Ce travail tente d’analyser de quelle manière la communauté politique cherche en vain l’unité et l’entente, quelle représentation le cinéma en général et celui de Chris Marker en particulier donnent à cette recherche, ainsi qu’aux rapports entre les différents acteurs de cette communauté (Etat, société civile), au fonctionnement de celle-ci, aux événements qui la traversent (révoltes, révolutions, guerres). Il étudie aussi comment l’utopie, désir de fonder des communautés plus justes, se trouve au coeur du destin de l’humanité, à tel point que les pouvoirs, les idéologies et les totalitarismes ont toujours su manipuler cette aspiration, en utilisant, par exemple, le cinéma pour rendre compte d‘une union, en apparence réalisée, de la communauté politique. Cette thèse examine encore la place de l’individu et les différentes formes de regroupement social se trouvant, selon les cas, à l’intérieur ou en dehors de la communauté politique. Elle rend compte enfin de l’originalité d’une oeuvre exceptionnelle d’un point de vue politique, celle du cinéaste Chris Marker. / This work tries to analyse how the political community searches in vain for unity and harmony ; how cinema in general, and that of Chris Marker in particular, portrays this search, as well as the relationships between different actors of this community (state, civil society), its workings, and the events which run through it (uprisings, revolutions and wars). It also considers how utopia - the wish to create fairer communities - is at the heart of mankind’s destiny, so much so that authorities, ideologies and totalitarianisms have always been able to manipulate this aspiration, for instance by using cinema to show a seemingly accomplished union of the political community. Then, this thesis examines the place of the individual and the different types of social gathering being, depending on circumstances, within or outside of the political community. It finally shows the originality of a politically exceptional work, that of the filmmaker Chris Marker.

This Master of Fine Arts submission, consisting of a thesis titled ‘Political Grey: Areas of Ambiguity and Contradiction’ accompanied by an exhibition titled ‘Positions’, encompasses the concept of leadership while uncovering and expressing its ‘grey areas’ in a contemporary and undefined moment in South Africa. The concept of leadership has been complicated throughout the thesis in terms of how it is conceptualised in a traditional royal African art context as well as how Leader-Figures have been and are portrayed in both Western and African portrait genres. The notion that the new is built upon the old is continued throughout my thesis and is evident in the accompanying body of work. This notion is expressed on a number of levels: by the re-contextualisation of the print medium; the creative processes described as ‘postproduction’ which I use in my work; as well as that which is described as a ‘post-transitional’ moment. The recent political history of the country is considered, with reference made to the anti-apartheid movement and resistance art produced. Printmaking, viewed as an archetypal medium for resistance, is discussed, with reference made to its socio-political role during the 1980s as well as to the extent to which it continues to be used by contemporary artists in a different realm of conflict and change. This is demonstrated by the shift from the medium as a tool for protest to the medium as an instrument of political irony and pointed commentary.

When the Arab Spring took place, it took the world by surprise and sparked renewed interest in the idea of revolution. With differing opinions on what caused such a revolutionary wave throughout the North African and Middle Eastern region, many began looking at their own countries, and South Africa was no different. A debate was sparked in South Africa, as to whether there would be a revolution or not. What I originally set out to accomplish is to find out which side of the debate would be correct through the philosophical context of revolutionary theory. Initially, we attempted to define and consider the history of revolutionary theory. We found that revolutionary theory has gone through four generation and that even finding a theoretically informed definition is difficult. Following this, we considered some social-psychological theories of revolution as well as theories of moral indignation. We found that these theories were incredibly informative and that they provide some insight into the reasoning for revolutionary fear in the South African debate. Through the use of opinion pieces, we then considered the South African debate, and – using socialpsychological theories and the theories of moral indignation - found that both sides of the argument had valuable points, however, they often lacked some foresight. With tentative agreement, we found that the side arguing that there would a revolution in South Africa had a more valuable argument, despite its limitations. However, far more research is required before one can – with more accuracy – predict a revolutionary occurrence in such a way as was done in South Africa.

