Over the last twenty years, many liberal democracies have seen the emergence of new forms of organization that seek to emancipate themselves from the “State form” by using decentralized decision-making tools and practices. However, often explicitly and with the aim of drawing on material likely to feed their own political experiments, these social movements do not hesitate to mobilize the work of anthropologists describing Indigenous societies said to be “against the State”, “anarchic” or “who have the art of not being governed”. David Graeber's work of anarchist anthropology, for example, based among other things on ethnographies of Amazonian societies, fed the Occupy Wall Street movement in which the anthropologist participated.
Despite the critiques we might have of analyses describing Indigenous societies as possessing an “anarcho-egalitarian ethos”, and despite the historical and cultural differences between the above-mentionned social movements and Indigenous groups, our hypothesis is that both seem to be driven by similar concerns regarding the autonomy of both the group and the individuals who constitute it. Indeed, these groups first question the legitimacy of States’ inherent centralism, in which decisions are imposed without regard for local choices and specificities. They then endeavor to proscribe the emergence of just such a centralized authority within their own group, through the invention of practices of assembly that cultivate the right of participation for all, and constrain or prevent the stabilization of leadership in the hands of only a few of their members.
This special issue aims to gather ethnographies that highlight the diversity of aspirations and modalities of implementing this double autonomy. How do groups attempt to resolve the tension between individual autonomy and the desire to organize collectively in order to confront States? To lay the foundation for this comparative work the contributions to this special issue will thus examine the diversity of assembly practices as a tool for collective decision-making, both in the indigenous context and in social movements that are seeking autonomy from nation-states.
Deadlines: September 30, 2022 (abstracts) – January 31, 2023 (submission of selected articles)
More details in the full CFP or here: https://tsantsa.ch/announcement/view/115
Contacts : Paul CODJIA : paul.codjia(at)hotmail.fr / Raphaël COLLIAUX : raphael.colliaux(at)ehess.fr