Virus interruptus: An Arendtian exploration of political world‐building in pandemic times

Building upon a series of blog posts and conversations, two feminist scholars explore how political community, trust, responsibility and solidarity are affected by the COVID‐19 pandemic. We explore the ways in which we can engage in political world‐building during pandemic times through the work of Hannah Arendt. Following Arendt’s notion of the world as the space for human togetherness, we ask: how can we respond to COVID‐19’s interruptions to the familiarity of daily life and our relationship to public space? By extending relational accounts of public health and organizational ethics, we critique a narrow view of solidarity that focuses on individual compliance with public health directives. Instead, we argue that solidarity involves addressing structural inequities, both within public health and our wider community. Finally, we suggest possibilities for political world‐building by considering how new forms of human togetherness might emerge as we forge a collective ‘new normal’.     

The powerful relational language of ‘family’: togetherness,belonging and personhood

This article examines the notion of ‘family’ to consider how it may be understood in people's everyday lives. Certain recurrent and powerful motifs are apparent, notably themes of togetherness and belonging, in the context of a unit that the person can be ‘part of’. At the same time, there may be important variations in the meanings given to individuality and family, evoking differing understandings of the self and personhood. I consider these ideas further through globally relevant but variable cultural themes of autonomy and relationality, suggesting the term ‘social person’ as a heuristic device to distinguish the sense of ‘close‐knit selves’ that may be involved in some understandings of personhood. I argue that this version of personhood may be powerfully expressed through ‘family’ meanings, with a significance which can be at least provisionally mapped along lines of inequality and disadvantage within and between societies around the world. These forms of connectedness may be hard to grasp through those theoretical and methodological frameworks which emphasize the (relational) individual. I argue that, in affluent English speaking societies, ¹ there may be little alternative to the language of ‘family’ for expressing such forms of relationality and connection.     

‘We need to get together and make ourselves heard’: everyday online spaces as incubators of political action

This article examines to what extent, and how, people engaging in political talk within ‘non-political’ discussion forums – online lifestyle communities – leads to political (or personal) action or calls-to-action. The analysis is framed in the context of wider questions of citizenship, civic engagement and political mobilization. To capture everyday political talk amongst citizens requires us to move beyond the now widely analysed online spaces of formal politics. Instead, we focus on online third spaces concerning lifestyle issues such as parenting, personal finance and popular culture. Drawing on a content analysis of three popular UK-based discussion forums over the course of five years (2010–2014), we found that (for two of the three cases) such spaces were more than just talking shops. Rather they were spaces where political actions not only emerged, but where they seemed to be cultivated. Discussions embedded in the personal lives of participants often developed – through talk – into political actions aimed at government (or other) authorities. The article sheds light on the contributing factors and processes that (potentially) trigger and foster action emerging from political talk and provides insight into the mobilization potential of third spaces.     

Displacement,integration and identity in the postcolonial world

Defining the relationship between displaced populations and the nation state is a fraught historical process. The Partition of India in 1947 provides a compelling example, yet markedly little attention has been paid to the refugee communities produced. Using the case of the displaced ‘Urdu-speaking minority’ in Bangladesh, this article considers what contemporary discourses of identity and integration reveal about the nature and boundaries of the nation state. It reveals that the language of ‘integration’ is embedded in colonial narratives of ‘population’ versus ‘people-nation’ which structure exclusion not only through language and ethnicity, but poverty and social space. It also shows how colonial and postcolonial registers transect and overlap as colonial constructions of ‘modernity’ and ‘progress’ fold into religious discourses of ‘pollution’ and ‘purity’. The voices of minorities navigating claims to belonging through these discourses shed light on a ‘nation-in-formation’: the shifting landscape of national belonging and the complicated accommodations required.     

