from a sense of fear? Either way, British youth culture is certainly welcoming the phenomenon with open arms, as our new generation instils another multicultural layer to it’s growing identity.  

References

Back, L. (2017). The 'White Negro' revisited: Race and Masculinities in South London. In: A. Cornwall, ed., Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.

The Power of Practical Solidarity

by Katie Tesseyman

LSE SU Women's Officer

On the 8th of March, women in 50 countries across the world went on strike. We went on strike to realise the power we already hold. The strike was about solidarity between women; women of colour, indigenous, working class, disabled, migrant, Muslim, lesbian, queer and trans women.

We went on strike for every woman tired of coming home from her paid job only to start another shift of unpaid cleaning, cooking and care.
We went on strike for the decriminalisation of sex work.
We went on strike for women who encounter homophobia, biphobia and queerphobia.
We went on strike for all the women who said Me Too.
We went on strike for our sisters in detention centers, locked up like criminals because they sought asylum in the UK.

We went on strike for every woman of transgender experience whose womanhood is repeatedly denied by her family, her employers, her doctor and the state.
We went on strike for every woman who has faced violence at the hands of friends, family, partners, employers and who has not been believed when she spoke up.

We went on strike not only from paid jobs but from unpaid reproductive labour and it is the latter action that I aim going to write about. As we well know, capitalism can only thrive because it relies on people doing the work required to reproduce the labour force for free (big up Marxist Feminists for bringing that to people’s attention). These people are usually women. Reproductive labour includes cooking, cleaning, childcare and emotional labour. These activities are dismissed as housework, not real work. It is simply expected that we do it for free.

Men who engage in reproductive labour full time are considered somehow emasculated. Men who occasionally partake in it are valorised for doing the bare minimum - how many times have we heard a man be praised for “babysitting” his own children whilst his partner is out? Clearly, there’s something wrong with this picture.

It wasn’t until I got involved with organising the Women’s Strike Assembly that I realised how powerful practical solidarity can be.

On a day which puts women at the forefront, some pretty amazing men stepped up to support us. They did not try to take on a leadership role, they did not try to “save” us or dominate the conversation. They provided practical solidarity. They offered to take on reproductive labour. Some of the men felt that it was “politically, the right thing to do”, almost all of them did it with the aim of empowering women and ensuring they could be at the forefront on the 8th of March. They also acknowledged that capitalism is bad for all of us and is predicated, in a lot of ways, on patriarchy; women striking thus tackles one of the structures capitalism most heavily relies on.

At the meetings and talks leading up to the 8th of March, men were on hand to look after children and provide food for the women in attendance. This allowed women to focus on discussing what feminism means to them, how to ensure the movement is inclusive, what the strike meant and how to actually organise the assembly on the day. The dominant ‘Patriarchal Man’ was missing from these events but men were present and they were important. Their support with reproductive labour meant that women were able to give more energy in doing some incredible organising.

Men supporting women’s movements in this way is not only important for women. It is important for men. We must destroy the idea that reproductive labour is inferior and to be avoided if possible. We will never create a more compassionate and caring society if we continue to see childcare and cooking as inferior work. Reproductive labour is caring labour, it requires compassion and empathy, traits that we are continuously told are “feminine”. The patriarchy works incredibly hard to confine men to a model of masculinity which suppresses emotion and equates empathy to weakness.

No one benefits from this.

As anthropologists we know there are cases which fly in the face of the idea that men are innately bad at childcare - we also know that gender is a social construct but that’s worthy of a whole new piece-. For instance, among the Aka, who live in Brazzavile region of the Republic or Congo, fathers have extremely close relationships with their children, often taking on the primary caretaker role. Among the Beng teenage boys are not overlooked as potential babysitters. In our own lives we may know men who are good with children, who want to have children and enjoy looking after them. The stereotype of innately brutish men completely unable to look after children not only harms both men and women, but it is also false. We do not need to go against some innate natural state to learn how to share reproductive labour equally; we need to un-learn the harmful patriarchal norms which tell us that reproductive labour is women’s work.  For many of us, this is not a surprising statement. However, there is such a big difference between accepting something in theory and actually putting it into action.

That is why, to me, the 8th of March was such an occasion for joy. Russell Square was full of people who were unlearning and actively subverting patriarchy. The stage saw countless strong women speak up about the issues facing their communities, their dreams, their struggles and their victories. Women were front and center, realising the power they already hold. The kid’s corner was run by men painting with young children, playing around in the flower beds and finding all available puddles to splash in. They adapted beautifully to working outside rather than indoors - shout out to the sun for shining on the 8th of March! Sixty litres of vegan chilli with rice was prepared by men to ensure no one had to go hungry because they were striking. Together, we worked to ensure the day had women at its heart and it was a huge success.

