Julie Skurski - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Julie Skurski

Revista iberoamericana/Revista Iberoamericana, Apr 26, 2024

The Fernando Coronil Reader, 2020

Intellectual biography of Fernando Coronil and introduction to the Fernando Coronil Reader

Stretching back to the 1950s, interdisciplinary work between anthropology and history has taken d... more Stretching back to the 1950s, interdisciplinary work between anthropology and history has taken diverse expressions. Yet it has developed with more coherence since the 1980s, largely in response to the declining promise of global modernity and the rise of poststructuralism and deconstructionism. Through a critical and contemporary engagement with this wave of scholarship, this volume challenges readers to think of work at the crossroads of anthropology and history as transdisciplinary and anthrohistorical, moving beyond a partial integration of the disciplines as it critically evaluates their assumptions and trajectories.

Poetics Today, 1994

... Abstract This article argues that in Latin America nationalism's claims to unity and... more ... Abstract This article argues that in Latin America nationalism's claims to unity and authenticity are ... I discuss in this essay the emergence of a discourse of national iden-tity ... and neocolonialism, the discourse of authenticity sought to present the nation's geography and untutored ...

Views Beyond the Border Country: Raymond Williams …, 1993

This article examines the "country and city" model set for by Raymond Williams ... more This article examines the "country and city" model set for by Raymond Williams from the perspective of a postcolonial landscape of nation formation and civilizing projects on the part of domestic elites in Venezuela. It discusses the allegorical novel Doña Bárbara, by Rómulo Gallegos, and the 1988 massacre of peasants on the border with Colombia through the lens of the discourse of civilization and barbarism within which postcolonial Latin American elites have situated their projects.

The book brings together scholarship on three different forms of state violence, examining each f... more The book brings together scholarship on three different forms of state violence, examining each for what it can tell us about the conditions under which states use violence and the significance of violence to our understanding of states. The contributors to this book demonstrate that states of violence have a history and sociology. Wherever the state does act violently, however, the legitimacy of its acts must be engaged with the real facts of war, capital punishment, and the ugly realities of death. This book calls into question the legitimacy of state uses of violence and mounts a sustained effort at interpretation, sense making, and critique. This book suggests that condemning the state's decisions to use lethal force is not a simple matter of abolishing the death penalty orto take another exemplary case of the killing state-demanding that the state engage only in just (publicly declared and justified) wars. It points out that even such overt instances of lethal force are more elusive as targets of critique than one might think. Indeed, altering such decisions might do little to change the essential relationship of the state to violence. To change that relationship, we must also attend to the violent state as a state of mind, a state of mind that is not just a social or psychological condition but also a moral commitment or a philosophical position.

Comparative Studies in Society and history, 1991

Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1991

Although political violence has played a central part in the formation of nations, its historical... more Although political violence has played a central part in the formation of nations, its historical constitution and its role in representing nations havereceived scant attention. All too frequently the explanation of violence is equated with the identification of its causes, its form is accounted for by its function, and its function is seen in instrumental terms; violence is reduced to a practical tool used by opposing social actors in pursuit of conflicting ends. Whether treated as a cause, function, or instrument, violence is generally assumed rather than examined in its concreteness. Little attention is paid to its specific manifestations, to the way its effects are inseparably related to the means through which it is exerted, and to the meanings that inform its deployment and interpretation. In contrast, typological approaches that postulate a correspondence between types of societies and forms of violence often recognize the opacity of violence yet lose sight of the historical ...

International Organization, 1982

Development policy is analyzed by liberal models in terms of bargaining transactions between inte... more Development policy is analyzed by liberal models in terms of bargaining transactions between interest-maximizing actors and by the dependency perspective in terms of the internalized requirements of worldwide capital accumulation. Both approaches assume the working of capitalist rationality in dependent nations. In contrast, a focus on productive relations, class alliances, and political coalitions reveals the constraints on developmental policies in nations built around the partial development of capitalist productive forces and occupying a subordinate role in the international division of labor. Analysis of the Venezuelan auto policy during the Pérez administration (1974–79) shows the relations constituting socially defined actors and the structures underlying the policy bargaining process. It posits that in Venezuela there is a growing disjuncture between the internationally conditioned requirements of capital accumulation and the locally based demands of social reproduction; tha...