Relocating subalternity: scattered speculations on the conundrum of a concept

ABSTRACT

This article introduces the special issue ‘Relocating Subalternity: Scattered Speculations on the Conundrum of a Concept’, in which we take Spivak’s particular invocation of (gendered) subalternity and its scholarly reception as a point of departure to confront the ‘foreclosure’ of subalternity. While the gesture of (re)locating inevitably triggers a tense dialectic between the attempt to define contingent empirical loci and subalternity’s resistance to be empirically circumscribed, we suggest that relocating the subaltern from her (non)place may provide constructive avenues for performing a productive ‘ab-use’ of the notion of subalternity. The engagement with the notion of subalternity that this issue encourages suggests that one should claim the heuristic epistemological and political value of the category of subalternity against every conceptual attempt to dilute its aporetic specificity, as well as against any simplistic effort to shorten the distances between the subaltern and its possible interlocutors in the name of too-easy transnational alliances.     

Chicago,Jazz and Marijuana: Howard Becker on Outsiders

In this article on the social production of Outsiders I will situate its making in the daily practice of the social worlds Becker was involved in. Therefore I focus on the relations, interactions and situations which were relevant for the form, content and success of Outsiders. The fragments from my email communication with Becker, the collected interviews and other publications show that Becker demystifies Outsiders. In fact my contribution here is that I use Becker to demystify the ethnographic practice of Outsiders and describe it's mundane backstage reality, which is described by Fine as “the underside” of ethnography (1993).     

The terrorist,the artist and the citizen: Oscar Wilde and Vera

This article links Oscar Wilde’s prose writings with his earliest drama Vera, or The Nihilists (1880, rev., 1883) and suggests how the idea of terrorism and political violence was a spectacle and threat that Wilde acknowledged and encompassed in his writing and thought. I discuss Wilde’s adoption of a Hegelian view of the development of civilisation and suggest that during his 1895 trials he cast himself self-consciously as at once agitator and scapegoat, finding that his own life had come to imitate his art though not in the ways with which we are commonly familiar. Modern terrorism from its roots in 1870s Russian political unrest is recognised as both a new force and a familiar fantasy which shapes literature.     

Young bodies,power and resistance: a new materialist perspective

Portrayals of young people as either victims or perpetrators of errant, aberrant or even dangerous attitudes, desires or behaviours may be criticised for obscuring the relations of power within which young bodies are socially and physically located. However, notions of ‘resistance’ to power within these critiques remain under-theorised. In this theoretical paper we take a new materialist approach to explore the affectivity of young bodies, and the flows and intensities that produce and reproduce power and resistance, and what young bodies can do, feel and desire. To illustrate young bodies’ resistances, we offer the example of the transgressive pro-ana movement that resists both biomedical and social definitions of anorexia. We conclude there is a need to focus upon ‘resisting’ as an affective movement of becoming, rather than upon ‘resistance’ as an agentic act, with consequences both for young bodies, theory, research and activism.     

Writing resistance together

This piece of writing is a joint initiative by the participants in the Gender, Work and Organization writing workshop organized in Helsinki, Finland, in June 2019. This is a particular form of writing differently. We engage in collective writing and embody what it means to write resistance to established academic practices and conventions together. This is a form of emancipatory initiative where we care for each other as writers and as human beings. There are many author voices and we aim to keep the text open and dialogical. As such, this piece of writing is about suppressed thoughts and feelings that our collective picket line allows us to express. In order to maintain the open‐ended nature of the text, and perhaps also to retain some ‘dirtiness’ that is essential to writing, the article has not been language checked throughout by a native speaker of English.     

Reshaping boundaries: Family politics and GLBTQ resistance in urban Vietnam

Although Vietnamese society is currently undergoing significant changes with regards to the rights and perceptions of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (GLBTQ) people, dominant socio-cultural norms related to gender, sexuality, and the importance of the patrilineal family regime continue to cast a shadow over the lives of GLBTQ in contemporary Vietnam. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the urban centers of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, as well as legal documents and secondary sources, this article illustrates how dominant heteronormative socio-cultural norms have contributed to the political, legal, and social exclusion of same-sex sexualities through a process of outlawing, whereby GLBTQ have been systematically excluded from the rights of law. Drawing on qualitative interviews with gay men and lesbian women between the ages of 20 and 50, the article also highlights how this relation of domination has allowed for instances of GLBTQ resistance, through subversive opposition, strategies of avoidance, and the seeking out of new opportunities in urban spaces outside the dominant sociality. The article thus provides a qualitatively nuanced account of family politics and GLBTQ resistance in urban Vietnam at a significant socio-political historical juncture.     

