Natural justice and the big public inquiry: a sociological perspective

The paper argues that discussion about procedural reform of the public inquiry system in academic public administration has taken an overly formal view of procedures and has failed fully to understand how and why there is widespread criticism of‘Big Public Inquiries’from those who participate in them. Following a review of the central problems with the existing public inquiry process, it is suggested that the work of Basil Bernstein on the‘classification’and‘framing’of knowledge can be readily utilised to develop a perspective for studying natural justice in big public inquiries m a sociological rather than merely a legal sense.     

Violence,the occult and the everyday: a Radio Zulu drama of the 1980s

This article explores how the medium of radio through the genre of radio drama enables the exploration of issues of power and violence in a way that is both public and intensely private. It argues that through the airing of a topic as feared, as secret and yet as pervasively present – or potentially so – as the supernatural and the occult, radio drama can open up for debate areas of modern life around which there is often official silence. The focus is on a double serial drama, single parts of a proverb, Yiz’ Uvalo and Inqobo Yisibindi (“In Spite of Fear, the Victor is Courage”). I discuss the power of radio to create an interactive community and particular public and the power of this particular drama to harness listeners’ interest, emotions and fears. It had the ability to fascinate and delight and to create a parallel world, which intersected with events but at the same time kept its own internal dynamic which impelled its listeners on with it. I explore too the particular elements within people’s lives and imaginings with which this drama interacted, and how this contributed to its extraordinary “success.”     

Mapping the body,voicing the margins: Using body maps to understand children’s embodied experiences of violence in Kingston,Jamaica

The study explores how children in an inner-city community of Jamaica deal with everyday violence. Using an art-based method called body mapping, we explored the ways children made sense of issues related to power, vulnerability, risk and resilience. The findings show how children's narratives and memories of their bodies merged with broader social and cultural structures governing their lives. Expressing their embodied experiences through the body mapping exercise, the children challenged and resisted normative sociocultural schemes of how they should be in the world by creating, re-envisioning and re-contextualising their bodies via a method that engaged with affective modes of knowledge.     

Figured Worlds in the Field of Power

This article seeks to deepen our understanding of how structural relations of power should be understood in local accounts of activity and identity. Thus, we critically review the synthesis of Bourdieu and activity theory in Figured Worlds, analyzing two critiques of Bourdieu: his insufficient localism and his overemphasis on embodiment of habitus. We are left with Bourdieu’s overwhelming concern to explain how the field of power is locally refracted and critique its doxa in a field of opinion, while arguably doing so at the expense of imagination, self-authoring, and world making. We conclude with our own suggestions of a synthesis.     

Examining concepts of power and agency in research with young people

Concepts of power and agency have become increasingly prominent in the youth studies literatures and related research. A focus of the research to date has been an examination of how a better understanding of young people's lived experiences can reveal possibilities for young people's agency to emerge. Despite increased interest in the term agency, much less has been said about how the concept is defined and recognized in research with young people, including what the concept may entail but crucially, how the term is linked to and underpinned by the related concept of power. This paper seeks to contribute to our understanding of power and agency as utilized in research with young people. The discussion that follows identifies the possible ways in which different theoretical positions shape our understanding of how power and agency are investigated and how these understandings inform the ways we interpret young people's perspectives and actions as holding potential for ‘agency’. Drawing on recent empirical examples, we consider how varying interpretations of power and/or agency shape not only the ways in which young people's agentic experiences are theorized (and the related ontological and epistemological assumptions these positions imply) but also the presumed effects of that agency.     

Supplying lead firms,intangible assets and power in global value chains: Explaining governance in the fertilizer chain

Global suppliers of agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertilizers and agrochemicals exert increasing degrees of power in global value chains (GVCs). Although the GVC literature has explained how global buyers govern GVCs from the buying-end, the question of how global suppliers achieve governance from the supplying-end remains underexplored. We address this gap by combining a multidimensional typology of power with literature on intangible assets. We argue that intangible assets are crucial resources for global suppliers to morph otherwise ungovernable supply chains for undifferentiated input commodities into more sophisticated and governable GVCs. We illustrate our argument with the case of the global fertilizer supplier, YARA International. YARA's intangible asset investments were instrumental in governing the value chain integration of Tanzanian smallholder farmers. They allowed YARA to exert more than bargaining power (demonstrative, institutional and constitutive power) and to effectively position itself as supplying lead firm in Tanzania's agro-industrial GVC.     

Perceptions of power: An exploration of the dynamics in the student-tutor-practice teacher relationship within child protection placements

Challenging the abuse of power is seen as a fundamental issue within child protection work which makes unique demands upon the practitioner. Within this context, the authors explore the dynamics of power that exist within the triangular relationship between student, tutor and practice teacher when practice placements take place within child protection settings.

