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orangedissent-civilsociety · 4 years

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Social Service or Social Change?

There is a tradeoff between social service and achieving lasting social change in the sense that resources and energy are often hoarded by the operation that social service demands. This is largely due to the sense of urgency to meet the needs and also due to the good intentions of people concerned about social change.

I would like to think that the status quo can be broken by balancing social service work and social change work. I believe that as long as the root issue is not lost sight of, important advocacy work is done, ways to build strong community power are developed, people at the bottom of the pyramid and the community are integrated into leadership work and accountability is focused on grassroots community struggles, long-term social change can be a reality.

About that if the third sector is creating the problems that it tries to solve, I believe that although it does not create it, it does help to perpetuate them. This, if they are not attacked at the root and only solve superficial problems and temporarily.

As a causal explanation, I think this is due to the disappointment and burnout that working in the third sector implies. The frustration produced by the fact of not being able to change the problems produced by the system and its structures leads to the belief that the problem can only be fixed, but not finished. Therefore, the causes should be focused on real problems, as proposed by the author “We need to engage in battles against specific kinds of exploitation, exclusion, marginalization, discrimination, and violence while simultaneously engaging in a longer-term struggle for a redistribution of wealth and power. "

On the other hand, the political economy of the third sector can be a trap for social change due to different reasons. As discussed in the text, the creation of the buffer zone is the main reason. The functions that this zone has are: taking care of people at the bottom of the pyramid, jobs in the buffer zone is keeping hope alive by distributing opportunities for a few people to become better off financially and maintain the system by controlling those who want to make changes.

So from its inception, the buffer zone was created to cooperate with the leaders who fought for the grassroots community struggles. By doing this, these leaders are separated from their communities, putting individual interests before collective ones.

It is also a trap because much of the effort in time, money and energy goes into raising funds and being accountable to donors. While this money is destined to the agenda by which the economic supports are labeled. The problem is that the third sector falls into the trap of operating within the same economic pyramid structure. This has the consequence that actions that seek lasting social change are put aside.

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orangedissent-civilsociety · 4 years

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The Ngoization of the Arab Women's Movement

As Jad explained in the reading, one of the most complex parts of women's movement is assuming that women share an international common goal, the number of women in the world is the number of goals and violences that are suffered. When the United Nations or international non government organizations decide to create a plan to emancipate and empower women, white educated and privileged ones are in charge of planning a universal plan what does not take into consideration the individuality of oppressed women. When NGO's start to replace social movements or are understand as such, the participation is limites, the discourse is managed to attract funds, marketing experts begin to take the spaces of those women who are supposedly represented by this organization, marginated women who are supposed to be the main reason of the existence of this groups, are left in a second background. As Jad presented, when the main object of NGO's is to attract investors, economic, civil and human rights are left behind, when NGO's have to answerr to an international discourse of women empowerment, results are expected through transparency and accountability towards their donors instead of assuming a responsibility towards the marginated group that they supposedly represent. When referring to NGO's, we are talking about privilege, a group of educated people who find connections in order to attract donors and that if those donors are international or foregners can be understood as a risk for the sovereignty of the State. This double edged weapon is used recently by the Mexican president when trying to delegitimize environmental NGO's and can be also seen as a strategy adopted by Claudia Sheinbaum towards feminist movements such as Ni Una Menos and Okupa Refugio.

The relationship between civil society and money will always be conflictive to governments because of the legitimacy that this groups may have. It is impossible to think of an organization submitting only from good intentions and nice thoughts, but it is also very risky to act as if all NGO’s were the absolute truth.

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orangedissent-civilsociety · 4 years

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Sexual Social Contract in Mexico

Choose a concrete case study (contextualise) to explore the power balance between power-holders and civil society by using the Social Contract as an analytical model ( Loewe, M. Zintl, T. Houdrei, A. 2020)

Social Contract is characterized by three elements: (i) its scope, (ii) its substance and (iii) its temporal dimension, this paper pretendes to analyze this three elements under the lense of the relation between power-holder, in this case the Mexican state and the civil society, organized women demanding justice and equality in Mexico.

