‘Sit in the corner and don’t eat the crayons’: postgraduates with dyslexia and the dominant ‘lexic’ discourse

The lack of cultural diversity in higher education is recognised by policy objectives and a current focus on the development of widening participation for a range of students, including those with disabilities. Amongst this group are those with dyslexia who might previously have been disenfranchised from formal education and under‐represented within it. This paper explores the personal narratives and learner histories of six postgraduates and academics with dyslexia from their earliest memories of learning to their present experiences. It examines how literacy, as a dominant form of discourse, has defined concepts of academic ability resulting in the early exclusion of these learners from formal education. It is argued that this dominant discourse can be challenged by non‐authorised, informal learning resulting in stories of resistance.     

Rwanda's ‘Hutsi’: intersections of ethnicity and violence in the lives of youth of ‘mixed’ heritage

This article looks at young Rwandans of ‘mixed’ Hutu–Tutsi heritage, exploring how their mixed identity shaped their experiences during the 1994 genocide and how it influences their everyday experiences of categorization and belonging in contemporary Rwanda. It reveals the complex position of these young ‘Hutsi’ and the significant constraints they face in exercising identity choices in a context with a history of ethnic violence and where state policies have outlawed ethnicity. This article argues that the experiences, narratives and performances of these young Rwandans simultaneously challenge and reinforce the binary ‘ethnic logic’ that persists in contemporary Rwanda. Yet it suggests that providing space for Rwanda's ‘Hutsi’ and their diverse experiences could help to de-essentialize the categories ‘Hutu’ and ‘Tutsi’ and reduce the risks of future violence.     

From ‘Employab-ility’ to ‘Entrepreneurial-ity’ in Spain: youth in the spotlight in times of crisis

This paper discusses the processes of individualisation of work and redefinition of the referential category of worker fostered by youth employability schemes in Spain. Employability measures proposed by the recent Spanish Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan and its antithetical youth representations (as a group ‘without qualities’ – the ‘NEETS’– while at the same time as a referential value and cultural model – ‘the young entrepreneur’-) will be analysed. These paradoxes strengthened by employability policies, and further aggravated in the wake of the current economic crisis, do not give rise to political contradictions due to the depolitisation promoted by employability policies: social problems are converted into individual deficits. These processes of psychologisation of work are further discussed on the basis of a recent study on employment counselling and career guidance to help to enhance the employability of jobless people in three Spanish cities, Seville, Madrid and Valencia. These tools are aimed at fostering employability of unemployed people with a high risk of social exclusion and are emblematic concerning the principle of employability (new governance tools, different intervention logics/principles). Some paradoxes concerning employability policies (entrepreneuriality) in the current labour market crisis will be outlined.     

‘Eyesight to the Blind’: Secular and Religious Dialogue in the ‘Devil's Music’

I adopt a dialogic approach to refute Paul Oliver’s claim that there is no challenge to the authority of the black Church or religion in the segregated ‘race records’ of the first half of the 20th century in the United States. I dismiss the claims of some black theologians that the presence of biblical imagery in the blues means that performers were essentially religious. I show that the dialogue between secular song and religious sermons on record involved mutual parody, satire, and polemic in a common speech genre. Attacks on the Church, its members, clergy, and doctrines were common. Recorded sermons spoke back in defense. Mikhail Bakhtin's concepts offer purchase on the relations between secular and religious recordings in an ongoing struggle for hegemony in black cultural production.     

From Russian to Ukrainian Eurasianism: the new ‘historical’ friends and enemies

Eurasianism is a popular creed in post-Soviet Russia. Its supporters believe Russia is a unique blend of Slavic and non-Slavic, mostly Muslim Turkic people. With the rise of Russian nationalism, Muslims were transformed into enemies. It has been a different story in Ukraine, where Russians – ‘the old brothers’ – became an alien force and Turkic people an acceptable minority. This trend has held for the last 20 years regardless of all vacillations in Ukrainian political/cultural development.     

