Ce mémoire d’HDR dresse le constat de la force des logiques de spécialisation des espaces activées par et dans les politiques urbaines relevant du cadre de vie et de la qualité urbaine d’une part, objective leurs effets socio-spatiaux d’autre part, et renseigne les mécanismes par lesquels ces politiques s’imposent, enfin. Nettement, le cadrage et la mise en ½½uvre des politiques urbaines contemporaines, en matière de renouvellement urbain et de mobilité sûre et durable, témoignent d’une mise en ordre des territoires et des conduites, d’un tri des usages et des usagers dans la ville. Les canons contemporains de l’attractivité urbaine façonnent le gouvernement des territoires, un idéal de ville projeté fait de hauts lieux stratégiques à mettre en valeur et en creux, d’espaces sous-gouvernés. La qualité urbaine et la durabilité, convoquées pour justifier ces politiques urbaines, agissent comme de puissants mots d’ordre qui viennent dissoudre les prises de la contestation. Sans nul doute, la mise en scène de la qualité de vie dans les centres-villes historiques patrimoniaux et pittoresques répond en grande partie à l’impératif de valorisation d’une identité urbaine, tel un avantage comparatif dont usent et abusent les villes européennes, contre-modèle parfait de la métropole XXL américaine ou du monde émergent. Au-delà de ce constat, l’apport théorique original de nos travaux, a consisté à identifier les mécanismes par lesquels cet ordre urbain se déploie. Ce faisant, ce travail s’inscrit au c½ur d’une controverse scientifique contemporaine qui voit se confronter des travaux radicaux néomarxistes qui mettent l’accent sur les logiques de domination en ville, de soumission au marché, de mise à distance des surnuméraires du capitalisme d’une part, et des travaux d’inspiration néowébérienne, qui insistent sur le pluralisme des intérêts en ville, sur la capacité politique des sociétés urbaines à produire du sens et des politiques publiques d’autre part.

This thesis critiques the dominant theorization of Canadian sanctuary as expressed by Randy Lippert. Particularly, I contend that Lippert’s Foucaudian analysis offers an impoverished understanding of sanctuary recipients by insisting they are political only insofar as they embrace bare life and become a silent spectacle. To re-conceptualize the political role of recipients, I evoke Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière’s notion that politics is constitutive of an interruption. I suggest that, living in a borderland between citizenship/non-citizenship, sanctuary recipients draw critical attention to their own exclusions and thus enact the political interruption par excellence. However, Arendt and Rancière’s stipulation that this interruption must be visible also limits political efficacy for recipients for it necessitates that they must expose themselves as helpless spectacles. I argue that this uncontested commitment to visibility is also dominantly expressed by theorists, such as Jenny Edkins, who are concerned with agency for other abject subjectivities. Troubling, this dedication to visibility results in the same apolitical formulation of sanctuary recipients that Lippert offers. As an alternative, I conclude that a type of (in)visible interruption offers a more a fruitful way to understand political agency for sanctuary recipients, and indeed for other seemingly abject figures.

Around the globe recent initiatives to implement new identity card schemes have proved contentious. In some countries governments have dropped these initiatives because of the fear of popular backlash, in others governments have gone ahead and implemented the new systems but have dealt with substantial popular opposition. Yet in Spain, in 2006 a new national identity card was introduced putting the country at the forefront of Europe in the implementation of new generation identity cards and there was barely any opposition. To date more than 12.5 million Spanish citizens have received this new document and the cost of the project already exceeds 314 million Euros. So what explains these developments? Why has a new national identity card been introduced? Why has there been comparatively little opposition? To address these questions this thesis presents a qualitative-historical case study of Spain’s national identity card. This study will permit analysis into how global forces promoting new forms of identification (administrative, technological and corporate) are interacting with distinctive Spanish institutions, attitudes and legacies. Because there is a shortage of secondary literature regarding the topic, the study reviews policy documentation, legislative debate, media sources and survey data, and analyses the findings from a set of key informant interviews with individuals from the government, private sector, academia, NGO’s and the Spanish Data Protection Agency.

This paper examines the "cultural thesis," a normative account of why culturally diverse polities should recognize and accommodate minority and indigenous claims for cultural protection, and addresses the "anti-essentialist" critique of the cultural thesis. The anti-essentialist critique holds that key arguments for the cultural thesis, such as those advanced by Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka, support problematic, essentialist concepts of culture. This paper argues that the anti-essentialist critique overlooks key parts of the cultural thesis but does, nevertheless, illuminate the need for an approach to practical claims to culture. Two approaches are presented-the "unbounded approach" and the "shifting boundaries approach"-both of which are developed in contemporary political theory writings. The paper argues that the shifting boundaries approach, which asks us to consider the role that a claimed cultural practice or activity plays in enhancing community integrity, provides a better framework for understanding the claims advanced by minorities and indigenous peoples. Both the drawbacks of the unbounded approach and the advantages of the shifting boundaries approach are discussed in relation to the Aboriginal rights case R v. Van der Peet.

