This dissertation empirically expands the existing knowledge on participatory democracy through a study of Jamaica's Parish Development Committees (PDCs). These groups offer an avenue for Jamaicans to inform government policy, and this analysis explored the extent to which supportive institutional, infrastructural and superstructural (referring to the society's culture and power configurations) conditions for robust implementation of this democratization initiative existed. This inquiry involved observing more than one hundred hours of PDC activities at locations across Jamaica and conducting sixty key informant and four focus group interviews with relevant stakeholders. The analysis was bolstered by an appreciation of emancipatory politics employed by the country's general population since slavery not only to survive oppression, but also to influence the nation's political agenda. Riots during slavery and in the present day, for example, have offered citizens an avenue towards self-determination. This study found that the emergence, survival and thriving of PDCs in Jamaica is determined largely by the extent to which emancipatory political tactics are successfully applied by PDC stakeholders to combat a number of continuing challenges in these committee's environments. The democratization initiative symbolized by the PDCs promotes inclusiveness yet is led predominantly by older, educated middle class individuals with talents and capacities garnered from several years of experience in various fields. The dissertation argues that the opportunity cost of a more inclusive order explains this fact, in that Jamaica's finite resources mean there is limited space for a learning curve and the cash strapped committees have only been able to survive when their members could help to defray the cost of their operations. The dissertation explores other central challenges confronting the PDCs and the strategies these participative organizations have employed to address each. Primarily, this analysis provides a micro-scale view of the interaction of the factors that have shaped the power and possibility of Jamaica's democratization initiative. / Ph. D.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / O presente trabalho tematiza a ideia de emancipaÃÃo e liberdade para Zizek, um conceito de liberdade estritamente materialista e pÃs-metafÃsico. Se a Ãnfase, hoje, nos ideais do Esclarecimento (AufklÃrung) fornecidos pela modernidade à considerada um retrocesso diante de nossa realidade pÃs-moderna, Zizek encara o desafio de reintegrar tais princÃpios no cenÃrio filosÃfico atual de maneira muito singular. Seu mÃrito consiste fundamentalmente em abordar o cerne da questÃo contemporÃnea (no que tange à ciÃncia, ontologia, subjetividade e polÃtica) a partir dos ideais modernos que abrem a perspectiva de emancipaÃÃo e liberdade humana. Nosso trabalho tem, portanto, como tarefa explorar esse tema da liberdade nos tempos atuais, radicalizando, assim, o que Kant compreendia com o princÃpio da AufklÃrung, a saber, a saÃda do homem da minoridade, da qual ele mesmo à culpado. Nesse sentido, o tema serà dividido em quatro linhas temÃticas principais: i) ciÃncia e epistemologia, ii) ontologia, iii) subjetividade e iv) polÃtica emancipatÃria. No primeiro ponto à discutido o ideal de AufklÃrung para Zizek e como este se contrapÃe diretamente com a perspectiva de Habermas e seu projeto de uma modernidade inacabada. Para isso, tomamos como fio condutor a polÃmica sobre o tema da biogenÃtica, e, a partir daÃ, procuramos demonstrar como que a concepÃÃo de modernidade para Zizek à ainda mais radical do que a de Habermas. No segundo capÃtulo, procuramos desenvolver o modo como Zizek fundamenta a base ontolÃgica da liberdade a partir da passagem de Kant a Hegel. O foco à depositado na mudanÃa paralÃctica do obstÃculo epistemolÃgico, em Kant, para a sua condiÃÃo ontolÃgica positiva, em Hegel. Ou seja, o modo como Hegel radicaliza o pensamento kantiano a partir de uma torÃÃo dialÃtica puramente formal. No terceiro capÃtulo, a perspectiva da liberdade à deslocada agora para o campo da subjetividade, na relaÃÃo dialÃtica entre a Lei moral kantiana e o gozo sÃdico. Nesse sentido, procuro mostrar primeiramente como que Lacan articula Kant com Sade, para, em seguida, pensar como que o psicanalista procura uma saÃda para o princÃpio de liberdade kantiana a partir da Lei do desejo, o que nos permite pensar um Kant sem Sade. No quarto e Ãltimo capÃtulo, passo para uma discussÃo propriamente polÃtica, onde questiono como à possÃvel uma polÃtica verdadeiramente emancipatÃria, vinculada à ideia de luta de classe e ato polÃtico. Em cada ponto tratado, esforÃamo-nos por radicalizar o princÃpio de liberdade humana em sua base materialista. O interessante na abordagem do materialismo dialÃtico de Zizek à que, em momento algum, cabe substituir nossa realidade por outra melhor, mas apenas â e isso à o fundamental â radicalizar o que permanece in potentia na nossa. / The present work discusses the idea of emancipation and freedom for Zizek, a concept of freedom strictly materialist and post-metaphysical. If the emphasis today on the ideals of the Enlightenment (AufklÃrung) supplied by modernity is considered a step backwards before our reality post-modern, Zizek sees the challenge of reintegrating such principles in philosophical scenario today in a very special way. His merit consists basically to approach the kernel of the contemporary question (in terms of science, ontology, subjectivity and politics) from the ideal modern that opens up the prospect of emancipation and human freedom. Our work has, therefore, as task to explore this theme of freedom in current times, in what Kant understood with the principle of AufklÃrung, namely, the leaving of man of minority, of which he himself is guilty. In this sense, the theme will be divided into four main thematic areas: (i) science and epistemology, (ii) ontology, (iii) subjectivity and (iv) emancipatory politics. On the first point it is discussed the ideal of AufklÃrung for Zizek and how it contrasts directly with the perspective of Habermas and his project of a unfinished modernity. For this, we take as a guide the controversy on the subject of biogenetic, and, from then on, we look for to demonstrate as that the conception of modernity for Zizek is still more radical than that of Habermas. In the second chapter, we are seeking to develop how Zizek justifies the ontological basis of freedom from the passage from Kant to Hegel. The focus is deposited in the parallax shift of epistemological obstacle in Kant, for his positive ontological condition, in Hegel. That is, the way as Hegel radicalizes the Kantian thought from a twist purely formal dialectic. In the third chapter, the prospect of freedom is now shifted to the field of subjectivity, the dialectical relation between the Kantian moral Law and the sadistic enjoyment. In this direction, I look for to show first as that Lacan articulates Kant with Sade, then think about how that the psychoanalyst seeks an outlet for the principle of Kantian freedom from the Law of desire, which allows us to think a Kant without Sade. In the room and last chapter, step for a discussion properly politics, where I question as one truly emancipatory politics is possible, linked to the idea of class struggle and political act. In each treated point, we strive to radicalize the principle of human freedom in its materialistic basis. The interesting approach in the dialectical materialism of Zizek is that, at any time, it is replace our reality by another better, but only - and this is crucial - radicalize what remains in potentia in ours.

