‘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’.     

Can the Sámi speak Now?

This article analyses the on-going debate concerning Sámi definition in Finland, in order to examine some of the challenges that indigenous and minority voices are facing within the increasingly ‘postcolonial’ and ‘postmodern’ academia. Since the late 1960s, universities and institutions of higher education have been nodal points in a broad range of social and political struggles that have sought to decolonize and democratize science and knowledge. These struggles have challenged previous claims to truth and objectivity and paved way for the rise of a deconstructive research ethos, whose central objective is to bring voice to silenced, marginalized and subaltern subject positions. Although the academia might therefore appear today increasingly sensitive also for indigenous voices and research agendas, this article argues that the opposite might be the case: A research ethos, which explicitly aims to strengthen and empower the margin, can just as well work to silence indigenous voices, and end up supporting the agendas of the dominant society. In conclusion, I draw attention to four interlinked domains – context, truth, justice and politics – that need to be rethought, in order to reinstate the political and ethical vigour of critical research practices at large.     

Embedding and disembedding of political elites: a filter system approach

This article looks at the issue of political disengagement in mature democracies and the growing tendency towards disconnect between citizens and their political representatives. It locates itself in relation to ‘demand‐side’ (external to politics) and critical ‘supply‐side’ (focused on the political centre) explanations of disengagement. It concentrates on the latter and, accordingly, builds on critical, post‐Marxist and elite‐oriented work. As such it follows on from earlier calls in the journal for a return to elite‐based research (Savage and Williams, 2008). Drawing on general concepts in economic sociology (Polanyi, Granovetter) the article presents an alternative embedding‐disembedding paradigm for explaining and evaluating this tendency towards political elite disengagement. The propensity for politicians to disembed from wider society is explained by way of a series of eight ‘filters’. Such filters work, alone or cumulatively, both to socially embed political elites within the institutions and networks of formal politics and also to disembed them from wider society and the populace they represent. The interpretive framework outlined here draws on a combination of secondary literature and ongoing interview‐based research with some 150 political actors (politicians, journalists, officials) working at Westminster. As such, the filters and embedding‐disembedding paradigm focuses primarily on the UK case. However, the framework is easily adaptable to other nations and systems.     

Starting somewhere different: methodological cosmopolitanism and the study of world politics

In this article, I contribute to the debate on Ulrich Beck's idea of ‘methodological cosmopolitanism’ from a political science perspective. How fruitful is Beck's idea for the study of world politics? How can a political science perspective turn ‘methodological cosmopolitanism’ into a more transdisciplinary subject of debate? Guided by these questions, I speak to two audiences. First, I offer political scientists a distinct strategy for empirical ‘cosmopolitan political science’ research. At the heart of this strategy is a novel object of research, the ‘cosmopolitan outlook’, understood as a discourse that breaks with the ‘national outlook’ to open possibilities for a world beyond ‘reflexive modernization’. With that, I shift the perspective from structure to discourse and broaden the normative grounds on which to assess cosmopolitan reality. Rather than just considering the emergence of normative cosmopolitan ideals, I build into cosmopolitan research the normative, empirical question of whether we see an emergence of a world beyond reflexive modernization. Second, I address scholars outside the field of political science who are interested in methodological cosmopolitanism by offering the ‘cosmopolitan outlook’ as a novel object of study that could also be explored from other disciplinary perspectives and by proposing they put the question of the purpose of methodological cosmopolitanism centre stage. This question can, I argue, constitute grounds for substantial debates on methodological cosmopolitanism not already precluded through disciplinary premises and concerns. Contributing to such a transdisciplinary debate, I distinguish between the long‐term and immediate purpose of methodological cosmopolitanism, the former being about the development of a cosmopolitan language and grammar and the latter about empirical explorations of the reality of the ‘cosmopolitan outlook’, eventually and in a collective and transdisciplinary endeavour building up to contribute to the former.     

