CULTURAL DYNAMICSPub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/09213740221105738
T. Somotan
{"title":"A New History of Crime and Law in 20th century Nigeria","authors":"T. Somotan","doi":"10.1177/09213740221105738","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09213740221105738","url":null,"abstract":"Historians have focused on the origin of the Nigeria-Biafran War (1967–70) and the conflict's impact on Nigeria's local and international policies. But no study has adequately interrogated the Biafran legal system. In his groundbreaking monograph, A History of the Republic of Biafra: Law, Crime, and the State in the Nigerian Civil War, Samuel Fury Childs Daly examines how armed robbery and fraud increased during the war and in postwar Nigeria. Drawing on court records, diplomatic records, and oral interviews, the author argues that Biafran citizens and state representatives broke the law to survive economic and political hardships. Many forged documents to avoid conscription into the army or impersonated soldiers to procure food. In some cases, individuals committed crime for self-aggrandizement or vengeance. Daly asserts that Nigeria’s experience with crime, especially fraudulent acts like advance-fee fraud, can be traced to the criminal behaviors that exploded during and after the war. In other words, the illegal acts undertaken by ordinary people in Biafra to cope with unemployment and poverty became part of everyday life in postwar Nigeria. A History of the Republic of Biafra contributes to histories of law, military, postcolonial states in Africa, and the Nigerian Civil War.","PeriodicalId":43944,"journal":{"name":"CULTURAL DYNAMICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41280841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CULTURAL DYNAMICSPub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/09213740221120304
Antonio Orozco Ramos
{"title":"The microcredit mousetrap: A long way from fighting poverty in Mexico","authors":"Antonio Orozco Ramos","doi":"10.1177/09213740221120304","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09213740221120304","url":null,"abstract":"In Mexico microcredit has deviated from its original purpose of fighting poverty to oppress those whom it was supposed to help through high interest rates and over-indebtedness. There 42% of the population is poor, fighting poverty is paramount. Three decades ago, microcredit (which is different from microfinance), took root as a new, promising tool to help millions of people, who have historically been excluded from the traditional financial system, emerge from the grip of poverty. From the outset, microcredit usurped the place of microfinance in the fight against poverty, as it set aside the most effective financial tool: savings.","PeriodicalId":43944,"journal":{"name":"CULTURAL DYNAMICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44625592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CULTURAL DYNAMICSPub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/09213740221112968
M. Shea
{"title":"A visionary geography: Raúl Zurita and the problem of the land","authors":"M. Shea","doi":"10.1177/09213740221112968","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09213740221112968","url":null,"abstract":"This essay argues for a reconsideration of Raúl Zurita’s early poetry in the context of the agrarian question in Chilean socialism and neoliberalism. Countering readings of Zurita’s landscape poetics as primarily metonymic depictions of bodily trauma suffered by the victims of the Pinochet dictatorship, I argue that space as it appears in Zurita’s first two collections, Purgatorio and Anteparaíso, is a non-mimetic, discursive, and contradictory object. Through this rendering, Zurita’s poetic speaker offers what I term a “visionary geography” which denaturalizes the Chilean landscape and reflects the centrality of land use to the crisis and conflict of the 1970s.","PeriodicalId":43944,"journal":{"name":"CULTURAL DYNAMICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42276244","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CULTURAL DYNAMICSPub Date : 2022-07-18DOI: 10.1177/09213740221105739
Vivian Chenxue Lu
{"title":"Ordering life and law in a besieged African secessionist state","authors":"Vivian Chenxue Lu","doi":"10.1177/09213740221105739","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09213740221105739","url":null,"abstract":"Samuel Fury Childs Daly’s A History of the Republic of Biafra: Law, Crime, and the Nigerian Civil War focuses on the remarkable legal inner workings of the postcolonial African secessionist state o...","PeriodicalId":43944,"journal":{"name":"CULTURAL DYNAMICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138508987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CULTURAL DYNAMICSPub Date : 2022-06-28DOI: 10.1177/09213740221105731
S. Daly
{"title":"The crutch of violence: Writing A History of the Republic of Biafra: Law, Crime, and the Nigerian Civil War","authors":"S. Daly","doi":"10.1177/09213740221105731","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09213740221105731","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43944,"journal":{"name":"CULTURAL DYNAMICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42745097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CULTURAL DYNAMICSPub Date : 2022-06-24DOI: 10.1177/09213740221110920
