Boaventura de Sousa Santos

THE LAW OF THE OPPRESSED: THE CONSTRUCTION AND REPRODUCTION OF LEGALITY IN PASARGADA

In a capitalist society the State legal system is in general an instrument of class domination both at the level of the relations of production, as in the factory, and of the relations of reproduction, as in housing. Housing conditions are particularly illustrative of class domination in the squatter settlements of all major cities throughout the capitalist world. Pasargada is the fictitious name of such a settlement in Rio de Janeiro. In a nonrevolutionary situation, and particularly under the yoke of economic and political repression imposed by the fascist State (as in contemporary Brazil), the struggle against housing and living conditions in these settlements is a very hard one. Because of the structural inaccessibility of the State legal system, and especially because of the illegal character of these communities, the dominated classes living in them devise adaptive strategies aimed at securing the minimal social ordering of community relations. One such strategy involves the creation of an internal legality, parallel to (and sometimes conflicting with) State legality-a kind of popular justice. The article describes Pasargada legality from both the inside (through the sociological analysis of legal rhetoric in dispute prevention and dispute settlement) and in its (unequal) relations with the Brazilian official legal system (from the perspective of legal pluralism).

Between Prospero and Caliban: Colonialism, Postcolonialism, and Inter-identity

Concentrando-se na análise dos processos identitários no espaço-tenpo da língua portuguesa, este trabalho pretende ser um conbibuto para o estudo do pós-colonialism. Se a identidade modema ocidental é, em grande medida, produto do colonialismo, a identidade no espaço-tempo de lingual portuguesa reflecte as especificidades do colonialism português. Trata-se de um colonialismo subalterno, ele próprio “colonizado” em sua condição semi-periférica, que não é facilmente entendido à luz das teorias que hoje dominam o pensamento pós-colonial nos países centrais, um pensamento baseado no colonialismo hegemónico. O autor propõe o conceito de inter-identidade para dar conta de uma constelação identitráia complexa, em que se combinam traços de colonizador com traços de colonizado. A falta e a saudade de hegemonia (ou imaginação do centro) propiciou a formacção de colonialisms internos que perduram até hoje. À luz disto, o autor conclui que o pós-colonialismo no espaço-tempo de língua portuguesa—um pós-colonialismo situado—deve manifestar-se, em tempo de globalização neoliberal, como anti-colonialismo e globalização contra-hegemónica.

A Non-Occidentalist West? Learned Ignorance and Ecology of Knowledge

In this article I argue that, in spite of the apparently unshakable hegemony of the historical, philosophical and sociological arguments invoked by the canonical history of Europe and the world to demonstrate the uniqueness of the West and its superiority, there is room to think of a non-Occidentalist West. By that I mean a vast array of conceptions, theories, arguments that, though produced in the West by recognized intellectual figures, were discarded, marginalized or ignored because they did not fit the political objectives of capitalism and colonialism at the roots of Western modernity. In the article I tackle specifically three topics: the conceptions of antiquity, modern science and a teleology of the future. Among many others who might be selected, I resort to three eccentric figures — Lucian of Samosata, Nicholas of Cusa and Blaise Pascal — to exemplify some of the paths that might guide us in the construction of a non-capitalist, non-colonialist inter-cultural dialogue. Such paths are here designated as those of learned ignorance, ecology of knowledge, wager on another possible world and artisanship of practices.In this article I argue that, in spite of the apparently unshakable hegemony of the historical, philosophical and sociological arguments invoked by the canonical history of Europe and the world to demonstrate the uniqueness of the West and its superiority, there is room to think of a non-Occidentalist West. By that I mean a vast array of conceptions, theories, arguments that, though produced in the West by recognized intellectual figures, were discarded, marginalized or ignored because they did not fit the political objectives of capitalism and colonialism at the roots of Western modernity. In the article I tackle specifically three topics: the conceptions of antiquity, modern science and a teleology of the future. Among many others who might be selected, I resort to three eccentric figures - Lucian of Samosata, Nicholas of Cusa and Blaise Pascal - to exemplify some of the paths that might guide us in the construction of a non-capitalist, non-colonialist inter-cultural dialogue. Such paths are here designated as those of learned ignorance, ecology of knowledge, wager on another possible world and artisanship of practices.