The right to be different: Multiculturalism and the racialization of scandinavian welfare politics; The case of Denmark

‘Multiculturalism’ as an influential ideology for structuring ethnic relations has become exposed to increasing critique also in the Scandinavian context. The paper discusses a racialized political debate, legislation, and institutional practices, taking Denmark as the prime example. An increasingly ‘dual welfare’ is becoming legitimized through a hegemonic culturalized language, consistently interpreting ‘the right to be different’ as ‘being different’, and ‘being different’ as being ‘non‐integrated’. In a society where public debate on ethnic and racial discrimination is less than rudimentary, tolerant claims of multiculturalist relativism are effectively turned upside down in the service of neo‐racism, the preachings of which are imperceptibly becoming adopted as the conventional wisdom. This calls for a discussion on ‘politics of recognition’ which brings the debate on the universalism and particularity out of the abstract, while focusing on the vicissitudes of contemporary democracy in a changing welfare state.     

ON 'MAELSTROMS LARGE AND SMALL,METAPHORICAL AND ACTUAL': 'GRAY ZONES' IN THE WRITINGS OF PRIMO LEVI

This article examines the work of Primo Levi, with a focus on the tensions between ‘witness’ and ‘public intellectual’ in Levi's work. It analyses the notion of ‘gray zones’ in Levi's writings, where it functions as a way of indicating transformations in political action and public discourse in the wake of Auschwitz: most importantly, the Nazi genocide undermined the position of ‘spectator’ crucial to liberal discourse by implicating the spectator as a ‘bystander’. The study goes on to discuss the concepts of ‘work’, ‘science’ and ‘intellect’ in Levi's writing, showing how these categories reflect Levi's ultimately unsuccessful struggle to uncover a mode of political thought and public intervention adequate to the changes in political space of which the ‘gray zone’ is symptomatic, i.e. a condition of universal complicity and powerlessness. It concludes that implicit (and undeveloped) in Levi's thought is a set of ‘aesthetico-political’ presuppositions concerned with the articulation of founding, legitimacy and judgement. These presuppositions challenge the reliance of emancipatory discourses upon subjectivity and the logic of self-determination, indicating the need for a politics based on ‘pedagogical accountability’. Resisting the postmodern logic of ‘testimony’, which emerges in the gap between universal claims and their performance and hence dismantles the ‘outside’ as a space of judgement, i.e. the determination of the legitimacy of actions, the politics of pedagogical accountability grounds such an outside in the conjoining of power, responsibility for the world and boundary thinking. This space ‘outside’ ideology and the circulation of subjectivities emerges via resistance to the specifically ‘anti-political’ violence pervasive in late capitalism, and through the clarification of the distinction between this mode of violence and that (‘pre-political’) violence aimed at ‘subjects’.     

The Potentials and Limitations of Civil Society Research: Getting Undone Science Done

The term "undone science" refers to absences of scientific research that social movement and other civil society organizations find when attempting to make epistemic claims in the political field. The existing literature has identified various pathways for addressing the knowledge needs of civil society organizations, including asking elected and appointed political leaders to shift funding priorities and directly seeking support and partnerships with scientists. Here, a third pathway is identified and explored: civil society organizations that have the resources to fund their own research. A sample of such "civil society research" from large, mainstream, U.S. environmental organizations demonstrates that although the large organizations do engage in such research, most of it is not published in peer-reviewed journals. The peer-reviewed research is found almost exclusively in large preservation and conservation organizations that have staffs of scientists. Most of the other research reports are oriented toward documenting environmental problems and providing policy and management solutions. The research is highly applied and does not represent fundamental contributions to large mainstream scientific fields. Comparisons with civil society research in the author's previous research projects on religion, health, and economic development are discussed to assess applicability of the concept for other sociological subfields.     