‘Us’ and ‘them’: the limits and possibilities of a ‘politics of neurodiversity’ in neoliberal times

The neurodiversity movement claims that there are neurological differences in the human population, and that autism is a natural variation among humans – not a disease or a disorder, just ‘a difference’. A ‘politics of neurodiversity’ is based on the claim that the ‘neurodiverse’ population constitutes a political grouping comparable with those of class, gender, sexuality or race. This paper considers the limits and possibilities of neurodiverse political activism, and concludes by calling for a politics of identity that does not depend on a politics of ‘us’ and ‘them’.     

Indigenous identity, ‘authenticity’ and the structural violence of settler colonialism

In many ways, the structural violence of settler colonialism continues to dominate the lived experience of Indigenous populations, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in contemporary Australia. One aspect of this structural violence concerns the regulation of Indigenous identity, today perpetuated through state monitoring of the ‘authenticity’ of Aboriginal people. This article argues that the contest over Indigenous identity perpetuates a form of symbolic political violence against Indigenous people. It considers the ways in which structural violence against Indigenous identity has featured in Australia's settler colonial regime and examines the particular violence faced by urban-dwelling Aboriginal people, who endure much contemporary scrutiny of the ‘authenticity’ of their Indigeneity. As a case study, the article examines the symbolic violence associated with a particular legal case in Australia and, in light of this analysis, concludes that settler colonies could make a decolonising gesture by legislating for the protection of Indigenous identity.     

Myths and realities: From lusotropicalism to ‘total strategy’

Angola Under the Portuguese: The Myth and the Reality, by Gerald Bender. Berkeley and Los Angeles; University of California Press, 1978, xxviii + 287pp. R11–40, pb.     

Rowing ‘at home’ and ‘away’: sport,heritage and identity in the Malay world

This paper is grounded in a comparison of the cultural identifications that accompany Sambas Malays’ participation in rowing competitions ‘at home’ and ‘away’. Sambas Malays are Indonesian citizens from the regency of Sambas, who ethnically identify as Malay. There, rowing competitions provide the sociocultural infrastructure for developing local and translocal cultural identifications. Two related, yet distinguishable, cultural identifications are evident, each associated with a specific rowing infrastructure. When contests occur ‘at home’, rowing is steeped in local Sambas Malay culture and heritage. However, contests ‘away’, in areas loosely identified as ‘Malay’, generate identifications with a regionally based Malay culture and consociality. Utilizing a non-positivistic conceptualization of ‘border’, this paper considers the intersection of culture, politics, economy, geography and mobility in everyday bordering practices producing two overlapping cultural identifications.     

From ‘temporary migrants’ to ‘permanent residents’: Indian H-1B visa holders in the United States

Literature on international migration from India in the past has focused on the formation and development of ‘Indian diasporas’; that is, Indians who have moved to various parts of the world and maintain socio-economic, cultural and political lives in India as well as other countries. However, little attention has been paid toward ‘temporary migrants’ who have migrated to different countries with a temporary visa and in the course of time extended their visas to become ‘permanent residents’. Temporary migration from India has become a common trend over the last two decades, especially since the acceleration of globalisation and the developments in the fields of information and communication technologies. Although it is argued that this type of migration took place in the past – for instance, Indians migrated to British, French, Dutch and Portuguese colonies during the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries as indentured labourers for a period of three to five years and later extended their stays – what is new about the current trend is the new state policies of different host countries and the socio-economic and cultural background of the immigrants. This paper is an exploratory study of this contemporary phenomena of movement from ‘temporary migrant’ to ‘permanent resident’, a phenomena which has not been given much attention by academicians and policy makers in India. The present paper outlines this trend with an illustration of Indian H-1B visa holders in the United States.     

