Contenu du sommaire : Mondes méditerranéens

Rural protests and political unrest over the issue of hydroelectric power plants in Turkey
Hydroelectric power plant projects came into the political agenda of Turkey together with the proliferation of these projects all over the country to be constructed and managed by private companies. As rivers in the countryside started to be taken into the pipes for the purposes of energy production by the private sector, local people have arisen their voices to hinder them through different strategies and practices : they break into the meetings, formed camps near HEPP construction area, attack the company representatives with eggs, entered into severe debates with gendarme etc. This paper examines the rural protests against HEPPs by focusing on the context in which they emerged, the positions and discourses of the agents in these riots and the responses of the state and the private companies. In many cases, the protests arise spontaneously and in an disorganized way together with a feel of anger and as a reaction to possible devastating impacts of HEPPs in the lives of rural communities. However as the projects and struggle against them deepen and proliferate towards diverse rural localities in the country, different forms of organization start to being formed such as associations and platforms for a common struggle. In this context it is necessary rethink the boundary drawn between riots and social movements to be able to comprehend the overall picture of the expanding rural unrest all over the country. In order to understand the emergence of these rural unrests, the breakdown theory helps to analyze the rise of affective responses in relation to the socio-economic destruction and disillusion in countryside of Turkey. Resource mobilization theory of collective action pave the way to consider the political agency of the peasants that get organized and protest as a means of power. Yet, as they reproduce the binary oppositions between riots and social movements – such as the irrational and rational, routine and non-routine, spontaneous and organized – these theories lack in providing a complete picture. I argue that Timothy Mitchell's concept enframing provides a fertile ground to comprehend the contentious forms of collective action in rural Turkey, which directly question and attack the very power which creates an externality effect to reproduce itself, thus open a theoretical space to deconstruct these constructed boundaries between irrational vs rational, routine vs non-routine and spontaneous vs organized.

Riots in the Maghreb : The Web and the Revolt without Qualities
New media technology such as the Internet and the cell/mobile phone are changing the ways protest and popular demands are being produced and understood. From the dissemination of protests and riots by fax to filming with amateur camera and cell phones, then editing and wide dissemination, the grammar of the protest has undergone significant changes. While the fax transmits information, the image makes the event visible to world-wide audiences and supporters, in the process redefining the actors involved in them and produce new understandings of them. This paper aims at analyzing the novel ways in which protestors from the Maghreb, in particular those belonging to non-urban centers, are at once constituting their virtual archives and positioning themselves as witnesses and first hand denunciators of various injustices. It will deal with the following questions : How does this double gesture interrogate previous knowledge constructions be they epistemological and/or political ? Does this witnessing process render the event and the prejudice against which the rioters have fought more intelligible ? In answering these questions, and in parallel to the semiosis that is mobilized for such a denunciation, we will focus on the analysis of a few riots, in particular those that have generated various artistic productions (music, poetry, clips, etc.)

The crowd, the riot, the feast between revolt and revolution. Revolutionary France 1789-1792, the french riots 2005, Tunisia-Egypt 2011Spontaneously the riots are not recognized as a very political act. Certainly, the linguistic competences are recognized but not the emotions, especially from Freud who copies the Lebon's and Taine's analysis. This paper reexamines the three historical moments, cited in the title, by showing they are indissolubly political and emotional. By there, we will understand that the political character of the riot is not a warlike one.

To take a look back on the riots of november 2005 in France supposes to reconsider the comparison which was often made, quite rightly from the viewpoint of the repertories of the collective action, between these events and the popular rebellions of the Ancien Regime, characterizing them thereby by a lack of politics, as « proto », « infra », « supra » or « post-political », and entering them without solution of continuity in the long litany of localized riots happened since the one of Minguettes. While their uniqueness, their particular morphology, and their direct link with the grenade thrown on the mosque of Clichy largely occulted in the abundant literature produced about the riots, but proven by one of the very rare fields led on the moment by Marwan Mohamed and well-established since the investigation conducted by Gilles Kepel at Clichy-Montfermeil, incite to take into account the role of the Islamic revival in the production of affects and the moral economy at the origin of the events. Which leads to qualify them both as impolitical, in the extent that the religious dimension which allowed the crystallization of riots was not established as motive of protest but constituted only the support of it, and political for this very reason.