Scholars writing on the rise of Hindutva, particularly in Gujarat state, have attributed its success to its ability to serve middle and upper caste and class interests. In recent state and Lok Sabha elections, though, Hindutva, through the Bharatiya Janata Party, has also made significant inroads outside of this elite, particularly in Adivasi (Aboriginal) communities. This electoral support has emerged alongside Adivasi participation in antiminority violence in the Dangs District in 1999 and the 2002 post-Godhra carnage. This thesis seeks to understand these developments and in doing so rejects predominant explanations which rely on a paternalistic false-consciousness approach that strips the Adivasi of independent political agency. It shows that the economic development of Adivasi communities has led to stratification and the emergence of an Adivasi elite. Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic capital is used to show that the psychological rewards that Hindutva is able to offer this elite have material consequences and thus this hegemony can serve the interests of these elements of Adivasi society.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Carleton University, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 319-337). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

This thesis critiques the dominant theorization of Canadian sanctuary as expressed by Randy Lippert. Particularly, I contend that Lippert’s Foucaudian analysis offers an impoverished understanding of sanctuary recipients by insisting they are political only insofar as they embrace bare life and become a silent spectacle. To re-conceptualize the political role of recipients, I evoke Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière’s notion that politics is constitutive of an interruption. I suggest that, living in a borderland between citizenship/non-citizenship, sanctuary recipients draw critical attention to their own exclusions and thus enact the political interruption par excellence. However, Arendt and Rancière’s stipulation that this interruption must be visible also limits political efficacy for recipients for it necessitates that they must expose themselves as helpless spectacles. I argue that this uncontested commitment to visibility is also dominantly expressed by theorists, such as Jenny Edkins, who are concerned with agency for other abject subjectivities. Troubling, this dedication to visibility results in the same apolitical formulation of sanctuary recipients that Lippert offers. As an alternative, I conclude that a type of (in)visible interruption offers a more a fruitful way to understand political agency for sanctuary recipients, and indeed for other seemingly abject figures.

In this thesis I defend the argument that the conventional account of recognition as a process of linguistic intersubjectivity does not adequately explain the occurrence of non-propositional appraisals of the recognition experience such as shame and trust. I present an alternative account consisting of two distinct but related ‘moments’ comprising the encounter between self and other: the standard linguistic form of intersubjectivity, which I term the ‘narrative moment’, and an affective and behavioural intersubjectivity that I term the ‘phenomenal moment’. Through a concise analysis of contemporary recognition theories, classical phenomenology, and contemporary empirical research on the ‘phenomenological self’ I conclude that the success and failure of recognition depends in some instances on mitigating the tension between the self’s ‘narrative’ and ‘phenomenal’ appraisals of the other, or what I term ‘phenomenal dissonance’.

In this thesis I defend the argument that the conventional account of recognition as a process of linguistic intersubjectivity does not adequately explain the occurrence of non-propositional appraisals of the recognition experience such as shame and trust. I present an alternative account consisting of two distinct but related ‘moments’ comprising the encounter between self and other: the standard linguistic form of intersubjectivity, which I term the ‘narrative moment’, and an affective and behavioural intersubjectivity that I term the ‘phenomenal moment’. Through a concise analysis of contemporary recognition theories, classical phenomenology, and contemporary empirical research on the ‘phenomenological self’ I conclude that the success and failure of recognition depends in some instances on mitigating the tension between the self’s ‘narrative’ and ‘phenomenal’ appraisals of the other, or what I term ‘phenomenal dissonance’.

This thesis seeks to investigate the relationship between the concepts of the State and Governance in political and international relations theory with the hope of recovering a place for agency. Following from the work of Michel Foucault, and drawing on the historical methodology of Quentin Skinner, I locate in the 16th century a „crossroads‟ in the development of the State and Governance, particularly in the work of the Henrician humanists – political writers of the Early Tudor period (1513-1533). I argue that their articulation of a politicized conception of Governance held a central place for the human agent living the vita activa as an ambassador between the rationality of the divine sphere and that of the terrestrial. Reading these findings through the later work of Foucault, I locate in this dynamic a central role for agency as tied to these theories of Governance that have become veiled by the State. Finally, I make two suggestions in regards to the application of these findings. First, that political/international relations theory take seriously the role of the diplomat as agent, and second, that the disciplinary intersection between history and politics be further emphasized and explored.