Social Movements, Development Studies, Secularism and Religion Conflicts

The article analyzes a performance involving the breakdown of religious images, which took place at the Slut Walk of 2013, in Rio de Janeiro, as well as the repercussions it had. Through Bruce Kapferer's notion of a critical event, the intention is to discuss the implications of the use of religious images in political struggles involving identities.
// O artigo analisa uma performance envolvendo quebra de imagens religiosas, ocorrida na Marcha das Vadias de 2013, no Rio de Janeiro, bem como as repercussões que teve. Através da noção de evento crítico, de Bruce Kapferer, pretende discutir as implicações dos usos de imagens religiosas em lutas políticas que envolvam identidades.

Faced with an existential economic and political crisis in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba launched its own kinds of reforms aimed at putting its socialist system on a more sustainable basis. In Cuba these were, and have continued to be, accompanied by nationwide and relatively open discussions and debates, but guided by the country's policy makers and theoreticians, especially in the Communist Party (PCC). As the reforms undertook the urgent task of creating more space for forms of property outside the state (especially by transferring some state enterprises to non-state actors), cooperatives (coops) have been promoted as the "preferred instruments of the Cuban transition to 21 st century socialism ". The reformed and new coops, unlike the earlier ones, are to be self-managed and independent of state control, and extended beyond the traditional agricultural sector into the industrial and service sectors. This paper briefly examines the debates and the reforms with particular reference to the new coops. Drawing on the author's fieldwork in Cuba and on secondary material, it argues that these coops have a fair chance of success, but that there are uncertainties, especially as regards the project of "downsizing the state ". Even as the reforms begin to take hold, the Cuban state and the PCC are very cautious and slow in finalizing and implementing the long promised legal and institutional framework for the transition. While such caution is well warranted to preempt the kinds of errors in the Soviet Union and elsewhere (eg., transferring public property to "pseudo coops" controlled by mafias), it appears that the project of downsizing the state in some respects may be leading to "bringing the state back in" in other respects.