Between ‘tradition’ and movement: the emergence of Turkey’s Anti-Capitalist Muslims in the age of protest

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the emergence of the “Anti-Capitalist Muslims” (ACMs) movement as the conjunction of critical Muslim politics and grassroots activism in Istanbul, Turkey. It explores the way in which Islam has been reconstituted in Turkish politics, in contrast to both fundamentalism and the government’s neoliberal conservatism. The article draws upon Talal Asad’s definition of Islam as a ‘tradition’ that attempts to achieve coherent narratives in a form which considers and enters into a dialogue with the present context, especially with contemporary social movements. It is argued that, through a dialogue between Islam and anti-capitalist social movements, the ACMs constructed an alternative Islamic tradition, focused especially on emancipation, equality and challenging structures of domination. Yet this alternative tradition proved unable to sustain itself due to the presence of a number of ongoing ridigities, which it is suggested might be addressed in future attempts to construct an anti-capitalist form of Islam.     

Laughing otherwise: comic-critical approaches in alternative comedy

Abstract

The origins of ‘alternative comedy’ are difficult to pinpoint, though it coincided with the rise of Thatcher as Prime Minister in 1979 – that year saw the appearance of something called ‘alternative cabaret’, a term usually associated with Tony Allen, who combined activism and comedy. The acts this article will focus on are those which took a critical approach to comedy and/or politics – ‘alternative’ comedy (or altcom), therefore, as seeming to promise change through critical awareness. This paper will discuss parody as a means of critical (dis)engagement and transformation, in relation to context, and to influences such as punk. Altcom demonstrates an apparent eschewal of approaches which rely on irony and ambiguity, in favour of more ‘direct’ political engagement. It will be argued however that such ‘direct’ approach does not cancel out critical distance, but rather seeks alternative routes to establish it – namely comic and parodic overstatement, and the problematisation of ‘trust’. This entails the key questions of whether parody may take up critical distance without irony, as well as of the political implications of an approach which seeks to eliminate ambiguity. This more ‘direct’ approach however still depends on a balance of engagement and disengagement, requiring distancing from pre-established codes.     

'It's like saying "coloured" ': understanding and analysing the urban working classes

This paper draws on data from a qualitative project exploring the engagement of working class families in London with childcare. It is a first attempt to throw some light on our usage of the term ‘working class’, and consider what forms ‘working class‐ness’ takes in relation to our respondent families. We discuss some recent sociological literature on the working class(es) in order to understand the emphasises and focuses of other research. We emphasise the heterogeneity of the working class(es), the differences in attitude and experiences based on place, gender, occupational status, education, age and family membership. Then we consider our respondents in relation to their strategies and exercise of agency, their engagement with the labour market, and their embedded‐ness in social networks. We conclude that one way of understanding the lives of urban working class families is to consider the extent to which they ‘manage or struggle to cope’, a focus which emphasises process, activity and the differential degrees of agency which the respondents are able to exercise.     

On being affected: feeling in the folding of multiple catastrophes

ABSTRACT

How possible is it for a life of ongoing feeling to hold, given the world’s current becomings? Much of this article will consider three of the most pervasive of the current disruptions as disruptions of living and feeling: climate change, social change, and, in more detail, what I will call a ‘third media revolution’. All three of these disruptions (and many others) are themselves multiple. They all fold through each other. Living and feeling thus find themselves in the midst of catastrophic multiplicity. This catastrophic multiplicity haunts much of what’s going on. Questions concerning what can be felt within this folding of catastrophes into each other are important contemporary questions. Feeling itself – what it is, what it does, and what the future of feeling might be – has become both a field of struggle, and a complex and open-ended question. A secondary set of questions here will concern the future of studies in relation to these questions of living and feeling – of Cultural Studies, Media Studies, disciplinarity in general, and finally ‘study’, as discussed by Moten and Harney (2013. The undercommons. New York: Minor Compositions).     

