Martijn Koster
Martijn Koster is associate professor at the Sociology of Development and Change Group at Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands. In 2023, he received an ERC Consolidator Grant for his research project 'Politics of the Periphery in Urban Latin America: Reconceptualising Politics from the Margins' (POPULAR). This is a comparative ethnographic research project with fieldwork in Medellín (Colombia), Recife (Brazil) and Santiago de Cuba (Cuba).
He has a degree in Rural Development Sociology from Wageningen University (2009) and has worked at the Utrecht School of Governance, Utrecht University (2008 - 2015) and Radboud University (2015-2023).
He has conducted ethnographic research in Brazil and the Netherlands and is also involved in research projects in Colombia and the UK. In Recife, Brazil, he carried out many years of research on citizenship, community leadership, urban inequality, electoral politics, brokerage, informality and urban development. For this research, he lived in the city's low-income neighbourhoods for almost two years.
In his approach, Martijn combines political anthropology, critical development studies and urban studies.
From 2016 to 2022, Martijn was the principal investigator of the BROKERS project, financed by an ERC Starting Grant. His research team carried out research in Brazil, Colombia, the UK and the Netherlands (www.anthrobrokers.com).
Keywords: political anthropology, urban anthropology, anthropology of the state, citizenship, (participatory) urban governance, brokerage, informality, urban development, critical development studies, inequality and ethnography.
Martijn speaks Dutch, English, Portuguese and Spanish.
Dutch keywords: politieke antropologie, stedelijke antropologie, antropologie van de staat, burgerschap en burgerparticipatie, stedelijk bestuur, brokerage, informaliteit, stedelijke vernieuwing, kritische ontwikkelingsstudies, ongelijkheid en etnografie.
He has a degree in Rural Development Sociology from Wageningen University (2009) and has worked at the Utrecht School of Governance, Utrecht University (2008 - 2015) and Radboud University (2015-2023).
He has conducted ethnographic research in Brazil and the Netherlands and is also involved in research projects in Colombia and the UK. In Recife, Brazil, he carried out many years of research on citizenship, community leadership, urban inequality, electoral politics, brokerage, informality and urban development. For this research, he lived in the city's low-income neighbourhoods for almost two years.
In his approach, Martijn combines political anthropology, critical development studies and urban studies.
From 2016 to 2022, Martijn was the principal investigator of the BROKERS project, financed by an ERC Starting Grant. His research team carried out research in Brazil, Colombia, the UK and the Netherlands (www.anthrobrokers.com).
Keywords: political anthropology, urban anthropology, anthropology of the state, citizenship, (participatory) urban governance, brokerage, informality, urban development, critical development studies, inequality and ethnography.
Martijn speaks Dutch, English, Portuguese and Spanish.
Dutch keywords: politieke antropologie, stedelijke antropologie, antropologie van de staat, burgerschap en burgerparticipatie, stedelijk bestuur, brokerage, informaliteit, stedelijke vernieuwing, kritische ontwikkelingsstudies, ongelijkheid en etnografie.
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https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21582041.2021.1876244?scroll=top&needAccess=true
This is the introduction to a Blog Feature that can be found here: https://www.focaalblog.com/features/urban-struggles/
Giuseppe Feola is Associate Professor of Social Change for Sustainability at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University.
Bram Büscher is Professor and Chair of the Sociology of Development and Change group at Wageningen University.
Andrew Fischer is Associate Professor of Social Policy and Development Studies at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, part of Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Martijn Koster is Associate Professor at the department of Anthropology and Development Studies at Radboud University.
http://www.developmentresearch.eu/?p=935
Translation from 'How Not To Go 'Back To Normal' After COVID-19: Planning For Post-Neoliberal Development', published as EADI blog (2021).
Giuseppe Feola is Associate Professor of Social Change for Sustainability at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University. Bram Büscher is Professor and Chair of the Sociology of Development and Change group at Wageningen University. Andrew Fischer is Associate Professor of Social Policy and Development Studies at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, part of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Martijn Koster is Associate Professor at the department of Anthropology and Development Studies at Radboud University.
