Iselin Åsedotter Strønen
stipendiat
Institutt for sosialantropologi
Hjemmeside: http://www.cmi.no/staff/?iselin-stronen
Stilling: stipendiat
Telefon: 55 58 92 61
E-post: Iselin.Stronen@sosantr.uib.no
Besøksadresse: Fosswinckelsgt. 6
Tentative title for PHD-project (2008-2012):
Sowing the Oil, Developing a Nation.
Poverty Reduction and Political Conflict in Venezuela
This PhD-project is a multi-level, multi-dimensional ethnographic analysis of the use of oil resources for poverty reduction through grass-root participation in Venezuela. The analysis is be situated within a wider context of social and political conflict rooted in the country’s post-colonial history, and which pays particular attention to its social and institutional formation as a (nation) state rich on natural resources.
After the election of the controversial President Hugo Chávez in 1998, the government has diverted large parts of the country's vast oil revenues towards social development and poverty reduction policies, accompanied by an anti-neoliberal, anti-imperialist discourse highlighting the need to include formerly marginalized groups in the development of a new, just society. These policies have actively involved community organizations and social movements in poor communities.
However, these processes of change are also the roots to conflicts on a wide scale. Large sectors of the former elites, who in the course of these processes have lost significant power over the state and the oil sector, have turned into virulent opponents of the government. Venezuela has during the past years been the scene for several episodes of political instability, most notably an attempted coup (2002) and a major strike/lock-out (2002/2003). Chávez has in the aftermath of these events become more prone to adapt a confrontational attitude towards the opposition and the Bush-administration (who offered tactical support for the coup), and there are few signs of re-conciliation from either side. Control over the oil is at the core of this conflict. The population at large is also polarized; the poor majority tends to support Chavez, whilst the middle-and upper class tends to oppose his presidency. Discourses of class-and race based contempt reveal deep social, cultural and political divides between different social groups.
The project's point of departure is a study of the oil-funded poverty reduction policies implemented in the shantytowns in Caracas. Through doing fieldwork amongst groups involved in social and political work, I will analyze the flow of discourses, information, conflicts and contestation taking place at different levels and between different actors -both locally and in the state and government apparatus- in the process of policy formation, resource distribution, and execution of development initiatives on the ground. Within these processes, different groups with diverse ideological orientations, conflictive visions of the direction for future development in the country, changing alliances, and uneven relations of power strive to position themselves (Strønen 2006).
Eclipsing this focus is the conflictive landscape between different social and political groups at large. I will seek to adress not only how the poverty reduction policies are implemented within different configurations of the politics of the grass root and the politics of the (localized) state, but also how the imagery of a transformed (nation) state, the conflict related to oil and the conflict and contempt between different social strata is articulated and enhanced in different socio-political settings.
Iselin Åsedotter Strønen is a PhD-candidate in Social Anthropology. She holds a Bachelor degree in Social Anthropology and a MA degree in Anthropology of Development from the University of Bergen, in addition to a MA degree in International Journalism from City University, London.
Strønen's PhD-project is addressing the social politics of oil through focusing on community building, grass root democracy, poverty reduction, state transformation and political conflict in Venezuela. The project forms part of the CMI-based international research project Flammable Societies. The Role of Oil and Gas Industry in the Promotion of Poverty Reduction and Social Volatility. Strønen’s additional research interests include gender, popular culture, identity politics, social movements, violence and the environment.
Strønen is fluent in Spanish in addition to English and her mother tongue Norwegian, and has lived abroad for longer periods of time in Venezuela, the UK, Chile, India and Spain.
She has also co-directed and co-produced a documentary from Venezuela, entitled The People and The President. A Portrait of the Bolivarian Revolution (Strønen and Waerness 2007)
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Selected Publications |
Conference papers
Selected media appearances and popular dissemination
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Teaching Experience
Lecturer
- Anthropology and Poverty (responsible for course module). Anthropology, Development and Intervention (SANT220, undergraduate level), University of Bergen, Spring 2010
- Anthropology and the Problem with "Development" (guest lecturer). Global Studies (GLOB 101, undergraduate level), University of Bergen, November 11, 2006
Seminar leader
- Introducing Anthropology and its Subjects: History, Poverty and Social Transformation (SANT 304, Masters level) University of Bergen, Fall 2010
- Introduction course in Social Anthropology (web-based module SANT 601, undergraduate level) University of Bergen 2006/2007
- Anthropology module, Global Studies (GLOB 101, undergraduate level) University of Bergen, Fall 2006
Additional experience: External examiner in Master’s thesis commissions, written exam examiner, University of Bergen
2010-ongoing. Contested Powers: Towards a Political Anthropology of Energy in Latin-America. Chr. Michelsen Institute
2008-ongoing. Flammable Societies. The Role of the Oil and Gas Industry in the Promotion of Poverty Reduction and Social Volatility. Chr. Michelsen Institute
2005-2007. Poverty Politics: Current Approaches to its Production and Reduction. Department for Social Anthropology, University of Bergen