Jenny Pearce - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Jenny Pearce
Fondo Editorial ICANH, Aug 1, 2019
Bulletin of Latin American Research, 1995
BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH an unorthodox style to be a strength rather than a weakness, ... more BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH an unorthodox style to be a strength rather than a weakness, as it very much reflects the creativity, eclecticism and pragmatism which have become the hallmarks of the Cuban leader. Liss points out that this volume 'is not a formal psychological profile or a character analysis'. But he has skilfully crafted this work to allow the perceptive reader to acquire a better understanding of Fidel's personality and the complexion of his revolution. In the preface, Liss informs readers that, for the most part, his worldviews and those of Castro coincide, and that they should expect that, throughout this volume, the Cuban revolution will be shown in a rather positive light. Those who, despite these remarks, hope for a lively, balanced debate on the pros and cons of Fidelismo will be very disappointed. Very little serious criticism of Castro and his policies is found in this volume, and when it does appear, it is perfunctory at best. Advocates of free speech and human rights, for example, may be particularly dismayed by the manner in which Liss deals with these topics. Books should be judged based on the objectives of the author, rather than the desires of readers. In the final analysis, it matters little that some readers may have wanted Liss to write a different type of book. With this volume, Liss intended to 'enhance understanding of the Cuban Revolution by viewing it through the political and social thought of its primary motivator'. Judged on the basis of that goal, this work can only be described as a brilliant success.
The 'peace industry' has grown enormously in the wake of the Cold War. The UN system, government ... more The 'peace industry' has grown enormously in the wake of the Cold War. The UN system, government and non-government aid programmes, and new academic research have focused their attentions on the complex and very violent internal wars which seem to have characterised the immediate post-Cold War era. The only area of overseas aid which has grown in recent years is that directed at disaster relief and peacekeeping. According to the World Debt Tables 1996, aid levels in 1995 were 13 per cent lower than those recorded in 1991. Aid for disaster relief and peacekeeping, however, had more than doubled from US$2.5bn in 1990 to US$6bn 1994-5 (Ridell 1996). A new terminology has emerged. The UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) has focused its attentions on 'war-torn societies'; the United Nations has created a distinct group of conflicts, which it calls 'complex political emergencies'. 1 A new range of issues has come to preoccupy official and non-government donor agencies, such as the relationship of relief to development; peace making and peace building; the role of the military in humanitarian work; postwar reconstruction; and conflict prevention. Attempts to generate universally applicable formulas collapse, however, when confronted by the huge range and complexity of the actual situations involved. 'Conflict' is not a very useful analytical category at all. Nor is it unequivocally negative: one of the conflicts examined in this paper was considered positive by a wide spectrum of international opinion and humanitarian agencies. Much of the present concern with complex internal conflicts is in fact limited to certain recent and exceptionally violent conflicts that have attracted considerable media attention, notably former Yugoslavia, 238
Deusto Journal of Human Rights
This article explores the relationship between protest, violence and the possibility of a politic... more This article explores the relationship between protest, violence and the possibility of a politics without violence. It argues that protest is not only a valid but also a necessary vehicle for the journey towards a politics without violence. Nevertheless, violence can emerge within protests as well as in response to them. The article will propose a thinking tool for understanding violence as a phenomenon with multiple expressions. It discusses movements to de-sanction violence and the research that has highlighted the role of non-violent protest, constructive nonviolent action and civil resistance in the history of social change. It will reflect on recent data bases which record the rise in protests in recent years and the role of violence within them. Finally, it will take the social protests in Chile and Colombia in 2019 and 2021, where although violence erupted mainly as vandalism and looting, with severe violent police responses, both protests, we argue, contributed to delineati...
Journal of Political Power, 2022
ABSTRACT This Commentary explores whether the essays in this volume and other evidence, require u... more ABSTRACT This Commentary explores whether the essays in this volume and other evidence, require us to rethink our social science tools in order to grasp the significance of criminal penetration of politics and crimes of the State for our understanding of politics and power. Using the classic Weberian lens, it problematises the extent to which Weber’s key concepts of ‘violence monopolisation’, ‘legality’, ‘legitimacy’ and ‘territory’ enable us to comprehend political and state trajectories in those countries where crime and violence are ever more diffused (and organised) outside the State, in war, non-war and post war contexts.