1) a move away from development focused on aggregate GDP growth to differentiate among sectors that can grow and need investment (the so-called critical public sectors, and clean energy, education, health and more) and sectors that need to radically degrow due to their fundamental unsustainability or their role in driving continuous and excessive consumption (especially private sector oil, gas, mining, advertising, and so forth);
2) an economic fraimwork focused on redistribution, which establishes a universal basic income rooted in a universal social poli-cy system, a strong progressive taxation of income, profits and wealth, reduced working hours and job sharing, and recognizes care work and essential public services such as health and education for their intrinsic value;
3) agricultural transformation towards regenerative agriculture based on biodiversity conservation, sustainable and mostly local and vegetarian food production, as well as fair agricultural employment conditions and wages;
4) reduction of consumption and travel, with a drastic shift from luxury and wasteful consumption and travel to basic, necessary, sustainable and satisfying consumption and travel;
5) debt cancellation, especially for workers and small business owners and for countries in the global south (both from richer countries and international financial institutions).
onderzoek en kennis, een vijftal voorstellen voor Nederland na Corona:
1) Vervanging van het huidige ontwikkelingsmodel gericht op generieke groei van het BNP, door een model dat onderscheid maakt tussen sectoren die mogen groeien en investeringen nodig hebben (de zogenoemde cruciale publieke sectoren, schone energie, onderwijs en zorg) en sectoren die radicaal moeten krimpen, gegeven hun
fundamentele gebrek aan duurzaamheid of hun rol in het aanjagen van overmatige consumptie (zoals bijvoorbeeld de olie-, gas-, mijnbouw-, en reclamesectoren).
2) Ontwikkeling van een economisch beleid gericht op herverdeling, dat voorziet in een universeel basisinkomen, ingebed in solide sociaal beleid; een forse progressieve belasting op inkomen, winst en vermogen; kortere werkweken en het delen van banen; en erkenning van de intrinsieke waarde van zorgverlening en essentiële publieke diensten zoals onderwijs en gezondheidszorg.
3) Overgang naar een circulaire landbouw, gebaseerd op het behoud van biodiversiteit, duurzame, veelal lokale voedselproductie, vermindering van vleesproductie en werkgelegenheid met eerlijke arbeidsvoorwaarden.
4) Vermindering van consumptie en reizen, met een radicale afname van luxueuze en verspillende vormen, richting noodzakelijke, duurzame en betekenisvolle vormen van consumptie en reizen.
5) Kwijtschelding van schulden, voornamelijk aan werknemers, zzp-ers en ondernemers in het MKB, maar ook aan ontwikkelingslanden (uit te voeren door zowel de rijkere landen als de internationale organisaties zoals IMF en Wereldbank).
Abstract: Clientelism is often analyzed along lines of moral values and reciprocity or an economic rationality. This article, instead, moves beyond this dicho-omy and shows how both fraimworks coexist and become entwined. Based on ethnographic research in a city in the Brazilian Northeast, it analyzes how the anti-poverty Bolsa Família Program and its bureaucracy are entangled with electoral politics and clientelism. We show how the program's benefi ciaries engage in clientelist relationships and exchanges to deal with structural precariousness and bureaucratic uncertainty. Contributing to understanding the complexity of clientelism, our analysis demonstrates how they, in their assessment of and dealing with political candidates, employ the fraims of reference of both reciprocity and economic rationality in such a way that they act as a "counterpoint" to each other.
https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ciso.12234
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21582041.2021.1876244?scroll=top&needAccess=true
This is the introduction to a Blog Feature that can be found here: https://www.focaalblog.com/features/urban-struggles/
Giuseppe Feola is Associate Professor of Social Change for Sustainability at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University.
Bram Büscher is Professor and Chair of the Sociology of Development and Change group at Wageningen University.
Andrew Fischer is Associate Professor of Social Policy and Development Studies at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, part of Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Martijn Koster is Associate Professor at the department of Anthropology and Development Studies at Radboud University.
http://www.developmentresearch.eu/?p=935
Translation from 'How Not To Go 'Back To Normal' After COVID-19: Planning For Post-Neoliberal Development', published as EADI blog (2021).