Confronted with issues, whose (socioeconomic) causes cannot be resolved through the modification of the built environment, architectural interventions may often inadvertently aid the reproduction of the problems they seek to resolve. In eliminating symptoms of social inequality, alienation and marginalization, architecture can legitimize the social order out of which they arise. In such situations, architects’ attempts to concern themselves with narrowly practical concerns are insufficient even to their own aims, and in order to properly address the issues facing it, architecture must simultaneously operate as a vehicle for social critique and political emancipation. In the work of philosopher Slavoj Žižek, a critical-emancipatory intervention corresponds to an emphasis of a constitutive tension and discord (“the gap”) within what is commonly perceived as a stable, neutral background. Critique strives not to explicitly reveal existing problems. Instead, it reveals an inherent inconsistency within an implicit, ideological fantasy of order and harmony that allows us to naturalize these problems. Consequently, the critical-emancipatory potential of architecture resides not in its programmatic content nor in its representational image, but in its capacity to disrupt the reassuring affective texture of ideology. Critique resides in a formally subtle (concerning architecture in its narrowest definition as an affective structure), yet politically radical shift in how problems of everyday life are interpreted and processed; re-introducing a minimal sense of disquietude that is both critical and emancipatory. The disquietude, that marks an absence of a fantasy of order and harmony, can, paradoxically, only be sustained as a product of a formally (representationally) ordered and harmonious appearance. The critical-emancipatory disquietude is not a compromise of the order and harmony, but rather a reflection of its uncompromisingly egalitarian nature.

[pt] O objetivo desta tese é apresentar a singularidade da teoria política de Jacques Rancière, discutindo a razão do dissenso como caminho para uma emancipação possível e sempre inacabada. A tese defende que a crítica elaborada por Rancière contra o que, na sua avaliação, é um antiplatonismo platônico de Bourdieu pode ser aproveitada para pensar contextos sociológicos inteiramente distintos. A questão a ser discutida é o núcleo de afinidade entre filosofia e sociologia, qual seja, entre a pretensão filosófica ao governo e a necessidade sociológica de escapar à tutela da economia. Como condição do triunfo de seu estatuto de ciência autônoma, a sociologia avança sobre o território, inaugurado por Platão, onde se formulam sínteses comunitárias através dos mitos (mythos) que embaralham narrativa e discurso. Assim, fazemos referência a algumas objeções suscitadas por Charlotte Nordmann e Alberto Toscano para desenvolver um trabalho de defesa das posições de Rancière. Contudo, a crítica à sociologia foi explorada em uma série de autores e subtemas nos quais Bourdieu não é endereçado, exceto anedoticamente. Os autores tratados são: Alfred Cobban, a partir de seu livro Interpretação social da revolução francesa, analisado por Rancière em Os nomes da História; Hannah Arendt, a partir das divergências entre sua leitura sobre o social e a de Rancière; Boltanski e Chiapello, a partir de O novo espírito do capitalismo, cuja referência a uma proximidade com Rancière, sob a rejeição deste último, é analisada. / [en] The purpose of this thesis is to present the uniqueness of Jacques Racière s political theory, discussing the reason of dissent as the path to a possible and always unfinished emancipation. The thesis defends that Rancière s criticism of what is, on his evaluation, a platonic antiplatonism of Bourdieu, can be harnessed to think entirely different sociological contexts. The question to be addressed is the core of affinity between philosophy and sociology, which is, between the philosophical aspiration to government and the sociological need to escape economy s guardianship. As a condition for the triumph of its scientific status, sociology advances on the territory inaugurated by Plato where community synthesis are formulated through myths (mythos) that shuffles the relation between narrative and discourse. Thus, we make reference to some objections raised by Charlotte Nordmann and Alberto Toscano to develop a defense of Rancière s positions. However, criticism of sociology has been explored in a number of authors and sub-themes in which Bourdieu is not addressed but anecdotally. The authors are: Alfred Cobban, from his book Social Interpretation of the French Revolution, discussed by Rancière in The Names of History; Hannah Arendt, from divergences between her readings on the social and the readings on sociology from Rancière; Boltanski and Chiapello, from their book: The new spirit of capitalism, whose reference to a proximity with Rancière is addressed, under the latter s rejection.