In Bolivia, expectations for a decolonised society turned into a political crisis in the autumn of 2019. Discussing the limitations of progressive politics in cultivating democracy, this article identifies three narratives of authoritarianism – liberal democratic, developmentalist and colonial – which the opponents of Evo Morales use to frame their disillusionment with his rule. It argues that these multiple narratives lend meaning to contradictory experiences in a context in which hopes for a major decolonising state-transformation process have devolved into a deep polarisation of Bolivian society. The events in Bolivia are discussed in the context of rising authoritarianism throughout Latin America.

La façon commune de définir la pensée de Lévinas comme éthique méconnaît son ancrage dans la sensibilité. Phénoménologue avant tout, il se donne pour tâche de dépasser le non-sens irreprésentable depuis ses premières œuvres (De l’évasion) jusqu’à celle plus tardives (Autrement qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence). C’est dans les situations dites limites de crise de l’entre–deux que son aide est précieuse pour le psychiatre, lorsque la rencontre demande de remonter jusqu’à la sensibilité primordiale bien avant la « pensée qui s’en tient aux mots » et qu’elle tend vers l’intersubjectivité et l’interexistentialité. Tel qu’il l’énonce, les « accidents » psychologiques sont les manières sous lesquelles se montrent les relations ontologiques. Dans sa philosophie, « le psychologique n’est pas une péripétie ». Il nous propose des concepts qui peuvent s’avérer intéressants dans la clinique de tous les jours, par le renversement qu’il instaure dans le phénomène de la rencontre. Il situe la subjectivité dans la passivité, qui se définit en termes tout autre que l’intentionnalité et non pas, comme c’était le cas dans la philosophie traditionnelle, dans l’activité. Son œuvre est de première importance dans la clinique psychotraumatique en ce qu’elle aborde de façon essentielle les conséquences affectives (befindlichkeit) de ce qui ne peut se loger dans aucune langue, dans aucune mémoire. Elles sont à considérer comme autant de modes de la présence humaine, des « modes de se comprendre » où l’être se découvre, dans des situations limites marquées par le refus d’y demeurer et pourtant en demeure d’en sortir, évasion de ce qui constitue le fond de l’expérience de la souffrance, son irrémissible affirmation de l’être et de sa possible négation.

Between 2014 and 2018, a period marked by major political and economic upheaval, Brazilian politics shifted sharply to the Right. Presenting qualitative research conducted over 2016–17, this article examines this process from the perspectives of residents of a peripheral São Paulo neighbourhood. Analysis is presented of three broad groups of respondents, each of which mobilised a distinct narrative framework for interpreting the crisis. Based on this, I argue that the rightward turn in urban peripheries embodies not a significant ideological shift, but rather long-term transformations of place and the largely contingent ways these articulate with electoral politics.

In R v Gladue, the Supreme Court of Canada famously remarked that the incarceration of Indigenous people represents a “crisis.” Since Gladue’s release, the language of “crisis” has been used with frequency in Canadian legal discourse. In this article, I analyze how this language has shaped the broader legal understanding of Indigenous mass imprisonment. My focus is not on specific iterations or uses, but on the cumulative impact of the language of “crisis” over the last twenty years. I suggest that however well-meaning these representations may be, their cumulative impact is harmful. In the face of the relentless intensification of Indigenous mass imprisonment, the language of “crisis” has operated to subtly entrench the colonial structures it purports to disrupt. Urging a shift away from its use, I argue that the language of “crisis” is not only ill suited to address the problem, but is part of the problem.

Crises are thresholds in human history, often marking substantial transformations in societies. Crises, however, are not instants in time. They start, unfold, and develop in a process that is often traumatic for social systems, with outcomes ranging from catastrophe to complete recovery. In this article, catastrophic models are employed to understand a non-catastrophic outcome: the complete recovery that nuragic Sardinia experienced after a long crisis, caused in the first place by unsustainable strategies of territorial expansion. Starting from the premises of the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’, it is argued that the transformation of nuragic society was the best way of avoiding the constraints that the social structure imposed on the perspective of a sustainable growth. The study is based on a geostatistical analysis of a large sample of settlements, and it attempts to quantify population growth ratios for the Late Bronze Age.