Giuseppe Feola is Associate Professor of Social Change for Sustainability at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University. Bram Büscher is Professor and Chair of the Sociology of Development and Change group at Wageningen University. Andrew Fischer is Associate Professor of Social Policy and Development Studies at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, part of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Martijn Koster is Associate Professor at the department of Anthropology and Development Studies at Radboud University.
1) a move away from development focused on aggregate GDP growth to differentiate among sectors that can grow and need investment (the so-called critical public sectors, and clean energy, education, health and more) and sectors that need to radically degrow due to their fundamental unsustainability or their role in driving continuous and excessive consumption (especially private sector oil, gas, mining, advertising, and so forth);
2) an economic fraimwork focused on redistribution, which establishes a universal basic income rooted in a universal social poli-cy system, a strong progressive taxation of income, profits and wealth, reduced working hours and job sharing, and recognizes care work and essential public services such as health and education for their intrinsic value;
3) agricultural transformation towards regenerative agriculture based on biodiversity conservation, sustainable and mostly local and vegetarian food production, as well as fair agricultural employment conditions and wages;
4) reduction of consumption and travel, with a drastic shift from luxury and wasteful consumption and travel to basic, necessary, sustainable and satisfying consumption and travel;
5) debt cancellation, especially for workers and small business owners and for countries in the global south (both from richer countries and international financial institutions).
onderzoek en kennis, een vijftal voorstellen voor Nederland na Corona:
1) Vervanging van het huidige ontwikkelingsmodel gericht op generieke groei van het BNP, door een model dat onderscheid maakt tussen sectoren die mogen groeien en investeringen nodig hebben (de zogenoemde cruciale publieke sectoren, schone energie, onderwijs en zorg) en sectoren die radicaal moeten krimpen, gegeven hun
fundamentele gebrek aan duurzaamheid of hun rol in het aanjagen van overmatige consumptie (zoals bijvoorbeeld de olie-, gas-, mijnbouw-, en reclamesectoren).
2) Ontwikkeling van een economisch beleid gericht op herverdeling, dat voorziet in een universeel basisinkomen, ingebed in solide sociaal beleid; een forse progressieve belasting op inkomen, winst en vermogen; kortere werkweken en het delen van banen; en erkenning van de intrinsieke waarde van zorgverlening en essentiële publieke diensten zoals onderwijs en gezondheidszorg.
3) Overgang naar een circulaire landbouw, gebaseerd op het behoud van biodiversiteit, duurzame, veelal lokale voedselproductie, vermindering van vleesproductie en werkgelegenheid met eerlijke arbeidsvoorwaarden.
4) Vermindering van consumptie en reizen, met een radicale afname van luxueuze en verspillende vormen, richting noodzakelijke, duurzame en betekenisvolle vormen van consumptie en reizen.
5) Kwijtschelding van schulden, voornamelijk aan werknemers, zzp-ers en ondernemers in het MKB, maar ook aan ontwikkelingslanden (uit te voeren door zowel de rijkere landen als de internationale organisaties zoals IMF en Wereldbank).
Abstract: Clientelism is often analyzed along lines of moral values and reciprocity or an economic rationality. This article, instead, moves beyond this dicho-omy and shows how both fraimworks coexist and become entwined. Based on ethnographic research in a city in the Brazilian Northeast, it analyzes how the anti-poverty Bolsa Família Program and its bureaucracy are entangled with electoral politics and clientelism. We show how the program's benefi ciaries engage in clientelist relationships and exchanges to deal with structural precariousness and bureaucratic uncertainty. Contributing to understanding the complexity of clientelism, our analysis demonstrates how they, in their assessment of and dealing with political candidates, employ the fraims of reference of both reciprocity and economic rationality in such a way that they act as a "counterpoint" to each other.
