| 1. |
- Jonsson, Stefan, 1961-
(författare)
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Populism Without Borders : FIGURATIVE PUBLICS: CROWDS, PROTEST, AND DEMOCRATIC ANXIETIES
- 2020
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Ingår i: The Immanent Frame: Secularism, Religion, and the Public Sphere. - Brooklyn, New York : Social Science Research Council.
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Unlike most other political notions, like democracy or authoritarianism, for example, there seems to exist no “ideal type” of populism, which also explains why the brand is almost as frequent on the left as on the right. This is also why the term invites ideological confusion. As established politicians and commentators grope for words in order to confront the unpleasant face of today’s political life, populism often comes in handy as their cri de guerre, naming an enemy against which we must mobilize democratic institutions, liberal values, and civic virtues. To be sure, such reactions are welcome and needed as a defense against the world’s Bolsonaros, Erdogans, Trumps, Modis, Salvinis, and Orbans. But are they sufficient? The rhetoric elicited by these authoritarian tendencies shows that populism is a label emerging from the embattled center of politics, and it usually warns against invasion by political outsiders. This is also to say that populism is a normative political concept, not a sociological or historical one. In order to grasp the antagonisms covered up by the discourse on populism we should, I suggest, relate it to two other categories that tend to crop up as the two opposite poles of this discourse: the fascist and the migrant. Both are, strangely, designations of “the popular,” but with contrasting relationships to political power. In what follows, I first trace these categories in contemporary political discourse and I then describe how they shape aesthetic imaginaries of “the people.”
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| 2. |
- Jonsson, Stefan, 1961-
(författare)
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Crowds and Democracy : The Idea and Image of the Masses from Revolution to Fascism
- 2013
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Bok (refereegranskat)abstract
- Between 1918 and 1933, the masses became a decisive preoccupation of European culture, fueling modernist movements in art, literature, architecture, theater, and cinema, as well as the rise of communism and fascism and experiments in radical democracy. Spanning aesthetics, cultural studies, intellectual history, and political theory, this volume unpacks the significance of the shadow agent known as "the mass" during a critical period in European history. It follows its evolution into the preferred conceptual tool for social scientists, the ideal slogan for politicians, and the chosen image for artists and writers trying to capture a society in flux and a people in upheaval. This volume is the second installment in Stefan Jonsson's epic study of the crowd and the mass in modern Europe, building on his work in A Brief History of the Masses, which focused on monumental artworks produced in 1789, 1889, and 1989.
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| 3. |
- Jonsson, Stefan, 1961-
(författare)
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The Wisdom of Crowds
- 2014
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Ingår i: TANK Magazine. - London : Tank Publications Ltd. - 1464-3472. ; 8:1, s. 62-65
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Tidskriftsartikel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- Stefan Jonsson reminds us that without the uprisings of the 'swinish multitude' there would be no such thing as democracy.
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| 4. |
- Jonsson, Stefan, 1961-
(författare)
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Det pågående kriget
- 2014
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Ingår i: Arena texter 93-13. - Stockholm : Atlas. - 9789173890281 ; , s. 196-216
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Bokkapitel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)
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| 5. |
- Jonsson, Stefan, 1961-
(författare)
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Un soulèvement de toutes les couleurs : Notes sur les Gilets jaunes
- 2019
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Ingår i: Mouvements – des idées et des luttes. - Paris : La Découverte. - 1291-6412. ; :100, s. 57-58
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Quels espoirs suscitent les Gilets jaunes pour le reste de l’Europe ou pour la société mondiale ? En tant qu’observateur de la périphérie nord du continent, je pose la question suivante : s’agit-il d’un épisode de plus dans l’histoire du militantisme populaire français qui, depuis 1789, a inspiré un radicalisme des pauvres tout comme il a inoculé la peur chez les riches ? Ou bien la séquence de ces protestations, acte par acte, samedi après samedi depuis près d’un an maintenant, marque-t-elle une urgence sociale et l’émergence d’une nouvelle forme politique ?
