Skip to main content

‘Dignity’ as Glocal Civic Virtue: Redefining Democracy Through Cosmopolitics in the Era of Neoliberal Governmentality

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Arab Revolutions and Beyond

Abstract

We will deal with ‘dignity’ as a priority within the conceptual categories of civic virtue in order to redefine democracy and social activism in the era of neoliberal governmentality. In order to understand the interaction of social values with neoliberal governmentality on both the political and economic levels we agree that we need to pay attention to people’s voices and priorities coming from ‘below’. This ‘from below’ perspective since the crisis of neoliberalism, or as a product of it, leads us to focus on social movements and people’s redraw of their consent to power and elites, in local context but with global content.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Bibliography

  • Agathangelou, A. 2013. Making Anew an Arab Order? On Poetry, Sex, and Revolution. In Arab Revolutions and World Transformations, eds. A.M. Agathangelou and N. Soguk. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Agathangelou, A., and N. Soguk, eds. 2013. Arab Revolutions and World Transformations. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Albera, D., and M. Couroucli. 2012. Sharing Sacred Spaces in the Mediterranean. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ambrust, W. 2011. The Revolution Against Neoliberalism. Jadaliyya, February 23. http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/717

  • Anjum, O. 2007. Islam as a Discursive Tradition. Talal Asad and his Interlocutors. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and Middle East 27(3): 656–672.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arendt, H. 1998. The Human Condition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Asad, T. 2003. Reconfigurations of Law and Ethics in Colonial Egypt. In Formations of the Secular. Christianity, Islam, Modernity, ed. T. Asad. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2011. Thinking About the Secular Body, Pain, and Liberal Politics. Cultural Anthropology 26(4): 657–675.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Asad, T., W. Brown, J. Butler, and S. Mahmood. 2009. Is Critique Secular? Blasphemy, Injury and Free Speech. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Athanasiadou, P., ed. and trans. 1996. Yunus Emre. Introduction. 11–36. Athens: Apameia[in Greek].

    Google Scholar 

  • Badiou, A. 2012. The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings. London: Verso Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Balibar, E. 1998. Spinoza and Politics. Trans. Peter Snowdon. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2008. Historical Dilemmas of Democracy and Their Contemporary Relevance for Citizenship. Rethinking Marxism 20(4): 2–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2012. Saeculum, Culture, Religion, Idéologie. Paris: Galilée.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bartsidis, M. (eds) (Mano L. Transl). 2014. Transindividuality, Essays on an Ontology of the relation. Athens: Nissos [in Greek]

    Google Scholar 

  • Bartsidis, M., and F. Tsibiridou. 2014a. The Return if the Political Ethics: Glocal Movements of ‘Dignity’. Theseis 126: 43–74 [in Greek].

    Google Scholar 

  • Bartsidis, M., and Tsibiridou, F. 2014b. Review Essay: Shuttered Experiences and Revolution. In Arab Revolutions and World Transformationseds, ed. A. Agathangelou and N. Soguk, 112–123. HISTOREIN, October 14. http://www.historeinonline.org/index.php/historein/article/view/286

  • Benhabib, S. 1992. Models of Public Space: Hannah Arendt, the Liberal Tradition, and Jurgen Habermas. In Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig J. Calhoun, 73–98. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2011. Dignity in Adversity: Human Rights in Troubled Times. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bove, L. 1996. La stratégie du conatus, affirmation et résistance chez Spinoza. Paris: Vrin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, W. 2003. Neo-liberalism and the End of Liberal Democracy. Theory & Event 7(1): 1–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, G., and J. Pickerill. 2009. Space for Emotion in the Spaces of Activism. Emotion, Spaceand Society 2(1): 24–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chakrabarty, D. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cheah, P., ed. 1998. Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling Beyond the Nation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clancy-Smith, J.A. 1994. Rebel and Saint: Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800–1904). Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Comaroff, Jean, and John Comaroff. 2012. Theory from the South, or How Euro-America isEvolving Toward Africa. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dabashi, H. 2012. The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism. London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Danforth, L. 1989. Firewaking and Religious Healing. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Daun, H., and G. Walford. 2004. Educational Strategies among Muslims in the Context of Globalization: Some National Case Studies. London: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Douzinas, C. 2013. Philosophy and Resistance in the Crisis, Greece and the Future of Europe. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dubish, J. 1991. Gender, Kinship and Religion: Reconstructing the Anthropology of Greece. In Contested Identities. Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece, eds. Peter Loizos and E. Papataxiarchis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eickelman, D.F. 2002. The Arab “Streets” and the Middle East’s Democracy. Naval War College Review LV 4: 39–48.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elyachar, J. 2011. The Political Economy of Movement and Gesture in Cairo. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 17: 82–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson, J., and A. Gupta. 2002. Spatializing States: Toward an Ethnography of Neoliberal Governmentality. American Ethnologist 29(4): 981–1002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Geertz, C. 1983. From the Native’s Point of View: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding. In Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, 55–70. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ghannam, F. 2006. Keeping Him Connected: Globalization and the Production of Locality in Cairo. In Cairo Cosmopolitan: Politics, Culture, and Urban Space in the New Globalized Middle East, eds. Diane Singerman and Paul Amar, 251–266. Cairo: The American University of Cairo Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hammoudi, A. 1997. Master and Disciple. The Origins of Moroccan Authoritarianism. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hanafi, S. 2011. The Jasmine and the Nile Revolutions: A Sociological Reading. Transeuropéenes. Revue Internationale de pensée critique. http://www.transeuropeennes.eu/en/articles/voir_pdf/245