Web of resistance: Deleuzian digital space and hacktivism

This article argues that the Internet possesses the potential to challenge corporate and Statist domination of digital space. Mapping Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concepts of the rhizome, smooth/striated space, and the nomad onto the idea of digital connectivity, I show how hacktivism can initiate change both online and off. In the first section, I argue that the Internet is characteristic of a rhizome. As a rhizome, the Internet’s structure affords it a flexible, morphological, and ultimately a vibrantly powerful configuration. As a result of its connective and generative power, corporate and State entities seek to control digital space. These controlling institutions stratify, segment, and claim ownership over the flat, smooth space. The second section, then, shows how the Internet becomes striated through corporate and State interests. As a remedy, the third section advocates for hacktivism as a form of nomadic action. In this section, I focus on the Distributed Denial of Service attack as a form of deterritorialization that redistributes the flow of information. Acting as a digital machine de guerre engaging in online direct action, and against the legal apparatus of the State, hacktivists create a rupture in the rhizomatic structure and form smooth spaces within a striated network. In the final section, I advocate for sustained smooth digital spaces that allow for new modes of association that radiate outward from the digital to the physical world.     

Juggling resistance and compliance: The case of Israeli ultra-orthodox media

In an attempt to examine how resistant discourses are constructed in a highly conservative society, this article presents four discursive forms of resistance used by an Israeli ultra-orthodox Jewish magazine juggling between compliance and resistance in its attempt to subvert hegemonic rabbinical authority. These resistance forms are: cushioning, discursive hybrids, explicit provocation and trivializing. Based on a qualitative content analysis of 229 articles published in the weekly magazine Mishpacha (Family), the study seeks to contribute to the existing literature on resistance in and around organizations by exposing the complex and heterogeneous nature of discursive resistance in authoritarian-religious environments. Furthermore, the paper offers a glimpse into the ways that a social group within a religious society resists authority though without shattering its ideological basis.     

Sociology and Art: An Interview with Howard S. Becker

This is an interview with Howard S. Becker, and the focus is sociology and art. In this interview, Howard S. Becker talked about many interesting and important topics such as his sociological lineage, his difference with the estheticians Arthur Danto and George Dickie, traditional sociologist of art such as Lukacs and Goldmann, his Tactile Art Group, the universality of his art worlds, Richard A. Peterson and his production of culture perspective, the sociology of “sociology of art” in America, French sociologists of art, and his own art life, and so on.     

Learning from Experience: Recollections of Working with Howard S. Becker

Howard S. Becker is, and has been, a major figure in contemporary sociology, especially within the symbolic interactionist perspective. This discussion describes my initial encounter with Howie in the mid‐1960s and moves to identify the substantive and methodological areas in which he has had major impact. I then briefly outline various ways in which the foci of my own work have been shaped by Becker's instruction and example.     

Effects of resistance training on liver structure and function of aged rats

The aging process may cause negative physiological changes. However, exercises as resistance training (RT) have been considered an important intervention to attenuate these changes. Additionally, liver plays an important role in blood glucose homeostasis in exercise.

Aim: This study aimed to analyze the effects of RT on the liver components of aged animals.

Methods: Male Wistar rats were divided into two groups: 24 months’ group (CONTROL); and group submitted to a progressive RT protocol for 16 weeks (EXERCISE). Both groups were sacrificed at 24 months.

Results: We observed a decrease in blood flow due to the practice of resistance exercises. Besides, our results showed that hepatic tissue plays an important role in glycemic homeostasis during RT. In addition, RT increased mitogen capacity of hepatocytes.

Conclusions: Our study showed many implications for the knowledge about the effects of strength training on old animals’ liver.     

Rethinking resistance under authoritarianism: civil society and non-contentious forms of contestation in post-uprisings Egypt

ABSTRACT

In 2018 President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi secured a second presidential term in a constrained political environment exacerbated by his control over the media, prosecution of journalists and activists, and his crackdown on civil society. As a result of such resilient authoritarianism, the optimism that once defined the Egyptian uprisings has turned into cynicism. This article contributes to the literature surrounding civil society and resistance in authoritarian contexts by offering an examination of the interplay between authoritarian tendencies and their resistance in post-uprisings Egypt. I argue that we should view al-Sisi’s regime as representing an authoritarian system that is not absolute, despite its soft and hard repressive methods, but one that still offers limited space for civil society organizations (CSOs) to function. This limited space importantly comprises covert resistance methods which can offer Egyptian CSOs opportunities to resist the state’s legal and extra-legal restrictions. The resistance methods considered in this article need to be understood in Gramscian terms as they encompass the limited means available by which CSOs can negotiate the terrain of hegemonic contestation under the existing authoritarian context. Given al-Sisi’s re-election and the sustained crackdown on Egyptian civil society, the need to analyse such forms of resistance is pertinent.     