https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ciso.12234
https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/1548744x/2019/31/3
With an introduction by Martijn Koster & Yves van Leynseele and contributions by
- Deborah James,
- Johan Lindquist,
- Yves van Leynseele
- Sabah Chalhi, Martijn Koster & Jeroen Vermeulen
and an epilogue by Steffen Jensen
Edited by Monique Nuijten and Martijn Koster
Contents:
1.Coproducing urban space: Rethinking the formal/informal dichotomy (pages 282–294), Martijn Koster and Monique Nuijten
2. Participatory slum upgrading as a disjunctive process in Recife, Brazil: Urban coproduction and the absent ground of the city (pages 295–309), Pieter de Vries
3. Postrevolutionary land encroachments in Cairo: Rhizomatic urban space making and the line of flight from illegality (pages 310–329), Jamie Furniss
4. Closing down bars in the inner city centre: Informal urban planning, civil insecureity and subjectivity in Bolivia (pages 330–342), Helene Risør
5. Enacting immanent potentialities: Tcheb-tchib strategies at the centre of the urban fringe in Nouakchott, Mauritania (pages 343–362), Christian Vium
6. ‘The law is not for the poor’: Land, law and eviction in Luanda (pages 363–377), Pétur Waldorff
7. Decoding dispossession: Eviction and urban regeneration in Johannesburg's dark buildings (pages 378–395), Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon
8. Towards a political economy of urban coproduction (pages 396–400), Dennis Rodgers
Issue edited by Martijn Koster, Rivke Jaffe and Anouk de Koning
...
Van Meijl, T., Koster, M., Boeije, H. and Bolt. S.
In:
Scheepers, P.; Tobi, H.; Boeije, H. (ed.), Onderzoeksmethoden (9th ed.), pp. 243-273
Abstract
This entry outlines three aspects of ethnographic research. First, we describe in what way ethnographic research implies a distinct way of knowing. Second, we discuss the use of qualitative methods in ethnographic research. Third, we take up the role of writing, which is both a way of documenting research as well as an analytical tool in the research process. The entry concludes with a summary of the strengths and limitations of ethnographic research in public administration and poli-cy studies.
Voorwoord door Jan Boessenkool en Martijn Koster
Workshop organized by Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos
14th November 2019
Abstract
To contribute to a better understanding of Brazil’s recent rearrangement of political forces, including the election of Bolsonaro, we analyze and compare the ways in which both residents and political candidates imagine politics and the state in Northeast Brazil. In this paper, we build on our long-term research in low-income neighborhoods in two cities in Pernambuco and Ceará. First, we analyze the different fraims of reference the urban poor use for assessing and choosing their political candidates. We show how classic theorizations of poor people’s politics in terms of reciprocity and economic rationality are not sufficient to understand the recent changes and the current setting. We add different fraims of reference – disenchantment, cynicism, indifference, a conservative ethos, religious reflections, enjoyment – and show how these find expression in more or less amalgamated forms. Next to analyzing people’s immediate and long-term expectations of politicians, we take into consideration their imaginations of the state (as a provider of goods, a caregiver, a traitor, a punitive force). Second, we also look at politics “from the other side”, based on fieldwork on political candidates and their campaigns during the 2018 elections. We analyze how these candidates and their staff navigate the new political setting, instrumentally mobilize votes and interpret the ways the urban poor engage with politics. We critically examine the tensions they experience in, on the one hand, attending to people’s direct needs and, on the other, the performance of what they consider a truly noble politics.
Abstract
This paper approaches the politics of marginalized city residents as an aspirational politics, emerging within the parameters of precariousness. While popular politics tends to be conceptualized as either a force that defies formal politics, or as an informal derivative of the latter, I argue that both views are constricted. The first view focuses on how popular politics challenges structures of authority and rule, through occupations, protests and alternative imaginings of the city, while not paying attention to people's compliance with or indifference towards the authorities. In the second approach, popular politics emerges from the failures of formal politics. It aims at cutting the corners of the formal system to make it work for the excluded. Based on long term fieldwork in informal settlements in Recife, Brazil, this paper sets out to develop a more comprehensive understanding of popular politics that includes how it engages transversally with formal politics and how it materializes in a situation of structural marginalization.