Traditional,Problem-Solving and Critical Theory: An Analysis of Horkheimer and Cox's Setting of the ‘Critical’ Divide

Abstract

Robert W. Cox's dictum that ‘(t)heory is for someone and for some purpose’ (emphasis in the original) is said to be the most-quoted line in International Relations (IR) theory. Yet whilst this spurred a revolution in critical thinking in IR, it echoed a far older conception of Critical Theory advanced by Max Horkheimer in the 1930s that claimed there is ‘no theory of society?…?that does not contain political motivations'. Both sentiments emphasize the relation between knowledge and human interests, and yet both formulate two distinct—though allied—ways of approaching ‘critical’ theorizing. In order to understand the similarities and differences in their approaches, this paper draws out three loci of difference between Cox and Horkheimer regarding the question of emancipation: (i) the epistemological relation between ‘critical’ and ‘Problem-Solving’ (Cox) or ‘Traditional Theory’ (Horkheimer); (ii) the emphasis placed on transformation and historical process; and (iii) the importance of intersubjectivity in how each approach emancipation. It is argued that by actively combining critical (dialectical) approaches across the social sciences, broadening human agency through civilizational dialogue, and retaining a commitment to emancipatory (and visionary) political futures based on human association, that Critical International Theory can maintain ongoing relevance in IR.     

Transitions to motherhood: young women’s desire for respectability,responsibility and moral worth

ABSTRACT

In the UK, teenage motherhood is depicted in the media and government policy as highly negative and problematic. Pregnant and mothering young women are constructed as socially excluded members of society who belong to an assumed underclass who lack responsibility and respectability. This article draws on the views and perspectives of pregnant and mothering young women in the east of England to examine how positive and successful subjects are defined and understood. It is illustrated how this group of working-class young women negotiated and resisted their positioning as ‘unfit’ mothers and ‘bad’ citizens. Central to their narratives was a desire to reassert themselves as respectable and responsible individuals through engaging in education and employment in order to achieve financial independence. It is argued that this notion of respectability provides a limited and limiting understanding of inclusion and moral worth for working-class young women.     

The internal death of Japanoise

Japanese noise music (Japanoise) has strong associations with death. In the early stages of Japanoise’s development, practitioners would often make reference to eroticism, violence and death in their performances and album artwork to help visualise the “excess” of their sound. The discourse of Japanoise also draws on these associations, through concepts such as disembodiment, to help frame this transgressive enterprise. Death becomes a way of visualising and conceptualising a subversive style of music that attempts to leave the world of limits and meaning. Paul Hegarty and Eugene Thacker both account for Japanoise in these terms. Although death is only implicit in their writing, it will be argued that this understanding of death is essential to what Hegarty means by failure and what Thacker means by disembodiment. This paper will show how, for both theorists, death names a paradoxical yet extreme form of possibility that enables Japanoise to test limits. However, the problem with this understanding is that it holds Japanoise to a limited framework. It essentialises the concepts of negativity and subversion to the economy of Japanoise. This paper will argue that Japanoise cannot be limited to these concepts if it hopes to be more than an oppositional form of music and a tired form of transgression. This requires that its relationship with death not be reduced to a form of production or act of will. By arguing that Hegarty and Thacker’s accounts of noise can be read as Heideggerian, this essay will critique this understanding by drawing on Maurice Blanchot’s account of death. This critique will show how a different understanding of death enables a more nuanced understanding of Japanoise.     

Demonizing the Sensible and the ‘Revolution of Our Generation’ in Rosia Montana

Abstract

‘Save Rosia Montana’ is an emblematic socio-ecological movement in post-communist Romania. It started in 2000 as a local reaction against what was projected to be the largest open-cast gold mine in Europe; it has gradually grown into a national movement with global networking. Activists have been consistently accused of acting under the impulse of an emotional luggage which could function as an impediment to understanding the ‘real’ issue, that of Romania's development. While the corporation claims to present the ‘real’ story articulated in the supposedly objective discourse of rational science, the choice to take a stance out of other beliefs has been demonized as emotional. This article will make a critical discourse analysis of corporate texts and Rosieni's testimonies to highlight what appears as ‘legitimate’ versus ‘illegitimate’ discourse, how some phrases are presented as self-evident rationales while others are dismissed as inappropriate or ‘emotional’. Rosieni have created visibilities for new things, objects, languages, and projections that have been downplayed by the post-communist political context. The conflict is not just over cognitive aspects or valuation languages but also over how one is allowed to feel, what one is allowed to enjoy (doing), how is one supposed to live (spend time), what Ranciere calls the ‘distribution of the sensible’.     