Double disenchantment of politics: A systems theory approach to post‐socialist transformation

Many social scientists argue that the precarious future of post‐socialist societies is determined by cultural constraints to which the actors of transformation are exposed. In contrast to this approach, the paper focuses on those developmental obstacles which are inherent to the structure of post‐socialist societies. The analysis draws primarily on social systems theory, especially on the theory of functional differentiation. In the first part, the changing role of political actors is dealt with. The competitive nature of the democratic political process have forced the new and old political actors to adopt a pragmatic and professional attitude towards their activity. Not all of them, however, have been able to adapt to the new rules of the political game. Adaptation problems are mostly faced by those political actors who played a decisive role in the initial stages of democratization on the basis of their informal political influence. The second part of the paper focuses on the changes related to the societal functions of the democratic political system. Irrespective of the ambitions of political actors, democratic politics is inherently ‘unsuitable’ for the extensive regulation of society. A democratic political system presupposes a relatively high ability of other societal subsystems to rely on self‐regulation. The absence of this ability is an important source of systemic tensions in post‐socialist societies. These two sets of changes can be characterized as the double disenchantment of politics. Both on the systemic level and on the level of actors politics has lost many attributes of a ‘privileged’ societal activity. But the process of disenchantment can give rise to demands for a revival of the politics of ‘great deeds’.     

Social Work Education and the Neo-Liberal Challenge: The US Response to Increasing Global Inequality

During the past several decades, a ‘perfect storm’, resulting from the political–economic changes accompanying globalization, dramatic demographic and cultural transformations in US society and rapid technological advances, has created unprecedented challenges for the social work profession and social work education. These challenges include the widening gap in income and wealth both within the US and between the Global North and South; growing racial and class disparities in health and mental health care, education, employment and housing; a shift within policymaking circles towards fiscal austerity and policies that emphasize market-oriented and individually-focused solutions; and the changing nature of universities, student populations and the educational process itself. Although the formal documents of major social work organizations continue to emphasize social justice themes, the actual practice of social work and the preparation of students for practice, teaching and research have diverged considerably from this rhetorical mission. This is reflected in a variety of ways including, but not limited to, the uncritical adoption of ‘evidence-based practice’ as a cornerstone of social work education and research; the growing stratification of social work faculty; the increased reliance on untested online methods of education; and the emphasis on quantitative ‘outcomes’ as indicators of educational success. At the same time, social work education in the US has been unable to respond effectively to the implications of demographic and cultural diversity, despite the demands of its accrediting body, the Council on Social Work Education. This article will provide an overview of the changing environment of social work and social work education during the past several decades. This will be followed by a discussion of the impact of these changes on social work education and a critique of the response—to date—of social work educators. Finally, it will suggest some potential educational responses to these challenges.     

Crypto‐coin hierarchies: social contestation in blockchain networks

In this article, I discuss the role of crypto‐coins (CCs) as an explicit response to the 2008 economic crisis. Drawing on networked social movement theory, I outline the tension between blockchain based currencies promoted as horizontal markets of technological innovation and the persistence of hierarchical authority within these networks. By examining the assumptions about authority and regulation that underpin the creation of CCs I argue that the cryptographic responses to the financial crisis understate the persistence of hierarchies in their claims to upset traditional monetary authority. As global networks, blockchain technology faces political challenges from regulators, hegemonic market actors and adherents devoted to particular CCs. Consequently, I draw parallels between CCs and networked social movements to argue that the emergence and proliferation of ‘altcoins’ presents a series of political challenges to the framing of CCs as disruptive technology. The innovative character of CCs relies on tacit and explicit assumptions about politics that social movement theory can help to explain. By examining the altcoins through the concepts of resource mobilization, framing and identity formation, I argue that the dynamics of offline social hierarchies persist and are magnified in the world of CCs.     