Identity,accent aim,and motivation in second language users: New Scottish Gaelic speakers’ use of phonetic variation

This paper examines the use of phonetic variation in word‐final rhotics among nineteen adult new speakers of Scottish Gaelic, i.e. speakers who did not acquire the language through intergenerational transmission. Our speakers learned Gaelic as adults and are now highly advanced users of the language. We consider variation in their rhotic productions compared to the productions of six older, traditional speakers. Previous approaches to variation in second language users have either focussed on how variable production will eventually result in native‐like ‘target’ forms (Type 1 study), or have investigated the extent to which second language users reproduce patterns of variation similar to ‘native speakers’ (Type 2 study). We additionally draw on sociocultural approaches to Second Language Acquisition and apply notions of accent aim, identity construction, and learning motivation in order to fully explore the data. In doing so, we advocate a ‘Type 3’ approach to variation in second language users.     

A Voice,but not a Vote: A Youth Generation at Risk?

The aim of this paper is to address risks young people in the late 20th and 21st century are exposed to with regard to political participation. Based on qualitative data and ordinary language interviews with 27 Norwegian pupils in upper secondary school, we address how the construction of the political space is understood by young people themselves. By analysing how young people define political interest and engagement, the findings indicate that a gap exists in the perception of ‘own’ and ‘institutionalised’ political participation. This paper concludes that exploring the understanding of politics among the young may reduce vulnerability of this particular group in their democratic participation as well as facilitate their political empowerment.     

Calling for accounts: numbers, monsters and membership1

This article questions how accounts are marked. In asking why some accounts ‘pass muster’ and others fail, the analysis brings into focus the extent to which membership work helps hold the social and the technical apart. The analysis contrasts a long insistence on narrative forms of interaction as defining conditions of co‐presence with numerical regimes in which there is an implicit deletion of social contact under fashionable slogans like ‘action at a distance’. Taking numbers to act as ‘bearers of culture’, the paper contests the idea that numerical forms of accountability delete the membership work traditionally associated with narrative forms of account. Attending closely to ‘occasions’ in which it is appropriate for members to deploy numerical accounts rather than verbal accounts, the argument challenges the idea that a face to face negotiation of social order has been superceded by a pervasive use of perfonnance targets. The article begins by exploring how ‘calls to account’ are created by a reporting of adverse budget variatices within organizations. Using an extended example to consider how such ‘gaps’ affect a manager's conduct towards a spouse who is sick, the analysis shows how the use of numbers becomes crucial to sustaining one's affiliation across a range of memberships. As illustrated, the rehabilitation of numerical artefacts into conceptions of the social greatly expands possibilities for interaction beyond that anticipated by the sociological ideal of ‘co‐presence’.     

Weibo use and political participation: the mechanism explaining the positive effect of Weibo use on online political participation among college students in contemporary China

This study examines the various aspects of Weibo use, including the number of people users follow; the number of fans they have; the frequency with which they read friends’, celebrities’, and opinion leaders’ Weibo; and the number of Weibo group memberships on youth online political participation in contemporary China. The study also investigates the underlying mechanisms explaining the positive effects of Weibo use on youth online political participation using survey methods. Chinese users mainly use Weibo to satisfy their needs for information and connectedness. As an alternative source of information, Weibo indeed functions as an ‘online school of political participation’ to foster political interest, a sense of belonging to an online community, and civic virtue among Weibo users. As a new platform for Chinese to form online civic groups, memberships in Weibo groups significantly increases users’ likelihood of being politically mobilized, which is essential for online collective participation. Our study shows that Verba, Schlozman, and Brady’s [(1995). Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism in American politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press] civic voluntarism model can be extended to the online environment in an authoritarian system.     

Cultural Studies and Deleuze-Guattari,Part 2: From Affect to Conjunctures†

This paper considers the state of the ‘field’ of affect studies and its development – partly through the involvement of one of its authors – over the course of decades. It argues that rather than identifying affect as the ‘other’ of signification and representation, thus ‘subtracting’ it from the conjuncture, one should understand the question of affect to point to the multiplicity of forms of sign behaviours – or, better, of forms of expression or collective assemblages of enunciation (in the terms of Deleuze and Guattari) that constitute a conjuncture in all its complexity. This article attempts to map this multiplicity by refining and expanding Guattari’s ‘mixed semiotics’. Finally, it offers a brief example of how such multiplicities (and their resulting hybridities) might be used to compare the ‘affective topographies’ and structures of feelings that have differentially enabled oppositional movements in the 1960s and the current moment.     

