Sociology of absences

The present critical inquiry of the theory of democracy starts from the perspective that much of what is widely considered as known, unavoidable or factual is not written in stone and that democracy (theory and practice) must strengthen its inclusive capacity starting from the grassroots in order to democratise itself. Realist practices and perspectives of liberal democratic regimes largely inform the mainstream concept of democracy. This study challenges them questioning categories such as people, representation, elite and populism. It analyses the relationship of liberalism and democracy and the ‘crisis of political liberalism’ emerging as a root-condition of forms of oppression and exclusion that mainstream democratic theory condemns without being able to tackle. This research questions the understanding of the liberal democratic canon for being a system of ‘political-colonialism’, which consists of a structural fractioning of society between few representatives and many represented where the latter have very limited political power with respect to the former.
This study examines the historical, philosophical, social and political grain of political-colonialism and investigates the alternative proposed by M. K. Gandhi. Gandhi’s civilisational proposal tackles political-colonialism and provides a participatory, decentralised and duty-based paradigm founded on the holistic vision of society. Gandhi’s alternative to hegemonic power and the structural separation between the representatives and the represented fosters the relational condition of politics combining wealth, ethics, passion and spirituality.
Gandhi’s assassination drastically abridged the conditions necessary for the practical implementation of his democratic Ideas. Despite this however, they remain strongly stimulating. While the consolidation of an alternative general theory of democratisation, that is able to contend with political-colonialism, seems impossible and undesirable, a number of socio-political activists, movements and organisations are providing portions of innovation that are making it relevant to investigate democratisation. The epistemologies of the South – as elaborated on by Boaventura de Sousa Santos – are a set of theoretical and methodological inquiries that search, valorise and translate the fragmented ‘emergences’ that are struggling against political-colonialism. By mobilising the epistemologies of the South this study critically engages with the intellectual and political struggles to democratise democracy and assesses and compares their achievements and failures.
The empirical work of this study focuses on ‘party-movements’ – political forces emerging from civil society and participating in representative politics. Their discourses symbolise critical stances against political-colonialism. Additionally, they present practices for the engagement of society in participatory processes dialoguing with the representative framework. The collected ethnographic evidence (gathered in a total of eleven months) was accomplished by analysing two party-movements, the Indian Aam Aadmi Party (AAP – Party of the Common Person) and the Italian Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S – 5 Star Movement). Qualitative data were collected through a reflexive methodology from the grassroots of party-movements on up to the national level (and EU in the case of the M5S). The analysis focuses on six categories: people, leadership-structure, ethical wave, participation, horizontality-inclusion and political line.
The AAP has inherited the Gandhian approach of the group India Against Corruption, a national campaign led by the social activist Anna Hazare. Belonging to this campaign was Arvind Kejriwal, who supported it until 2012 when he left to found the AAP with other social activists. The M5S emerged through the combination of the careers of the comedian-activist Beppe Grillo and the internet specialist Gianroberto Casaleggio (1954-2016).
The ‘Gandhian democratisation’ elaborated on here is only one, partial possibility out of the many (even mutually contradictory) possibilities that emerge form Gandhi’s rich and multifaceted inheritance. It is an analytical prospective categorisation that is applied to the comparison. While Gandhi propounded a comprehensive, metaphysically founded, socio-political structural alternative to political-colonialism, the AAP and the M5S attempt to engage with the existing system in order to democratise it. Besides the fact that the M5S makes no direct structural reference to Gandhi’s theory, it shares much of its democratisation discourse with the AAP. The richness of the thesis arises from the South-North translation proportionated by the epistemologies of the South between Gandhi’s civilisational alternative and the fragments of innovation emerging from the experimental political discourse of party-movements.

In a manner similar to the postcolonialitalia research project, in my work I have been dealing with the South of Europe. I come from Portugal, where the conception of Southern Europe, even though it goes back centuries, has become current in the light of the present crisis. In fact, the historical problems of internal colonialisms, between North Europe and South Europe, return in the recent policies of the European Union. As academics and intellectuals, we need to be aware of the deep histories of such debates, the long term (longue durée), and the types of prejudices that compromise solutions of the present predicament. Such solutions need to afford dignity for people, and particularly for those seeking social protection and well-being in a society that is becoming increasingly exclusive and discriminatory. Europe has become a fortress which, though coveted from the outside (the so-called immigrants crisis), has increasingly hollowed out itself.

A “epistemologia do Sul” que tenho vindo a propor visa a recuperação dos saberes e práticas dos grupos sociais que, por via do capitalismo e do colonialismo, foram his-tórica e sociologicamente postos na posição de serem tão só objecto ou matéria-prima dos saberes dominantes, considerados os únicos válidos. Os conceitos centrais da epistemologia do Sul são a sociologia das ausências, a sociologia das emergências, a ecologia de saberes, e a tradução intercultural. Não se trata verdadeiramente de uma epistemologia, mas antes de um conjunto de epistemologias. Ao contrário das episte-mologias do Norte, as epistemologias do Sul procuram incluir o máximo das experiên-cias de conhecimentos do mundo. Nelas cabem, assim, depois de reconfiguradas, as experiências de conhecimento do Norte. Abrem-se pontes insuspeitadas de inter-comunicação, nomeadamente com as tradições ocidentais que foram marginalizadas, desacreditadas ou esquecidas pelo que no século XIX passou a vigorar como o cânone da ciência moderna.