Politics after National Development: Explaining the Populist Rise under Late Capitalism

Ten years after the global financial crisis, the world is living through times of great political uncertainty and turbulence. While the current historical juncture has presented renewed opportunities for progressive articulations against marketisation and the individualisation of risk (i.e. neoliberalism), more prominently it has awoken the ghosts of nationalism and various reactionary forms of populism. This article’s contribution is in contextualising this novel momentum within late capitalism. We argue that the combination of techno-logistical transformations in production and pro-market policy sets that facilitated the globalisation of capital, and which dealt a death blow to national development strategies, was met by elites with intensified efforts to dislocate politics from society through processes of ‘depoliticisation’ that in turn allowed for further marketising efforts. However, this dislocation has dovetailed with a formidable social crisis characterised by unprecedented levels of inequality and vulnerability amid immense wealth, calling into question the elite consensus around neoliberalism. While the leaders of the current political reawakening often distinguish themselves against post-political forms of neoliberal governance, they remain confronted by powerful interests and significant structural constraints as they promote solutions for global problems within the anachronistic confines of the nation-state.     

The Doing and Undoing of Gender: The Importance of Being a Credible Female Victim

It is increasingly argued that gender is something we ‘do’ (or ‘undo’) rather than ‘are’. The doing of gender, or the accomplishment of gender, becomes credible when it conforms (in broad terms) to certain normative conceptions of gender. Resistance to, or subversions of these norms, or the failure to appear credible, deny the individual a gendered authenticity. Attempts to unshackle notions of gender — to ‘undo gender’ and to accept the outcome as authentic, open and fluid — have been matched with concerns that this theoretically empowering process may result in the loss of political power — the notion of woman (or man) in whose name we can act being lost as the binary is eliminated. These tensions are explored in the context of the UK Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (rev. 1986) . This article demonstrates how the doing and undoing of gender in an employment tribunal accomplishes or negates the ‘authenticity’ of gender.     

Therapy in/and/of/by the World

The author begins by owning the personal circumstances and history that inspired him to write. He moves on to discuss how certain changes in Western political processes and structures deserve the tag of ‘transformative politics’. A third section explores in a critical spirit whether or not therapists can have a collective impact in relation to current pressing social and political problems. The next section, entitled ‘the inner politician’, offers an experiential approach to the politics that irradiate people's inner worlds and personal stories. Finally, the author reflects on the links between therapy, politics and spirituality.     

The Occupy Movement and the Politics of Vulnerability

The Occupy movement has generated a significant amount of scholarly literature, most of which has focused on the movement's tactics or goals, or sought to explain its emergence. Nevertheless, we lack an explanation for the movement's broad appeal and mass support. In this article we present original research on Occupy in New York City, Detroit, and Berlin, which demonstrates that the movement's heterogeneous participants coalesced around the concept of vulnerability. Vulnerability is an inability to adapt to shocks and stresses, and it inhibits social reproduction and prohibits social mobility. Rather than specifically discussing the wealth of elites per se, Occupy participants consistently expressed the feeling that the current political economic system safeguards elites and increases the vulnerability of everyone else. We argue that the Occupy movement has reworked the relationship among a range of political struggles that were hitherto disconnected (i.e. ‘old’ and ‘new’ social movements) and rendered them complementary through the politics of vulnerability.     

Socially Responsible Roles of Professional Ethics: Inclusivity,Psychotherapy and ‘the Protection of the Public’

The remit of the apparatus of professional ethics in the field of psychotherapy can be appropriately expanded so as to make the profession more socially responsible and thereby contribute to the ‘protection of the public’ that is said to be the main purpose of statutory regulation. Using ideas culled from the sociology of the professions, political theory and ethical discourse, it is proposed that ethical psychotherapy cannot take place if its overall social framework is itself profoundly unethical. Inclusivity and diversity are reframed as ethical professional practices. Questions of wealth, gender, sexuality and ethnicity are not only ‘social’ or ‘political’—they are also part of a morally imaginative expansion of what we mean by professional ethics. Attention is paid to the dangers of self-righteousness and moral tyranny.     

