Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy

Nisha Sajnani
“Strategic Narratives: The Embodiment of Minority Discourses within Biographical Theatre Praxis”
This paper explores the development of biographical performance within a community of individuals who identify as second-generation, South-Asian Canadian women and its implications within the context of citizenship in a multicultural state. Situated as a technique often used by drama therapists and theatre and development practitioners, biographical theatre offers the promise of a politic able to address individuals through their contingent and multiple realities. Drawing on a Frierian analysis, I posit that there is an essential democracy within biographical theatre praxis which engages participants as active producers rather than passive recipients of their own socio-political and economic identities. In this paper, I will investigate the embodied narrative as an act of resistance to discursive hegemony when it engages and stages the voices of bodies often relegated to the margins of visible society. I will explore the role of biographical theatre in motivating polyvocal re/presentations of personal and social justice and suggesting new configurations of bodies in community.

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Daniel Salée
“La politique de contestation des peuples autochtones”
La communication portera sur l’impact de certains aspects de la mondialisation sur les revendications et les stratégies de mobilisation des peuples autochtones, dans le contexte québécois. Nous tenterons d’examiner: 1) Dans quelle mesure et pourquoi les peuples autochtones qui luttent en faveur d’une plus grande justice sociale et économique recourent aux organisations gouvernementales internationales et à des réseaux informels internationaux pour faire avancer leurs intérêts et leur vision particulière au plan local ou national?; 2) Comment et dans quelle mesure la mondialisation affecte la mise en forme de leurs stratégies de revendication et de mobilisation? Les auteurs présenteront des résultats préliminaires d’une recherche terrain, menée auprès d’organisations de défense des nations autochtones. Sur la foi de stratégies de résistance qui s’inscrivent d’emblée en dehors des frontières nationales, plusieurs auteurs concluent au caractère transnational de la dynamique sociopolitique au sein des territoires nationaux modernes, annonçant dès lors, la fin ou l’affaiblissement de l’État nation et des mutations radicales dans la signification de la citoyenneté et du vivre ensemble au sein des États nations. Les auteurs discuteront également du bien-fondé de cette assertion.

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Trent Schroyer
“Polanyi and Cultural Alternatives to Development”
Although Polanyi has been championed by many of the
contemporary theorists of "Cultural Alternatives to Development"
such as Ivan Illich, Majid Rahnema, etc. there is a fundamental difference between them and Polanyi's approach. They all fall into a category that Ashis Nandy calls "critical traditionalism". But Polanyi's perspective is different, while sharing their belief that the best set of tools that people and communities have are their local knowledge and social-cultural institutions. Polanyi's "social alternatives" to development are rooted in a more critical historical framework; one I contend is essential today in a globalizing world where Neo-Liberalism is the money system solvent for liquidating social protections, cultural bonds and local stocks of knowledge.

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Hiroshi Shibuya and Takahiro Negishi
“Japanese Health Insurance Schemes and the Income Re-distribution among Regions: From the Viewpoint of Japanese-style Welfare State”
In this paper, we will analyze the income redistribution effects of the Old Age Health Service System. The Old Age Health Service System, which is financed both with tax money transferred from the general government and contribution money transferred from health insurance schemes of active worker generation, is one of the typical schemes for income redistribution among areas.
Long term economic growth under Pax Americana accelerated the development of inequality sharply, and as a result, on one hand, it produced the affluent society (even if perhaps overly materialistic), but on the other hand it brought the problem of communities left behind. There were labor migrations of primarily young people from farms and agricultural communities to the Pacific Coast region, producing problems of overly dense urban areas and the hollowing-out of agricultural community regions.
The Japanese government sector developed policy tools for income redistribution including the “Construction State” mechanism, agricultural subsidies, and fiscal adjustment among social insurance schemes. Under the “Construction State” mechanism, its regional distribution was so concentrated more heavily in the areas left behind in the development of the affluent society that the job creation there produced an inter-regional income redistribution effect.
Recently local construction workers are aging rapidly, and they are tending to depend on social insurance pension benefits. These causes the long-term trend to shift the center of policy in the government sector to address the unbalanced development from the “Construction State” to the “Social Insurance State”
Our conclusion is that the income redistribution effects of the Old Age Health Service System functions well with the basic national pension scheme. However, in the near future the fiscal crisis of the scheme may be uncontrollable, and the only resolution way is to increase the ratio of tax money transfer from the general government.