The authors reflect upon three years of experience of co-ordinating student placements in the NSPCC in the North West, using their own first-hand experiences as well as retrospective evaluations of placements completed by students, practice teachers and tutors. They analyse information from a questionnaire designed by the authors to focus students', practice teachers' and tutors' thoughts on issues of power. The authors reflect on how these issues of power have both positively and negatively affected the quality of the placement and hypothesise that issues of power existing in the triangular relationship can mirror and replicate those present within families and systems where abuse occurs. The implications of the above for the development of anti-oppressive practice learning are discussed and various models presented as practice tools to be used by students and practice teachers.     

Promoting resilience and emotional well-being of transgender young people: research at the intersections of gender and sexuality

Within lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) research there is increasing health-related scholarship on trans lives, with a growing awareness of the impact of health inequalities on trans well-being. The aim of the paper is to provide greater understanding of transgender young people’s views of what is needed to promote their emotional well-being and resilience by undertaking specific analysis of data collected as part of wider research with young people (n?=?97). The study utilised participatory qualitative methods with a cross sectional design generating data via a focus group with trans youth (n?=?5), followed by thematic analysis. Findings suggest that both individual and collective capacities or resources enable and sustain resilience and well-being for trans young people. The adversity trans youth face is present in school, the community and in healthcare, but they are able to find places where they feel safe and connected to others. Practitioners, teachers and school nurses are well positioned to facilitate structural change in alliance with trans youth to promote resilience. Research results were utilised to inform health improvement, commissioning and service delivery.     

The social power of algorithms

ABSTRACT

This article explores the questions associated with what might be thought of as the social power of algorithms. The article, which introduces a special issue on the same topic, begins by reflecting on how we might approach algorithms from a social scientific perspective. The article is then split into two sections. The first deals with the issues that might be associated with an analysis of the power of the algorithms themselves. This section outlines a series of issues associated with the functionality of the algorithms and how these functions are powerfully deployed within social world. The second section then focuses upon the notion of the algorithm. In this section, the article argues that we need to look beyond the algorithms themselves, as a technical and material presence, to explore how the notion or concept of the algorithm is also an important feature of their potential power. In this section, it is suggested that we look at the way that notions of the algorithm are evoked as a part of broader rationalities and ways of seeing the world. Exploring the notion of the algorithm may enable us to see how algorithms also play a part in social ordering processes, both in terms of how the algorithm is used to promote certain visions of calculative objectivity and also in relation to the wider governmentalities that this concept might be used to open up.     

Young people and social networking sites: exploring the views and training opportunities of CAMHS social workers in Ireland

ABSTRACT

Social Networking Sites (SNS) (e.g. Facebook, Instagram) have become a fundamental part of the daily lives of many young people. SNS engagement has been associated with a number of risks and benefits, some of which are particularly relevant to young people who access child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). Consequently, understanding how and why young people engage with SNS, and the associated risks and benefits, may become an increasingly important part of CAMHS social work.

This small-scale study (n = 15) utilised an online survey to explore the importance that a sample of Irish CAMHS social workers attribute to maintaining an awareness of how young people use SNS, whether they, in their professional lives, have been offered the opportunity to learn about SNS engagement among young people, and whether they have taken it upon themselves to learn about this topic.

Findings suggest that participants consider an understanding of SNS to be an important part of CAMHS practice. However, participants report that they do not feel sufficiently aware of SNS trends among young people, suggesting that there is scope for SNS-focused training/learning opportunities among this sample of CAMHS social workers. Implications for practice and suggestions for future research are outlined.     

Irresponsible Engagement and the Citizen Investor

The study investigates how shareholders are constructed and engaged with through public relations in the Australian financial sector. The web sites and annual and sustainability reports of major Australian companies and investment funds were examined through qualitative content analysis. Findings indicate that a hierarchical distinction exists within the discrete but amorphous stakeholder group known as shareholders, where privilege and disadvantage exist alongside disparate levels of power and agency. This is perpetuated by and through irresponsible public relations, which constructs a discourse of ownership that excludes citizens as legitimate stakeholders limiting their capacity to influence more ethical corporate decisions and practices. Recommendations are offered for how public relations might engage shareholders more responsibly.     

Construction of organizational identity claim and understanding in nonprofits: Evidence from Pakistan's voluntary organizations

There is a substantial research literature on nonprofits identity claim and identity understanding but much less on how these identities are constructed in the first place. This article explores how identity claim and identity understanding are constructed in the nonprofits and reasons for such constructions. Exploratory multiple case study analysis was conducted with two voluntary organizations. The results showed that three factors play a significant role in construction of identity claim; founders, funding, and power of stakeholders. The construction of identity understanding is influenced by the claim and is often in sync until the funding source changes leading to a dissimilar identity understanding. The members, however, showed reluctance to embrace the new identity due to the power of stakeholders and fear of mission drift. The unsynchronized claim and understanding caused confusions among the members as they juggled between adopting the new identity understanding and keeping a dissimilar claim. This confusion hinders the nonprofits growth and they struggle to answer what they want to be in future.     