Family is NOT an institution: distinguishing institutions from organisations in social science and social theory

This paper addresses the use, and potential misuse, of the ‘institution’ as a key concept in sociology. The concept of the ‘institution’ is interrogated using ‘family’ as an example and new institutional economics (NIE) as a crucible. The sociological understanding of family as an ‘institution’ is challenged by the distinction between ‘institutions’ and ‘organisations’ in NIE. The blurring of generic non-sociological terms with critical sociological concepts causes confusion between institutions and organisations. This is highly problematic for understanding social change in increasingly complex systems. I conclude that the contextual embedding of sociological concepts remains important to the appropriate use of the term ‘institution’ in the social sciences.     

Youth and political economy: towards a Bourdieusian approach

Cotê has called for a focus on a political economy analysis, where young people should be thought of as ‘youth-as-class’. Cotê positions youth as having false consciousness, arguing that youth studies is too focussed on subjectivities and a potential apologist for neo-liberalism. While we acknowledge the central importance of economic considerations, this paper critically engages Cotê’s claims while developing an approach to political economy that recognises the importance of inequalities between young people. We engage with a number of Cotê’s claims arguing that his position underestimates the diversity of work in this area and the importance subjectivities to any analysis of political economy. We also identify a number of conceptual problems with ‘youth-as-class’ and the ‘false consciousness’ heuristic. We develop an alternative approach outlining a more integrative understanding of the relationship between the political and the economy highlighting the importance of subjectivity. We draw on ideas of political ecology; reflexivity and consciousness; and concepts from Bourdieu. Our approach recognises that young people's lives can be shaped by economic forces and by classed symbolic and moral forces. Young people are not passive dupes, but are in a constant reflexive struggle to respond to circumstances not always of their own making.     

Race lines and spaces of political action among migrant youth

Recently proposed Anti-Racism Strategy established within a framework of the Australian Government's multicultural policy, People of Australia, identifies ‘youth engagement’ as one of the key areas that needs to be promoted and supported. Young people have been invited to join youth councils and youth forums and work with national, state and local policy-makers. Some have taken up this challenge and became public faces and active members of anti-racism campaigns. Others, however, either remained silent about the discrimination they face, or organised their own grassroots youth-based and youth-led initiatives. This paper discusses individual and collective responses to racism among young people in Australia, focusing on Melbourne, and examines possibilities in which racism, as a common experience among migrant youth, can be utilised to form alternative spaces for political action, challenging not only interpersonal, but also systemic forms of racism. By drawing attention towards institutional and systemic forms of racism, and the historical perpetuation of racist practices, these youth initiatives rely on legal measures, and argue that racism should be discussed in the context of the broader Australian society, not only in relation to minority groups.     

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.     

Circular economy and the city: an urban political economy agenda

ABSTRACT

The circular economy (CE) has become a matter of urban development. A literature review shows that the CE debate is biased toward technology-driven industrial change, while bracketing broader socio-political interests. We address this gap by exploring the political economy of scale of the CE. Looking into the case of Brussels (Belgium), a city that has recently adopted the CE as part of its socio-economic strategy, we explore how the anticipated transition to a ‘circular city’ chimes with long-standing urban development agendas. While there is little evidence of stable growth coalitions between corporate and political elites, we argue that the CE provides an ‘urban sustainability fix’ by selectively incorporating ecological goals in urban governance strategies. We further scrutinise the landscape of diverse and heterogenous CE practices in food and transport, highlighting how they are regulated and organised, what labour conditions they offer, and how they are anchored in urban space.     