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| 6. |
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Austere histories in European societies : social exclusion and the contest of colonial memories
- 2016
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Samlingsverk (redaktörskap) (refereegranskat)abstract
- Austere Histories in European Societies discusses how the current economic and political crisis in Europe affects not just our present but also our views and interpretations of the past. The contributions to the book examine a firmly defined problem: in which ways do crisis and decline in contemporary Europe trigger a selective forgetting and remodelling of the past? This problem is addressed through a set of questions, which the contributors to the collection address at various levels:How do present policies of austerity and the ensuing social exclusion of migrants and minorities influence the perceptions and interpretations of the place of minorities, migrants and colonized peoples in European history?How do new regimes of historiography and memory culture relate to emerging and established patterns of discrimination and social segmentation in today’s European societies? In seeking to answer these questions, the book makes a strong contribution to a European-wide discussion on the backlash against multiculturalism, diversity, and immigration, and on changing interpretations of the imperial and colonial systems that have shaped Europe’s position in the world.The point of departure for the collection is the recent turn of European societies toward more austere political regimes, entailing budget cuts, deregulation of labour markets, restrictions of welfare systems, securitization of borders, and new regimes of migration and citizenship. In the wake of such changes, new forms of social inclusion and exclusion appear that are justified through a reactivation of differences of race, class and gender. Against this backdrop, the book investigates contemporary understandings of history and cultural memory. Are we witnessing a turn toward austerity also in theories and practices of historiography, as well as in pedagogies of history? Can we speak of an austere historiography, an enforcement of conformity on Europe past and present?The contributions to the book examine, in both national and comparative perspective, how this development entails a privileging of certain narratives of the European past, whereas other parts of the cultural heritage are being weeded out. Strong interests are apparently at work to purge the histories of specific European nations, but also those of Europe, the West, and globalization from cultural plurality. The authors also discuss how heroic and homogeneous stories about the past of nations, regions, institutions and religions are being retold, reinvented, and re-launched. The book thus explores to what extent history (including public debate on history and history education) is again becoming “nationalistic”, and to what extent Europe’s proclaimed “cosmopolitanism” is being narrowed down so as to simply celebrate the achievements of Europe and posit the West as a model of universality to be emulated by others.Most chapters in the book focus on debates on history and colonial legacies in Britain, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, Sweden and Germany. They show how an increasing number of historians and intellectuals are again becoming blind to less gratifying parts of Europe’s history. While it is still too early to speak of a historical revisionism in the strict sense (for there are also strong counter-tendencies in parts of the academic community and postcolonial and migrant communities and organizations), the authors nonetheless argue that a transformation is under way, corresponding to a new politics of austerity that seems impatient with both democracy and the complexities of past. Among the sacrifices of this tendency are multiculturalism, postcolonial memories, and minority discourses of all kinds. What is lost is thus the very complexity and contradictoriness of Europe and the West. Especially, colonial and postcolonial memories are evicted from their recently claimed habitats in the European past, and again placed at the outskirts, far beyond the limit of the Western world. There is thus a strong correlation, which this collection aims to extract and analyze, between the ways in which migrant and migrant labourers are treated by present policies and the ways in which memories and experiences of migrants, minorities and colonized peoples are treated in historiography, historical pedagogy, and cultural heritage institutions.
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| 7. |
- Jonsson, Stefan, 1961-
(författare)
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A society which is not : Political emergence and migrant agency
- 2020
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Ingår i: Current Sociology. - : Sage Publications. - 0011-3921 .- 1461-7064. ; 68:2, s. 204-222
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This essay represents an effort to rethink the relationship between political emergence and migrant agency. This undertaking has a theoretical motivation. Mainstream human and social sciences seem to be at an impasse because of their structural inability to interpret and explain systemic crises and contradictions. While this is a topic far too complex to be dealt with in a brief essay, the following pages will explore three expressions of this impasse. First, the social sciences often analyse migration without acknowledging its profound political implications. Second, European history and sociology rarely recognize histories of imperial dominance and anticolonial resistance as intrinsic to European history and society. Third, mainstream social and political theories often ignore the structural significance of collective protests and resistance movements for the realization of democracy. The article frames the analysis of these problems via two different theoretical contexts in which we can observe ongoing conceptual or methodological shifts or ‘turns’ that respond to the said impasse. In studies of democracy and citizenship there has thus been a clear turn toward ‘borders’. In migration studies, there is a corresponding turn toward ‘agency’. By analysing the interconnections between these theoretical contexts the article suggests ways of resolving the three problems at hand. It starts by examining the first one, or the inability to acknowledge the profound political implications of migration. This discussion will then offer an approach to the other two, concerning the legacies of colonialism and the significance of political agency and protest.
