“Their wounds are our wounds”: a case for affective solidarity between Palestine and Kashmir

ABSTRACT

Both Palestine and the Indian held Kashmir have become hallmarks of a postcolonial siege manifest in heavy militarisation, illegal occupation, human rights violations, and an excruciating love born from and for people’s resistance and solidarity. While different, strong overlaps exist between the two conflicts in having been?midwifed?by the waning British Empire in 1947; subsequent internationalisation and fighting against a type of contemporary international politics that subsumes them under so-called ‘Islamic terrorism.’ Also noticeable is the motif of ‘suffering’ that makes the tragedy of Kashmir resonate with the pathos of Palestine. This paper focuses on the vantage from Kashmir, where people herald the Palestinian struggle as pioneering and a beacon of just struggle. I illustrate how Kashmiris, have come to?harbour?for the Palestinians an ‘affective solidarity’ which is evident in their modes of resistance to lend support for the liberation of Palestine and credibility to the Kashmir’s own resistance movement.     

Advancing careers through ‘merit’: a rationalized-sensemaking narrative in hierarchical organizations

ABSTRACT

This contribution provides an in-context exploration of how middle-managers make sense of their career progress, and particularly focuses on ‘merit’ to understand how careers are driven in a hierarchical organization. The study exposes ‘merit’ as a fragmented and individualized construction that links back to the participants’ broader life ambitions and identity footprint. It also shows a tendency for maintaining trust in ‘merit’ above other circumstantial and opportunity factors, even in face of events which undermine the application of the merit-based principle. ‘Merit’ is hence portrayed to be a rationalized narrative in careers’ trajectory; a marker used by participants to make sense of events in a coherent manner, consequently experiencing self-efficacy and reducing uncertainty. The findings add complexity to the ‘meritocracy’ debate, calling for new critiques which address its underlying inequality dimension while also contemplating the individual psychological purpose driving ‘merit’ beliefs.     

Social mobilizations and the question of social justice in contemporary Russia

ABSTRACT

Notwithstanding stereotypes of Russian apathy, long-term field research reveals that there have always been grassroots and labour protests in post-Soviet Russia, even as the shock of ultraliberal reforms led to mass precariousness and social disorientation. However, the social mobilizations that do occur are scattered, weakly publicized and mostly small-scale. This paper conceptualizes them as ‘everyday activism’, that is, an activism embedded in everyday life experience and pragmatic sense. Only recently, and in a paradoxical relation to the populist and patriotic Kremlin discourse, some new trends have emerged towards other popular variants of the new discourse that includes social equality claims and what the paper calls ‘social critical’ populism. However, this populism from below does not automatically lead to mass mobilization, although it provides the necessary background for it.     

Is computer gaming a craft? Prehension,* practice,and puzzle-solving in gaming labour

ABSTRACT

This article applies sociological theories of ‘craft’ to computer gaming practices to conceptualise the relationship between play, games, and labour. Using the example of the game Dota 2, as both a competitive esport title and a complex game based around a shared practice, this article examines the conditions under which the play of a computer game can be considered a ‘craft’. In particular, through the concept of ‘prehension’, we dissect the gameplay activity of Dota 2, identifying similarities with how the hand practices craft labour. We identify these practices as ‘contact’, ‘apprehension’, ‘language acquisition’ and ‘reflection’. We argue that players develop these practices of the hand to make sense of the game’s rules and controls. From this perspective, it is the hand that initiates experiences of craft within computer gameplay, and we offer examples of player creativity and experimentation to evidence its labour. The article concludes with a discussion on the need for future research to examine the quality of gaming labour in the context of esports.     

DEEWAANA (the mad one): the lover of music

The notion of deewaanapan or madness (as in being crazy about something) is deployed in this essay to make sense of musicophiliac behaviour in twentieth century Mumbai. I argue that new insights into the formation of ‘publics’ in the non-western metropolis can be gained through a focus on phenomena that embody ‘social subjectivity’. A major phenomenon of this kind is the devotion to Hindustani or North Indian classical music which spread through Mumbai starting from the late nineteenth century. The affective response of musicophiliacs is forged not in solitude but in a space of sociality. This idea also encompasses the actual performance of the khayal genre which became prominent in the twentieth century. The khayal represented a sense of intimacy and interiority which also needs to be understood as ‘social’ and ‘public’.     