Starting by defining who and where we can delimitate its scope, in the position of power-holders Mexican government is taking place, referring to the whole administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Even though this problematic relationship has existed since many six-year terms before, it is during the mandate of the president Andrés Manuel, where the awakening of female civil society is contextualized. As it was mentioned, in the opposite position to the State is the civil society which in this case takes the form of organized women who have been violated and demand social justice and equality.

This social contract is applied to the whole country and even if each State has different conditions, the same social contract has been applied to them. This is one of the main points to analyze and criticize about the actual social contract, women all over the country are violated in different ways, the diversity of our country requires a bigger effort in order to create a social contract that may fit the diverse population.

Following the three elements of analysis in order to understand the substance of the social contract, the question what? should be answered, what are the obligations and rights that this contract produces?

From one side, the State has three main obligations: (i) protection, (ii) provision, and (iii) participation and from the other, society has the obligation to recognise and legitimate the State and follow the rules and norms that they impose.

To analyze the three obligations of the State, evidence about each segment will be presented:

(i) Protection: Mexican state should be able to guarantee their citizens collective and individual security, protect them against criminal acts or acts of state arbitrariness, and provide them legal security such as the enforcement of human and civil rights. During the first four months of the year, 987 women were murdered in Mexico, the national rate of women murder is 1.5 for every 100,000 people, in the state of Colima, this rate goes to 8.4.(1)

In 2019, 1,812 feminicides took place against women and children, 2,586 women were sexually abused and 1,895 were raped. 143,000 emergency calls reporting intimate partner violence and more than 352,000 calls reported cases of family violence were received.(2)

Accoring to Mexico Evalúa, between january and decemeber of 2019, only the 99.7% of sexual violence cases were not reported which makes the given numbers, even more worrying. In states such as Tlaxcala, Aguascalientes and Mérida the 99.99% of the investigated cases went unpunished. 3The violence mexican women suffer is not only being allowed by the Mexican state, but the same government is the one perpetuating this violence, this can be seen in a large list of names but the most recent ones are the feminicide of Danna in Mexicalli, where the state attorney said “the girl also had tatoos everywhere” as a justification of her murder, or the case of Luis Alonso “N”, head of human resources of the Directorate of Citizen Security of Puerto Vallarta that was found in his car with a naked 10 year old girl and a judge of Control and Orality of the Municipality decided not to link the subject4, who is accused of corruption of minors, to the process. Not only institutions are used against women but the monopoly of violence that the state has, is also used against women as seen during the different manifestations of feminists in Mexico City and other states.

(ii) Provision: the state should be able to provide the citizens of basic services such as access to resources, infrastructure, social services (e.g. health and education), social protection and economic opportunities. In Mexico, 23.7 million women lack of basic services in housing5 , a big mayority of women work under ilegal situations in jobs like cleaning services, unregulated cooks, sex workers and many other unformal activities that does not allow them to have access to social security, health services and education.

(iii) Participation: the state should allow society to be involved in political decision-making processes on different levels. In the local election positions, ayuntamientos , 539 women form part of the 2,043 spaces, State congresses are occupied by 49% of women, Governorships have only 6.25 % of the chairs occupied by women, that means 2 out of 32 ; in the Congress of Union 48% are women and in the Federal Cabinet only 40% of the positions are occupied by women. Even though there has been an effort with cuotas and reforms of the election rules in order to make institutions more inclusive, it has not been enough.

After knowing this information, the conclusion is that Mexican government is not fulfilling its obligations and this has severe consequences. According to Loewe, Trautner and Zintl failing in terms of protection means a lack of state authority and failing in terms of provision evidentiated the lack of state. When failing on the three categories, the tendency is an extinction of the social contract. However, Mexico is failing in all of them and women still have to answer to a social contract where the counterpart is not complying with the agreement.

The last element that has to be analyzed is the temporal dimension of the social contract, the questions when and how long need to be answered. There are three cases in which the social contract can be founded as no longer valid:

(i) the relative distribution of power between the contracting parties changes , this is happening right now in the Mexican society where women are acknowledging their oppression and the unbalanced relationship between them and patriarchal institutions.

(ii) one party realises that the other party does not fulfil its obligations as contracted , as presented in the second element of analysis, Mexican state is not accomplishing their obligations in protecting, providing nor including women in participation.

(iii) one party finds that the existing social contract does not live up to its expectations , as mentioned before, the actual social contract was never made thinking nor taking women into consideration. It has never lived up to women expectations and now it only does not represent women but attempts against them and infringe them.

