Journal Articles by Jan-Jonathan Bock
Social Anthropology, 2021
In June 2016, the anti-establishment and grassroots-democratic Five Star Movement (MoVimento Cinq... more In June 2016, the anti-establishment and grassroots-democratic Five Star Movement (MoVimento Cinque Stelle, M5S) won local elections in Rome. Following fundamental opposition, supporters of the Movement now had to demonstrate their ability to govern and deliver on far-reaching promises. This paper explores what happened when the utopian aspirations of the M5S -- such as entangling the represented and their representatives in a permanent political dialogue, reshaping civic culture and harnessing new communication technologies for innovative types of participation --encountered political reality. I show that the divergent rhythms and tempos of political practice and bureaucratic reality soon split the more radical M5S supporters from the newly elected ofcials. Rather than realising utopian democratic behaviour, new technological possibilities and innovation in participation began to fracture the M5S.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Sociology, 2018
When one million asylum seekers and other migrants entered Germany in 2015–2016, the situation wa... more When one million asylum seekers and other migrants entered Germany in 2015–2016, the situation was called a national crisis. This article examines the impact of an emergency reception centre on a small town, investigating how rural Germans debated crisis experiences, migration and borders. In the Harz Mountains, asylum seekers arrived in an area already suffering from decline. Accommodating newcomers became a specific challenge. The assumption of a European-wide emergency induced by the presence of foreigners neglects how contexts shape crisis perceptions. Social fragmentation occurred when some townspeople framed local developments as the Flüchtlingskrise covered by the media, whereas others used personal experience to critique the crisis concept. As new experts in emergency management, reception centre employees changed their political consciousness. The unsteady politico-spatial order, rather than asylum seekers as subjects, produced anxiety over marginalisation, since the reception centre shifted problematic border features – chaos and risk – into central Germany.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 2018
Talk about a 'refugee crisis' dominated Germany's political discourse in 2015/2016. The arrival o... more Talk about a 'refugee crisis' dominated Germany's political discourse in 2015/2016. The arrival of hundreds of thousands of foreigners desiring protection shaped public and private debates. However, rather than taking the term refugee crisis for granted, this article suggests that critical experiences in Germany, and responses to them, were shaped by the failure of state institutions. In the same year, as further austerity measures were imposed on Greece, German citizens questioned the state of their own public infrastructure. Following privatisation and cuts to social services, national, regional, and local authorities lacked the capacity to respond adequately to newcomers' needs. The sight of failing state institutions contributed to a sense of crisis. Simultaneously, however, the apparent state incapacity— particularly also in Berlin, the focus of this article—opened up spaces for emergent civil society actors, including minority groups. Muslims organised in associations could perform relevance as reliable citizens and raise their public profile. Different groups also put forward alternative visions of society. At the same time, government support for asylum seekers and the greater visibility of actors in a pluralist society pushed some conservatives towards a new far-right force: the Alternative for Germany party (AfD). The gaps in public administration that were revealed in 2015/2016 resulted in social polarisation left and right of centrist politics: nationalist conservatives rejected an increasingly multicultural country and found a new political home in the AfD, whereas left wingers and minority groups challenged austerity and claimed greater political representation for their views.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Recent analyses of the state have emphasized its inability to generate hope among citizens, sugge... more Recent analyses of the state have emphasized its inability to generate hope among citizens, suggesting that neoliberalism and globalization erode its protective power. However, this article suggests that the state still features as a coveted agent of support, in particular during unstable times. After the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake, the Italian state became the key actor responsible for emergency aid, restoration, and urban redevelopment. Dedication and the performance of compassion produced expectations of swift improvement. Hope became dependent on state authority. A few years later, uncertainty replaced hope, as promises for recovery remained unrealized. The state morphed from an agent of hope into the source of hopelessness, generating uncertainty and a sense of crisis. Since the state is revealed through its effects, this article highlights the need to trace state power in intimate human emotional experience, such as hope or despair. The production of a specific condition of uncertainty reveals the significance of state power in human life, particularly during times of personal or collective crisis.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The aftermath of the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake was marked by social fragmentation and isolation in... more The aftermath of the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake was marked by social fragmentation and isolation in resettlement sites. Cultural work emerged as a central aspect of recovery initiatives, aimed at reconnecting dispersed survivors. This article explores how local artists envisioned their contribution to recovery from catastrophe, namely as the production and performance of utopian imaginations in particular spaces, seeking to connect divided Aquilani. Cultural initiatives approached the notion of utopia pragmatically: with historic neighbourhoods, in which sociality used to be produced, off-limits, dispersion and envy made the building of new shared spaces necessary. These spaces were often cultural. However, rather than envisioning cultural events as momentary, artists aspired to shape enduring relationships and recovery. Their work challenges approaches that depict the culture industry as conquered by late capitalism's neoliberal, enjoyment centred experience economy.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Books by Jan-Jonathan Bock
In a rapidly changing world, in which religious identities emerge as crucial fault lines in polit... more In a rapidly changing world, in which religious identities emerge as crucial fault lines in political and public discourse, this volume brings together multiple disciplinary perspectives in order to investigate shifting conceptions of, and commitments to, the ideals of religious pluralism.