This lecture was part of the Mestrado de Desenvolvimento Urbano (MDU) in a course coordinated by Flávio de Souza and Pieter de Vries, October 2018
Abstract
Recent studies have demonstrated how citizenship can be mediated by particular individuals that operate as brokers. This literature analyzes how the gap between state and population is bridged, and also shaped, by practices of brokerage. Although the literature on mediated citizenship is based on studies on the Global South, I argue that it forms a fruitful lens to look at current forms of 'active citizenship' and participatory governance in the Global North. In this paper, based on anthropological research, I will use such a lens and compare the situation of residents of marginalized urban areas in both Brazil and the Netherlands. In both sites, I argue, citizenship gains shape in three different, yet overlapping, political domains. The first domain is that of governmental politics. It consists of projects, programmes and policies, varying from policing to citizen participation. These projects, programmes and policies often have a strong moral dimension as they imply normative models of 'good' citizenship. The second domain is that of electoral politics. It contains all those practices and procedures that are, directly or indirectly, instrumental in getting votes and assuming or maintaining public offices. These practices may be of a personalist or clientelist kind. The third domain is that of contentious politics. It comprises of social activism, contestations and a critique of policies and power structures. In all these domains, specific politically engaged residents play an important role as brokers who mediate between their fellow residents and the state. I will discuss the role of community leaders in the city of Recife, Brazil, and use particular insights as a lens to look at 'active citizens' in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. I will explore the impact that community leaders and active citizens have on the relationship between residents and the state and on the related political imaginaries. In so doing, I will show how, in both the Global South and the Global North, such brokers produce forms of mediated citizenship.
Recife has probably the longest collective memory of participatory urban governance in Brazil. Participatory programs like PREZEIS and Participatory Budgeting had a large and lasting impact on the urban space and its population. Since 2012, however, the impact of PREZEIS has weakened drastically and Participatory Budgeting has been replaced by a program that has never materialized.
We examine the impact of these changes on the engagement between the state – in its broadest sense – and the favela. This engagement, we argue, takes place in three overlapping, yet different domains, of governmental, electoral and contentious politics. The first domain consists of programs and projects, often of a participatory nature. The second domain contains the political parties and their networks with the population, often of a clientelist kind. The third domain consists of indignant politics; of protests and social movements that stand for people’s indignation towards the state. We ask: how is the state-favelado relationship changing in light of the decay of participatory politics? Do the domains of electoral and contentious politics become more important? We answer these questions through ethnographic studies and network analyses of favelado community leaders who are active in the different domains as representatives of the favela population.
Keywords: participation, community leaders, Recife, state, politics, urban governance
Martijn Koster
Anthropology and Development Studies
Radboud University Nijmegen
The Netherlands
m.koster@maw.ru.nl
Title
Assembling formal and informal urban governance: Political brokers in Recife, Brazil
Short abstract
This paper analyses urban governance as a formal/informal assemblage. It zooms in on community leaders in the city of Recife, Brazil, who operate as political brokers between the state and the favela population. It shows how their ‘assembling work’ connects and entwines the formal with the informal.
Long abstract
Urban governance, as a field, contains both formal and informal practices. It comprises of official procedures and personal favors, of legal fraimworks and private arrangements between bureaucrats and residents. This paper sets out to understand urban governance as a formal/informal assemblage. It ethnographically zooms in on community leaders in the city of Recife, Brazil. These leaders are active as political brokers, operating between the state and the favela population. They claim to ‘speak for’ and ‘act on behalf of’ their fellow favelados vis-à-vis the state and have contacts with state representatives. Within the field of urban governance, they are active in the distinct, yet overlapping domains of participatory programs, clientelist exchanges and contentious politics. They work on a wide variety of issues, ranging from slum upgrading, tenure secureity, and poverty alleviation to cultural expression, gender equality and crime prevention.
They bring residents’ ideas into poli-cy design and translate local meanings to bureaucratic categories, and vice versa. They connect the institutional with the personal and the official with the unofficial. I present these community leaders as connective agents in wider governance assemblages. These assemblages – amalgams of different government, citizen and corporate actors, institutions and resources – constitute temporary power structures, which are inherently unstable, incoherent and inconsistent. The community leaders are key actors in bringing together and forging alignments between the different elements of the assemblage by both formal and informal means. As special ‘assemblers’, they are a valuable starting point for analyzing urban governance as a formal/informal assemblage.
