Call for papers for the Dossier “Anthropology of ‘social cracks’: ways of making society in times of extreme polarization”
The question of how society is produced or lived has been fundamental to anthropology. In this sense, social conflicts - and their relationship with the social order - have been a classic theme of political anthropology. Once again, these issues are acquiring thematic and theoretical centrality for thinking about today's world, marked by processes of polarization and cracks in which the construction of the common appears to be questioned. In this way, new configurations of political identities (in a broad sense) emerge that are constructed by radical opposition in a way that annihilates difference and difference This process has led to the configuration of new identities that seem to seek to block, to eliminate the other. However, conflicts feed back into separation, which paradoxically requires the existence of the unwanted other. These changes also require us to think about the place of the state and social control institutions in the production of collective discourses and the maintenance of order.
How can an ethnographic perspective help to understand these processes of polarization based on interactions between members of the same group and between different social groups? How can we understand the polarization and fissures that construct the social today? How have they been transformed and how do they express affections and adherence to certain groups? In contrast to other ways of thinking about democracies or the alternation of power (as well as polyarchies), we find ourselves today in a context where we seek to block and eliminate difference, in regimes of total domination both in global geopolitical spheres, in scientific discourses and in local processes. How does understanding the radical opposition that tries to annul differences allow us to think about democracy today? Which social groups, which practices are transformed into legitimate forms of producing hegemonic social discourses? At this point, we think that local and territorialized forms occupy a central place. Focusing on interactions, on everyday practices, allows us to appreciate how these differences are produced and the diversity of ways in which "ways of life" and life projects of social value are expressed.
Based on the assumption that the dimensions of the phenomena take on plural and complex forms, how can we understand the moral, political and symbolic variations in the effects of changes in the global "social climate"? What analytical tools should we mobilize to deal with the problems that arise on a global scale? How should the social sciences behave in the face of the changes imposed over the last 20 years on everyday interactions and the "political culture" of various countries? These accelerated global changes require the social sciences to reformulate some of the conceptual bases that are dear to them and inherent to their formation as a scientific and disciplinary field.
As such, we seek to question what features public controversies take on in these new regimes of truth in which justifications and forms of communicative expression take on new faces. Our main themes are:
- Ethnographic studies on the rise of extreme right-wing movements in contemporary times;
- Ethnographic research on the role of social networks and the internet in the production of social cracks;
- Ethnographic endeavors that reflect on the consequences of the pandemic on the management of these new forms of conflict and social activity;
- Ethnographies on the role of social control institutions in the production and reproduction of forms of violence;
- Reflections on epistemic conflicts and their consequences for the polarization of ideas and conceptions of the world;
- Analyses on the place of feelings and affections in the processes of producing belonging to groups and/or social identities;
- Innovative proposals for analytical and methodological tools for understanding the phenomenon dealt with in this Dossier.
Considering the evaluation criteria imposed on scientific journals, 50% of the articles may be selected from doctoral students; the other articles must be authored by at least one doctor. All articles submitted will be blindly assessed by external referees, in line with the journal’s policy. In order to take account of the diversity of theoretical and methodological approaches to the different empirical fields and issues to be debated, articles will preferably be accepted from the fields of Anthropology and Social Sciences, observing the parameters of exogeny in relation to UFF.
Organizers: Fabio Mota (UFF/Brazil) and Mariano Perelman (UFBA/Brazil).
Deadline: November 03, 2025.
NOTE: As we have more than one open call, it is mandatory to indicate in the ‘Comments to editors’ field that the submission is for the “Anthropology of social cracks” Dossier.
Contributions can be sent until November 03, 2025 via the journal’s electronic system: https://periodicos.uff.br/antropolitica/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions
