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But I think there is also a problem with Bourdieu’s conception of the public role of intellectuals, one which derives from a narrowness of vision. Bourdieu felt that “doing politics means exposing oneself to a loss of authority,” allowing one’s politics to be used as a means for discounting one’s academic work.

When people decry the lack of public anthropology, I think of all my friends and colleagues who are engaging in collaborative anthropological endeavors at the local level. I believe the problem is not that these anthropologists suffer from a loss of authority, but that these local interventions are not seen as mattering as much as the op-ed pages of the major American newspapers. Anthropologists should be careful about letting the mainstream media define “the public” for us. There are many publics and the ones anthropologists are involved with matter as much, if not more, than the one inhabited by pundits and policy wonks. Still, anthropologists could do more to bridge the gap between these two worlds. Perhaps by blogging about their work so that more people are aware of it, anthropologists could bridge the gap between these two publics.

“The events in Ecuador at the end of September, the latest elections in Venezuela, the huge popular expectations that have been shelved in Brazil over the past eight years, the coup in Honduras last year, the election of the right-wing candidate Sebastián Piñera to the Chilean presidency, are signals that cannot fail to raise concern,’  Toussaint concludes.

From the perspective of the Chinese government, the role of the civil society is to provide welfare gaps and to fill the holes where state support is diminishing, and not necessarily to become a tool to promote democratisation or to focus on being a government watchdog.

The saboteurs had no interest, for instance, in providing evidence in support of local government against claims that it was doing far too little to address the desperate water situation. They could have done this in question time, but decided instead to sabotage the event from the moment it started, strongly suggesting that they were merely interested in blindly defending the perceived interests of the ANC, even if morally dubious. ‘This is the ANC government’, one of the saboteurs claimed, ‘so the ANC will have the last say’. In other words, ‘We are in power and we do what we like’. A corollary to this claim is, ‘Don’t you mess with us’.

given the environment of intimidation and, except for and handful of exceptions, the lack of interest by the media in systematically reporting violations against the poor, these incidents tend not to be widely discussed in public space. And, yet, the health of our young democracy depends on there being clarity regarding what sorts of undemocratic political pressures are being exerted on a large percentage of the generally voiceless electorate.

What I have said above could be thought of as evidence that the ANC leadership is coordinating things from the top, but I don’t know that it is. And there probably would be little reason for them to do this given that there are structural conditions in place that will encourage grassroots oppression to mushroom spontaneously across the country, without the need for centralised coordination. But the fact that the relevant structures are not decisively being undermined from the top should be seen as a grave failing on the part of the ruling party, and should shed doubt on their commitment to the ideals they claim dearly to uphold.

Similar popular protests have failed in sub-Saharan Africa (and may very well be failing in Egypt) precisely because the army invariably concludes that its corporate interests and privileges are best protected by the status quo rather than a new political order.

During the 1991 ghost town campaign, military concluded after its cost-benefit analysis that its privileges were better protected under the Biya regime than in a nouveau regime that might strip it of these privileges.

while a viable civil society is critical and even indispensable in harnessing, organizing and channeling popular discontent towards regime change, the success of this venture is largely dependent on what the army decides to do or not do based on its corporate interests.

"There's no doubt in my mind that the current situation in the Middle East that this has sort of spurred in recent days opposition members to speak out," he said. "There's always an appearance of stability when there's no serious opposition... but you only need something like what happened in Egypt or Libya or Tunisia or Bahrain to see that atmosphere of contentedness and happiness on the surface doesn't go deep."

Naïve, optimistic and blinkered by rose coloured shades? Sure it is likely to get a lot bloodier before we tidy the place but in my heart, it truly feels like we have let something escape and that it is refusing to be contained again. It feels also like, that something - is us.

In December, a police team spent a week at the Complexo do Alemão, taking down complaints, mainly about physical injuries and threats, Rosa said. "The week we were in the favelas many cases were reported, and two aggressors were even caught in the act. Women are starting to claim their rights," she said.

The pacification force of 1,700 soldiers has occupied the Complexo do Alemão in the north of Rio for nearly three months. Every two hours, military police patrol the streets, on foot or in vehicles. "Everyone thinks this is an enforced peace. What we wanted was peace without police action, a dream that may come true one day," Andrade said.

Fabiano de Carvalho, spokesman for the pacification force, said there were many similarities between the structure and tactics used by Brazilian troops since 2004 in the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti, and those used in the favelas.

The case stems from oil pollution in the Ecuadorean rain forest, but Chevron does not operate there and has no significant assets in the country. It was Texaco, which Chevron acquired in a merger in 2001, that was accused of widespread environmental damage before pulling out of Ecuador in the early 1990s.

Chevron has much larger operations elsewhere in Latin America, and the plaintiffs’ strategy of pursuing the company across the region could open a contentious new phase in the case — one that would test Ecuador’s political ties with its neighbors and involve some of Washington’s most prominent lobbyists and lawyers.

Advisers to the plaintiffs said Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela would be obvious candidates to pursue Chevron assets, but they acknowledged it would not be easy. Venezuela, for instance, is a close Ecuadorean ally and its president, Hugo Chávez, is a frequent critic of the United States. But Chevron has extensive operations in Venezuela and enjoys warmer ties with Mr. Chávez’s government than just about any other American company.

not all revolutions are blessed with this level of attention. The West African nation of Gabon is experiencing a popular revolt against the rule of Ali Bongo Ondimba, son of long-time strongman Omar Bongo, president since October 2009. Thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets of the nation's capital Libreville, on 29 January, and faced violent suppression from Ali Bongo’s troops. Protests have spread to other cities, and the crackdown against them has become increasingly fierce. Protests planned for 5 and 8 February were both suppressed with tear gas. At this point, it’s unclear whether protesters will be able to continue pressuring the government, or whether the crackdown has driven dissent underground.

while Gabon, blessed with oil wealth, has a very high gross domestic product per capita by sub-Saharan African standards, little of that wealth reaches the Gabonese people, one third of which live in poverty. Little surprise, then, that Gabonese opposition supporters watched the events in Tunisia with a sense of hope and possibility.

this lack of attention has consequences. As protests unfolded in Libreville, opposition leader André Mba Obame – who likely won the 2009 election – and his leading advisors took sanctuary in the UNDP's compound in the city, fearing arrest by Ali Bongo’s forces. According to recent Facebook posts, Obame and his advisors are facing steady pressure from UNDP to vacate the premises, and have already been ordered to surrender their cellphones.