Doppelt defends the key elements of Kuhn's thesis that scientific revolutions occur when one paradigm is replaced by another and that crucial aspects of competing paradigms are incommensurable. He concedes the merits in the views of those positivist critics of Kuhn who contend that for paradigms to be comparable their proponents must be able to communicate with one another, to agree on a common core of meaning for basic concepts and to deal with shared data and problems. However, he maintains that in identifying the problems which are held to be of fundamental importance and in adopting the standards by which explanatory adequacy is to be evaluated, rival paradigms do not overlap sufficiently for them to have genuine commensurability. This leads Doppelt to accept Kuhn's version of epistemological relativism which maintains that the rationality of the acceptance of new paradigms by the scientific community, at least in the short-run, has an irreducible normative dimension that is strongly conditioned by subjective factors. Doppelt also accepts Kuhn's views with respect to the loss of data, and the question of cumulative progress. The absence of paradigm-neutral external standards allegedly allows each paradigm to assign priority to its own internal standards, thus providing persuasive grounds for the incommensurability of competing paradigms and for epistemological relativism. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that the validity of these arguments over the long term is a contingent issue which can only be resolved by a careful examination of the historical evidence. A chemical revolution took place in the latter part of the eighteenth century when the oxygen theory replaced that based on hypothetical phlogiston. This transition is frequently cited as a typical example of a paradigm - one that illustrates Kuhn's claims for a shift in standards and a loss of data as central features of scientific revolutions. The phlogiston theory held that phlogiston was a normal constituent of air. It explained smelting as the transfer of phlogiston from the air (or from phlogiston-rich charcoal) to the earthy components of the ore, and held that the similar properties of the metallic products could be attributed to their phlogiston content. Combustion, including the calcination of metals and the respiration of living organisms, was viewed as a process involving the release of phlogiston to the atmosphere. The development of improved techniques for collecting gases and for measuring their volume and weight lead to emphasis on precise quantitative methods for evaluating chemical data as distinct from those based on simple quantitative descriptive observations. These developments soon posed difficulties for the phlogiston theory (eg.,the anomalous weight loss during combustion). Eventually, clarification of the composition of water and the use of the 'nitrous air1 test for the ability of a gas to support combustion and respiration (its 'goodness') led to the discovery of oxygen as a component of air and the demonstration that combustion involved combination with an exact quantity of this gas. Within a relatively short period of time, the oxygen theory gained general acceptance and the phlogiston theory was abandoned by most chemists. A critical examination of the events which culminated in the chemical revolution fails to bear out the claim that it was accompanied by a significant loss of empirical data or that it did not represent genuine cumulative progress in scientific knowledge. Instead the history of this revolution indicates that paradigm-neutral external standards for evaluating explanatory adequacy (conservatism, modesty, simplicity, generality, internal and external coherence, refutability, precision, successful predictions) were available and played a crucial role in bringing about this transition. Accumulating evidential warrant played the decisive role in the triumph of the oxygen theory. / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

Some assert that social media has contributed in one way or another to organizing the work of revolutionaries and those seeking freedom and democracy on its platforms and has provided them with a space to express their opinion against authoritarian regimes. However, the information policies of the companies behind social media can discourage activists and enable authoritarian regimes. This case study examines the views of experts and media professionals on the changes in the roles of social media companies over the past 11 years in the context of social liberation movements. Through interviews with four media professionals and a survey of Syrian social media users, the study identifies the perceived restrictions imposed on the freedom of activists and media professionals to use social media, and at the same time identifies the perceived beneficiaries of these restrictions. The results show that social media companies are now playing a dangerous role in imposing an unethical system on new media that is far from impartiality and objectivity. It also empowers people and groups belonging to certain political parties and gives them freedom of expression at the expense of other people and groups. / Vissa hävdar att sociala medier, på ett eller annat sätt, har bidragit till att organisera revolutionärer och de som söker sig till frihet och demokrati på dess plattformar. Att det har skapat ett utrymme att uttrycka sina åsikter på, mot auktoritära regimer. Däremot kan informationspolicy för företagen, bakom sociala medier och dess plattformar, avskräcka aktivister och möjliggöra för auktoritära regimer. Denna fallstudie undersöker synpunkter utifrån experter och media-kunniga, kring förändringar i rollerna hos sociala medie företag under de senaste 11 åren, i samband med den sociala befrielserörelsen. Genom intervjuer med fyra media-kunniga och en undersökning av Syriska sociala medie användare, identifierar studien de upplevda restriktioner som ålagts på aktivister och media-kunniga. Samtidigt identifieras även förmånstagarna av dessa restriktoner. Resultatet visar att sociala medieföretag spelar en farlig roll när det gäller att påtvinga nya medier/plattformar ett oetiskt system som är långt ifrån opartiskt och objektivt. Det ger individer, och vissa politiska grupper, makten att nyttja yttrandefriheten på bekostnad av andra individer och grupper.