Social acceleration and the network effect: a defence of social ‘science fiction’ and network determinism

This essay is a response to Judy Wajcman's essay ‘Life in the fast lane? Towards a sociology of technology and time’ (2008: 59–77). In that article Wajcman argued that recent developments in the sociology of temporal change had been marked by a tendency in social theory towards a form of ‘science fiction’– a sociological theorizing, she maintains, that bears no real relation to actual, empirically provable developments in the field and should therefore be viewed as not contributing to ‘a richer analysis of the relationship between technology and time’ (2008: 61). This reply argues that as Wajcman suggests in her essay, there is indeed an ‘urgent need for increased dialogue to connect social theory with detailed empirical studies’ (2008: 59) but that the most fruitful way to proceed would not be through a constraining of ‘science fiction’ social theorizing but, rather, through its expansion – and more, that ‘science fiction’ should take the lead in the process. This essay suggests that the connection between social theory and empirical studies would be strengthened by a wider understanding of the function of knowledge and research in the context of what is termed ‘true originality’ and ‘routine originality’. The former is the domain of social theory and the latter resides within traditional sociological disciplines. It is argued that both need each other to advance our understanding of society, especially in the context of the fast‐changing processes of technological development. The example of ‘technological determinism’ is discussed as illustrative of how ‘routine originality’ can harden into dogma without the application of ‘true originality’ to continually question (sometimes through ideas that may appear to border on ‘science fiction’) comfortable assumptions that may have become ‘routine’ and shorn of their initial ‘originality’.     

Imagining young adults’ citizenship in Russia: from fatalism to affective ideas of belonging*

This article contributes to a comparative analysis of the meaning of citizenship for youth. Young people, traditionally seen as ‘incomplete’ citizens in the process of transition to adulthood, possess their own everyday understanding of what it means to be a citizen in the contemporary world. Based on empirical qualitative material collected in two Russian cities, it is argued that there is a disjunction among young Russians between the ideal-typical perception of citizenship and the practical realisation of it. Particular emphasis is put on the ‘emotional’ understanding of citizenship by Russian youth involving the experience of particular feelings towards fellow citizens and the country.     

Gendered practices in institutions of hegemonic masculinity

Vital knowledge about gender relations can be gained through the study of military and defense organizations. Such institutions of hegemonic masculinity tend to represent and reify specific notions of masculinity in ways that make it the norm. The article suggests that such institutions can be approached through feminist methodology, for example, by using critical analysis to question what appears ‘normal’ in institutional practice and by listening to the voices of women who challenge the norms of hegemonic masculinity by engaging in daily institutional practice. The article relates ‘women's voices’ and this ‘site’ of knowledge to feminist methodology by developing the standpoint perspective. It is argued that the notion of struggle formulated in standpoint theory is a useful way to understand the knowledge gained by women engaging with institutions of hegemonic masculinity, and an important contribution to the understanding of gender dynamics. Furthermore, it proposes that this ‘site’ of knowledge production will become increasingly relevant as women in rising numbers are taking positions within defense and military institutions and challenging historically embedded norms of hegemonic masculinity.     

Strangers asking strange questions? A methodological narrative of researching belonging and identity in English rural communities

This paper emerges from a current research project that examines the relationship between contemporary English rurality and notions of identity and belonging. While this is primarily a methodological narrative we argue that this narrative speaks to an analysis of current rural relations. The paper concerns itself with two key methodological issues that have arisen during the ‘doing’ of the research. First, it examines our own relationship, as ‘outsider’, urban-based researchers, to the rural and the use and/or relevance of our biographies as resources for making ourselves seem less ‘strange’ and for accessing, and being in, rural environments. At the same time as providing us with a map into our micro rural worlds the paper draws on this biographic-research relation in order to problematize notions of homogenous rural identities and polarized rural/urban identities. The second part of the paper argues that who we were/how we were perceived had a relation to what ‘truths’ and accounts we were told by our respondents. More particularly, we show how our use of focus group interviews had a direct role in the rehearsal and presentation of these ‘truths’. Given the current contestations and tensions over what and who ‘the rural’ is, it was clear that those involved in the focus group discussions wanted to give us particular stories that often fell into a consensus pattern of either ‘rural idyll’ or ‘rural crisis’ narratives. Drawing on Simmel's notion of the stranger and focus group data we argue that for these narratives to be told we, as researchers, were ascribed by the group members to shifting positions of intimacy and remoteness.     