Spanning theology, sociology, politics and anthropology, the chapters explore various approaches to coexistence, political visions of managing diversity and lived experiences of multireligiosity, in order to examine how modes of religious pluralism are being constructed and contested in different parts of the world. Contributing authors analyse challenges to religious pluralism, as well as innovative kinds of conviviality, that produce meaningful engagements with diversity and shared community life across different social, political and economic settings.
This book will be relevant to scholars of religion, community life, social change and politics, and will also be of interest to civil society organisations, NGOs, international agencies and local, regional and national policymakers.
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030138103
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Although its beginnings can be traced back to the late 19th century, the interfaith movement has ... more Although its beginnings can be traced back to the late 19th century, the interfaith movement has only recently begun to attract mainstream attention, with governments, religious leaders and grassroots activists around the world increasingly turning to interfaith dialogue and collective action to address the challenges posed and explore the opportunities presented by religious diversity in a globalising world. This volume explores the history and development of the interfaith movement by engaging with new theoretical perspectives and a diverse range of case studies from around the world. The first book to bring together experts in the fields of religion, politics and social movement theory to offer an in-depth social analysis of the interfaith movement, it not only sheds new light on the movement itself, but challenges the longstanding academic division of labour that confines ‘religious’ and ‘social’ movements to separate spheres of inquiry.
https://www.routledge.com/The-Interfaith-Movement-Mobilising-Religious-Diversity-in-the-21st-Century/Fahy-Bock/p/book/9781138606302
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The arrival in 2015 and 2016 of over one million asylum seekers and refugees in Germany had major... more The arrival in 2015 and 2016 of over one million asylum seekers and refugees in Germany had major social consequences and gave rise to extensive debates about the nature of cultural diversity and collective life. This volume examines the responses and implications of what was widely seen as the most significant and contested social change since German reunification in 1990. It combines in-depth studies based on anthropological fieldwork with analyses of the longer trajectories of migration and social change. Its original conclusions have significance not only for Germany but also for the understanding of diversity and difference more widely.
Berghahn Books
https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/BockRefugees
Open access introduction here: https://www.berghahnbooks.com/downloads/intros/BockRefugees_intro.pdf
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The politics of austerity has seen governments across Europe cut back on welfare provision. As th... more The politics of austerity has seen governments across Europe cut back on welfare provision. As the State retreats, this edited collection explores secular and faith-based grassroots social action in Germany and the United Kingdom that has evolved in response to changing economic policy and expanding needs, from basic items such as food to more complex means to move out of poverty.
Bringing together scholars from different disciplines and practitioners in several areas of social intervention, the book explores how the conceptualization and constitutive practices of citizenship and community are changing because of the retreat of the State and the challenge of meeting social and material needs, creating new opportunities for local activism.
The book provides new ways of thinking about social and political belonging and about the relations between individual, collective, and State responsibility.
http://policypress.co.uk/austerity-community-action-and-the-future-of-citizenship-in-europe
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Book Chapters by Jan-Jonathan Bock
Refugees Welcome? Difference and Diversity in a Changing Germany, 2019
Introduction to 'Refugees Welcome? Difference and Diversity in a Changing Germany', by JJ Bock an... more Introduction to 'Refugees Welcome? Difference and Diversity in a Changing Germany', by JJ Bock and S Macdonald.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
In 2009, the city of L’Aquila was devastated by one of Italy’s strongest postwar earthquakes. In ... more In 2009, the city of L’Aquila was devastated by one of Italy’s strongest postwar earthquakes. In response, the national government assumed all-encompassing powers and replaced the local authorities temporarily with appointed commissioners. The then Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, justified authoritarian measures with the need for swift and effective crisis management, and many survivors acquiesced. Democratic participation and local debates about recovery trajectories that involved the affected population were suppressed. The rhetoric of emergency, crisis, and efficiency induced a post-democratic moment. Many Aquilani, however, used experiences of disenfranchisement and domination to remake a sense of belonging through political participation, revealing the complex ways in which states of emergency and emergent democratic practices can intersect.
In
The State We're In: Reflecting on Democracy's Troubles. Edited by Joanna Cook, Nicholas J Long, and Henrietta Moore. 2016. Berghahn Books.