Qur’anic education and non-confessional RE: an intercultural perspective

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the reported experiences of Muslim students that regularly shift between Muslim ‘supplementary education’ (including its traditional confessional focus on learning to read Arabic and then memorise and recite the Qur’an) and mainstream school education (including its ‘inclusive’ form of religious education’). The aim has been to better comprehend how these students make sense of this dual educational experience while negotiating the knowledge, skills, and values that are taught to them by two often seemingly disparate institutions. A further aim is to place our findings within the growing field of intercultural education. Though both types of education are often thought to be distinct and oppositional – the former as non-confessional and ‘modern’, the latter as confessional and ‘outmoded’ – both English and Swedish students were able to identify a degree of symbiosis between the two, particularly in relation to the process of memorisation. Thus, it became increasingly clear to the researchers that Muslim student reflection on their participation in both traditions of education had an intercultural dimension in the sense of encouraging dialogue and discussion across educational cultures prompting new knowledge and understanding. This article lays out some of the evidence for this conclusion.     

Citing history

ABSTRACT

Although rarely considered within the existing scholarship on social movements, even a cursory analysis of protest activity suggests that movements regularly invoke historical citations (whether consciously or not) while working to clarify aims and mobilize constituencies. In order to make sense of this process, and to account for the variations that arise among the different citation modalities favored by movements on opposite ends of the political spectrum, I draw upon the theoretical contributions of Marxist cultural critic Walter Benjamin and, in particular, on his exploration of ‘wish images’ and ‘dialectical images,’ their attributes, and their interrelationship. According to Benjamin, such images summoned the past either to project visions of future happiness (as with the wish image) or to deposit the witness before a moment of decisive, present-tense reckoning. After outlining the role of historical citation in social movements and in the broader cultural field through which these movements find expression, I analyze two recent protest events – the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, VA, in which wish images were actively deployed, and the 2017 Women’s Strike in New York City, where a dialectical image arose from the constellated nodes of the march’s route – to consider the relationship between citation modality and protest outcome. Following from this analysis, and in keeping with the unapologetically partisan nature of my investigation, I conclude by advancing some strategic recommendations for movements seeking – as Benjamin once enjoined – to ‘improve our position in the struggle against Fascism.’     

Nationalities,pedagogies and media

ABSTRACT

This article examines the implications of the language of ‘cultural diversity’ and ‘difference’ for syllabi, curricula and educators in academic institutions. The author suggests an intellectual orientation which moves away from the social vocabulary of ‘inclusion’ to that of ‘multivocality’. Such an approach requires an interdisciplinary model whose departure point anticipates the need to teach students the skills of interrogating the relationship between power and knowledge and the political implications of this link.

It is argued that such a perspective would encourage a more careful consideration of bibliography and presentations which take into account the complex diversity in the backgrounds of students — the target audience. This would simultaneously diffuse the tendency to depoliticize and domesticate race relations under the labels of ‘culture’ and ‘multiculturalism’ and require educators to assume that more than a few have family histories which mirror heterogeneity and pluralism. The embodiment of difference, however, may not always be visible. As a pedagogical strategy, thinking explicitly about the assumptions behind who, what and how one teaches will further the epistemological and political objective of educating students to develop informed opinions as well as help to cultivate a heightened sense of personal accountability to their responsibilities in the multiple communities to which they belong.     

Austerity common sense and contested understandings of the austerity measures within a leadership of a professional association of social workers

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces a preliminary conceptualisation of ‘austerity common sense’ in order to understand why austerity policies, despite the social harm they cause, have support not only from the economic and political establishment but also from the wider population including members of the social work profession. Building on the Gramscian concept of common sense, ‘austerity common sense’ refers to the set of beliefs circulated by the ruling elite and adopted by members of the leadership of the Professional Association of Social Workers (SKLE), as well as others within Greece and the European Union, to understand austerity policies. Through this framing, austerity measures are largely accepted as inevitable rather than challengeable. The paper maintains that the concept of austerity common sense provides an analytical framework for understanding the acceptance of austerity measures in Greece and elsewhere, since similar ‘austerity common sense’ framing is encountered in many countries. Furthermore, it is maintained that the concept of ‘austerity common sense’ can facilitate the interrogation of the socio-economic construction of ideas and phrases. This is an important process with which the social work profession needs to engage.     

Imagined mosque communities in Russia: Central Asian migrants in Moscow

ABSTRACT

The article aims to shed light on mosque communities in Russia through the example of mosques frequented by Moscovites and by Central Asian migrants. I will make use of Anderson’s theoretical framework of ‘imagined community’ in analysing the material presented in the article. The main argument is that there are no real mosque communities and rather that the sense of community formed around mosques is imagined. There are nevertheless a variety of networks, groups and institutions within and around mosques. The article is based on fieldwork conducted in 2016 and 2017.     

