Becoming Resilient: Overturning Common Sense — Part 1

How might we engage with the concept resilience in a world obsessed with the measurement and cataloguing of deficits and virtues alike; with predicting outcomes, producing certainty and the reification of stable identity? This article is based on a plenary address presented to the Australian Family Therapy Conference in 2009 and takes Deleuze's paraphrase of the 17th century philosopher, Spinoza as a point of departure from common sense views of identity. Can resilience be possessed by some as a personal quality enhancing their coping skills or might resilience be a vital aspect of living which passes through us? Perhaps resilience bounces back towards us and enables the unsettling of dogmatic beliefs and a stable sense of identity Enquiry might then shift from the moral; What kind of person am I? How should I live? towards an ethical position of wonder; What else might there be? What might I be capable of?This article invites an ethical exploration of desire, its capture and of resistance and explores the politics of identity; illustrated with men's journeys of struggle with violence, sexuality and belonging and the discovery of ethics and generous forms of love in the face of adversity.     

Systemic Approaches to Psychosis Part I — The Systemic Context

The context in which psychosis emerges is explored in relation to current theory and research. The family, social and cultural context is found to be highly significant in regard to the likelihood of psychosis emerging, the focus of therapeutic endeavour and treatment outcome. In particular, the ideas, beliefs and expectations of caregivers appear to exert a profound effect on outcome. Although belief is to the contrary, current research in relation to schizophrenia indicates that a typical course involves a long period (years) of relative incapacity followed by recovery.     

Domestic Violence: A case of the Disappearing Victim?†

This article examines the current theoretical constructions of the phenomenon of domestic violence, and their therapeutic implications. It attempts to draw out the latent socio-political content of that theorizing, arguing that throughout the various approaches there is a consistent de-emphasizing of the woman's position as victim of the violent act. An alternative analysis is offered, one which recognizes gender inequality as fundamental to any understanding of domestic violence, and the implications for therapeutic work in this area are briefly explored.     

Gender and Bureaucracies —A Critique of Ferguson's ‘The Feminist Case Against Bureaucracy’

Within the area of gender and organization studies there is a tendency to generalize about organizations and how they affect people working in them. In feminist analysis, salient in Kathy Ferguson's ‘The Feminist Case Against Bureaucracy’, there is a tendency to have a one-sided view on bureaucracies and to regard these merely as products of ‘maleness’ and as incompatible with (radical) feminism. On the basis of a case-study of three different bureaucracies, this article questions the assumption of incompatibility and argues for a more nuanced assessment of gender and bureaucracies.     

The cosmopolitan organization — an essay on corporate accountability

Abstract Transnational corporations increasingly seek to present a vision of social responsibility alongside the business vision. This reflects greater awareness of ‘the world as one single place’, of global risk scenarios, and the politics of doing business. There are also demands for greater transparency and accountability in corporate actions by state representatives, grassroots movements and organized consumers. Transnational corporations now aim to be socially responsible and to engage in ‘corporate citizenship’ by adhering to voluntary codes of conduct, social accountability standards, etc. This discourse of corporate accountability is part of a discourse of globality, or ‘globe talk’, a vital component of contemporary world culture, largely produced, diffused, and sustained by organizations with expansive ambitions of regulating global business; transnational corporations, business associations, international organizations, NGOs and INGOs. Awareness of the global nature of trade and capitalism, the associated risk scenarios, and the attempts at approaching something like a humane globalization by the setting up of ethics standards and codes of conduct, may be understood as a particular case of ‘worldism’. This ‘worldism’ is foundational, with universalizing and homogenizing claims. ‘Corporate citizenship’ and ‘accountability’ are therefore treated as a form of organizational culture that involves a particular kind of moral cosmopolitanism.     

Caught in the Cross Fire: Children’s Right to Education During Conflict — The Case of Nepal 1996–2006

The article focuses on the impact on children, schools and education during the 10 year conflict in Nepal and raises questions for further research on schooling in the post‐conflict era. The article is based on research undertaken as part of a British Council funded Higher Education Link. Focus group discussions and interviews were conducted with school children, parents, teachers and community leaders between 2004 and 2006 and draws on informal discussions and observations with NGOs and teachers in the post‐conflict period, including NGOs visual methods to enable children’s voices to be heard in the peace process.     

Investigations of the british rural middle classes — Part 1: From legislation to interpretation

This is the first of two papers concerned with understanding the causes and consequences of middle class presence in rural areas. This paper explores debates over the future of class analysis and in particular whether it is possible to avoid a dualistic choice between a ‘modernist class analysis’ or a ‘postmodernism’ where class has completely receded from view. Attention is drawn to notions of an ‘interpretative approach’ to class, which while accepting many of the claims of postmodernism still sees value in the notion of class and in conducting class analysis. Drawing on a number of recent discussions of class within and beyond rural studies it is argued that class analysis should be seen as an ‘interpretative accomplishment’ and that attention needs to be paid within it to at least four issues: (i) the processes of knowledge construction and communication; (ii) differences in conceptualisations of power and related concepts such as domination and exploitation; (iii) differences within the processes of class formation; and (iv) the impact of identity recognition on class analysis, class relations and classes practices. In a later paper these issues will be explored in a more substantive manner through consideration of some of the results of research conducted in five locations in rural Britain.     

Now — and Now — and Now: Time,Space and the Material Entanglements of the Classroom

This study examines time and children in the classroom based on free‐flowing observations written in class by 10‐year‐old pupils. The concept of entanglement is activated to consider time together with space and matter and explore the dynamics in which these elements interact. The analysis unsettles the notion of time as a separate, ‘outside’ parameter: rather than examining children in time, this viewpoint enables us to see children as being or becoming of different times and entangling with material elements. On the other hand, entanglements also produce different moments of now, which are seen as multiple and hybrid. The author suggests an understanding of research with children as ‘lively entanglements’ in which special attention should be given to things that matter to children.     

Governability of Democracies: —A Japanese Perspective—*

Abstract Some twenty years ago, the Trilateral Commission organized a project on ‘governability’ of democracies. At that time, North American and West-European democracies were facing serious crises of governability. while Japan was not. Now, although Japanese democracy is not in total crisis, but is facing new tasks to be tackled as a ‘major industrial democracy.’ Homogenization of economic institutions among major industrial countries is functionally inevitable in an age of globalized economy. Political reforms to enhance it are urgently required. Burden sharing for world democratic governance is posing serious tasks to Japan as a ‘civilian power.’ Although it is certain that Japan will remain as a democracy for any foreseeable future, but her governability in the sense of the capacity to contribute to world democratic governance is now, and will be, put on severe trial for years to come.