[Currently embargoed for open access - please access the full text via your library, or by purchasing a copy of the book.]
https://books.google.it/books?id=zlSNCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=de&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/CookState
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Other Writing by Jan-Jonathan Bock
Policy Report at the end of a comparative, collaborative research project into crisis experiences... more Policy Report at the end of a comparative, collaborative research project into crisis experiences and trust in the state and in diverse societies.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
http://kingsreview.co.uk/candyfloss-for-refugees/
Published October 2015
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
https://woolfinstitute.blog/2016/05/05/german-struggles-with-diversity/
Published May 2016
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
https://woolfinstitute.blog/2016/10/17/transitanti/
Published October 2016
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Policy Reports by Jan-Jonathan Bock
Woolf Institute & Georgetown University, Qatar, 2018
This report provides an overview of a three-year research project that centred on interfaith init... more This report provides an overview of a three-year research project that centred on interfaith initiatives in Delhi, Doha and London. Entitled ‘Assessing the Effectiveness of Interfaith Initiatives’, the initial aim of the research was to assess comparatively how interfaith initiatives evaluate their activities and assess their impact. The focus evolved into a broader comparative analysis of the range of factors that motivate and inform interfaith engagement across these diverse contexts, and between different religious traditions.
Over the course of three years, the authors conducted ethnographic fieldwork in all three sites. This involved participant-observation at a broad range of interfaith events and extensive interviews with those involved in the wider field of interfaith.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Conferences by Jan-Jonathan Bock
Two-day conference at Woolf Institute, Cambridge, 2018
The concept of religious pluralism has been at the centre of major political developments and dis... more The concept of religious pluralism has been at the centre of major political developments and discourse in recent years. The rise of the Hindu right in India has contributed to an increasing sense of marginalisation amongst non-Hindu minorities, and Muslims in particular. Donald Trump’s divisive rhetoric and persistent attempts to impose a Muslim travel ban have similarly left Muslim minorities in the U.S. feeling targeted. In war torn countries throughout the Middle East, the place of the dwindling Christian communities looks ever more precarious, and the rich tradition of pluralism seems to be disappearing. Across Europe controversial attempts, both legal and political, to manage the challenge of religious diversity have led to heated debates on how to deal with difference. At the heart of these developments, the very ideal of religious pluralism itself is being contested. But how have changing realities on the ground informed the ideal of religious pluralism itself?
This two-day interdisciplinary conference looks to explore the emergent conceptions of, and commitments to, the ideal of religious pluralism in different parts of the world.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Presentations by Jan-Jonathan Bock
Research Seminar at Georgetown University, Qatar, 2018
From its beginnings in the late 19th century in the West, the interfaith movement has evolved int... more From its beginnings in the late 19th century in the West, the interfaith movement has evolved into a sustained, yet splintered, global effort that has recently begun to attract mainstream attention. Religious leaders, scholars, grassroots activists and governments around the world today find themselves turning to interfaith dialogue and collective action to address the challenges posed, and explore the opportunities presented, by religious diversity in a globalising world. Once a field of dialogue-centred practice anchored in theology, the field of interfaith has evolved into a concerted effort to mobilise religious resources to respond to social and political issues - locally, nationally and internationally. This research seminar presents the findings of a three-year Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) research project that looks at interfaith engagement Delhi, Doha and London. The focus is a comparative assessment of how the now global interfaith movement has emerged and developed across these diverse case studies.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Chapters in Books by Jan-Jonathan Bock
"Refugees Welcome?: Difference and Diversity in a Changing Germany" Edited by Jan-Jonathan Bock and Sharon Macdonald, 2018
This substantial introduction to the volume Refugees Welcome? Difference and Diversity in a Chang... more This substantial introduction to the volume Refugees Welcome? Difference and Diversity in a Change Germany provides a historical background to approaches to difference and diversity in Germany, especially as a backdrop to volume's exploration of the context, experiences and ramifications regard- ing the so-called refugee crisis in 2015–16. As it explains, the term ‘refugee crisis’ has been criticized for contributing to a moral panic, as well as for locating chaos and emergency in refugees as cultural others – rather than, say, framing the crisis as the failure of a wealthy society in managing immigration and integration. Declaring a ‘crisis’ can be a means by which a state legitimizes authoritarian forms of interven- tion and ‘delegitimize(s) some forms of agency’, such as those of refugees and migrants themselves. It is used it here as an object of analytical study that took on its own reality in the mid 2010s. It did so not only in Germany, but also across Europe, and indeed globally. Here, we focus upon Germany, the country that took in more refugees than any other Western nation and whose role was pivotal in the developments. Moreover, while the German context was specific in various respects, such as the ways in which national memory was mobilized or the particulari- ties of legal statuses of migrants, it also exemplifies responses to the crisis: from the emergence of a ‘culture of welcome’ (Willkommenskultur), on the one hand, to the powerful expression of rightwing anger in the rejection of ethnoreligious diversity and immigration (exemplified, for example, by the Pegida movement), on the other, as well as more complex and sometimes ambivalent reactions. The polarizing and divisive rhetoric that characterized the German discourse found its echo elsewhere in Europe. Therefore, an in-depth study of the German case can illuminate reactions across European societies and is vital for an understanding of how debates about immigrants and refugees shaped politics across the continent during the early decades of the twenty-first century.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Uploads
Journal Articles by Jan-Jonathan Bock
Books by Jan-Jonathan Bock
Spanning theology, sociology, politics and anthropology, the chapters explore various approaches to coexistence, political visions of managing diversity and lived experiences of multireligiosity, in order to examine how modes of religious pluralism are being constructed and contested in different parts of the world. Contributing authors analyse challenges to religious pluralism, as well as innovative kinds of conviviality, that produce meaningful engagements with diversity and shared community life across different social, political and economic settings.