So next time you find yourself wondering how you can support those who are less privileged than you are, try reaching out and offering them practical solidarity.

References

O'Riordan, E. (2018). Men should support the women’s strike – by taking over the domestic work. [online] Redpepper.org.uk. Available at: https://www.redpepper.org.uk/men-should-support-the-womens-strike-by-taking-over-the-domestic-work/ [Accessed 13 Mar. 2018].

Women's Strike Assembly UK. (2018). Women's Strike Assembly UK. [online] Available at: https://womenstrike.org.uk/ [Accessed 13 Mar. 2018].

Is God Actually Dead?

by Marco Rossi

Scene from the movie "They Live" (1988), by John Carpenter. | Source: deepfocusreview.com

          “L’enfer c’est les autres”. This is the revelation Joseph Garcin had in that room deep down in hell, while waiting, with two more women, the punishment for their sins. It took him rather long to understand how the actual punishment was merely sharing the room, having the entire eternity to talk about their lives, developing feelings of both attraction and hatred, flirting, insulting, and yelling at each other. “Hell is other people”. Or better, “hell” is the perception of the “other”, and of ourselves from other’s eyes. 

          Joseph’s conclusion, in Sartre’s Huis Clos, is thus addressed to other human beings. However, if we only capitalise the “a” in “autre”, the meaning changes completely. In this sense we would broaden the concept from “the hell is other people” to the idea that “hell is the Other”, and more precisely the Lacanian Big Other that overarches our existence. In brief, the Big Other is the symbolic order perceived by the human subjectivity, whence come norms, principles, prohibitions, wishes, and guaranties of meaning, theorised by the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Hook (2008) argues how the Big Other is always exterior, outside every conceivable inter-subjectivity. It provides the coordinates for inter-relations, being the place whence the subject absorbs the guides for his life and lives according to what he or she perceives as his or her duty. Thus, “[t]he Other here is an alienating system, an always already existing totality to which the subject needs accommodate themselves” (Hook, 2008). But how does this Other relate to the nihilist, modern Death of God? And is God actually dead, or is he still alive? I argue that God, as the ideological compendium of values and norms never ceased to exist. He has been replaced with Society.

          In an article by Slavoj Zizek (2009) there is a joke that was used to explain an important concept among Lacanian scholars. The joke goes:

A man who believes himself to be a grain of seed is taken to the mental institution where the doctors do their best to finally convince him that he is not a grain but a man. When he is cured (convinced that he is not a grain of seed but a man) and allowed to leave the hospital, he immediately comes back trembling. There is a chicken outside the door and he is afraid that it will eat him. “Dear fellow,” says his doctor, “you know very well that you are not a grain of seed but a man”. “Of course I know that,” replies the patient, “but does the chicken know it?”

          Why was it really that important for the patient that the chicken had to know his rediscovered identity of human? This is because the patient was not satisfied enough by the mere knowledge of his symptoms. This is the fetishisation of the exterior, the alien Other that must be “informed” of our condition, “it” must know and register, in order for our condition to be fully legitimised (Zizek 1997). In this case, the Other comes to be enabled as the mediator between societal and subjective, coordinating our communicative aspects. Indeed, Hook stresses the importance of this role of coordinator of a supra-game entity, the “accumulated mass of the social” (Hook, 2008), which regulate the subjects’ actions. In simpler terms, if we all had an innate shared knowledge we would not need something bigger to believe in.

          When having a symbolic or social system, we will also need some anchoring points of prioritised norms and values, where one attaches himself to. But all the compound of signifiers need a Master Signifier, as Hook calls it, which functions as centring point, as the coordinates for all the other surrounding signifiers. To him, though, this Master Signifier cannot be determined, it is usually a hollow, empty concept with no actual meaning, the “positivisation of a void” (Dolar, 1999). Here we enter the kingdom of the Zizek’s notion of ideology, where the use of pivotal, hollow words as “Democracy”, “Socialism”, and “Nation” and so on, stand for something that are never quite understood, but accepted as such. We ideologically bow our head in the name of these concepts, accepting them as granted, since we live in the acceptance of “what other accept”. The relation with an inconclusive signifier, is a means of avoiding the uncertainty of our social being (Hook, 2008).