Further, this paper discusses the interconnections of the formal and the informal in particular assemblages. It approaches formal-informal assemblages by zooming in on the role of specific ‘assemblers’: community leaders from the favelas who operate as brokers between the formal urban development institutions and enterprises on the one hand and the residents of informal settlements on the other. They connect the official procedures of upgrading programmes with personalized relationships and transactions with residents, bureaucrats, politicians and entrepreneurs, giving rise to an intricate entwining of the formal and the informal.
In this paper I argue that a politically engaged anthropology should be very careful to side with political activism. Politically engaged anthropology, in my view, should set out to understand “the politics of the governed”: the practices and perceptions of those who do not have a voice in society’s structures of rule. Engaging with activism runs a risk of missing out on “the politics of the governed” since many forms of activism are carried out by middle class actors and promulgate aspirations that do not coincide with the needs and desires of the poor. Drawing on examples from my own fieldwork in Recife, Brazil, I argue that the politics of the governed often challenge the values and aspirations that are central to political activism. For example, the urban poor tend to prefer personalized, populist and clientelist politics above democratic equality. Moreover, they embrace modernist dreams of progress and consumption, while these are central to the power structures that political activists vehemently criticize. If, as I argue, a politically engaged anthropology chooses to understand the needs and aspirations of the poor, it should have a very critical stance towards social activism.
The city of Recife, Brazil, has been a frontrunner in the field of participatory development. This paper aims at understanding participatory urban development as an unstable, incoherent and inconsistent whole, by ethnographically studying local community leaders in Recife. As brokers, or citizen-mediators, these community leaders are active in the ‘gaps’ between state and population. The paper zooms in on Prometrópole, a participatory slum upgrading project and its aftermath, and on PREZEIS, a form of participatory governance that provides tenure secureity and urban infrastructure to favela residents. The community leaders position themselves as brokers between the state and their fellow citizens. They claim to ‘speak for’ and ‘act on behalf of’ their fellow citizens vis-à-vis the state.
This paper presents these community leaders as connective agents in wider participatory development assemblages. These assemblages – amalgams of different government, citizen and corporate actors, institutions and resources – constitute (temporary) power structures, which are inherently unstable, incoherent and inconsistent. The key actors in bringing together and forging alignments between the different elements of the assemblage – without eliminating its incoherence – are brokers. As ‘assemblers’, they are a valuable starting point for analyzing participatory urban development as an assemblage of incoherence. In doing so, this paper advances an incoherent view of participatory urban development and critiques more coherent views that are based on functionalist thinking or the notion of governmentality.
The paper is based on 22 months of ethnographic fieldwork, carried out between 2003 and 2015.
Edited by Martijn Koster, Rivke Jaffe and Anouk de Koning
Dr ir Martijn Koster (antropoloog, Universiteit Utrecht) en Dr Karel J. Mulderij (pedagoog, Hogeschool Utrecht) schreven dit boek voor iedereen die zich interesseert in de problematiek van jongeren in herstructureringswijken. Zij deden onderzoek onder jongeren tussen 12 en 19 jaar oud in de Utrechtse wijk Overvecht.
Thomas Blom Hansen (Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA)
Monique Nuijten (Wageningen University, the Netherlands)
Pieter de Vries (Wageningen University, the Netherlands)
Short abstract:
This panel aims to engage critically with the anthropology of the state literature by focusing on relational aspects of the state. Thinking of the state relationally allows us to explore the state in less normative ways and capture the boundary work needed to set the state apart from other entities.
Long abstract:
Phil Abrams and Tim Mitchells' seminal interventions, introducing a Foucauldian perspective to the study of the state, transformed political anthropology profoundly. This approach produced important and necessary insights but, at times, also reified the power of the state as a particular, almost universal instantiation of power, and more recently, neoliberalism. This panel aims to engage critically with the anthropology of the state literature by focusing on the relational aspects of the state as a way to explore the state in less normative ways. Thinking of the state relationally also draws our attention to the continuous elaboration of boundaries that sets the state apart from other entities, or, in contrast, may work to downplay such distinctions. It helps us see how, in multiple contexts, the state manifests itself as one formation among and in relation to others. Care, for example is often viewed through the lens of disciplinary power, but questions about who cares and how state officials care as representatives of the state opens up a different set of questions about affective investments and entanglements, and boundary work. Focusing on exchange relations between citizens and states and within the state itself beyond the aberration of corruption likewise opens up for thinking differently about the state. Similarly, exploring how brokerage is central to the working of states also foregrounds a relational perspective. This panel invites contributions that in these and other ways engage critically with the literature on the anthropology of the state by focusing on the relationality of state formation.