‘The sea inside us’: narrating self,gender, place and history in South African memories of the Hajj

¹ 1. From Mxolisi Nyezwa’s poem, ‘Sea’ (Nyezwa 2000 Nyezwa, M., 2000. Sea. In: Song trials. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu Natal Press, 62.  [Google Scholar]). How do Muslims in South Africa recount the experience of pilgrimage? This paper considers the genre of oral and written South African hajj narratives and reflects on the insights they hold about Muslim subjectivity and history in South Africa. Pilgrimage is a complex theme, or, as Barbara Cooper (1999 Cooper, B.M., 1999. The strength in the song: Muslim personhood, audible capital, and Hausa women’s performance of the Hajj. Social Text, 60 (Globalization?), 87–109.  [Google Scholar]) phrases it, ‘the hajj presents an immensely complex “ethnoscope” of human movement of tremendous historical depth’ (p. 103). In this article, I take a literary and historical rather than sociological or quantitative approach to the topic of the hajj and examine one of the earliest published accounts of the hajj from the Cape – that of Hajji Mahmoud Mobarek Churchward, who performed the hajj in 1910, along with oral testimonies about pilgrimage by ship in the 1950s and recently published accounts of pilgrimage by Na’eem Jeenah and Shamima Shaikh (2000), Rayda Jacobs (2005 Jacobs, R. 2005. The Mecca diaries, Johannesburg: Jacana.  [Google Scholar]) and Rashid Begg (2011 Begg, R. 2011. The Hajj, Stellenbosch: Imvusa.  [Google Scholar]). In my analysis I consider the nature of the self and the voice, the relation of the spiritual to the quotidian, and the place of South Africa and South Africanness in these accounts. The article reveals that South African pilgrimage narratives are deeply compelling as an autobiographical practice and as an historical archive. They relate the universality of Islamic religious observance with the particularity of South Africa’s political and social realities in a seamless and illuminating nexus. I therefore argue that the hajj narrative as literary form offers new insights about the relation of the sacred and the profane, nation and religion, and gender and authenticity in South African Muslim life.     

Re-spatialising migration governance: From ‘multi-level’ to ‘entangled’

Policy actors engaged in migration governance operate in complex environments characterised by spatial entanglements that bring together different levels and jurisdictions. While “levels-of-analysis” and multi-level governance (MLG) frameworks capture some of this complexity, they undertheorise the extent to which migration and mobility are both causes and consequences of other forms of spatial entanglement. This article sets forth an “entangled” approach to migration governance and applies it to the Turkish case. It discusses how historical legacies and regional ties produce enduring cross-border connections, examining diaspora engagement policies; migration diplomacy; and conflict and security in Turkey through the lens of entangled migration governance.     

Belgian Refugees in Cheshire: ‘Place’ and the Invisibility of the Displaced

The First World War centenary has invigorated research into the Belgian refugee presence, especially at the local level. However, as this article argues, the responses which Belgians elicited locally, as well as the ‘quality’ and longevity of the memory culture surrounding them, were intimately tethered to ideas about and experiences of ‘place’ during the war and after. Exiled Belgians were almost uniquely positioned to communicate the totality of war as well as stand as silent representatives of the trauma of displacement. Yet, this case study of the North West county of Cheshire demonstrates how wartime tragedy with regional consequences, as well as a preoccupation with combatant internees and casualties, eclipsed the everyday reality and the post-war memory of the Belgians.     

‘From mosh pit to posh pit’: Festival imagery in the context of the boutique festival

This paper addresses market-based cultural production in the context of the UK festival field, with a focus on the framing of the festival experience through anticipation. In particular, boutique festivals are discussed as examples of a contemporary cultural ‘product category’ which has emerged and proliferated in the last decade. Through discourse analysis of media representations of boutique festivals, we situate the boutique festival in a broader sociocultural discourse of agency and choice, which makes it meaningful and desirable, and outline the type of consumer it is meant to attract. For the contemporary consumer, the boutique festival is presented as an anticipated experience based on countercultural festival imagery, while simultaneously framing cultural participation through consumption. The paper contributes to a wider debate on the construction of the consumer in the cultural economy.     