          In the brilliant documentary The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, Zizek stresses this as the “tragedy of our predicament”, that is the necessity of a fiction of a Big Other. We need an agency where the truth of ourselves can be inscribed and accepted, where to confess. But, as an example used by the same author, this is the tragedy of many women during the Bosnian war, who strived to survive to tell the truth of what happened. When compared with the reality of not being heard, sometimes with even obscene insinuations on what they passed during the wartime, they discovered the truth of the last claim of Lacan: There is no Big Other. The existence of such an agency is not material nor tangible, it is not “there” for us to use it. It is rather the creation of our unconscious need to blame, complain and attach ourselves to something bigger than us. This recalls what said before of our addiction to a Master Signifier to coordinate all our actions and values, and if a God, or a Other, or whatever is not believed to be there, the “subjective destitution”, the abrupt awareness of the utter meaningless of our social links, the dissolution of our attachment to reality itself, can be too harsh to bear. The advent of modernity might have killed God in its religious term, but the set of signifiers we live off are still there, they have just been replaced with another Master Signifier: our toxic addiction to Society.

          The addiction to a greater ensemble, the rejection of a monadic existence, is triumphing in the cyberspace societal sphere. The virtual community has the ability of merging global harmony and solipsism in a strange coexistence (Zizek, 2009). Where the narcissistic creation of the imaginary ego, alienating and liberating from one’s natural body, by turning oneself into another contingent embodiment, marketing one’s figure, selling the concept of one’s brilliant life, or even one’s own loneliness and doomed existence. During a conversation with Professor Stephan Feuchtwang on the consumer compulsion of improving one’s own image, this obsession of identifying oneself through the internalisation of an ideal other, is the internal negation of one’s being. That is to say the internal abyss, the lack, how we are not them, but actually are only because of being seen by “them” as in a mirror. In simpler terms, the alienation of one’s unconscious, putting it in an exterior position, the process of self-othering, is what “materialises” the virtual Other.

          The gnostic dream to get rid of one’s material rottenness, to ascend to an ideal rank were to be appreciated and accepted, where to confess and let its own steam off, where monads interact via the PC screen with virtual simulacra, and yet synchronising with the entire network: an exact ideological Other, to attach its own existence to, virtual in every meaning. This is the dreadful predicament of our modern society. The individuality of each subject, being in the embarrassing position of feeling unique, rare, far from the same absolute societal context, while actually unconsciously being embedded in it, ideologically attached to it, and with no possibility of exiting without an abrupt realisation of one’s own real loneliness and meaningless existence.

References

Dolar, M. (1999). Where does power come from? New Formations, 35, 79–92. In Hook, ibid.

Hook, Derek (2008). "Absolute Other: Lacan's ‘Big Other’ as Adjunct to Critical Social Psychological Analysis?" Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2, 1, 51-73.

Zizek, Slavoj (1997). “The Big Other Doesn’t Exist”. Journal of European Psychoanalysis [online]. URL: http://www.lacan.com/zizekother.htm (07/03/2018).

Zizek, Slavoj (2009). “How to read Lacan – “God is dead, but he doesn’t know it”: Lacan plays with Bobok” [online]. URL: http://zizek.uk/how-to-read-lacan-god-is-dead-but-he-doesnt-know-it-lacan-plays-with-bobok/ (07/03/2018).

Made in Dagenham

by Regina Legarte

An interview with Claire Brewin, a second year Social Anthropology student and the lead actress of the LSESU Drama Society’s production of Made in Dagenham. Made in Dagenham is a musical about the female workers in the production line of Ford Motor that campaigned for equal pay in the 1960s. Catch it in the Old Theatre on 7th, 8th, and 9th March.

Imagine you are an anthropologist doing fieldwork with Rita and the people of Dagenham. What would you find?

I think I would find quite a cohesive group of women who are very determined and very dedicated to their cause. There is a lot of joking around, mocking each other. There are a few very strong characters, such as Beryl, who is particularly mocking of other people. There is a lot of swearing. But the other girls, they just laugh along, they mostly get on pretty well. There are little frictions – with one girl in particular, Sandra, who goes on to do promotion work, so that causes a bit of a rupture in the fight for equal pay.

And in terms of placing your fieldwork with the characters in a wider social and political context?

They are generally from working class backgrounds. Rita, for example, lives in a council estate, and her son goes to a private school on a scholarship. She feels that her son is treated differently because he is a scholarship boy, and I think that enrages her as well.

The women have been doing the same sort of jobs as men for a long time, but being paid less. They settled for that for a while and then they start to question it. They feel as though they are being treated as second-class citizens, but they do not want to be. They are fighting to move forward, and I think that through their solidarity with all the other girls, that is the way to success.

How do you think their cause affects gender relations and dynamics?