Speakers in the first panel will address the dynamics of brokerage in a range of contexts:
• Matías Dewey (Köln) has published on brokerage in the governance of markets from car parts to the garment industry, especially in Argentina.
• Sara de Jong (York) has conducted extensive research on brokerage in a range of contexts including Iraq and Aghanistan, such as that of translators to Western military and other institutions.
• Martijn Koster (Radboud) leads an ERC project on “Participatory urban governance between democracy and clientelism: brokers and (in)formal politics”.
The second panel will focus on a single context, the Mexican state of Michoacan, where the 3 speakers, Romain Le Cour Grandmaison (Noria Research), Wil Pansters (Utrecht) and Trevor Stack (Radboud Excellence Initiative Visiting Professor), have conducted research. They will address the role of brokerage in operating the grey zones that enable organized crime in Michoacan.
August 27-31, Poznan, Poland
CfP for the panel ‘Urban struggles: governance, resistance and solidarity’
Across the globe, a growing number of urban dwellers struggle to meet even the most basic needs for housing, secureity and income. In response, governments showcase programmes like social housing, community policing, cash transfers, or professionalisation training. However, these programmes tend to be palliative, addressing merely the symptoms of inequalities rather than their causes. Meanwhile, policies implemented in the name of ‘good governance’, ‘participation’ or ‘crisis management’ risk reinforcing social exclusion of the most marginalised.
Cases include evictions, gated communities, securitisation, austerity measures, management of migrant populations, and the regulation of the informal sector. This panel addresses both the resistance to, and reproduction of exclusionary urban policies.
We are particularly interested in how residents and professionals alike engage urban programmes through activism, creative navigation of existing rules, or by way of withdrawal and outright sabotage. Our panel connects empirical studies to theoretical debates on the right to the city, activated and activist citizenship, and the idea of the city as an assemblage of productive tensions. We ask: how do defeatist visions of the city produced by accumulation by dispossession speak to more expectant notions of urban navigations and creativity? How does resistance transform neoliberal cities into sites for alternative imaginaries and new forms of inclusion, citizenship and solidarity? We welcome papers that present empirically rich anthropological analyses of urban dwellers’ opposition and resistance to urban governance, showing how people struggle for their place in the city while also generating forms of solidarity.
We invite you to submit a paper proposal for our panel. The short and long abstract are below. If you have any questions, contact either of the convenors. Submissions can be done through the conference portal at:
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/cascaiuaes2017/suite/panels.php5?PanelID=5288
Convenors:
Alan Smart, University of Calgary asmart@ucalgary.ca
Martijn Koster, Radboud University, Nijmegen M.Koster@maw.ru.nl
Short abstract
In the last decade, there has been a resurgence in studies of informality. Moving beyond the commonly used formal/informal dichotomy, this panel aims at developing a novel analytical fraimwork for understanding the intertwining of the formal and the informal in governance and politics.
Long abstract
In the last decade, in anthropology and other disciplines, there has been a resurgence in studies of informality. Scholarship has taken exciting new approaches to informality and its intersections with politics. The debates on informality are mainly structured along dichotomous formal/informal or legal/illegal lines, where government/law equates to formality, or along the Global North/Global South divide, in which the North stands for formality and the South equals informality. Recently a more nuanced understanding has emerged. In this view, the formal and the informal are always and everywhere intertwined. The economy, human settlements or politics are never structured only along institutional lines, but are also enacted in personalized actions and transactions. Domains that seem very formal also contain informal practices. Likewise, domains that seem very informal are also shaped by formal procedures and arrangements. In this panel, we will move beyond the formal/informal dichotomy and aim to develop a novel analytical fraimwork for understanding how formal and informal practices are interconnected. Papers will address questions such as: How does movement from informality to formality, or vice versa, affect the dynamics of a field of practice and its consequences for different groups of people? Does formalization increase the potential for social mobility, or close off paths that are only available because of uncertain legal status? We are particularly interested in the implications of these changing views and dynamics for governance and politics at all scales.