By using the analyzing system presented by Loewe, Trautner and Zintl the unfulfillment of state obligations create the deobligation of the civil society to follow the rules of an illegitimate actor6, we have witnessed the disobedience of organized women towards the law. This can only be seen as a demand not to renegotiate the social contract but to reinvent it. The power-holder fragility is acknowledged and is now a weapon against them, the occupation of women to the CNDH offices in Mexico City is the consequence of the lack of security, provision and participation of the Mexican state. The balance of power is inclined to injustice, inequality and murder of women and if this doesnt change, social coventants will start to unite and to take the spaces that they have been disposed of. 7

1 https://politica.expansion.mx/mexico/2020/05/25/asesinatos-de-mujeres-en-mexico-registran-cifra-record-en-abril

2 https://www.forbes.com.mx/en-mexico-a-diario-18-mujeres-son-asesinadas-o-violadas/

3 https://www.infobae.com/america/mexico/2020/01/23/el-desolador-panorama-de-los-abusos-contra-la-mujer-en-mexico-el-99-de-la-violaciones-no-se-atienden/

4 https://www.infobae.com/america/mexico/2020/08/15/funcionario-del-municipio-de-puerto-vallarta-detenido-con-una-nina-de-10-anos-desnuda-no-ha-sido-inculpado/

5 https://centrourbano.com/revista/wp-content/uploads/Coneval_10-a%C3%B1os_Meidici%C3%B3n-Pobreza.png

6 ( Loewe, M. Zintl, T. Houdrei, A. 2020 )

7 (Khan, 2017; McCandless, 2018).

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orangedissent-civilsociety · 4 years

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How do you understand the social contract today, in your context, n light of all that is happening?

Ma. Regina Bonilla A01655021

Our freedom is being hold for almost nothing in return, we are hostages of a pact that is not been accomplished by those actors supposed to bring us security and health as a very basic. The idea of repressing instincts is no longer a reality, we have seen in the atrocities people have to commit to have health and security, the pact is broken and Mexicans and looking at different actors to pact with them. As we can see in the northern cities of the country, if the government does not provide what they are supposed to, a new force (in this case organized crime) will take this empty space and make with it as they please.

The social contract is an old idea that new generations are not accepting, it is a contract that has been written unilaterally. Everyday more and more people are part of vulnerable groups, our voices are not being heard by the decision makers, we live in a world ruled by rules we never accepted.

This “universal” idea that dictates what is right and what is wrong, how should we interact and act has damaged all those groups who does not form part of this eurocentric behaviors that have been the only study object for some years. The way everything has been imposed creates a feeling of remoteness, cero attachment and therefore cero compromise with the community and the rules that should emanate from it.

For me, social contract is only a way of legitimacy for those who benefit from it. A new social contract is necessary ir order to stop the increase of inequalities that we are witnessing.

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orangedissent-civilsociety · 4 years

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Reflection for a new social contract

-Jazmín Maldonado

Taking into account the scheme proposed in class about the social pact, I consider that most of its elements are seriously damaged. From my point of view, there is no confidence in public affairs, no political optimism and given the current contingency, a feeling of hopelessness prevails. Regarding legitimacy, although the current government was legitimately elected, there is a significant polarization within Mexican society. In addition to this, there is widespread dissatisfaction with politics, since people do not feel represented or heard.

Based on a causal analysis, I consider that this situation is largely due to the fact that people are not satisfied with three basic elements for their development, such as health, education and security. There is a helplessness of the state. Consequently, the dynamics of the policy is co-opted by interest groups and client relationships.

As a result of all these dynamics, participation is very low and is limited to casting one vote every certain period of time. Votes cast have a limited decision process due to unequal conditions. Access to other options and ways of doing politics is very difficult. When trying to exercise citizenship in another way, there are obstacles that I consider to be due to structural causes. I say this, because I perceive a pattern in the people who are involved in public decisions. Or, they are the activists who had to get involved in the political exercise because they saw some of their rights violated and have been forced to do so. Either they are privileged people who organize, participate in an institutionalized way or not, largely because their social and economic condition allows them to access spaces and platforms. Being able to allocate time and money to these spaces. Outside of this pattern, which is a very general vision, I consider that there is no active participation.