The Subjective Experience of Youth Psychotropic Treatment

Abstract

The psychotropic treatment of youth is increasing dramatically. This article examines child and adolescent psychopharma-cological research and argues that social work practice and research must examine the complex relationships, social and psychological, in youth pharmacologic treatment. Regarding identity formation, this article explores the developmental consequences when youth adopt an illness narrative to make sense of everyday medication treatment. A conceptual framework for mapping the socio-cultural context of youth medication management is outlined. In the conclusion, youth psychotropic treatment is connected to a perplexing ‘interpretive gap,’ which highlights the subjective quality of medication treatment.     

From state-bound subjects to global subjects: notes toward an Althusserian theory of globalized subjectivity

ABSTRACT

This article puts Louis Althusser's conception of subjective production via ideological interpellation in dialogue with contemporary Global theories – especially those of Saskia Sassen and Manfred Steger. It does this to offer a more robust framework for understanding subjective production that captures subjective transformations in the age of globalization. The article looks at how Sassen's work captures transformations of social and institutional structures in globalization and then looks at Steger's account of subjective transformations. It then turns to the ways in which Althusser's understanding of the intertwining of subjectivity with institutions and social practices can help bridge the gap between Sassen and Steger and can also help us understand the rise of what I call ‘global subjects’ and a ‘global subjectivity’ that can be in conflict with more traditional ‘state-bound’ subjects. I use the example of globalized regimes of care work in order to help make sense of these distinctions.     

Professional discretion and length of work experience: what findings from focus groups with care managers in elder care suggest

ABSTRACT

Research has explored how care managers in elder care – who often function as ‘street-level bureaucrats’ – regard professional discretion. The way in which length of work experience affects care managers’ use of professional discretion remains, however, unexplored. This article present findings from 12 focus groups with 60 care managers. By bringing attention to how care managers experience the needs assessment process, this article sheds light on how these ‘street-level bureaucrats’ struggle when they try to balance their clients’ needs against institutional frameworks and local guidelines. Length of work experience seems to play a role in how care managers claim to use professional discretion. Experienced care managers describe how they deviate from the guidelines at times in order to create an increased scope of action in their decision-making process. Those with less time in the profession describe greater difficulties in this respect. Findings suggest that research should explore if length of work experience plays a role in the actual way in which care managers assess needs and make decisions. As such, they contribute to our understanding of how needs assessment processes are navigated by professionals while also pointing towards the nature of professional discretion in gerontological social work.     

Manipulating surface and producing ‘effortless’ elegance – analysing the social organization of glamour

ABSTRACT

This article explores the social organization of glamour in a specific affective economy. Glamour, a phenomenon often viewed as frivolous and feminine, has been relatively under-explored within organization studies, and, although there have been some relative theoretical engagements, there are few empirical studies on how glamour is produced ‘in the field’. Here, I draw upon ethnographic material to analyse three ways in which glamour is produced within the particular setting of a fashion show – through the clothing collection, throughout the frontstage and backstage spaces stimulating glamour, and finally, through individuals embodying glamour. This article develops glamour as an organizational phenomenon. Specifically, the social organization of glamour, always in flux, is contingent on situated improvisation, manipulative acts and interactions among multiple agents. Finally, the overlooked subject of glamour is of interest in regards to the sociology of organizations more generally, since much of contemporary capitalism relies on its production.     

Curative fictions: The ‘narrative cure’ in Judith Herman's trauma and recovery and Chantal Chawaf's Le Manteau noir

Abstract

The possibility of a so‐called ‘narrative cure’, whereby a survivor of traumatic experience can begin to deal with her past through integrating it into narrative, has become central both to psychotherapy and to literary criticism on writings of trauma as a means of ethical, ‘truthful’ testimony and of healing. This article seeks to question the correlation between testimony and ‘cure’ through analysing the function of the ‘narrative cure’ in a psychotherapeutic text and in a literary text. This highlights how any notion of ‘truthful’ testimony is always underwritten by fiction, which raises crucial ethical questions about the relation between fiction and ‘truth’, testimony and ‘cure’ and psychotherapy and literature. I argue that the ‘narrative cure’ is not a privileged space of curative ‘truth’, but a point of tension between memory and amnesia and between ‘truth’ and fiction; it is precisely this tension, I suggest, which should characterize and structure interdisciplinary responses to trauma.     