Abelardo León-Donoso
{"title":"Homomercracia. The commodification of sexual and gender diversity in Chilean democracy","authors":"Abelardo León-Donoso","doi":"10.1177/09213740221110920","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09213740221110920","url":null,"abstract":"The approval of the anti-discrimination law in 2012 and the Civil Union Agreement in 2015 in Chile offer a sharp contrast to a society that has historically repressed LGBTQ people. However, it is not clear why and how public discourse shifted within this conventional heteronormative context. To understand this, I analyze samples taken from the Chilean print and digital media using Critical Discourse Analysis. I propose the concept of Homomercracia: a portmanteau from the Spanish words for homosexuality, market, and democracy, which describes the instrumentalization of political rhetoric related to sexual and gender diversity. I conclude that social and political changes in Chilean society have helped to catalyze these recent advances.","PeriodicalId":43944,"journal":{"name":"CULTURAL DYNAMICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47889961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CULTURAL DYNAMICSPub Date : 2022-05-26DOI: 10.1177/09213740221093079
Bruna Della Torre, M. Cooper
{"title":"The holy family: Neoliberalism and neoconservatism in the current far-right: Interview with Melinda Cooper","authors":"Bruna Della Torre, M. Cooper","doi":"10.1177/09213740221093079","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09213740221093079","url":null,"abstract":"Interview with Melinda Cooper about her 2017 book Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism. The interview addresses neoliberal gender politics, Cooper’s critique of the separation between politics of “distribution” and “recognition,” contemporary politics in America and the question of reproductive labor.","PeriodicalId":43944,"journal":{"name":"CULTURAL DYNAMICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45901502","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction: Neoliberalism in the Americas. Brutal experiments, distressful realities, and conspicuous contestations","authors":"Eduardo Altheman, Mónica González García, Ximena Martínez","doi":"10.1177/09213740221093081","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09213740221093081","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue was originally conceived as a conference organized at Duke University in January 2019, entitled “Neoliberalism in the Americas: Brutal Experiments, Distressful Realities, and Conspicuous Contestations. Re-thinking the South in the North and the North in the South.” The premise that inspired this reunion was, since Milton Friedman used dictatorial Chile as a laboratory for his monetary theories, neoliberalism has always been a matter that concerned the Americas as a continent. It has bound together Chicago and Santiago in one single package of authoritarian rule and unfettered capitalism, blemished with Nobel prizes, wealth concentration, and always-renewed, never-fulfilled promises of freedom and economic growth. Most of the articles were originally presented at the aforementioned conference, including a piece shared by one of the keynote speakers, Brazilian philosopher Vladimir Safatle. Nonetheless, we have also incorporated other contributions, such as an interview with Australian scholar Melinda Cooper. These works address neoliberalism from literature to psychoanalysis, from politics to gender and sexual identities, from historical and present-day investigations. The result is a multinational, transdisciplinary volume centered on the experiments of neoliberalization which, since the 1970s, connect the entire continent—ultimately reaching the extent of a truly global experience.","PeriodicalId":43944,"journal":{"name":"CULTURAL DYNAMICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48565584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CULTURAL DYNAMICSPub Date : 2022-05-17DOI: 10.1177/09213740221103171
Santiago M. Roggerone
{"title":"The return of neoliberalism in Argentina: Toward a critical theory from (and for) the global South","authors":"Santiago M. Roggerone","doi":"10.1177/09213740221103171","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09213740221103171","url":null,"abstract":"The victory of Mauricio Macri in the 2015 Argentine presidential election led to a kind of return of neoliberalism, soon resisted by the people and the political opposition. In this paper I will address the question of how recent regressive neoliberal policies and austerity agenda have been defied and counteracted by progressive forces and the Argentine left-wing movements. To do so, I will periodize this country’s recent history and map the positions occupied by the local left in order to argue that neoliberalism has never been entirely hegemonic in Argentina. By doing this, I hope to contribute to the development of a critical theory from (and for) the global South.","PeriodicalId":43944,"journal":{"name":"CULTURAL DYNAMICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47786645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}