The personal is political: a feminist reflection on a journey into participatory arts-based research with sex worker migrants in South Africa

ABSTRACT

This article offers a personal reflection of my journey into participatory arts-based research with sex work migrants in South Africa. It begins by sharing some background information of how my own experience as a migrant woman, and my layered (sometimes conflicted) identities, have continued to shape and influence much of my scholarly work, including my commitment to engaging in research that supports (or at least tries to support) social justice. Through this article, I offer an example of how the ‘personal is political’ is entwined in feminist values of research and engagement. Those who experience the issues under investigation must be considered equal partners in research processes. Collaborative forms of knowledge production can support social justice, particularly if efforts strive to shift the centre from which knowledge is traditionally generated and disseminated.     

Ethnic Chinese in Malaysian citizenship: gridlocked in historical formation and political hierarchy

The ethnic Chinese in Malaysia are a significant minority who call for a critical assessment as far as their cultural identity and political positioning are concerned. Appropriating the concept of ‘multicultural citizenship’, this article attempts to dissect various demands and aspirations of the ethnic Chinese in Malaysia’s multiracial hierarchy. It suggests that using the lens of multicultural citizenship can help shed light on Malaysian Chinese as well as the entire nation, where ethnicity and citizenship are gridlocked in historical formation and political hierarchy. In recent times, Malaysian Chinese have articulated their political desires and demands in order to get rid of the disgrace of racial constraints, and also to envisage a more inclusive multicultural citizenship for Malaysia as a nation-state. This article also compares and contrasts three Chinese public figures who have taken disparate stands and approaches with regard to language, culture, race, nation, and party politics.     

Challenging Ethno-National Division: New Social Movements in Belfast

Literature on social movements in societies undergoing violent ethno-national conflict between two ‘warring factions’ has typically concentrated on civil rights, ethnic revivalists, peace and women's groups. This paper concentrates on two loose groupings – lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender, and ‘ban-the-bomb’ – that have been ignored. I argue that in the context of a ‘divided city’ like Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, these collective actors can be analysed as New Social Movements. Specifically, I look at how these new social movements have sought to experiment with forms of intercultural dialogue, expressive pluralistic communities which embrace unity through diversity and cosmopolitan, global identities which challenges the competitive, monolithic and divisive nationalisms which contribute to the sedimentation of violence and segregation of Irish Nationalists and British Unionists in the city.     

Ethnolinguistic repertoire: Shifting the analytic focus in language and ethnicity1

This paper addresses a contradiction in research on language and ethnicity: how can we discuss distinctively ethnic ways of speaking and still account for the variation and fluidity that characterize them? The theoretical construct introduced in this paper enables researchers to avoid this contradiction. ‘Ethnolinguistic repertoire’ is defined as a fluid set of linguistic resources that members of an ethnic group may use variably as they index their ethnic identities. This construct shifts the analytic focus from ethnic ‘language varieties’ to individuals, ethnic groups, and their distinctive linguistic features. It addresses problems of inter‐group, inter‐speaker, and intra‐speaker variation, as well as debates about who should be considered a speaker of a dialect. This approach, which can also be applied to social groupings beyond ethnicity, is discussed in relation to other approaches and is supported with data on language use in African American, Latino, and Jewish communities in the United States.     

Populist political right opinions and political trust among Norwegian youth

Recent decades have seen the growth of various strands of right-wing populist political orientations, where populism and critique of immigration policies have been central. These ideological developments have caused concern for the legitimacy of social and political institutions. The question explored in this paper, based on Norwegian survey data, is ‘Which types of right political orientations exist among young people, and how do these political attitudes affect trust in social and political institutions?’ The results reveal the existence of both a populist ‘new right’ political orientation similar to the ideology of the Progress Party and a nativist ideology. The new right orientation contains two sets of variables: (i) economic liberalism/state scepticism and (ii) nationalist values. For trust in political institutions, the emerging picture is complex because the nationalist dimension of both the populist orientation and the nativist ideological orientation implies a high level of trust in political institutions. To the extent the new right political orientations causes mistrust, it seems to come from the liberal economic, anti-statist values included in this ideology. Based on these findings, future researchers should distinguish more clearly between the ideological dimensions going into populist political right orientations and the relationship between attitudes and more practical implications of such ideologies.