Avec La Structure des Révolutions Scientifiques, parue en 1962, Thomas Kuhn a remis en cause la conception traditionnelle de l'histoire des sciences, ainsi que son approche (logique) et ses objectifs épistémologiques (normatifs). Nous examinerons dans ce mémoire les tenants et les aboutissants de cette remise en cause, réelle ou figurée, de l'approche logique et normative de la science telle que défendue par le courant épistémologique issu du néopositivisme (le «standard view»), par le falsificationnisme de Karl Popper et par la méthodologie des programmes de recherche de Imre Lakatos. Pour ce faire, nous analyserons les débats auxquels Kuhn a lui-même pris part au cours des dernières années et ce, par le biais de deux distinctions fondamentales, à la base de l'approche logiconormative: la distinction entre le contexte de découverte et le contexte de justification et la distinction entre fait et norme.

Depuis les années 1960, l’histoire de l’esclavage et celle des Révolutions atlantiques se sont taillé une place de conséquence sur la scène historiographique. Ces développements ont eu un effet bénéfique sur la représentation des populations d’origine africaine dans la littérature historique, contribuant notamment à remettre sur la carte la Révolution haïtienne à partir des années 1990-2000. Ce mémoire a pour objet de se pencher sur un certain nombre de travaux sur les différentes révolutions des Amériques, soit l’américaine, l’haïtienne et les sud-américaines, afin d’étudier la place changeante que les historien.ne.s accordent à l’agentivité des Noir.e.s surtout esclaves. Le premier chapitre suit l’évolution de cette historiographie à travers une étude sérielle de la bibliographie mobilisée par Aline Helg dans Plus jamais esclaves!, avant d’aborder les ouvrages pionniers d’Anna Julia Cooper et de C.L.R. James et une sorte de préhistoire de la notion de révolution atlantique. Le second chapitre s’intéresse quant à lui à une sélection de recherches ciblant individuellement les différentes révolutions des Amériques pour y observer le traitement du rôle des esclaves. Le dernier porte pour sa part sur le traitement de l’agentivité des esclaves dans quatre ouvrages de synthèse publiés entre 1988 et 2016 et accordant une place plus ou moins large aux différentes révolutions américaines. / Since the 1960s, the history of slavery and that of the Atlantic Revolutions have carved out a significant place in the historiography. These developments have had a beneficial effect on the representation of populations of African origin in the historical literature, contributing in particular to putting the Haitian Revolution back on the map in the 1990s and 2000s. The purpose of this thesis is to examine a few works on the various revolutions of the Americas, namely the American, the Haitian and the South American, in order to study the changing importance that historians attribute to the agency of black people, and principally to slaves. The first chapter follows the evolution of this historiography by submitting to serial analysis the bibliography assembled by Aline Helg in Slaves No More!, before examining the pioneering works of Anna Julia Cooper and C.L.R. James and a sort of prehistory of the notion of the Atlantic revolution. The second chapter focuses on a selection of work individually targeting the different revolutions of the Americas, in order to observe the treatment of slaves’ roles. The last deals with the treatment of the agency of slaves in four surveys published between 1988 and 2016 covering summarily or in detail the various American revolutions.