Politics without Violence?, 2019
In the course of writing this book, emblematic acts of individual, collective and state violence ... more In the course of writing this book, emblematic acts of individual, collective and state violence were a constant ‘backdrop’, reminding me to press on when the task seemed overwhelming. Many of these acts shook the world at the time and then disappeared from it. I kept a minimal record in scattered notes. There is no particular order to the violences I noted down 2015–2019, mostly from the press or NGO reports, and field diaries from field research in Latin America. Nor do they capture by any means the multiple violences that took place during the four years writing this book. They are ‘selected’ ‘violences’ that appeared at the time to exemplify the complexity of ‘violence’. However, selecting the violences that ‘matter’ and ignoring its multiple expressions emerged as a challenge to understanding violence as a phenomenon. The introduction to this book reminds us of some of the violences over this four years, in order to emotionally engage the reader in the phenomenon. It is not eas...
Politics without Violence?, 2019
This book has problematized the comfortable and comforting bedrock of Weberian categories. It has... more This book has problematized the comfortable and comforting bedrock of Weberian categories. It has done so on the grounds that we have learnt so much about violence since Weber wrote, that we do not have to rely on them to find a basis for ‘order’. Nor do we need to privilege a politics which guarantees ‘order’ through the ‘ordering’ of violence rather than what I call it’s ‘designification’. We could choose to rethink violence as a phenomenon and why the meanings it bears and generates have such potency for our individual and collective subjectivities, and in turn ‘order’ politics through the State and define the ‘political’. A better understanding of these meanings could give us tools for interrupting the reproduction of violence and make it possible to imagine a politics without violence. This is what I call a process of ‘Emotional Enlightenment’.
The Condition of Democracy, 2021
This chapter argues that our analysis of the relationship of violence to politics remains over-re... more This chapter argues that our analysis of the relationship of violence to politics remains over-reliant on classical theories which have become a ‘common sense’: that violence is ontological to humans and only its legitimate monopoly by the State underpinned by legal rules can enable ‘politics’. This has led us to select the violences which matter to the political realm and ignore others, including those exercised by the State. However, new knowledge of violence and how its relational roots differ from the biological ones of aggression gives us an opportunity to imagine a state that reduces violence and opens up the sphere of politics to citizens’ action on the conditions that reproduce it
Participation and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century City, 2010
Participation is not just about democracy. It is also about how we relate to each other in all ou... more Participation is not just about democracy. It is also about how we relate to each other in all our spaces of encounter. Do we give space to the other person to have an equal part in the encounter, or do we begin from the premise of a one-way communication? Our research could not study participation and fail to ask how we intended to relate to research participants. We could not reconcile our subject matter with a research process which extracted their experience, turned it into academic knowledge and published it only in inaccessible academic formats. We sought a way of acknowledging the contribution of our research participants to the production of knowledge, to involve them in ongoing discussions about emergent ideas and to feedback what came out of the research in a form which was useful to their activities. We called this ‘co-producing knowledge’. Inevitably, our aspirations did not match up with reality. We had to reconcile the methodology with conventional demands for evidence in qualitative enquiry and for outputs, such as this book, which satisfy peer review rather than that of our research participants. However, through our sincere efforts to interact rather than extract from the ‘researched’, we consider that all participants deepened their knowledge by exchanging it. This chapter explains what we did and did not achieve.
Relations between the state and oligarchic elites underpin the extreme rise of violence in Latin ... more Relations between the state and oligarchic elites underpin the extreme rise of violence in Latin America, despite the fact that most of its victims and perpetrators are poor: violence is as much a problem of wealth as of poverty. Jenny Pearce (LSE Latin America and Caribbean Centre) discusses her working paper for our new Violence, Security, and Peace series, Elites and Violence in Latin America: Logics of the Fragmented Security State.
Realidad: Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, 2019
Este artículo usa el “concepto de historia” de Walter Benjamin para desenterrar la importancia hi... more Este artículo usa el “concepto de historia” de Walter Benjamin para desenterrar la importancia histórica de un momento de resistencia campesina en Chalatenango, El Salvador, al principios de la década de 1980. Las comunidades del noreste de ese departamento no solamente sufrieron una explotación y represión salvaje, sino que también organizaron su propio poder popular local. No fueron simplemente víctimas, sino protagonistas de su historia, aunque fue una experiencia breve de dos años, más o menos, resultó muy importante en términos históricos. Sin embargo, como dice Benjamin, las resistencias que no terminan en un éxito reconocido históricamente, se pierden para la historia, son de hecho "destellos" de la historia. Este artículo analiza el papel del historiador y el proceso de construcción de la historia desde la memoria con los mismos campesinos. Realidad: Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades No. 153, 2019: 65-91
Bulletin of Latin American Research, 1982
3.95SIGLELD:83/10731(European) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo
Journal of Latin American Studies
A panel session structured around a dialogue between the relative merits and limitations of quant... more A panel session structured around a dialogue between the relative merits and limitations of quantitative and qualitative data collection methods in zones of violence and armed conflict and the potentiality for more mixed methods collaborations.
