Pluralism - Conference Programme Session 10

Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers

Session 10: Political Inclusion
Chair: Kevin W. Gray

An Endless Century?
Themistokles Gogas
Department of Applied Foreign Languages, Epirus Institute of Technology, Greece

The inclusion/exclusion concept has been a diachronic dilemma of human societies. In the course of the centuries it took various forms, while in each evolutionary phase the criteria for inclusion/exclusion were multiple: from religion and language to customs and colour.
The appearance of nationalism as it resulted to the creation of imagined communities systematised the inclusion/exclusion process, though the criteria became more abstract e.g. mentality or loyalty to the dominant ideology. Also, the concept of citizenship passed from the phase of jus sanguinis to that of naturalisation or nationalisation process.
Nowadays the advancement of postmodernity makes pluralism a global trend. Not only the discourse around it but also the development of a relevant theoretical frame marked the end of the 20th century. In that sense intercultural communication and the formation of multicultural societies make tolerance and inclusion a wider perspective. However societies still present the characteristics of modernism thus the discourse around citizenship and inclusion is conducted within the ‘invisible’ frame of modernity.
Aim of this paper is to argue that inclusion and citizenship is still dependent on nationalist ideals. To this direction the greek case and in particular the education field is presented, for it is the main terrain where politics are implied, mentalities are formed and concepts are developed
The paper is articulated along two lines:
a) An approach of the evolutionary steps of greek nationalism, and its implications upon education
b) An analysis of the dialectic process between education and the concepts of inclusion and citizenship.
Basic purpose is to claim that the discourse on inclusion and citizenship “may be true in theory but not so in practice” (Kant [1793] 1994). Finally, an answer will be given to the question: is inclusion a visible target contemporary or the century of nationalism is endless?

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Accommodating Gendered Subjectivities in the United Arab Emirates
Noor Al-Qasimi
University of Warwick, United Kingdom

Judith Butler’s conception of the ‘performative,’ which explains gender, along with sex and sexuality, as a manufactured set of repeated acts posited through the gendered stylization of the body, is exemplified by the structures of the ’abāyah’s [Islamic female national dress] socio-legal implementation in the United Arab Emirates. An example of what Butler deems a ‘parodic identity’ is what has recently become known as the boyah identity, which is indicative of an increasingly visible subculture within the Arab Gulf States. A lexicalization of the English ‘boy’ followed by the Arabic feminine suffix ‘ah,’ boyah is a term employed within local popular discourse to refer to the sexual self-stylizations of butch/femme identities. The boyah-’abāyah is formed of a re-appropriation of men’s national dress (kandoura/dishdāsha) translated into the ’abāyah itself, effecting a combination of male and female institutionalized national dress. The boyah-’abāyah constitutes a direct replication of men’s national dress, manifested most significantly in the cut and the fabric. Other references include the high collar, straight sleeves and buttoned cuffs. Whilst this manifestation constitutes the body veil, there are other instances where the shailah (head veil) is replaced by a baseball cap or the shmāgh (men’s chequered head dress).
This paper identifies the way in which gendered subjectivities are accommodated and gender norms are governed by the nationalist paradigm, with a view to interrogate the manner in which it imposes a culturally hegemonic notion upon the social field. I consider the way in which varying gendered subjectivities are articulated, accommodated and adapted within the context of the sex-gender system established by the Emirati nationalist paradigm. I seek to question the extent to which the articulation of gendered subjectivities can be deemed resistant in the manner in which they transcend and transform sexual norms governed by Islamic national discourse. I examine the self-stylizations of gender and sexuality as manifest within the structures of Islamic national dress and its socio-legal implementation by the state. In establishing my theoretical framework I draw on feminist conceptions of agency, referring extensively to the dialectic of autonomy and constraint established by the Foucauldian paradigm. Whilst my assessment of agency predominantly draws on the Butlerian contention that displacement and resignification are situated in contingent relation to constraint, I nonetheless make reference to feminist theories which remain critical of ‘the negative paradigm of subjectification’ and which advocate active conceptions of agency (McNay 2000: 2-16).

European Constitution as Political Belonging
baldmar75@yahoo.it
European College of Parma, Parma, Italy

The purpose of this paper is to tackle the problem of political Europe and European citizenship from the point of view of the process of constitutionalisation of the European Union.
First of all, I will consider the distinctiveness of the European system, its supranational feature and the new system of governance based on elements that partially transcend the notion of territory, trying to give some hints to the problem of democratisation. We will analyse the Commission White Paper on European governance (2001) as well the Berlin Declaration (March 2007), the Presidency conclusion of the latest Council held in Brussels in June 2007 and the developments of the Intergovernmental Conference preparing the Reform Treaty that should be applied at the end of 2007.
Secondly, I will analyse the problem of the demos in Europe, taking into consideration the different theoretical approaches (Dieter Grimm’s No-demos thesis, Jürgen Habermas Discursive theory, the new studies of Multilevel constitutionalism about the non-hierarchical constitution and the new perspectives outlined by Ulrich Beck with the concept of Cosmopolitan empire, that goes beyond the national model approach) and we will try to sketch our personal indicative solution beyond the distinction of post-national reality, or the neo-Kantian universal belonging of mankind and the Hobbesian idea of the world made up merely of nation-states and individuals.
Thirdly, we will try to connect the institutional question concerning the Grundnorm and the nature of power to the topic of citizenship, firmly assuming that the legal system embodied in the fundamental law is profoundly linked to the process of inclusion/exclusion of people and to the need to constantly fix boundaries in order to define a political space rooted with identities. We will follow in this stage the teaching of the French philosopher Etienne Balibar.
Finally, we will draw the conclusions by re-considering the facts briefly mentioned in point one, in the light of the new elements which have emerged out of the reflection, trying to identify the possible future developments of the constitutional process.