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Mihaly Simai
“Coexistence or Confrontation? Civilisations, Civil Societies and the Future of Global Security and Governance”
In the 53 General Assembly of the UN, unanimous support has been given by the delegates to the idea that the first year of the 21 Century should be devoted to the dialogue between civilisations. The “father” of the proposal was Mr. Khatami, the President of Iran. The arguments of different member states varied. Some of them wanted the strengthen the UN by the dialogue. They argued that it might reduce distrust between nations by promoting mutual understanding of the values, norms and actions. Others expressed such views that more knowledge about differences and their sources could increase respect and tolerance. In the debate about the Khatami proposal, it was also emphasised that a dialogue between civilisations in itself implied the international recognition of the rights for being different. The fact that the information revolution an important component of the globalisation process increased inequalities between civilisations and the dialogue could reduce them, was an other interesting argument in the UN debate in favour of the proposal. The representative of Austria, on behalf of the EU suggested that the dialogue should not remain on the level of generalities, but such issues should receive due attention as the attitude of different civilisations toward human rights, violence, the condemnation of terrorism, supporting tolerance, democracy, religious and political pluralism and the struggle against poverty. The delegate of Japan wanted to give priority to the issues of peace. President Khatami in his statement emphasized not only the moral values of Islam, but underlined the fact that many things were common in the teaching of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohamed. There was also an interesting discussion about the question, who should be authorised to speak on behalf of the different civilisations? The delegate of Egypt for example suggested that since his country was a part of the African, Islam and modern civilisations, they could speak for all the three. Many delegates considered the civil society as the key actor of the dialogue. President Khatami thought that scientists should play a fundamental role. The Secretary General underlined the importance of the UN as the main forum for the dialogue. UN . The representative of Malaisia raised a most fundamental issue: which were the civilisations between whom the dialogue was supposed to take place at the beginning of the new century? He suggested that in order to have a meaningful dialogue it would be necessary to clarify the concept and character of the existing civilisations. Several delegates raised such problems that an important obstacle to the fruitful development of intercultural dialogue and cultural diversity is intellectual stereotyping, which has been with the world for centuries. It is not seldom at the very basis of representations and misrepresentations of other cultures and civilizations in respect of one’s own. the eruption of hatred, racism, violence, xenophobia, and other atrocities in many societies and across borders can often be traced back to many reprehensible stereotypical conventions..
The idea of the dialogue between civilisations indirectly reflected also the recognition that they were considered as non negligable factors in the process of global governance. The delegates might have been influenced also by the ideas of Huntington about the clashes of civilisations as the future forms of conflicts.
In this paper I want to raise two critical issues: One is the place and role of civilisations in global governance. Are they, or could they be actors in this process? In order to give a meaningful answer, one must also raise some additional questions: what are the civilizations today? Is there such a thing as global civilization? Can the “business civilization” considered as the evolving global civilization? The other issue is the role and place of the civil society in civilisations? Are all the existing civilisations characterised by the increasing role of the civil society? Is terrorism “civilisation specific”?. How it is related to the fermenting forces, changes, differentiation and dissatisfaction of the civil society ? How are they related to the anti-globalist forces of the civil society and what are they against anyway? How all these problems are related to global security?

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Nicola Short
“Modernisation, Counterinsurgency and the In/security of
Social Order”
This paper proposes to examine the relationship between theories of counterinsurgency and theories of modernisation. Counterinsurgency theory emerges in British and French colonial experiences, which underlie its understandings of social order, progress and development. However, counterinsurgency theory is also associated with modernisation theories emerging predominantly in the US in the 1950s and 1960s. The political dimension of these theories argued for militaries as modernising agents, which were presumed to be capable of maintaining order during the transition period from ‘traditional’ to ‘modern’ social organisation. Thus, at the juncture of counterinsurgency and modernisation theory are located understandings of social order infused with class, race and cultural hierarchies and rationales for development as a militarised project. This paper will examine this relationship between violence and economy in the largely dominant understanding of development. Furthermore, it will examine how this relationship constructs conflictual identities through its social assumptions, examining how counterinsurgency doctrine has been deployed in developing countries both ‘directly’ and how its logic has been used ‘in reverse’, e.g., by Reagan-era strategists to support Afghan rebels after the Soviet invasion. Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation examined the social and cultural dislocation inherent in liberal economic transition in Britain and its parallels in colonial situations. The relationship between counterinsurgency and modernisation theory reflects an implicit acknowledgement of this dislocation and the attempt to control it through militarised means. By illuminating the intellectual and actual histories of counterinsurgency and modernisation this paper hopes to shed light on contemporary conflicts and post-conflict situations and the challenges these legacies have for coexistence today.

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