Peasant Rebellion in Chalatenango, El Salvador, 1986
Fondo Editorial ICANH, Aug 1, 2019
Bulletin of Latin American Research, 1995
BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH an unorthodox style to be a strength rather than a weakness, ... more BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH an unorthodox style to be a strength rather than a weakness, as it very much reflects the creativity, eclecticism and pragmatism which have become the hallmarks of the Cuban leader. Liss points out that this volume 'is not a formal psychological profile or a character analysis'. But he has skilfully crafted this work to allow the perceptive reader to acquire a better understanding of Fidel's personality and the complexion of his revolution. In the preface, Liss informs readers that, for the most part, his worldviews and those of Castro coincide, and that they should expect that, throughout this volume, the Cuban revolution will be shown in a rather positive light. Those who, despite these remarks, hope for a lively, balanced debate on the pros and cons of Fidelismo will be very disappointed. Very little serious criticism of Castro and his policies is found in this volume, and when it does appear, it is perfunctory at best. Advocates of free speech and human rights, for example, may be particularly dismayed by the manner in which Liss deals with these topics. Books should be judged based on the objectives of the author, rather than the desires of readers. In the final analysis, it matters little that some readers may have wanted Liss to write a different type of book. With this volume, Liss intended to 'enhance understanding of the Cuban Revolution by viewing it through the political and social thought of its primary motivator'. Judged on the basis of that goal, this work can only be described as a brilliant success.
The 'peace industry' has grown enormously in the wake of the Cold War. The UN system, government ... more The 'peace industry' has grown enormously in the wake of the Cold War. The UN system, government and non-government aid programmes, and new academic research have focused their attentions on the complex and very violent internal wars which seem to have characterised the immediate post-Cold War era. The only area of overseas aid which has grown in recent years is that directed at disaster relief and peacekeeping. According to the World Debt Tables 1996, aid levels in 1995 were 13 per cent lower than those recorded in 1991. Aid for disaster relief and peacekeeping, however, had more than doubled from US$2.5bn in 1990 to US$6bn 1994-5 (Ridell 1996). A new terminology has emerged. The UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) has focused its attentions on 'war-torn societies'; the United Nations has created a distinct group of conflicts, which it calls 'complex political emergencies'. 1 A new range of issues has come to preoccupy official and non-government donor agencies, such as the relationship of relief to development; peace making and peace building; the role of the military in humanitarian work; postwar reconstruction; and conflict prevention. Attempts to generate universally applicable formulas collapse, however, when confronted by the huge range and complexity of the actual situations involved. 'Conflict' is not a very useful analytical category at all. Nor is it unequivocally negative: one of the conflicts examined in this paper was considered positive by a wide spectrum of international opinion and humanitarian agencies. Much of the present concern with complex internal conflicts is in fact limited to certain recent and exceptionally violent conflicts that have attracted considerable media attention, notably former Yugoslavia, 238
Deusto Journal of Human Rights
This article explores the relationship between protest, violence and the possibility of a politic... more This article explores the relationship between protest, violence and the possibility of a politics without violence. It argues that protest is not only a valid but also a necessary vehicle for the journey towards a politics without violence. Nevertheless, violence can emerge within protests as well as in response to them. The article will propose a thinking tool for understanding violence as a phenomenon with multiple expressions. It discusses movements to de-sanction violence and the research that has highlighted the role of non-violent protest, constructive nonviolent action and civil resistance in the history of social change. It will reflect on recent data bases which record the rise in protests in recent years and the role of violence within them. Finally, it will take the social protests in Chile and Colombia in 2019 and 2021, where although violence erupted mainly as vandalism and looting, with severe violent police responses, both protests, we argue, contributed to delineati...
Journal of Political Power, 2022
ABSTRACT This Commentary explores whether the essays in this volume and other evidence, require u... more ABSTRACT This Commentary explores whether the essays in this volume and other evidence, require us to rethink our social science tools in order to grasp the significance of criminal penetration of politics and crimes of the State for our understanding of politics and power. Using the classic Weberian lens, it problematises the extent to which Weber’s key concepts of ‘violence monopolisation’, ‘legality’, ‘legitimacy’ and ‘territory’ enable us to comprehend political and state trajectories in those countries where crime and violence are ever more diffused (and organised) outside the State, in war, non-war and post war contexts.
