Marion Fresia

Mots-clés: HCR · Réfugiés · Asile · Humanitaire · Mauritanie · haalpulaar

The UNHCR's programme in Senegal: Between transnational and local sovereignties
Beyond the depoliticizing rhetoric on which they are based, humanitarian spaces constitute ideal places to question notions of power and sovereignty and to observe their informal and fragmented dimensions. Through an empirical account of UNHCR's programme in Senegal, the author explores how humanitarian action is based on contradictory dynamics that both reinforce and contest the sovereignty of the nation-state. In this article humanitarian spaces are not described as spaces of control and confinement nor as extra-territorial spaces but rather as new political arenas within which different powers and institutions attempt to reaffirm their authority by drawing on different sources of legitimacy (local, national or international). The observation of such dynamics leads the author to highlight how sovereignty as a stable and unique power remains a profoundly social construction and how processes of domination over displaced populations are not only driven by state interests and logics of containment.

Birgit Müller

Mots-clés: Expertise · Participation · Institutions internationales · Politique alimentaire et agraire · Dispositif de dépolitisation

How to transform a political issue into a technical one: Controversies concerning agricultural biotechnologies at the FAO
This article explores how the dispositif in which the policy guidelines of the FAO are embedded depoliticizes conflicts about property and control provoked by the introduction of transgenic plants. The organisation tries to neutralise the controversies surrounding GMOs by advocating consultation with and the participation of civil society organisations, thereby reducing political controversies to technical problems. What appears at first sight to be the anti-politics of the institution is, however, less its essence than a recurring practice. This practice will be studied «at work» when transgenic plants become the subject of political and economic contention as the first thematic issue of the State of Food and Agriculture 2003 / 04 focusing on the theme «Agricultural Biotechnologies Meeting the Needs of the Poor?» is produced and published.

Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos

Mots-clés: Fondations politiques allemandes · Démocratie · Philippines · Fédéralisme · KAS (Konrad Adenauer Stiftung)

Political foundations and democracy in the Philippines: A German federal model for an archipelago?
An impressive number of local and international NGOs are in operation in the Philippines and amongst these are some whose purpose is to support the democratic transition of the country. Based in Manila for approximately forty years now, the German Political Foundations are especially involved in the decentralising of the state, monitoring elections, backing municipalities and supporting the independence of the media. The KAS (Konrad Adenauer Stiftung), on which this article focuses, has also been involved in the peace negotiations of the Mindanao conflict. This crisis, stemming from the opposition of the Moro Muslim minority to a Christian-led government, represented an opportunity to try to export a German federal model in order to solve a regional problem. The proposal put forward did not, however, rally many people, instead being used by a tiny minority to confirm its opposition to a centralised form of government.

Dostena Anguelova-Lavergne

Mots clés: Think tanks · Transition démocratique · Gouvernance mondiale · Légitimité représentative

Between local and global: Think tanks as new political actors. A Bulgarian example
Think tanks first appeared in Bulgarian civil society at the beginning of the democratic transition in the 1990s. As militant organizations they were deeply involved in the structuring of a new political space in the country. Although remaining outside the electoral framework they played the role of «watch-dogs» when liberal reforms were introduced acting as the people's voice, on the one hand, and as the representatives of Western will, on the other. Being financed almost exclusively by foreign donors the support they give to political parties, actors and causes depends on the policies designed to assist democracy-building. This article focuses on the Centre for Liberal Strategies and on the role it played in the setting up of the first primary presidential elections in 1996. It describes the way think tanks helped introduce political technologies aimed at democratizing the country. The author thus questions the representative legitimacy of what is being undertaken by these new political actors.

Michaela Pelican

Schlagwörter: Indigene Völker · Minderheitenrechte · Mbororo · Kamerun

Contested indigenous rights: The case of the Mbororo in Northwest Cameroon
This article discusses the problematic application of the concept of «indigenous peoples» in the African context. It critically considers the effects of international interventions aimed at reinforcing the realisation of the rights of indigenous peoples at the local and national level. The argument presented will be illustrated by means of a leadership succession dispute involving conflicting strategies.

Shafqat Hussain

Keywords: Development · Northern Pakistan · Ismailism · Marginality · Religious sovereignty

This paper examines how the people of Hunza in Pakistan experience multiple claims of sovereignty, including religious claims, and how they respond to these in their everyday lives. The principal focus is on how Shimshalis perceive the role of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN). I argue that various social and economic development institutions of the AKDN claim both a «soft» (through its NGO network) and a religious (through the figure of the Aga Khan) form of sovereignty over the people by providing them with protection and welfare. By showing how the development institutions of the Aga Khan incorporate supra-national modernist discourse and practice I demonstrate how the analysis of sovereignty must extend beyond the boundaries of the nation-state in order to include networks of NGOs and religious authority, both of which the Shimshali people imbue with sovereign-like status.

Eva Keller

Keywords: Representations of Nature conservation · Global Environmentalism · National Parks · Madagascar · Slavery

In the wake of a global surge in biodiversity conservation activities, Madagascar has become subjected to «global environmental governance» with foreign NGOs playing a key role in this development. This article investigates how farmers who live next to a national park in Madagascar conceptualise new forms of conservation-oriented power. I show that, in contrast to conservationists, farmers do not think about the park in terms of conservation issues but rather in terms of the relationships between local people and outside powers, both Malagasy and foreign. In their intellectual analysis of the present situation, farmers make use of their understanding and memories of history, particularly that of the colonial period, thus connecting the present to the past. This leads some of them to ponder over fundamental issues of social life such as the nature of servitude.

Jérôme Beauchez

Mots-clés: Ethnologie · Combats de boxe ordinaires · Corps à corps · Socialité charnelle

Fighting bodies: An ethnography of ordinary boxing matches
In the light of a pugilistic show whose media setting illuminates a micro-world of champions, this paper offers an ethnographical perspective on ordinary boxing matches. While the ethnography of these hand-to-hand combats and their locations - many boxing galas that took place in France and Germany will be examined - shows all the social levels involved in the combats, their depiction is intensified by discovering the background of carnal sociality through which individual fighting figures are sketched.

Anahy Gajardo

Mots-clés: Ethnicité · Autochtonie · Diaguita · Chili · Politiques de l'Etat · Compagnies minières

«Is it culture or law that determines ethnic group?» A chronicle of the Diaguita people's legal recognition in Chile
Thought to have totally disappeared after the Spanish conquest, the Diaguitas were legally recognised as the ninth indigenous group in Chile in 2006. This text traces the process by which they made the transformation, in a little under ten years, from being invisible to becoming active players on the Chilean indigenous political stage. The text also analyses the territorial issues (which are at the heart of the tensions between the Chilean state and the indigenous organisations) which today divide the two principal Diaguita organisations in the Huasco-Alto region.