Um discurso sobre as ciências na transição para uma ciência pós-moderna

Estamos a doze anos do final do século XX. Vivemos num tempo atônito que ao debruçar-se sobre si próprio descobre que os seus pés são um cruzamento de sombras, sombras que vêm do passado que ora pensamos já não sermos, ora pensamos não termos ainda deixado de ser, sombras que vêm do futuro que ora pensamos já sermos, ora pensamos nunca virmos a ser. Quando, ao procurarmos analisar a situação presente das ciências no seu conjunto, olhamos para o passado a primeira imagem é talvez a de que os progressos científicos dos últimos trinta anos são de tal ordem dramáticos que os séculos que nos precederam — desde o século XVI, onde todos nós, cientistas modernos, nascemos, até ao próprio século XIX — não são mais que uma pré-história longínqua. Mas se fecharmos os olhos e os voltarmos a abrir, verificamos com surpresa que os grandes cientistas que estabeleceram e mapearam o campo teórico em que ainda hoje nos movemos viveram ou trabalharam entre o século XVIII e os primeiros vinte anos do século XX, de Adam Smith e Ricardo a Lavoisier e Darwin, de Marx e Durkheim a Max Weber e Pareto, de Humboldt e Planck a Poincaré e Einstein. E de tal modo é assim que é possível dizer que em termos científicos vivemos ainda no século XIX e que o século XX ainda não começou, nem talvez comece antes de terminar. E se, em vez de no passado, centrarmos o nosso olhar no futuro, do mesmo modo duas imagens contraditórias nos ocorrem alternadamente. Por um lado, as potencialidades da tradução tecnológica dos conhecimentos acumulados fazem-nos crer no limiar de uma sociedade de comunicação e interativa libertada das carências e inseguranças que ainda hoje compõem os dias de muitos de nós: o século XXI a começar antes de começar. Por outro lado, uma reflexão cada vez mais aprofundada sobre os limites do rigor científico combinada com os perigos cada vez mais verossímeis da catástrofe ecológica ou da guerra nuclear fazem-nos temer que o século XXI termine antes de começar.

The Future of the World Social Forum: The work of translation

Boaventura de Sousa Santos argues that the WSF is the first large international progressive movement following the neo-liberal backlash in the early 1980s. The WSF holds out the hope that another world is possible but while the WSF reveals the diversity of social struggles fighting against neo-liberal globalization all over the world call it calls for a giant work of translation. On the one hand, there are local movements and organizations that are very different in their practices and objectives and embedded in different cultures. On the other, there are transnational organizations, from the South and the North, that differ widely among themselves. He asks how to build articulation, aggregation and coalition among these different movements and organizations? And proposes translation as the alternative to general theory.

Nuestra America Reinventing a Subaltern Paradigm of Recognition and Redistribution

According to Hegel, universal history goes from the East to the West. This idea underlies the dominant conception of the 20th century as the European American Century. In this article, I submit that there has been another, subaltern 20th century, the Nuestra AmericaAmerican Century. The European American Century carries into the new millennium its empirical arrogance in the form of neoliberal globalization; the Nuestra AmericaAmerican Century, to be reinvented, bears the seeds of counter-hegemonic globalization. Counter-hegemonic globalization is understood as a set of transnational alliances and struggles focused on the dynamic equilibrium between the principle of equality and the principle of difference. The article identifies five main themes in which the clash between the two alternative globalizations will occur in the next decades.According to Hegel, universal history goes from the East to the West. This idea underlies the dominant conception of the 20th century as the European American Century. In this article, I submit that there has been another, subaltern 20th century, the Nuestra America American Century. The European American Century carries into the new millennium its empirical arrogance in the form of neoliberal globalization; the Nuestra America American Century, to be reinvented, bears the seeds of counter-hegemonic globalization. Counter-hegemonic globalization is understood as a set of transnational alliances and struggles focused on the dynamic equilibrium between the principle of equality and the principle of difference. The article identifies five main themes in which the clash between the two alternative globalizations will occur in the next decades.