The power to transform? Mexico’s ‘Fourth Transformation’ under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador

ABSTRACT

We engage in a conjunctural analysis of political change (Gramsci; Hall), power (Lukes) and transformation (Polanyi) to inquire into López Obrador’s political project; ‘The Fourth Transformation’ from July 2018 until December 2019. We analyse characteristics and consequences of the use of power by López Obrador as concerns the ‘power to do what?’ in the name of the 4T, shadowed by structural constraints. Additionally, inquiring the paradox of neoliberal ideas underlying changes in the Federal Public Administration in the name of austerity and the fight against corruption. We conclude that López Obrador is not exploiting this historical conjuncture to bring about ‘the primacy of politics over economics,’ and that signs have yet to emerge of a comprehensive transformation of the neoliberal economic foundations, from a structural analysis perspective. The paradox of neoliberal ideas underlying the 4T is coupled with a peculiar, backward-looking vision for national transformation; a ‘retro-formation’ in the making.     

Conservative Politics,Sacred Cows,and Sacrificial Lambs: The (Mis)Use of Evidence in Canada's Political and Penal Fields

This article explores the federal government's justifications for its decision to cancel Canada's prison farm program, and demonstrates how Harper's Conservatives used talk of “evidence,” “science,” and “research” to appear to be performing good, modern governance. We argue that developments within the penal field are deeply intertwined with activities within the political field—and are more clearly understood when situated within the broader context of politics, science, and the strategic (mis)use of evidence. Scholars must be careful in assuming the state is actually engaging evidence rather than doing so only at the level of rhetoric and discourse. Cet article explore les justifications utilisées par le gouvernement fédéral par rapport à sa décision d'annuler le programme canadien de prisons‐fermes, et démontre comment les conservateurs d'Harper ont utilisé les notions d’‘évidence’, de ‘science’ et de ‘recherche’ pour donner une apparence de bonne performance et de gouvernance moderne. Nous affirmons que les développements du champ pénal sont profondément imbriqués avec les activités à l'intérieur du champ politique—et sont mieux comprises lorsque situés dans le cadre plus large des politiques, de la science et des stratégies de (mal)utilisation d’évidences. Les spécialistes devraient être prudents lorsqu'ils assument que l’État prend réellement en compte les évidences alors qu'il est en fait seulement au niveau de la rhétorique et du discours.     

Bingo Regulation and the Feminist Political Economy of Everyday Gambling: In Search of the Anti-Heroic

Abstract

This paper uses bingo—a lottery-style game particularly popular with older working-class women—to take forward feminist political economy debates about the everyday. It highlights consumption and regulation as key to research on everyday political economy, and aims to contribute to studies of gambling as a marker of the everyday within critical political economy. Rather than seeing gambling primarily in terms of vernacular risk-taking, however, it argues that gambling is also a pathway into exploring other, more self-effacing political economies—of entertainment, fundraising, sharing, and ‘having a laugh’. Focusing on three key areas of regulatory dispute (over how to win bingo; who can participate; and what defines the game), the research suggests that players and workers are (re)enabling the diverse, plural nature of bingo as a political economic formulation—involving winning; entertainment; fundraising; care; flirting; and playful speculation—in the face of technological and legal processes aiming to standardize the game’s meaning as commercial gambling.     

Applying Protest Event Analysis to Architecture and Design

This article reports on interdisciplinary research where insights into ‘design activism’ (particularly architecture, product and landscape design) were sought through the use of methods from social movement studies. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the notion of architecture and design as activism, sometimes also called social design, public interest design or design for social innovation. An increasing interest in activism on the part of designers is matched by an increasing interest from geographers and sociologists in the spatial and material aspects of social movements, political resistance and other power relations. Yet, the area where social movements and various repertoires of social and political action intersect with design has not been well explored by any of these disciplines. While the design literature tends to view design activism narrowly and often apolitically, social movement literature, in its discussions of materiality and spatiality, typically skirts the contributions of ‘design’. Exploring this disciplinary gap, this article reports on the empirical research that applies to design the method of protest event analysis from social movement studies. The research uncovers a ‘designerly’ repertoire of action—a set of tactics that designers use in acts of resistance—and allows for an initial bridging of the gap between design and social scientific approaches.