TCDS Awards and Conferences

This year three sociology students, Ver�nica Perera, Sergio B. F. Tavolaro and Tamara Enhuber were awarded scholarships from the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies as part of that organizations New Social Science Training Program. Each presented a paper at a TCDS conference on December 15, 2000;

Sergio B. F. Tavolaro presented 'Civil Society and Modernity in Brazil : An inquiry into political culture and the opportunities for democratization' a paper examining the 30-year period of democratization in Brazil (from the '70s to the '90s) with an emphasis on the roles played by social movements and Non-governmental Organizations. By analyzing the different types of relation between the constituting civil society and the rearranging State apparatus, he sought to tackle the reasons why a successful democratic transition in Brazil was not accompanied by a complete democratic consolidation.

The paper presented by Tamara Enhuber was an examination of A Third Way of Doing Contentious Politics in India? The Bonded Labor Liberation Movement between Tradition and Modernity.

Verónica Perera's paper on 'Globalization and Gender: Reflections on the Political Economy of the Feminization of Paid Workforce in Argentina' started from Polanyi's analysis of the social construction of markets and, concentrating on Argentina, addressed the nation-state as a key agent of economic globalization. It examined how the Argentine State, during the military dictatorship of the 70s and the Menem administration of the 90s, enabled the "free market" via the dismantle of prior internally oriented industrialization model and how this process undermined the material arrangements that had supported a gender contract of one male breadwinner and one female homemaker. The paper argued that the construction of the "free market" and the globalization of the domestic economy have triggered the increase and established the conditions under which women have increasingly been entering the labor market in the last quarter of the 20th century. Thus, it concludes, despite early emancipatory potential, the feminization process speaks of a deteriorated socioeconomic milieu and a polarized labor market.

Sociology Faculty have also maintained strong associations with the TCDS this year, At Novembers Conference on 'Civil Society Revisited' Jose Casanova spoke on 'Civil Society and Religion: Retrospective and Prospective Reflections' while as part of the 'Meanings of 1989' panel Jeffery Goldfarb presented '1989 and the Creativity of the Political' and Andrew Arato discussed 'Civil Society Then and Now'.

Andrew Arato and Jose Casanova also participated in a September Conference entitled 'Negotiating the end of Dictatorships: Round Tables and the Future of Democracy' - an event co-sponsored by the TCDS and the Department of Sociology.

TCDS may be contacted at http://www.newschool.edu/ centers/tcds/