The World Social Forum and the Global Left

This article has two purposes. First, it aims to put the development of the World Social Forum (WSF) within a broad theoretical and historical context. Specifically, my goal is to understand the WSF in relation to the crises of left thinking and practice of the last thirty or forty years. Second, it offers an analysis of some recent debates about the future of the WSF. It raises questions concerning its organizational makeup and asks whether it should continue as it is, or rather give way to other kinds of initiatives and struggles. Against critics such as Walden Bello, I argue that the WSF should continue and, given certain organizational changes, will contribute to the theory and practice of left movements throughout the world in the twenty-first century.This article has two purposes. First, it aims to put the development of the World Social Forum (WSF) within a broad theoretical and historical context. Specifically, my goal is to understand the WSF in relation to the crises of left thinking and practice of the last thirty or forty years. Second, it offers an analysis of some recent debates about the future of the WSF. It raises questions concerning its organizational makeup and asks whether it should continue as it is, or rather give way to other kinds of initiatives and struggles. Against critics such as Walden Bello, I argue that the WSF should continue and, given certain organizational changes, will contribute to the theory and practice of left movements throughout the world in the twenty-first century.

Three Metaphors for a New Conception of Law: the Frontier, the Baroque and the South

are entering a period of paradigmatic transition. From the paradigm of modernity we have come to a new paradigm which by now can only be defined inadequately. The inevitability of such inadequacy lends to the name of postmodernity its grain of truth. Periods of paradigmatic transition are periods of fierce competition among rival epistemologies and knowledges. They are, therefore, periods of radical thinking-both deconstructive and reconstructive thinking. When viewed from the old outgoing paradigm, they are periods of unthinking or of utopia. When viewed from the new, incoming paradigm, they are periods of temporary and fragile scaffoldings, emergent ruins sustaining nothing but themselves, witnessing nothing but the future. In periods of paradigmatic transition, all competing knowledges reveal themselves as rhetorical in nature, bundles of arguments and of premises of argumentation which circulate inside rhetorical audiences. Indeed, what distinguishes the audiences are the specific arguments and premises of argumentation that they consider valid and convincing or persuasive. In the specific paradigmatic transition we are now entering, any given discipline, be it sociology of law or archeology, tends to be constituted by a larger or smaller number of rival rhetorical audiences. The level of real

Introduction: Democracy, Participation and Grassroots Movements in Contemporary Portugal

The last three decades have witnessed a succession of processes of political and social transition in various regions of the world which brought with them a spread of the institutions of liberal, representative democracy beyond the European-North American setting where they originated. From southern European countries like Portugal, Spain and Greece in the mid-1970s to several Latin American, Asian and African countries, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union and South Africa in the 1980s, democratization followed different paths associated with a diversity of historical experiences and dynamics of political and social conflict. At the turn of the twenty-first century, in what some have seen as the culmination of these ‘waves of democratization’, the Washington consensus version of a new, post-Cold War world championed a convergence towards a common, minimal model of representative democracy and a global capitalist economy as the condition for peace and prosperity at the global scale. International organizations like the World Bank included the establishment of democratic institutions and free elections among the set of conditions required for loans and development projects. Over the last few years, however, the promises that the virtuous combination of parliamentary democracy and global capitalism would bring in its wake more development, more equality and less injustice were added to the already long list of the unfulfilled promises of modernity. It will hardly come as a surprise, then, that as different forms of resistance and opposition to the dynamics of neoliberalism emerged, the debates on the theory and practice of democracy and on its links to social, environmental, cognitive and cultural justice gained in visibility and intensity.

Toward an Epistemology of Blindness Why the New Forms of 'Ceremonial Adequacy' neither Regulate nor Emancipate

My starting point in this paper is the artistic structures of the Renaissance. Resorting to what I call an epistemology of blindness, I set out to identify the limits of representation in modern science. This epistemology applies to different sciences in different degrees. I argue that the degree is particularly high in the case of mainstream economics. At the end of the paper I indicate some possible ways of advancing from an epistemology of blindness toward an epistemology of seeing.My starting point in this paper is the artistic structures of the Renaissance. Resorting to what I call an epistemology of blindness, I set out to identify the limits of representation in modern science. This epistemology applies to different sciences in different degrees. I argue that the degree is particularly high in the case of mainstream economics. At the end of the paper I indicate some possible ways of advancing from an epistemology of blindness toward an epistemology of seeing.