Abstracts are not required for Book Reviews

Abstracts are not required for Book Reviews

Media discourses have conveyed the message that European identity has been severely undermined by the Euro-crisis. We test this contention with Eurobarometer data. Conceptually we distinguish two dimensions of collective identity: ‘image’ and ’belonging’. We surmise that economic downturns can alter the superficial layer of identity (image-like assessments), but not its underlying substance (belonging-like assessments) which depends on deeply ingrained socio-psychological mechanisms. These two dimensions are expected to be affected by the crisis in different ways: the image being a more volatile reflection of historical circumstances, and the sense of belonging being more stable over time.

On the 5th of February 2007, the Institute of National Statistics and Census in Argentina (INDEC) released a press statement, giving a percentage figure for that month's Consumer Price Index (CPI-GBA). Since the announcement, this number and its subsequent variations have been at the centre of a national and international political, legal and technical controversy. The legitimacy of the numerical value of the percentage has been called into question by a range of actors and has been challenged by the emergence of multiple alternative indicators of inflation. We explore this methodological controversy through the lens of statactivism. We do not describe the controversy in its entirety, but, rather, enter the controversy to develop a comparison of the procedures informing the production of the CPI as a national statistic with those informing its production as a big data number. In both cases, we explore the way in which price is produced as an indicator. In doing so we draw attention to the significance of calculative infrastructures as ubiquitous, multi-layered processes of connectivity, that have the capacity to make surfaces, to draw lines and boundaries, and to enable particular economic and political activities to unfold in multiple and specific ways. We argue that the capacity to connect, to attach and detach, that is immanent to such infrastructures configures price as an indicator in particular ways, and in doing so help make what we call state space, a term which we use to draw attention to how specific configurations of connectivity in the calculative infrastructure enacts a space of possibility for statactivism.

Working on the life stories of old-age activists, this paper shows that their activism has to be linked with two types of explanations. This activism can be understand as the result of the exclusion from others organisations that these activists have experienced due to their age. This activism can be understand also as the product of their will to be involved with people from the same generation. Therefore old-age organizations are less a place where elderly interests are defended than a place where elderly people can continue some kind of activism. Finally, this paper demonstrates that the comprehension of where elderly people get involved as activist has to be linked with the structure of inequality (i.e. the age segregation) that exists in social movements as in the whole society.

The concept of conflict is both crucial and equivocal in social sciences. Many meanings may be (and have been) ascribed to the word. Here, I seek to provide an empirical definition of social conflict that is linked to the notion of relation. The quality of the definition is tested by climbing down the ladder of abstraction and by using it for the definition and the clarification of a specific type of conflict, whose definition is often neglected in the social literature, that is, the political conflict which explodes in coalitions of political actors, where cooperation exists (or should exist).

The article describes the political transition in Bolivia, analysing the whole historical path of the last century: from the War of the Water to the indigenous struggle, from the neo-colonialist occupation to 1952 Revolution. At the end, the author expresses his point of view on the present indigenous and popular leadership in the person of Evo Morales. A complex and contradictory landscape in which campesinos finally try to build their self-determination.

Articolo introduttivo di un numero monografico sulle ingiustizie ambientali. I testi raccolti in questo numero di Partecipazione e conflitto sono legati da un tema comune: quello dei conflitti e delle ingiustizie ambientali nelle aree fragili. L’idea di analizzare casi su tale tema si fonda su due elementi: interazioni oppositive e fragilità dei luoghi. L’intento del numero monografico era quello di connettere questi aspetti, ossia di cogliere l’eventuale specificità di conflitti sull’uso delle risorse naturali collocate in aree fragili.