This book will be relevant to scholars of religion, community life, social change and politics, and will also be of interest to civil society organisations, NGOs, international agencies and local, regional and national policymakers.
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030138103
https://www.routledge.com/The-Interfaith-Movement-Mobilising-Religious-Diversity-in-the-21st-Century/Fahy-Bock/p/book/9781138606302
Berghahn Books
https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/BockRefugees
Open access introduction here: https://www.berghahnbooks.com/downloads/intros/BockRefugees_intro.pdf
Bringing together scholars from different disciplines and practitioners in several areas of social intervention, the book explores how the conceptualization and constitutive practices of citizenship and community are changing because of the retreat of the State and the challenge of meeting social and material needs, creating new opportunities for local activism.
The book provides new ways of thinking about social and political belonging and about the relations between individual, collective, and State responsibility.
http://policypress.co.uk/austerity-community-action-and-the-future-of-citizenship-in-europe
Book Chapters by Jan-Jonathan Bock
In
The State We're In: Reflecting on Democracy's Troubles. Edited by Joanna Cook, Nicholas J Long, and Henrietta Moore. 2016. Berghahn Books.
[Currently embargoed for open access - please access the full text via your library, or by purchasing a copy of the book.]
https://books.google.it/books?id=zlSNCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=de&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/CookState
Other Writing by Jan-Jonathan Bock
Published January 2016
Policy Reports by Jan-Jonathan Bock
Over the course of three years, the authors conducted ethnographic fieldwork in all three sites. This involved participant-observation at a broad range of interfaith events and extensive interviews with those involved in the wider field of interfaith.
Conferences by Jan-Jonathan Bock
This two-day interdisciplinary conference looks to explore the emergent conceptions of, and commitments to, the ideal of religious pluralism in different parts of the world.
Presentations by Jan-Jonathan Bock
Chapters in Books by Jan-Jonathan Bock
Spanning theology, sociology, politics and anthropology, the chapters explore various approaches to coexistence, political visions of managing diversity and lived experiences of multireligiosity, in order to examine how modes of religious pluralism are being constructed and contested in different parts of the world. Contributing authors analyse challenges to religious pluralism, as well as innovative kinds of conviviality, that produce meaningful engagements with diversity and shared community life across different social, political and economic settings.
This book will be relevant to scholars of religion, community life, social change and politics, and will also be of interest to civil society organisations, NGOs, international agencies and local, regional and national policymakers.
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030138103
https://www.routledge.com/The-Interfaith-Movement-Mobilising-Religious-Diversity-in-the-21st-Century/Fahy-Bock/p/book/9781138606302
Berghahn Books
https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/BockRefugees
Open access introduction here: https://www.berghahnbooks.com/downloads/intros/BockRefugees_intro.pdf
Bringing together scholars from different disciplines and practitioners in several areas of social intervention, the book explores how the conceptualization and constitutive practices of citizenship and community are changing because of the retreat of the State and the challenge of meeting social and material needs, creating new opportunities for local activism.
The book provides new ways of thinking about social and political belonging and about the relations between individual, collective, and State responsibility.
http://policypress.co.uk/austerity-community-action-and-the-future-of-citizenship-in-europe
In
The State We're In: Reflecting on Democracy's Troubles. Edited by Joanna Cook, Nicholas J Long, and Henrietta Moore. 2016. Berghahn Books.
[Currently embargoed for open access - please access the full text via your library, or by purchasing a copy of the book.]
https://books.google.it/books?id=zlSNCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=de&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/CookState
Published January 2016
Over the course of three years, the authors conducted ethnographic fieldwork in all three sites. This involved participant-observation at a broad range of interfaith events and extensive interviews with those involved in the wider field of interfaith.
This two-day interdisciplinary conference looks to explore the emergent conceptions of, and commitments to, the ideal of religious pluralism in different parts of the world.