Activist becomings in South Africa and Myanmar. Studying infrastructure and politics through the life-worlds of activists

该人类学项目包括四个案例研究，使用人种学研究方法探索南非和缅甸的活动家在解决物质基础设施问题时学习塑造(主体间)主体性、社会性、想象力和政治领域的社会文化动态。它使用“激进主义的形成”这一概念来突出我们对激进主义融入人们日常生活的个人过程的兴趣，以及积极分子在对其社会环境的政治配置施加影响方面的集体愿望和努力。通过分析和比较经过几十年镇压后目前正在经历重大社会政治变革的两个国家，该项目将为下列相互关联的问题提供重要答案：(A)新的政治参与形式的出现；(B)积极分子传记自我塑造、政治想象力和新出现的社会性的共同产生；(C)材料和政治的相互关联性；(D)中宏观结构的文化和社会政治环境在这些动态中的作用。

Comprising four case studies, this anthropological project uses ethnographic research methods to explore the sociocultural dynamics by which activists in South Africa and Myanmar learn to shape (inter-)subjectivities, socialities, imaginaries and political fields when addressing the issue of material infrastructures. It uses the concept "activist becomings" to highlight our interest in both the individual processes through which activism is incorporated into the daily lives of people, as well as the collective aspirations and endeavors of activists in bringing to bear their influence on the political configurations of their social environment. By analysing and comparing two countries that are currently undergoing momentous socio-political transformations after decades of repression, the project will provide important answers to interrelated questions concerning (a) the emergence of novel forms of political engagement, (b) the co-production of activist biographical self-shaping, political imaginaries and emergent socialities, (c) the interrelatedness of the material and the political, and (d) the role of meso- and macrostructural cultural and socio-political environments in these dynamics.