Unpopular culture: The case of ‘white trash’

ABSTRACT

This article examines ‘white trash’ as a rhetorical identity in a discourse of difference that white Americans deploy in deciding what will count as whiteness in relation to the ‘social bottom’. Surveying historiographic efforts to valorize ‘poor whites’ in contrast to ‘white trash’, and tracking the redemption of ‘redneck’ as a popular identity, the author delineates how a pollution ideology maintains a portion of whites as fitting problematically into the body of whiteness. Rather than finding an authentic voice in the numerous, current uses of ‘white trash’ in a range of popular culture production, the author instead summarizes ‘white trash’ as an other within the popular — an unpopular culture.     

Multiplicity: anarchy in the mirror of sociology

ABSTRACT

Justin Rosenberg’s proposal of ‘multiplicity’ as a new grounding concept for IR aims at liberating the international from the perceived constraints of its dominant framing by Realism. Viewed from within the singular political entity, the international can only appear as absence and negativity, traditionally thematised in IR as ‘anarchy’. Recasting it instead as ‘multiplicity’, through a move from politics to sociology, is intended to change the understanding of the international from negative to positive: from conflict, tragedy and repetition to interaction, combination and development. This move, however, does not succeed in grasping the negativity of the international, and so as a result it remains within the limits that Realism enunciates: multiplicity complements anarchy sociologically rather than transcending it theoretically. A new concept of the international would result not from rejecting the negative in favour of the positive but from recognizing them as dialectically contained within each other.     

‘Globalisation’, Governance and social work: Some implications for theory and practice

Abstract

This article focuses cautiously on the implications of ‘globalisation’ for social work theory and practice. In drawing on recent debates it is argued that, despite its contested meaning, ‘globalisation’ points to a range of rapid and fundamental socioeconomic and political transformations that have impacted upon entire regions of the work. Some of these transformations are identified and analysed in terms of their consequences for transnational, national and local populations. It is proposed that the prevailing consequences of globalisation in terms of social inequality and allied modalities of governance are negative, and that this has important implications for the profession of social work. Effective strategies for confronting the challenges posed by ‘turbo capitalism’ may be found in alliances across global social movements and professional groups, including social workers. The challenges are profound.     

Care,empowerment and self-determination in the practice of peer support

The concept of ‘care’ has been fraught with negative connotations within the disability movement; the concepts of empowerment, choice and control have been developed as alternatives. The peer-support movement in the mental health sector draws from this tradition, and is uncomfortable with the provision of care. Drawing on the feminist ethic of care, we will argue in this paper that ‘care’ – in the sense of caring about, rather than caring for – should be seen as fundamental within peer support. The practice of peer support evidences a kind of ‘care’ that does involve some interdependence, and taking of ‘responsibility’. The challenge is to make this a ‘responsibility towards’, rather than a ‘responsibility for’. If this is successfully achieved, care can indeed become acknowledged as part of ‘standard peer support’, and the basis for the development of autonomy and self-determination.     

Irish immigration and the ‘condition of England’ question: The roots of an historiographical tradition

This article argues that the study of Irish immigration in nineteenth‐century Britain has focused for too long ‐ and often uncritically ‐on what the Victorians themselves wrote about the Irish. It is argued here that historians have taken their lead from Condition of England writers, like Kay, Engels, Mayhew and A. B. Reach, with the result that our understanding of the emergence of Irish communities in Britain has been distorted in two ways. First, historians have concentrated upon ‘apartness’ and ‘settlement’ and have made little effort to assess ‘development’. Secondly, such writings have until recently focused especially on the years 1830 to 1870 to the exclusion of others. This article examines some of the key writings of contemporaries and argues that they represent the beginnings of an historiographical tradition which scholars must now look beyond.