Gender perceptions within an urban riot : December 2008 in Athens
On 6th December 2008, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a 15-year-old student, is shot to death by two policemen in the center of the leftist neighborhood of Athens, Exarchia. The riots followed as a reaction to this brutal assassination marked the recent political history of Greece. People from various backgrounds shared their enthusiasm for this ‘uprising' by going out in the streets and demonstrating. Within the broader anarchist/anti-authoritarian movement, however, some voices were raised against the sexism and patriarchy that some male companions were reproducing. These initiatives raised a series of reflexive questions for the wider movement and its strategies, bringing to light issues such as violence, gender performance and masculinities. In this paper, I analyze the discourse produced by these activists who functioned either spontaneously or collectively. The critiques cover a wide range of issues, such as the kind of slogans shouted in front of the policemen, the use of physical violence inside the movement from male against female activists, the use of violence against state institutions and agents, the intersection of multiple identities onto single bodies. The analysis is made mainly on the basis of four written sources and secondarily from various academic and journalistic sources, as well as from four interviews conducted in December 2010 in Athens. Three of these written sources circulated in Athens in December 2008 and afterward in the form of tract and poster, but they can be found on Internet in Greek and some of them in English as well. The fourth is a gender analysis of the riots made by an anarcho-autonomous collective from Thessaloniki written in English and published on their website in December 2010. These sources present a particular interest since they explore and analyze from within the gender relations between the activists coming from the same political space. One common point between these sources is the frequent use of concepts such as sexism and patriarchy. In my paper, I adopt theoretical tools and methodological practices associated with post-structuralism. I try to see how the concepts used are meant to be understood by the discourse producers. At the same time, I attempt to examine how these meanings are interpreted by me. Feeling in solidarity with many of the activists' claims, I suggest that other interpretations of the texts which could be based on concepts such as hegemonic masculinities and intersectionality would be able to raise further questions and critiques for the broader movement and the future gender relations within it.

Last Kurdish Bandits in Modern Turkey : An Analysis of the “Spontaneous” Kurdish Individual Uprisings against the Turkish Nation-State in the Form of Banditry. This study is an analysis of the last Kurdish bandits in modern Turkey between 1950 and 1980. In this period, which constituted the transition from the Kurdish riots of the early 20th century to the emergence of the first organized Kurdish movements in the late 1970s, it seems as if the history of the Kurdish rebellion against the Turkish nation-state paused. This period, however, also constituted the massive emergence, final climax, and the ultimate demise of the Kurdish banditry. This study is an attempt to fill in the blanks of the history of the Kurdish rebellion by posing the question « In what sense, were the “ordinary crimes” of the last Kurdish bandits extra-ordinary ? » Through a textual analysis of the issues of one of the most mainstream and popular daily newspapers Milliyet (Nationality) in Turkey between 1950 and 1980, the social protest function and the role of banditry in the power politics between the Turkish nation-state, local landlords, and peasants are analyzed. It is argued, first of all, that it was the nomadic life style, from which the Kurdish bandits exclusively emerged, that was interpreted by the state elite as a substantial threat to the Turkish nation-state building process. Through the measures taken against the banditry, the state aimed to dissolve these communities themselves – which were in the civilization discourse of the state elite nothing but “the remnants of the reactionary Ottoman society”. Moreover, it is claimed that there appeared no bandit, or even bandit image in the memory of the Kurdish peasants, fighting against the order of the landlords. Some of the figures of these bandits have become legends in the eyes of the Kurdish people ; because, not of their rebellion against the landlords, but of their supposed courage and invulnerability in the face of “the great state”. The legends of these bandits in the eyes of the Kurdish people mainly mocked the entire state structure and its image as an irresistible force. In addition, it is argued that while banditry and the nomadic tribes were interpreted by the state elite as a rebellious spirit of the old reactionary structure to the Turkish nation-state building process, Kurdish banditry was also used as a veil for the state to penetrate the Kurdish regions. Finally, the sudden disappearance of the Kurdish banditry in the late 1970s was due to the success of the state centralization process to dissolve nomadic tribes, to the social transformation of the Kurdish regions of Turkey by the establishment of big landowning and rapid urbanization, and to the very emergence of the first Kurdish organized movements in the late 1970s.