Ao longo do presente trabalho procuramos identificar algumas das linhas principais da análise realizada por Friedrich Engels a respeito das instituições militares e da guerra que permeiam parte considerável de sua produção teórica, investigando suas características particulares e o contexto onde foram produzidos. Para realizar tal tarefa tivemos em conta o tipo de discurso (prático ou teórico) e o contexto político e social em que foram escritos os seguintes textos: As reivindicações do partido comunista da Alemanha (1848), um panfleto ligado à conjuntura política da Revolução Alemã de 1848; Notas marginais sobre as táticas de massa, parte do artigo Condições e prospectos para uma guerra da Santa Aliança contra a França em 1852 (1852), um texto prospectivo quanto à futura conjuntura militar; A questão militar prussiana e o partido dos trabalhadores alemães (1865), que expõe a crítica ao programa militar prussiano ligada ao sentido da conscrição; o Diário da Guerra Franco-prussiana (1870-71), a análise de eventos militares na condição de correspondente de guerra a partir de considerações a político-militares; As táticas de infantaria derivadas de suas causas materiais (1876), o que expõe um sentido da história segundo um pressuposto materialista válido para eventos fora da economia política, no caso, de uma formação particular dos exércitos regulares, e por fim A Europa pode se desarmar? (1893), um esboço de avaliação sobre a mudança das condições políticas frente o desenvolvimento acelerado da indústria bélica e do esforço de guerra que restringiriam os pressupostos de ação democrática. A partir deste repertório realizamos o esboço a respeito da crítica engelsiana da guerra, com foco no desenvolvimento técnico das organizações militares, passando principalmente pela análise da conscrição e seus impactos na política. / Throughout this work, we identify some of the main lines of analysis made by Friedrich Engels on war and on military institutions, which permeate a considerable part of his theoretical work. Our analysis investigates particular characteristics and the context in which these texts were produced. To accomplish this task we consider the type of discourse (practical or theoretical) and the political and social context in which were written the following texts: The claims of the German Communist Party (1848), a pamphlet on the political situation of the German Revolution of 1848, the Marginal Notes on Mass Tactics, part of the article Conditions and prospects for a war of the Holy Alliance against France in 1852 (1852), a prospective text about the future military situation; The Prussian Military Question and the German Workers\' Party (1865), which exposes the criticism of Prussian military program linked to the meaning of conscription, the Notes on War (1870-71), an analysis of events from the Franco-Prussian War from the political-military point of view; Infantry tactics, derived from its material causes (1876), which elaborates a meaning of history according to a materialistic assumption valid for events outside of political economy, in this case the formation of standing armies, and lastly Can Europe disarm? (1893), a sketch of review on the changing political conditions regarding the accelerated development of the defense industry and the war effort that would restrict the assumptions of democratic action. From this repertoire we outline an engelsian criticism of war, focusing on the technical development of military techniques, passing mainly through the analysis of the conscription institution and its impact on politics.

O presente estudo tem como objetivo analisar a produção de imaginários políticos e culturais orientados pela Teologia da Libertação durante o governo sandinista na Nicarágua (1979 1990) procurando mostrar a mescla que aí se deu entre religião e revolução. Pretendemos investigar como se constituíram esses imaginários expressos em discursos de políticos e religiosos, jornais, livros, cartilhas, músicas, poemas, fontes visuais produzidas por membros das Comunidades Eclesiais de Base (CEBs) atuantes na Nicarágua, com a meta de ampliar a adesão de setores populares à Revolução Sandinista. Procuramos averiguar em que medida uma comunidade de fé atuou, através da cultura, da educação e das ações políticas, no sentido de colaborar com o projeto revolucionário da Frente Sandinista de Libertação Nacional (FSLN). Uma questão que aqui se coloca é a da identificação entre os ideais revolucionários no poder que se orientavam por concepções marxistas e os dos cristãos que, a partir do Concílio Vaticano II e das Conferências de Medellín e Puebla fizeram a opção preferencial pelos pobres, inserindo-se nas lutas sociais da América Latina. Pretendemos discutir as possibilidades e limites de uma proposta socialista cristã que se constrói a partir de pressupostos teóricos conflitantes como é o caso do materialismo marxista e a doutrina católica que o recusa. A relação entre imaginários sociais e práticas políticas constitui o eixo central desta análise que se propõe verificar como os imaginários se constituem a partir de conflitos diversos e se transformam em armas de luta que orientam as práticas dos agentes envolvidos nesse processo. / The present study has the objective to analyse the production of political and cultural imaginariness oriented by the Theology of Liberation during the sandinist government in Nicaragua (1979-1990) trying to demonstrate the mixture of religion and revolution. Our intention is to investigate how were constituted the imaginariness expressed on political and religious speeches, newspapers, books, spelling books, music, poems and visual materials produced by members of the Base Communities (CEBs) acting in Nicaragua, with the goal to increase the adherence of popular sectors to the Sandinist Revolution. We attempt inquiring in what extension a community of faith acted through the culture, the education and political actions, with the objective to collaborate with the revolucionary project of the Sandinist National Liberation Front (FSLN). One question here presented is the one of the identification between the revolucionay ideals in power that were oriented by marxist conceptions and the christian ones that, with the Vatican II Council and the Conferences of Medellin and Puebla, made a preferred option for the poor, inserting themselves in the social fights in Latin America. We intent to discuss the possibilities and limits of a christian socialist proposal built based on conflicting teorical purposes which is the case of the marxist materialism and the catolic doutrine that refuses it. The relationship between social imaginariness and political practices constitutes the main point of this analysis which has the purpose to verify how the imaginariness constitutes itself from different conflicts transforming itself in weapons of fight which orients the practices of the agents involved in this process.