The woman writer's body: Multiplicity,neoliberalism, and feminist resistance

What goes behind the scene of a woman writer's writing process? Beneath shiny finished writing products lies an arduous writing process often remain unseen to readers. The article makes visible two women writers' bodies and our embodied writing experiences through an intersectional feminist lens. Writer One is a Singapore-born, ethnic Chinese, queer migrant woman academic residing in Australia with her long-term partner. Writer Two is an England-born, Australian-British dual citizen, white heterosexual married mother of young twin children ready to kick start her academic career after her recent PhD conferment. Writer One with her fibromyalgic, traumatized, and othered bodies and Writer Two with her vulvodynia, mothering, and gendered bodies write themselves, their bodies and embodied writing experiences into existence in this article. Using autoethnographic accounts, they discuss how their multiple, chronically ill, and pained bodies influence their writing process and choice of writing topics. Specifically, they reveal how their bodies negotiate the tension between neoliberal demands imposed on their bodies and their feminist resistance efforts against constrictive forces in the knowledge production economy. Using this piece of writing as feminist resistance, they seek to reject dominant discourses, hold space, inscribe their own narratives, and call for collective feminist action with fellow women writers.     

Rethinking non-traditional resistance at work: The case of the Indian Diaspora in Mauritius

Resistance at work can take many forms and be theorised in multiple ways. In this paper, I use postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha's concepts of mimicry, ambivalence and hybridity to explore non-traditional forms of resistance among Indo-Mauritians working in the hotel industry. I employ a two-stage qualitative research approach by conducting focus groups in eight hotels in Mauritius followed by focused ethnography with 20 Indo-Mauritians. The findings reveal that the Indian diasporic community is actively engaging with its past (India) through the materiality of its home, its sacred space and its use of Bhojpuri to communicate. By unfolding and maintaining its difference, it is constantly demarcating its personal space from that of the Other. As this behaviour extends to the workplace, salient forms of non-traditional resistance surface in rural regions.     

Meta-cognition and resistance to political persuasion: evidence from a three-wave panel study

ABSTRACT

We investigate the temporal course of meta-cognition and resistance processes following exposure to counter-attitudinal information in the 2012 Presidential election. Using a unique 3-wave survey panel design, we tracked eligible voters during the last months of the 2012 campaign and experimentally manipulated exposure to negative political messages targeting Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on an online platform. As predicted, we found that politically unengaged (vs. engaged) individuals were less likely to counter-argue a message attacking their favored candidate. Resistance, in turn, led to increased attitudinal certainty, polarization, and correspondence with actual voting behavior over the course of the campaign. These findings provide the first analysis of the longitudinal effects of meta-cognitive processes underlying persuasion for real-world attitude change and behavior.     

When Religion Enters the Dialogue: A Guide for Practitioners

Several factors, including Freud's debunking of religion and social work's discomfort with its religious roots, have resulted in a trend of avoiding religious issues in social work education. The result is compromised care. In this paper, clinical vignettes are utilized to illustrate some of the difficulties which may occur. A series of guidelines is offered, with the aim of increasing therapists' comfort level in negotiating religious issues in practice. Areas of discussion include assessment, resistances, object relations, and countertransference. Case examples demonstrate application of guidelines.     

Intersectional power struggles in feminist movements: An analysis of resistance and counter-resistance to intersectionality

This article develops an analytical framework to study the power struggles between majoritized women and minoritized women within feminist movements in relation to the adoption of intersectional practices. It employs a multi-sided concept of power that takes domination and both individual and collective empowerment into consideration. The analytical framework encompasses the informal norms that foster resistance to intersectional practices by majoritized women, as well as the strategies and actions undertaken by minoritized women in order to challenge their subordination. The empirical analysis illustrates the mechanisms that create positions of marginalization among women, it stresses the role of the emotional dimension in transforming feminist practices, and it shows the importance of the intersectional wound. Moreover, in focusing on the processes that create difference, it avoids essentializing minoritized women. Building on interviews with activists from the Catalan feminist movement, the examination of intra-movement power struggles considers multiple axes of inequality, including race, gender identity, sexuality, and ability.     

Querying meanings of adolescent peer resistance: a school choice decision revisited

For more than three decades, adolescent research within psychology has addressed developmental questions regarding resistance to peer influences from a psychosocial perspective, emphasizing autonomy development. Inferences about development have been drawn from age-related differences on peer resistance/conformity questionnaires. In this paper, we illustrate an alternative sociocultural/dialogical person-in-context approach to the study of peer resistances and development. This approach directs attention to the meanings of resistant acts as arising from adolescents' transactions with immediate and larger sociocultural contexts, and to the evaluation of development as qualitative system transformation. Our study concerns voiced resistance by eighth-grade girls to peer labeling of their sexual orientation because of the girls' choice (3 years earlier) to attend an all-girl college-preparatory middle school. Resistances expressed in interviews are evaluated within the context of current and prior I-other positionings surrounding the school choice, and we highlight the importance of considering (1) multiple rather than singular peer relations in adolescents' lives associated with connecting as well as resisting positionings; (2) meanings of ‘what’ is being resisted; (3) distinctions in how resistances are expressed; (4) emergent abstractions supporting the resistances; and (5) developmental change as a systems phenomenon.