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| 8. |
- Jonsson, Stefan, 1961-
(författare)
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Aesthetic Forms of the Political : Populist Ornaments, Cultures of Rejection, Democratic Assemblies
- 2023
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Ingår i: Populism and The People in Contemporary Critical Thought. - London : Bloomsbury Academic. - 9781350183629 - 9781350185302 ; , s. 160-175
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Can collective democratic protest and rightwing authoritarianism and populism be distinguished as interdependent movements of political emergence, i.e. movements emerging outside democratic institutions and portending profound reorganizations of political order, but not yet fully recognizable as political entities as they own weak political representation? This essay argues that contemporary social sciences are often unable to comprehend or register political emergence, whereas, by contrast, contemporary art, art activism, literature and film – from the postcolonial novel and arts biennales to banlieue rap music and street actions for refugees – have in recent years produced profound insights into the nature of collective mobilizations and protests of all kinds. We thus observe that there exist parallel paths for intellectual inquiry into the same urgent issues of collective protest and populism. But we also observe a lack of methodological rapport and dialogue. Against this background, I argue that we stand to gain from an effort to study collective democratic protest and populist authoritarianism as converging issues with far-reaching implications for democratic society, and that we undertake such research by conjoining social scientific research and aesthetic analysis. To substantiate this claim, the essay turns to two cases of political emergence from the 1930s, in which we find mirrored our current condition, as well as the contrast between populist aesthetics and democratic aesthetics.
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| 9. |
- Jonsson, Stefan, 1961-
(författare)
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Aesthetic Knowledge of Social Transformations : Migrant Agency and Political Emergence in the Artwork
- 2020
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Ingår i: The Large Glass. Journal of Contemporary Art, Culture and Theory. - Skopje : Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje. - 1409-5823. ; :29-30, s. 10-17
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- To say that migration entails new forms of political emergence amounts to the proposition that migration today constitutes a ‘hypothesis’ of a coming society, where sovereignty does not translate into exclusion. Over the past two-three decades, the human sciences, helped by art and literature, have begun to explore this hypothesis. This is the context of several recent interrogations by artistic practices and aesthetic works of notions such as citizenship, borders, sovereignty, statehood and community. In this context, we can recognize migration, including the colonial legacies from which it derives and the agency that it exercises, as a political process constitutive of our future. At the core of such analyses is the process whereby the aesthetic presentation transforms political negativity, and objective historical constraints, into agency, a site of becoming.
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| 10. |
- Jonsson, Stefan, 1961-
(författare)
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Där historien tar slut : makt, monster och motstånd i en delad värld
- 2020. - 1
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Bok (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Historiens slut, kallade den amerikanske författaren Francis Fukuyama tillståndet i världen efter kommunismens fall i slutet av 1980-talet: det behövdes inte längre några revolutioner, det skulle räcka med att sprida västvärldens liberala värden och marknadsekonomi, så skulle alla få plats i samma globala rum. Men kolonialismens attityder och mekanismer lever kvar och globaliseringen har knappast inneburit något entydigt segertåg för frihet, jämlikhet och rättvisa. Världen av idag ser väldigt annorlunda ut beroende på om man är rik eller fattig, om man bor i nord eller syd, om man är vit eller svart, man eller kvinna. I sin nya bok går Stefan Jonsson djupare än tidigare i diagnosen av den globala maktordningen. Hans tätt sammanvävda essäer handlar om konst, film och litteratur som lyckas skildra samma händelseförlopp från motsatta perspektiv, samtidigt som de visar sambanden mellan världens framsida och baksida.
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