O objetivo principal desta dissertação é analisar as tecnologias de aplicativos da Web 2.0, desde uma perspectivas evolucionária, e dos seus impactos nas empresas em nível global. Desta forma, para poder entender o seu nascimento, essência e importância econômica para as empresas, se tomou como base teórica o conceito evolucionário de revoluções tecnológicas e paradigmas tecno-econômicos, o qual serviu como modelo para interpretar a atual revolução das tecnologias de informação e comunicação (TIC) e seu conseqüente paradigma tecnoeconômico, e na qual se constatou que este grupo de tecnologias surgiu no período de tempo atual de dito paradigma conhecido como “intervalo de reacomodação” (turning point). Por outro lado, se ressaltou que uma das principais características no processo de difusão de cada paradigma tecno-econômico é o seu impacto na organização das empresas. Desta forma, a teoria evolucionária se apresentou como a abordagem adequada para entender tanto o caráter da empresa atual, entendida esta em termos do conjunto de suas rotinas (conhecimentos e habilidades), quanto as suas principais inovações organizacionais como respostas aos desafios apresentados pela própria difusão do paradigma tecno-econômico atual das TIC, na qual o acumulo permanente de novos conhecimentos e informações, isto é, de rotinas dinâmicas se tornam variáveis chaves para o próprio processo permanente de inovação, vital para as empresas. Diante da crescente utilização das tecnologias de aplicativos da Web 2.0 entre as empresas a nível mundial como meios potenciais para atingir esses objetivos, o presente trabalho analisou o seu potencial para gerar de forma mais fluida novos conhecimentos e informações, isto é rotinas dinâmicas, tanto dentro da organização das empresas como na interação com os seus consumidores, refletindo-se, assim, no aumento de inovações permanentes de novos produtos e serviços. / The main objective of this dissertation is to analyze the technologies of Web 2.0 applications, from an evolutionary perspective, and its impacts on businesses globally. Thus, in order to understand its birth, nature and economic importance for companies, it was taken as theoretical basis the evolutionary concept of technological revolutions and technoeconomic paradigms, which served as a model to interpret the current revolution in information and communication technologies (ICT) and its consequent techno-economic paradigm, in which it was found that this group of technologies originated in the current time of said paradigm known as turning point. On the other hand, it was emphasized that a key feature in the process of diffusion of each techno-economic paradigm is its impact on business organization. Thus, evolutionary theory appeared as the appropriate approach to understand both the character of the current company, which is understood in terms of its set of routines (knowledge and skills), as its main organizational innovations as answers to the challenges presented by the own diffusion of the current ICT techno-economic paradigm, in which the continuous accumulation of new knowledge and information, that is, dynamic routines, become key variables to the self process of continuous innovation, vital for companies. With the increasing use of Web 2.0 application technologies among the companies in the world as a potential means to achieve these goals, this study examined its potential to generate more fluidly new knowledge and information, that is dynamic routines, both within the business organizations and in their interaction with their consumers, which was reflected in the increase of permanent innovations of new products and services.