Politics without Violence?, 2019
In the course of writing this book, emblematic acts of individual, collective and state violence ... more In the course of writing this book, emblematic acts of individual, collective and state violence were a constant ‘backdrop’, reminding me to press on when the task seemed overwhelming. Many of these acts shook the world at the time and then disappeared from it. I kept a minimal record in scattered notes. There is no particular order to the violences I noted down 2015–2019, mostly from the press or NGO reports, and field diaries from field research in Latin America. Nor do they capture by any means the multiple violences that took place during the four years writing this book. They are ‘selected’ ‘violences’ that appeared at the time to exemplify the complexity of ‘violence’. However, selecting the violences that ‘matter’ and ignoring its multiple expressions emerged as a challenge to understanding violence as a phenomenon. The introduction to this book reminds us of some of the violences over this four years, in order to emotionally engage the reader in the phenomenon. It is not eas...
Politics without Violence?, 2019
This book has problematized the comfortable and comforting bedrock of Weberian categories. It has... more This book has problematized the comfortable and comforting bedrock of Weberian categories. It has done so on the grounds that we have learnt so much about violence since Weber wrote, that we do not have to rely on them to find a basis for ‘order’. Nor do we need to privilege a politics which guarantees ‘order’ through the ‘ordering’ of violence rather than what I call it’s ‘designification’. We could choose to rethink violence as a phenomenon and why the meanings it bears and generates have such potency for our individual and collective subjectivities, and in turn ‘order’ politics through the State and define the ‘political’. A better understanding of these meanings could give us tools for interrupting the reproduction of violence and make it possible to imagine a politics without violence. This is what I call a process of ‘Emotional Enlightenment’.
The Condition of Democracy, 2021
This chapter argues that our analysis of the relationship of violence to politics remains over-re... more This chapter argues that our analysis of the relationship of violence to politics remains over-reliant on classical theories which have become a ‘common sense’: that violence is ontological to humans and only its legitimate monopoly by the State underpinned by legal rules can enable ‘politics’. This has led us to select the violences which matter to the political realm and ignore others, including those exercised by the State. However, new knowledge of violence and how its relational roots differ from the biological ones of aggression gives us an opportunity to imagine a state that reduces violence and opens up the sphere of politics to citizens’ action on the conditions that reproduce it
Participation and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century City, 2010
Participation is not just about democracy. It is also about how we relate to each other in all ou... more Participation is not just about democracy. It is also about how we relate to each other in all our spaces of encounter. Do we give space to the other person to have an equal part in the encounter, or do we begin from the premise of a one-way communication? Our research could not study participation and fail to ask how we intended to relate to research participants. We could not reconcile our subject matter with a research process which extracted their experience, turned it into academic knowledge and published it only in inaccessible academic formats. We sought a way of acknowledging the contribution of our research participants to the production of knowledge, to involve them in ongoing discussions about emergent ideas and to feedback what came out of the research in a form which was useful to their activities. We called this ‘co-producing knowledge’. Inevitably, our aspirations did not match up with reality. We had to reconcile the methodology with conventional demands for evidence in qualitative enquiry and for outputs, such as this book, which satisfy peer review rather than that of our research participants. However, through our sincere efforts to interact rather than extract from the ‘researched’, we consider that all participants deepened their knowledge by exchanging it. This chapter explains what we did and did not achieve.
Relations between the state and oligarchic elites underpin the extreme rise of violence in Latin ... more Relations between the state and oligarchic elites underpin the extreme rise of violence in Latin America, despite the fact that most of its victims and perpetrators are poor: violence is as much a problem of wealth as of poverty. Jenny Pearce (LSE Latin America and Caribbean Centre) discusses her working paper for our new Violence, Security, and Peace series, Elites and Violence in Latin America: Logics of the Fragmented Security State.
Realidad: Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, 2019
Este artículo usa el “concepto de historia” de Walter Benjamin para desenterrar la importancia hi... more Este artículo usa el “concepto de historia” de Walter Benjamin para desenterrar la importancia histórica de un momento de resistencia campesina en Chalatenango, El Salvador, al principios de la década de 1980. Las comunidades del noreste de ese departamento no solamente sufrieron una explotación y represión salvaje, sino que también organizaron su propio poder popular local. No fueron simplemente víctimas, sino protagonistas de su historia, aunque fue una experiencia breve de dos años, más o menos, resultó muy importante en términos históricos. Sin embargo, como dice Benjamin, las resistencias que no terminan en un éxito reconocido históricamente, se pierden para la historia, son de hecho "destellos" de la historia. Este artículo analiza el papel del historiador y el proceso de construcción de la historia desde la memoria con los mismos campesinos. Realidad: Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades No. 153, 2019: 65-91
Bulletin of Latin American Research, 1982
3.95SIGLELD:83/10731(European) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo
Journal of Latin American Studies
A panel session structured around a dialogue between the relative merits and limitations of quant... more A panel session structured around a dialogue between the relative merits and limitations of quantitative and qualitative data collection methods in zones of violence and armed conflict and the potentiality for more mixed methods collaborations.
Peasant Rebellion in Chalatenango, El Salvador, 1986