Augusto Santos Silva

Music and more than music: The approach to difference and identity in the Portuguese punk

In Western societies, punk represented a benchmark for rupture towards the existing social structure while providing a soundtrack for it. So, it is in this context that we will approach the Portuguese punk considering its importance in a society engaged in relatively recent processes of democratization and modernization. Thus, we propose here to take a look at the punk from its protagonists’ discourses and the text that they form. We will consider the words used by the bands in two ways: when they name themselves and their lyrics. In each case, we will deal with the self-representation issues in the light of the polarity between identity and difference: who we are, how we position ourselves, how we distinguish ourselves, what we have to say about ourselves, our time and our world; what are our values and what we have to say regarding the dominant social values; which causes move us, how we want to act, how we want the world to be. As in any other discursive self-representation, the content is not independent of the forms of expression. Therefore, the identification and dialogue questions (who is speaking, who is he or she speaking to) and the language questions (how does the speaker express, with which codes, in which forms) are also examined. Our analysis suggests that the punk discourse on identity tends to be structured by three main axes: a) cosmopolitanism, b) the radical assumption of an irreducible difference regarding social order and c) an ambivalent attitude towards politics and the political action.

Políticas culturais locais: contributos para um modelo de análise

The article suggests a framework for the analysis of local cultural policies. Its basic assumption is the idea that the articulation of the sociological and the economic approaches — geographically enriched — provides the best perspective and method for research. The article considers the scientific knowledge that is being accumulated, in Portugal, on cultural policies. It can be conceived of, and used, as a methodological development, oriented towards future research. Its aim is to offer a roadmap, to be specified and adapted to each case, both to the academic studies and to political institutions and agents.

Agir na globalização: condições e orientações da ação coletiva

Globalisation demands collective agency. This is the starting point of the article. First, it considers the ongoing changes regarding space-time and the resources for action. It points out that inequalities vis-a-vis mobility constitute a new and critical dimension of the social divide. Secondly, the article focuses on the prospects for collective agency in the context of globalisation, both for the regulation of its unbalances and for its embeddedness in social and political structures. Finally, one suggests that a perspective defined by the key values of democracy, justice and development can design a useful framework to formulate an agenda for international reform and to identify possible protagonists.

The cultural transformation of medium-sized cities, according to their cultural agents

Within the framework of a research project on urban cultural dynamics, carried out in the second half of the 1990s in connection with medium-sized cities in the Northern region of Portugal, in-depth interviews were held between March 1999 and March 2000 with people who occupied positions and carried out activities involving promotion of the urban cultural scene (management personnel in public institutions and services, cultural association officials, activists from artistic production structures, owners of art galleries). In this article, the information gathered in 31 interviews held in Aveiro, Braga, Coimbra and Guimaraes will be the source for an analysis of the respondents’ discourses, taken as the representations of cultural agents on the recent past, the then present and the development routes of medium-sized Portuguese cities and their cultural scenes.

Global crisis: a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach to paradigm change

The global crisis is threefold. First, it is a financial and economic crisis, inducing hugely negative effects on growth, distribution, and welfare. Second, it severely damaged the mainstream in economics, particularly the theory of efficient financial markets and the theory of self-regulating markets. Third, it caused an ongoing fragility of conventional public policies to address socioeconomic issues. The scale of the global crisis demands nothing less than paradigm change. This change requires adopting an interdisciplinary triangle, in which economics dialogues productively with political science and international relations. The goal is a more pluralist and interdisciplinary theory of economic policies. In that spirit, the paper provides a critical analysis of the dominant narrative on globalization, and outlines an alternative, one that could favor more democratic and progressive policies, at both the national and international level.

SER CONTEMPORÂNEO, SOBREVIVENDO ÀS CLASSIFICAÇÕES DO PENSAMENTO SOCIOLÓGICO

O pensamento sociologico e muito influenciado por classificacoes de natureza dicotomica. Uma, especialmente influente, e a que se organiza em torno da categoria de modernidade, e que opoe quer moderno a pre-moderno, quer pos-moderno a moderno. Mas o que queremos dizer quando usamos estas categorias e fazemos este tipo de oposicoes binarias? Elas ainda fazem sentido hoje, para a teoria sociologica? Elas so podem ser empregues em dicotomias, ou ha formas alternativas e mais produtivas? Este artigo procura responder a estas questoes. Primeiro, mostra a enorme influencia cultural e teorica da ideia de modernidade e das categorias que dela decorrem. Depois, que estas categorias devem ser consideradas na sua tensao relativa: ainda somos modernos e ja nao somos so modernos. Em seguida, que a reducao dessa tensao a forma de uma dicotomia empobrece e enviesa a explicacao sociologica. Finalmente, o artigo sugere um posicionamento ao mesmo tempo mais modesto e mais aberto, em materia epistemologica: definirmo-nos apenas como contemporâneos, isto e membros da nossa circunstância, mas capazes de mobilizar todas as possibilidades que ela nos confere.

The repositioning of the euro area in the world system: Political and economic dimensions

This article advocates a comprehensive approach to the current crisis in the Euro Area - and, namely, the joint consideration of the economic and political issues at stake. The European integration - whose greatest development is, to present time, the Monetary Union - is a political project: a matter of will and action. Surely, this political project has a strong and specific economic component. Still, it is political. Therefore, political variables are critical. They must be included in any analysis of the financial and economic circumstances, and they must be considered in any strategy to overcome the current roadblock. The Euro Area has to cope, not only with excessive indebtedness, fiscal unbalances and financial markets, but also with the democratic restrictions to austerity and economic recession, and with the democratic requirement to respect social rights, to look for public support and to engage in political dialogue and compromise. In liberal democracies, as ours, the employment, social protection, citizenship and the right to believe and hope are full goals for the public policies, including the economic and fiscal ones.