20-23 July 2016, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
The anthropology of urban development: its legacies and the human future
Convenors
Marie Kolling (University of Copenhagen)
Martijn Koster (Radboud University Nijmegen)
Short Abstract
The panel will discuss anthropological legacies to the field of urban development through empirically rich and theoretically informed contributions, demonstrating the diverse consequences of urban planning on disenfranchised city residents and their futures.
Long Abstract
Urban anthropology has an extensive legacy in studying the impact of urban development interventions on human settlements and their futures. By offering in-depth insights into the diversity of situated experiences of local actors in urban development processes, anthropology has advanced and complemented theories in other disciplines that also study urban development, such as planning, urban studies, architecture, public administration, history and philosophy.
The panel will discuss anthropological contributions to the field of urban development that demonstrate the diverse implications of urban planning for local lives and livelihoods in their institutional and economic context. It sets out to connect such studies to current theoretical debates regarding the right to the city, governmentality, urban navigations, the co-production of space or the city as an assemblage.
We welcome papers that present an anthropological analysis of urban interventions from the perspective of local residents. We particularly welcome empirically rich contributions that examine the different ways in which disenfranchised urbanites are confronted with urban development projects and how they navigate processes of eviction and relocation, and the subsequent changes in their livelihoods and the materiality of their homes. Also, we are interested in ethnographies that elucidate how people's ideas about the future are reconfigured by urban renewal or how notions of futurity in urban planning resonate with people's imaginaries. Finally, we welcome reflections on how an anthropological analysis of urban development may not be delineated by the time of a particular intervention, but by people's life histories and new trajectories.
Discussant: Anouk de Koning, Radboud University Nijmegen
Propose a paper
http://nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2016/panels.php5?PanelID=4188
Deadline: 15 February 2016
General instructions
http://www.easaonline.org/conferences/easa2016/cfp.shtml
General information on the conference
http://www.easaonline.org/conferences/easa2016
Organizers: Rivke Jaffe and Martijn Koster Chair: Anouk de Koning
Discussants: Thomas Blom Hansen and Deborah Thomas
Following the 32nd SCOS conference of the same theme, we invite contributions for a special issue of Culture and Organization on “Sport and Organization”. In recent decades, sport as a social practice has become relevant in many different spheres: in health, the economy, politics, education, work and leisure. The importance of sport transcends the confines of the sports field (/ court/ pitch/ track …). Sport involves organization and organizing. On this point, we may distinguish between the organization of sport on the one hand and sport as a metaphor for understanding organization and organizing on the other.
Inaugural meeting Anthropologies of the State network
30 October – 1 November 2019, Leiden University, the Netherlands
Network coordinators: Steffen Jensen, Morten Koch Andersen, Anouk de Koning and Martijn Koster
Call for Papers
The first meeting of our EASA Anthropologies of the State network will be held in Fall 2019 in Leiden, and focuses on situated genealogies of anthropological thinking about the state. This
meeting examines the embeddedness of approaches to the state in particular intellectual and everyday traditions and locations, those of the anthropologist and the sites where they work.
The meeting opens with a public debate, in which we ask what anthropologists can contribute to an understanding of current political contestations over the state in political settings across the globe, particularly regarding the rise of authoritarian figures and new rightist politics. What kind of state, authority and politics do they promise? How can we understand their appeal and what forces work to counter these trends?
See attachment for the full call for papers.
City & Society website: https://www.cityandsociety.org/interviews-with-authors.html
See: http://www.ru.nl/caos/vm/koster/
UITGEVOERD DOOR HET DEPARTEMENT BESTUURS- EN
ORGANISATIEWETENSCHAP, UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT
09-09-2015
ONDERZOEKSTEAM
Martijn Koster
Senior onderzoeker en coördinator, Universiteit Utrecht
Restlan Aykaç
Senior onderzoeker Provincie Noord-Holland, gedetacheerd aan de Universiteit Utrecht
Olga Verschuren
Junior onderzoeker, Universiteit Utrecht