Young people and the gendered and aesthetic dimensions of ‘enterprise’: stories from a ‘Rust Belt’ city

ABSTRACT

In the ‘Rust Belt’ city of Geelong in Victoria, Australia, discourses of young people’s enterprise and innovation provide a counter-narrative to the prevailing material and symbolic consequences of industrial decline, job losses, and the growing insecurity of employment and income. GT Magazine is a weekly, large circulation magazine in Geelong with a significant focus on the activities and aspirations of enterprising young people. In this paper, we examine, by utilising techniques of content analysis and discourse analysis, the particular ways in which young people’s innovation and enterprise are framed and enacted in GT Magazine. Our analysis reveals that ‘youth’ and ‘enterprise’ are, in GT Magazine, given an embodied form that is powerfully marked by aestheticised, normalised enactments of gender, class and race. In doing this work, we make productive contributions to three key themes in contemporary youth studies: new work orders and the youthful self as enterprise; the gendered and aesthetic dimensions of affective labour in these new work orders; and the emerging spatial turn to examine young people's embodied, place-based experiences of employment and enterprise. We seek to make problematic the sense that solutions to multiple disruptions and crises in capitalism and the environment are to be found in young people’s enterprise. Particularly when that enterprise is given form in ways that are aestheticised, gendered, classed, individualised and responsibilised.     

Subjectivation,agency and the schooling of raced and dis/abled asylum-seeking children in the Italian context

Abstract

This paper intends to address the challenges that the Italian education system is facing in terms of policies and practices relating to dis/abled asylum-seeking and refugee children, in order to make sense of the politics of daily life inside schools and the network of social services for forced migrants, and to pay renewed attention to the notion of ‘social and educational integration’. The starting point of this paper is the idea that the current model of schooling for asylum-seeking and refugee children is implicated in the making of particular sorts of ‘subjects’, as well as the creation of educational and social exclusions and inequalities. Schools, refugee organisations as well as the work of educators and social workers can be important sites of ‘counter-politics’. Borrowing from the theoretical tools offered by Dis/Ability Critical Race Studies (Dis/Crit) framework and engaging with Judith Butler’s understanding of processes of subjectivation, the paper explores how asylum-seeking and refugee students can be rendered subjects outside the educational endeavour, or indeed outside studenthood. Data from an ongoing constructivist grounded theory doctoral research project, interviews with asylum-seeking children and with professionals working in different refugee services in Rome, are offered to substantiate the argument presented in this paper.     

What's in a name? Language ideology and social differentiation in a Swedish print‐mediated debate1

This paper investigates a recent print‐mediated discussion about linguistic phenomena that are perceived by many commentators to be ‘deviant’ from ‘standard Swedish.’ The aim of the paper is to illustrate how this language debate is built on two closely entwined discursive processes: a struggle to define the name, meaning, and value of a specific linguistic phenomenon; and the indexical processes through which such a phenomenon is bound up with a multifaceted image of its purported speakers, in which gender is imbricated in age and ethnicity. Essentially, the argument is that the metalinguistic pronouncements in this debate are ultimately the outer manifestation of deeper social concerns about what it means to be a ‘non‐Swedish’ young man.     

Procedural monsters: rhetoric,commonplace and ‘heroic madness’ in video games

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on Ian Bogost’s argument that video games constitute a form of ‘procedural rhetoric’, in order to re-examine the representation of heroic madness First-Person-Shooter games. Rejecting the idea that games attempt to recreate the experience of madness to the player through linear representation, the paper instead identifies two persistent commonplace figures which appear within the genre: the monstrous double, and the reaching tentacle. While Bogost’s notion of procedural rhetoric allows analysis to move away from the more facile interpretations of gameplay, the paper argues that these figures also demand an account of the commonplace itself – the rhetorical ‘topic’ – which links the technical structure of gaming procedures with the tropes and figures that enable them to make sense within their wider cultural context and tradition. While the figures of the double and the tentacle purposefully draw on existing tropes and processes associated with the cultural meanings of mental health, a rhetorical analysis of their use of commonplaces suggests that they are not simply recycling older clichés, but constitute a creative ‘reobjectification’ of madness.     

Cultural administrators as creative workers: the case of public and non-governmental cultural institutions in St. Petersburg

ABSTRACT

Despite the increasing number of studies dedicated to creative professionals, there are still many topics that remain understudied. One such topic is the interconnection of professional labour and cultural institutions, which frame labour conditions. Furthermore, while much research has been devoted to the UK, other regions or global concerns have gained little attention. This article concerns creative professionals in post-Soviet Russia. It offers an overview of the field of cultural institutions in St. Petersburg in relation to the cultural administration and the professionals working for them. In particular, this study focuses on the public sector in Russian cultural production and the new non-state institutions founded by young entrepreneurs and activists, which have to struggle constantly for recognition and support from the city’s administration. Based on the fieldwork conducted in St. Petersburg between 2012 and 2015, the empirical study includes 26 in-depth interviews with cultural managers, employees of art centres, lofts, creative spaces, museums, and theatres. The research items highlighted here are concerned with the specificity of the newly established Russian institutional environment, framing creative labour in public and non-governmental cultural institutions. It discusses whether the post-socialist system presents a ‘luckier’ medium for a ‘good’ creative job than that of advanced capitalism.