I think they are definitely challenging traditional notions of male and female roles, particularly in the working class setting, and especially in the era in which the musical is set – still the 1960s, still an industrial period for the UK and the area of Dagenham in particular. At that point, it is still the men who are supposedly the breadwinners, so they are challenging the notion that women should be dependent on their husbands and showing that they can earn the same amount of money for doing similar jobs. So, they are definitely challenging those sorts of roles in trying to even out the value of their labour.

Imagine you are an anthropologist doing fieldwork with the cast and crew. What would you find?

I would find a group of people having a lot of fun, taking the mick a lot! Out of the musical, out of each other, out of some of the lines and some of the choreography which are particularly funny. Again, it is quite a cohesive group of people – there aren’t any cliques, everyone gets along with each other, everyone is really nice.

I would not say there are particularly any sort of distinct power dynamics. Obviously, there is Sam and Jack, who are the director and the musical director, but they are very friendly in their approach to directing. They get along with the cast and the band, and they like to have a laugh with the cast, as much as just the cast members themselves, which is really nice. Everyone is pretty committed and punctual, wanting to be there and putting in a lot of effort.

What other experiences with theatre have you had?

I remember seeing The Sound of Music when I was six, and I think that is when I got a little obsessed with theatre. Apparently, for the next two months, I went around the house singing Sixteen Going on Seventeen, and I was playing the recorder at the time, went into my Year One class, and played Edelweiss to them – I do not remember much of this!

I told my mum that I wanted to try that sort of thing, because there were kids in the show and I thought I could be one of those kids. There was an advert in the local paper about auditions for the children’s chorus in the local pantomime, which was 101 Dalmatians, so I went along to the auditions and I ended up being the smallest puppy, which was really fun. I did a few more pantomimes, started dance lessons, attend summer schools etc. I remember the summer school I went year after year was the highlight of my childhood! I would look forward to it, and I would have dreams about it with the excitement of going. We would put up a show in just a week.

I did quite a few productions in school, and in amateur groups. I was part of the kid’s choir for the national tour of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat in the northwest region and north Wales – that was a lot of fun, it was very cheesy. I have been doing as much as I can throughout school. Once I left school, I took two gap years, and did a couple of plays, but not as much as I would have liked to. It is nice that, now that I’m back at university, I can get involved a bit more. I did A View from the Bridge last year with the LSESU Drama Society, I did Macbeth earlier on this year, and now Made in Dagenham!

Are there any similarities or differences between theatre and anthropology?

Absolutely, I think they are actually quite similar. If you are getting into a character, it is a similar process to what an anthropologist does when they go to their research site; they have to immerse themselves in the surroundings and get a sense of the ‘ native’s point of view ’. I think that is very similar to what an actor does. If you want to portray a character realistically, you have to try and get in the mindset of your character and understand their surroundings, their backgrounds, their social relations, their intentions and motivations, and why they do certain things. They are very similar in the way of getting to know your character and getting to know people.

How do you feel that your experiences in theatre have added to your own anthropological perspective, or vice versa?

We have this research project in second year at the moment, and because the processes are similar, I think I’m a bit more used to it, having to observe as much as you can, understand a different point of view, and immerse yourself in a different way of life and being. I think that is very helpful, because in a similar sense, the anthropologist goes into a different world with different people, and the actor goes into a different world of their character, so the two complement each other.

Since you are inhabiting the world of Rita, which is different, in what way would you say it is similar?

We grew up in different eras, in the same country but different areas. Our experiences are slightly different – I have never worked in a factory, and Rita was not lucky enough to attend university. But I think her mindset is fairly similar to my own. She is quite feisty and she won’t just let things slide. If she feels someone says or does something unjust, she will speak out about it, she won’t just turn a blind eye. Throughout the musical, she does not realise how political she is being, or how much she has to be angry about, and to use that anger to her advantage. I think, in a similar sense, in the last year or so, I have come to realise that it is easy to just get angry about things, but you can actually speak out about them. You can try to push things forward and make a change. It takes a lot of work, but it can be done.

The musical is set in 1968 and we are in 2018, so it has been 50 years since the women of Ford Dagenham went on strike, but the issues of gender inequality persist. For example, a week ago, I went to Fight Night, an Athletics Union event at the LSE. There were girls and guys doing the round cards. The guys were dressed in shorts and T-shirts, just walking on, not doing anything special, showing the card and walking off. The girls, however, were wearing very skimpy clothing, their hair down, pouting, shaking their hips. And I thought, why do the girls have to do this and the guys do not? I got very angry, and I thought that it was weird that LSE is supposed to be a forward-moving institution, but the way they are portraying women is stuck in the 60s. The issues are definitely still relevant, and I can definitely see them. I do not know whether through playing Rita, I have almost become more aware of it in a way that I can pick up on these things.

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