Wrestling with the Angels of Meaning: The Revisionist Ideological Work of Gay and Ex‐Gay Christian Men

Ideological change is arduous and complex work, particularly for marginalized groups that lack the power and authority to challenge dominant ideas. This study analyzes how subordinates can accomplish ideological change and under what conditions such change is likely to occur. More specifically, in this ethnographic study of two groups of men—gay Christian and ex‐gay Christian—I map a process of “ideological maneuvering” by which the men were able to sidestep dominant power and revise traditional Christian ideology in ways that accommodated their sexuality. In doing so, the men were able to construct moral identities and mitigate psychological distress. On a broader level, an examination of this process reveals how ideological revision is constrained by and reproduces inequality. We also see how this process helps to create new symbolic resources that can be used to expand culture.     

Colonization,coloniality and bio-power: biopolitics in Queensland,Australia

This essay illustrates how a Foucauldian theory of power could re-examine postcolonial, coloniality or colonization contexts, as opposed to the current structuralist and hierarchal theories of understanding power that colonization studies, such as coloniality/modernity or postcolonial studies, use to theorize colonization and race. I argue that a structuralist and hierarchal conceptualization of power relations in understanding colonization and its relationship with racism can be problematic, and that the Foucauldian heterarchical (non-hierarchal) understanding of power relations instead draws a more complete picture of the operation of colonization. In order to demonstrate this claim, I firstly briefly explain how colonization has been mainly theorized through postcolonial and coloniality studies. Then I introduce the relevance of Michel Foucault’s work in the problem of colonization, focusing on his theories of racism and the idea of biopolitics. Then I illustrate how a heterarchical theory of biopolitical power was used against Indigenous Australians in Queensland via the implementation of the Queensland Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act of 1897. Lastly, I offer some preliminary notes for conceptualizing the global assemblage of the ‘State of Exception’ in the context of colonial Queensland, Australia.     

An Archi-texture of Learning Disability Services: the use of Michel Foucault

The work of Michel Foucault has been widely used in the social sciences to explore relationships of power and knowledge. This paper utilises Foucault's methods in an initial formation of discourse in the problem of care of people with learning disabilities in the twentieth century, and focuses on the problematisation of people with learning disabilities and their care needs. Little has been published regarding the contingencies of past and current practices in any form of systematic way within learning disability services. Neither has literature on disablism been utilised to support these contingencies. In order to establish a basis for the establishment of this discussion, the work and methodologies of Foucault have been utilised to develop ideas and a textual framework, and links are made with disablist literature. This paper is split into two halves; first classification and support structures, and secondly an architexture of learning disability services.     

Enlargement and the balance of power: an experimental study

Theoretical analysis suggests that enlargement of a voting body may affect the balance of power between the original members even if their number of votes and the decision rule remain constant. Some of the existing voters may actually gain, a phenomenon known as the paradox of new members. We test for this effect using laboratory experiments. Participants propose and vote on how to divide a budget according to weighted majority voting rules, and we measure the voting power of a player by his average payoff in the experiment. By comparing voting power across voting bodies of varying size, we find empirical support for the paradox of new members.     

The Mobilization Against the 2005 Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe: A French Mobilization for Another Europe

ABSTRACT

Offering a contribution to cultural approaches to studying social movements, this paper explores how people incorporate social change efforts into broader self-projects. I use the contemporary abstinence pledge movement as an archetypal example of a lifestyle movement, a movement that advocates for lifestyle change as its primary challenge to perceived cultural problems. To capture the public face crafted by this movement, I coded complete website content for ten pledge organizations, as well as their print and social media presence. The data demonstrate: how pledge organizations explicitly target culture, rather than pressuring the state to enact policy change; how participants employ individualized tactics while still believing in their collective power to engender change; and that pledgers craft a moral self, engaging in ‘personal’ identity work. Expanding the lifestyle movement literature to think about outcomes and influence, I then show how pledgers contest perceptions of movement success, redefining effectiveness towards abstract, long-term, and subjective measures. I conclude by locating lifestyle movements in the context of late modernity and suggesting how theorists might use and further develop the concept in the future.     

Linking power and inequality in global value chains

There is increasing interest in the study of globalization on whether the emergence and consolidation of global value chains (GVCs) have exacerbated inequalities within and across nations and/or how GVCs may be leveraged to mitigate them. Although power asymmetries have been identified as a central factor shaping (un)successful GVC participation, dominant discourses still disregard the links between power and inequality or use these concepts interchangeably. In this article, we provide an analytical approach to GVC-related inequalities (within, along and through value chains) and examine how they may co-evolve with different types of power (bargaining, demonstrative, institutional and constitutive). We apply this approach to the case study of the hake value chain in South Africa to illustrate how existing inequalities are manifested, challenged, mitigated or exacerbated—and draw an agenda for future research.