The ‘compliant’, the ‘pacified’ and the ‘rebel’: experiences with Swiss disability insurance

Switzerland’s social policies in the field of disability have been significantly reshaped over the last two decades by reducing the number of allowances awarded and by increasing the recourse to vocational rehabilitation measures. What stances do individuals who experience the implementation of these policies adopt? What kind of tests are they subjected to? How can we explain the posture they adopt – be it ‘compliant’, ‘pacified’ or ‘rebellious’ – when facing the (re)assignations of their identity and professional status? Drawing on interviews conducted with individuals who have recently been involved in programmes set up by Swiss disability insurance, we highlight their uncertainties and concerns relating to their place in society, as well as their reactions to disability insurance’s interventions.     

From ‘moments of madness’ to ‘the politics of mundanity’ - researching digital media and contentious collective actions in China

Abstract

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have become an essential part of contentious politics and social movements in contemporary China. Although quite a few scholars have explored ICTs, contentious politics, and collective action in China, they largely focus on the event-based analysis of discrete contentious events, failing to capture, reflect, and assess most of the political ferment in and around the routine use of digital media in people’s everyday lives. This study proposes a broader research agenda by shifting the focus from contentious events – ‘moments of madness’ – to ‘the politics of mundanity’: the political dynamics in the mundanity of digitally mediated, routine daily life. The agenda includes, first, the investigation of the dynamics underlying the mundane use of digital media, which not only places the use of ICTs in contentious moments into ‘a big picture’ to understand the political potential of mundane use of ICTs, but also reveals ‘everyday resistance,’ or less publicly conspicuous tactics, as precursors of open, confrontational forms of contentious activity. Second, the agenda proposes the examination of mundane experiences to understand the sudden outburst of contention and digital media as the ‘repertoire of contention.’ Third, the agenda scrutinizes the adoption of mundane expressions of contentious challenges to authoritarian regimes, as they allow for the circumvention of the heavy censorship of collective action mobilization. Mundane expressions have thereby emerged as a prominent part of the mobilization mechanism of contention in China. Addressing ‘the politics of mundanity’ will provide a nuanced understanding of ICTs and contentious collective action in China.     

‘When does the end begin?’ Addressing gender-based violence in post-conflict societies: case studies from Zimbabwe and El Salvador

This article analyses gender-based violence in the country contexts of Zimbabwe and El Salvador, where distinct periods of conflict and turbulence led to nominal peace, but no recognisable reduction or improvement in the status of women. Women in these two societies continued to experience high levels of gender-based violence. We outline the experience and strategies of Oxfam America along with national partners in addressing gender-based violence in these post-conflict societies. The article draws from Oxfam America's experiences in El Salvador and Zimbabwe, where a campaign and advocacy approach promoted new policy responses and legislation as a result of changes in societal and political attitudes to gender-based violence. It outlines the strategies and partnerships used by the Zimbabwe and El Salvador campaigns, including community outreach, mass mobilisation, and legislative lobbying, to achieve a positive shift in national policies and practices, to prevent gender-based violence.     

Interpretive ethnography: From ‘authentic voice’ to ‘interpretive eye’

The paper explores the use of visual sociology in the study of material culture. It is argued that visual methods are particularly useful, sometimes essential, in gathering data about social and symbolic uses of goods and objects in day‐to‐day social life. Visual methods are not only integrative, but fundamental, in the construction of sociological datum from direct observation. Recognizing the importance of visual techniques forces us to reconsider their methodological status, from the point of view of reliability and standardization. This paper analyzes problems and advantages of photographic data, and proposes a “shooting protocol” to guarantee the reliability and standardization of research images. In addition, results of a study on the social and symbolic meaning of furniture are discussed.     

Italy and ‘Balkan Greece’: Albanian Immigration in the 90s

The article proposes an interview with Mr. M. Baldwin Edwards—director of the Mediterranean migration observatory (MMO) based in Athens—made in January 2007. Interview object was the analysis of the way Greece faced the Albanian migration flow in the 90s. Critically he points out the actors, the strategies, the historical and sociological reasons of this response. The protection of human rights and the role of the European Union are also pointed out. The overall picture gives the impression of a Greek answer that makes a confusion between a ‘border policy’ and a ‘migration policy’ leading to a (more or less conscious) ‘non immigration policy’.