The breaking point of the pact occurs at the moment in which the lifestyle, the work condition and the social dynamics prevent you from being able to improve your quality of life to achieve well-being through participation. This feeling of hopelessness and frustration has the ability to break any ties that are had on the social plane. The pessimism product of the economic, political and social situation ends up denying people the possibility of co-creating with their peers. The system decides for them what is important, and the important thing is to cover their basic needs, denying the opportunity to get involved in public affairs.

Therefore, returning to the scheme, and taking into consideration the revised readings, I consider that the proposal of a new social pact must be thought from a spatial plane. This in the sense that it adapts to the characteristics of the communities and that it is endorsed from the local networks, modifying the way in which decisions are made within it, shortening the distances that one has with the other. The way in which security is provided, changing the relationship between the way it contributes to local public finances and the way it is rewarded. In such a way that the magnifying glass is placed on our local governments, generating public places of debate where decisions are made where all and all actors are taken into account regardless of age or gender, in which all voices have a place.

I see a new social pact that returns power to its communities and its members, that balances power structures, in order to reduce inequalities. The pact needs to be rethought from the collective and must seek a better articulation between governments and citizens. A pact that allows them to relate to their environment, including nature. One that allows us to rethink the way we consume and transport ourselves. In which resistance from their personal spaces leads to a transformation of the pact, a more humane one, which ensures dignity and well-being to people.

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orangedissent-civilsociety · 4 years

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Sexual and racial contract

The origins of the Mexican social and political system, as well as our collective imagination, cannot be understood without colonialism and the caste system that this process promoted. The practices of segregation and racism have not been confined to the society but the state system perpetuates and reproduces race and sex inequalities. In this way, we also discuss the separation between the public and the private sphere, since in practice this division is non-existent. Therefore, the Mexican state apparatus actively seeks to maintain a status quo that benefits almost exclusively the white man.

Both contracts operate through instruments that reproduce inequalities in a systematic and cyclical way. Colonialism has brought hierarchical systems that respond to white man interests and that exclude indigenous people, women, non binary and those who do not fit in the conqueror profile.

Consequently, there are demonstrations in Mexico confirming that the country is a racist, classist and sexist.

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orangedissent-civilsociety · 4 years

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Is political and civil society free?

To even begin to try and answer this question we must define what we are understanding for freedom and for civil society, in order to have a clear conceptual framework to work with.

To define freedom we are using some notions given in the episode “The Social Contract” of the BBC’s podcast In Our Time by Melvyn Bragg in which it is said that “natural freedom is to be guided by our own will (non coercion). In most societies (unfair ones) we are bound to lose that. We can regain it (civil freedom) under a social contract if we are involved in creating and enforcing the law, since it will represent the ‘general will’”.

Now to define civil society we will use a fragment of the definition given in the CIVICUS’ Civil Society Index and so “the CSI defines the civil society as the arena [...] where people associate to advance common interests”.

Although these definitions may be broad and by no means exhaustive, under this conceptual framework we think that the answer is no, political and civil society is not free.

Although you are using this arena or platform called civil society to organize and advance interests in common, the individual cause is ceded for a collective one thus losing autonomy and will. The person fights for adopted causes and exercises power through structures or platforms that may or may not represent you. This is because the structure is dominated by the causes of the majority and responds to larger interests.

Now taking into consideration Allison Van Rooy line of thought in which she explores civil society “as a value, a noun, a space, a historical moment, an expression against hegemony and the state” we necessarily need to consider that the structures and platforms given to organize a society are ruled by the dominating power [in this case the State] who dictates the rules of the game and portraits a scenario that most of the times individuals [organized or not] are forced to accept thus diminishing will and freedom.

By voluntarily accepting the rules of the game, you are free. However, when power is copted, the exercise of civil and political society ceases to be at freedom. Consequently, there is no freedom without social justice. In an asymmetric power scheme, freedoms are limited and the public square destined for the exercise of civil and political society is not freely accessible.

Ideally, if people's rights and needs are covered, civil and political society can be freely accessed. Otherwise, when these rights are violated, access is obligatory because you are being forced in some way to defend your needs and rights and to demand the state to comply with its obligations.

Jazmín Maldonado A01335817

Eduardo Castañeda A01655386

Ma. Regina Bonilla A01655021

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