How did Opposition forces request the power ? The Intifadah in Iraq in 1952In November 1952, massive riots took place in Baghdad. The riots lasted for at least one week. They were called the « Intifadah ». This Intifadah has been analyzed for its political impact without considering the actual events. I intend to study the different parties involved in these riots and their motivations. The Intifadah is very interesting also because it occured four years after other massive riots, the Wathba. Indeed, comparing the two events can help understanding the experiences that crowds and their leaders acquired during these events. It is thus possible to understand how the « Iraqi street » impacted on the power and how it became an arena between the different oppositional forces. I intend to draw an analytical description focusing on the continuity and the differences between the Wathba and the Intifadah. First of all, it seems that the Intifadah followed the same patterns as the Wathba. Students and workers reached together the street to demonstrate. They tried to merge and to make an assault on some institutions. This merger can only be understood if we take the support of political parties into consideration. However, the traditional pattern reached a peak during the first two days, showing that students, workers and activists had acquired political experience since 1948. It also prove that demonstrations had become an usual way of contestations in Iraq. Secondly, the differences between the 1952 Intifadah and the 1948 Wathba have to be discussed. Both had a diplomatic cause, both involved numerous crowds and both were quickly transformed into a massive popular movement. Therefore, a detailed analysis of these two movements seems to be relevant : who reacted to the demonstrations and how ? When and through which forms did different groups engaged in the riots ? An explanation of these two events can be proposed through a historical and sociological analysis. However the Intifadah is specific by its violences. The demonstrators' targets and their violent behaviour have to be explained to show how riots might help supporting political, economical and national claims. In this way, the Intifadah marked a new stage in Iraqi history. Thirdly, it seems that this period is also insightful for a new way of governance. Indeed, the Intifadah of 1952 occured after the political field's standstill. That was a direct result of the Palestine war in 1948. Before the Intifadah, Iraq was governed by emergency laws, that made any participation and any critical attitude against the government, impossible. Consequently, the opposition to the government did not organize any longer as a political party, but chose instead an « exit » strategy. This observation helps us to explain that the majority of the politicians who participated in the riots asked to change electoral law and required political freedom. Even though all opposition groups went to the street together, not all of them defended the same goals. Nevertheless, the Communist, the Independent and the National Democratic Party, tried to use the demonstrations aiming to become a part of the general political field.

Insurgent building. Riots, protest and the Bedouin-state conflict in the Israeli Negev desert
When insurgencies and riots are explored as discursive practices which shape, produce and reify categories of reality, often the frames of normative politics blowup, revealing a space made of ambiguities, disjuncture, and interstitial zones. In much of the current literature on riots and popular resistance, instead, uprising is considered less unproblematically as a natural effect of a given reality. Often, such analyses remain trapped in dichotomous categories of « state » and « people », sometimes represented as monolithic, personified entities.In this paper I problematize this assumption. In line with literature on social constructivism and on ethnicization to certain extend, Slavoj Žižek argues that descriptions of reality do not naturally and immutably refer to things, but things begin to resemble their description. In a similar vein, I try to show that riots and protest do not simply articulate interpretative categories of reality, but seem also able to « produce » them. At this regard, first and foremost, it is the ethnographic attention to micro-political interactions that highlights the need for more careful attention, a need to embrace the uncertainty of open classifications and the lack of analytical closure. This will be shown through a case study of « insurgent building » in the Israeli Negev desert : a specific form of protest that can lead to riots and violence. « Insurgent building » refers to the use of concrete and other building materials in symbolic constructions on contested land. These constructions are built by Arab-Bedouin citizens and human-rights activists, yet with the expectation that they will be eventually demolished by the Israeli police shortly after. I consider insurgent building as a lens through which better to understand how politics of claims are channeled into clear-cut binary categories that ultimately contribute to the obfuscation of the multi-layeredness on the ground. For example, what at a specific level look as an expression of complex intra-group conflicts between different Arab-Bedouin groups can be re-interpreted through insurgent practices as an inter-group conflict around a clear-cut « Bedouin » vs « State » dichotomy ?In sum, this interest in how normative categories hide multiplicity, I believe, contributes to new insights into the relationship between reality and symbolization of conflict articulations in the Israeli-Palestinian space. Rather than simply reacting to given circumstances of the land conflict in the Negev, insurgent building is a very unusual practice of protest located beyond the people-state opposition and becomes also an instrument that contributes to the production of the very normative categories of the Bedouin-state conflict.

Coherences and tensions of students socialization in university : the results of a qualitative research. Begin university studies often leads students to think differently about their studies since the mastery of academic requirements based more on individual strategies of invention and less on a continuous monitoring and pedagogical support. From a sociological fieldwork, we show the existence of tensions between coherence and socialization standards and academic life, the construction of the project to learn and develop a career plan (or future projects). The assumption being that the university is characterized by a school as “floating” and mobilizing material from a qualitative research conducted with students and L1 Master, registered for one in a chain mass (Psychology), for others, in a chain over small (Sociology, History and applied Foreign Languages), we observe that membership requires studies to be consistent dimensions in tension. It is also to show, beyond belief, the academic background of the students is not linear and it is built to opportunities and learning acquired. Thus, students can fully succeed due to a failure in the first year or when redirecting to another sector. The portraits of some students met used to assess the diversity of modes of socialization in school and university life. The analysis questions, in the end, the operation of the university and its ability to provide an effective democratization in higher education.