  • Hardt, M., and A. Negri. 2004. Multitude. London: Hamish Hamilton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, D. 1991. The Condition of Postmodernity, An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. London: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Herzfeld, M. 1987. Anthropology Through the Looking Glass. Critical Ethnography in theMargins of Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2000. The Absent Presence: Discourses of Crypto-Colonialism. The South Atlantic Quarterly 101(4 Fall): 899–926.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2005. Cultural Intimacy. Social Poetics in the Nation-State. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2013. The Social Production of Difference in the Global Hierarchy of Value: Stereotypes and Transnational Experience in Greece and the Balkans. In Myths of the Other in the Balkans. Representations, Social Practices, Performances, eds. F. Tsibiridou and N. Palantzas, 19–30. Thessaloniki: (eBook ISBN 978-960-8096-05-9), http://afroditi.uom.gr/balkan/

  • Heydemann, S., and R. Leenders. 2013. Authoritarian Learning and Authoritarian Resilience: Regime Responses to the ‘Arab Awakening’. In Arab Revolutions and World Transformations, eds. A. Agathangelou and N. Soguk, 97–104. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hirschkind, C. 2001. Civic Virtue and Religious Reason: An Islamic Counterpublic. Cultural Anthropology 16(1): 3–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2011. Is There a Secular Body? Cultural Anthropology 26(4): 633–647.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2012. Beyond Secular and Religious: An Intellectual Genealogy of Tahrir Square. American Ethnologist 39(1): 49–53.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Honig, B. 2009. Emergency Politics, Paradox, Law, Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UniversityPress.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ibrahim, A. 2012. Sufism and Modernity: A Comparative Study of Contemporary Social Movements in Turkey, Syria and Egypt. http://www.thedeeninstitute.com/multimedia/articles/item/64-sufism-and-modernity-a-comparative-study-of-contemporary-social-movements-in-turkey-syriaandegypt#sthash.efDiE6Hz.dpuf

  • Kandiyoti, D. 2013. Fear and Fury: Women and Post-Revolutionary Violence. 50–50 Inclusive Democracy. https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/deniz-kandiyoti/fear-and-fury-women-and-post-revolutionary-violence

  • Kastoriadis, C. 1997. Fait et a faire, les carrefours du labyrinthe V. Paris: Seuil.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kazam, A. 2011. Reclaiming Dignity: Arab Revolutions of 2011. Anthropology News 52: 19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kepel, G. 2013. Passion Arabe. Journal 2001–2013. Paris: Gallimard.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kondilis, P. 1992. Würde. In Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, hg. v. O. Brunner - W. Conze - R. Koselleck, τ. 7, 645–677. Stuttgart.

    Google Scholar 

  • Magdalino, P. 1989. Honour Among Romaioi: The Framework of Social Values in the World of Digenes Akrites and Kekaumenos. Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 13: 183–218.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mahmood, S. 2001. Rehearsed Spontaneity and the Conventionality of Ritual: Disciplines of salāt. American Ethnologist 28(4): 827–853.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2006. Secularism, Hermeneutics, Empire: The Politics of Islamic Reformation. Public Culture 18(2): 323–347.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2009. Religious Reason and Secular Affect: An Incommensurable Divide? Critical Inquiry 35: 836–862.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Massad, J. 2011. The Future of the Arab Uprisings. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/05/201151885013738898.html

  • Papataxiarchis, A. 2005. La Grèce face à l’alterité. Ethnologie Française 2: 203–212.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pink, J., ed. 2009. Muslim Societies in the Age of Mass Consumption. Politics, Culture andIdentity Between the Local and the Global. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Pub.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rancière, J. 2007. Hatred of Democracy. Trans. Steve Corcoran. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roudometof, V. 2005. Transnationalism, Cosmopolitanism, and Glocalization. Current Sociology 53(1): 113–135.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roy, O. 2012. The Transformation of the Arab World. Journal of Democracy 23(3): 5–8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sassen, S. 2013. The Global Street: Making the Political. In Agathaggelou and Soguk 2013: 23–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schielke, S. 2008. Boredom and Despair in rural Egypt. Cont Islam 2: 251–270.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2009. Ambivalent Commitments: Troubles of Morality, Religiosity and Aspiration Among Young Egyptians. Journal of Religion in Africa 39: 158–185.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2010. Secondthoughts About the Anthropology of Islam, or How to Make Sense of Grandschemes in Everyday Life. ZMO Working Paper. http://d-nb.info/1019243724/34

  • Scott, J. C. 2011. Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, D., and C. Hirschkind, eds. 2006. Powers of the Secular Modern: Talal Asad and HisInterlocutors. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shahine, S.H. 2011. Youth and the Revolution in Egypt. Anthropology Today 27(2): 1–3.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Siegel, R. B. 2008. Dignity and the Politics of Protection: Abortion Restrictions UnderCasey/Carhart. Faculty Scholarship Series. Nussbaum, Martha. 2006. Frontiers of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sitrin, M. 2012a. Occupy Trust: The Role of Emotion in the New Movements. In Hot Spots–Occupy, Anthropology, and the 2011 Global Uprisings. Cultural Anthropology. http://www.culanth.org/?q=node/652

  • ———. 2012b. Everyday Revolutions: Horizontalism and Autonomy in Argentina. London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spinoza, B. 1985. Ethics. In The Collected Writings of Spinoza, ed. Edwin Curley. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2000. Political Treatise. Ed. Samuel Shirley. Indianapolis: Hackett.

    Google Scholar 

  • Starrett, G. 1995. The Political Economy of Religious Commodities in Cairo. American Anthropologist 97(1): 51–68.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stengers, I. 1996–1997. Cosmopolitiques, vols. 1–7. Paris: La Decouverte.

    Google Scholar 

  • Theodossopoulos, D. 2013. Infuriated with Infuriated. Blaming Tactics and Discontent About Greek Financial Crisis. Current Anthropology 54(2): 200–221.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tsamuroglu, R. 2000. Ο τελευταίος γενίτσαρος. Athens: Oλκός. [The last genissar]. Athens.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tsibiridou, F. 2007. Silence as an Idiom of Marginality Among Greek Pomaks. In The Pomaks in Greece and Bulgaria. A Model Case for Borderland Minorities in the Balkans, eds. K. Steinke, and C. Voss, 49–73. Munchen: Verlag Otto Sangher.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2013. Becoming Minority: Biopolitics, Experiences, Subversions. In Life, Reasons, Politics in Times of a Crisis, ed. Thessaloniki Social Workshop (collective vol.), 52–64. Thessaloniki: Eneken editions [in Greek].

    Google Scholar 

  • Tsibiridou, F., and D. Stamatopoulos. 2008. Orientalism at the Limits. From the Ottoman Balkans to the Contemporary Middle East. Athens: Kritiki [in Greek].

    Google Scholar 

  • Tsibiridou, F. 2015. Lifestyle and Consumerism: Neoliberal Biopolitics and Islamist Experiences in the Muslim World. In Semiotics and Hermeneutics of the Everyday, ed. L. Yoka, and G. Paschalidis, 60–81. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watson, M.C. 2011. Cosmopolitics and the Subaltern. Problematizing Latour’s Idea of the Cosmos. Theory, Culture and Society 28(3): 55–79.

    Google Scholar 

  • West, J. 2011. Karama: Journeys Through the Arab Spring. London: WCIA 2NS.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winegar, J. 2012. The Privilege of Revolution: Gender, Class, Space, and Affect in Egypt. American Ethnologist 39(1): 67–70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zizek, S. 2009. First as Tragedy, Then as Farce. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Copyright information

© 2016 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Tsibiridou, F., Bartsidis, M. (2016). ‘Dignity’ as Glocal Civic Virtue: Redefining Democracy Through Cosmopolitics in the Era of Neoliberal Governmentality. In: Alnasseri, S. (eds) Arab Revolutions and Beyond. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59150-0_3

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics