scholarly journals Female slam poets of francophone Africa: spirited words for social change

Africa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 91 (5) ◽  
pp. 742-767
Author(s):  
Mirjam de Bruijn ◽  
Loes Oudenhuijsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Francophone Africa ◽  
Popular Knowledge ◽  
The Status ◽  
Gendered Power

AbstractSlam poets in Africa are part of an emerging social movement. In this article, the focus is on women in this upcoming slam movement in francophone Africa. For these women, slam has meant a change in their lives as they have found words to describe difficult experiences that were previously shrouded in silence. Their words, performances and engaged actions are developing into a body of popular knowledge that questions the status quo and relates to the ‘emerging consciousness’ in many African urban societies of unequal, often gendered, power relations. The women who engage in slam have thus become a voice for the emancipation of women in general.

Traditions and Transformations

2021 ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Regina Marler
Keyword(s):  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Female Role ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Florence Nightingale ◽  
The Status ◽  
Childhood Home ◽  
Octavia Hill

Modernist, feminist, experimental: the terms we now most associate with Virginia Woolf all presuppose a break with conventions and a rejection of the status quo in art and power relations. Yet all her life, Virginia Woolf kept returning in memory to her childhood home, to the crowded Victorian family in which she was raised, where boys went to the best schools that Sir Leslie Stephen could afford, and girls, however clever or gifted, were shaped for charitable work, for motherhood, for marriage to prominent men. This obsessive turning back is a kind of pained nostalgia: a lament, a grievance, a comfort—and the engine of even her most avant-garde work. This chapter explores the traditions and assumptions of that potent childhood world, in part through the prism of three conservative female role models her mother, Julia Stephen, chose for her daughters: Mrs. Humphry Ward, Octavia Hill, and Florence Nightingale.

scholarly journals Narrating technonatures: discourses of biotechnology in a neoliberal era

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 186
Author(s):  
Myles Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Effective Strategy ◽  
Economic Implications ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Status ◽  
Political Economic

This article considers the role played by discourses of nature in structuring the cultural politics of anti-GMO activism. It argues that such discourses have been successful rhetorical tools for activists because they mobilize widely resonant nature-culture dualisms that separate the natural and human worlds. However, these discourses hold dubious political implications. In valorizing the natural as a source of essential truth, natural purity discourses fail to challenge how naturalizations have been used to legitimize sexist, racist and colonial systems of injustice and oppression. Rather, they revitalize the discursive purchase of appeals to nature as a justification for the status quo, indirectly reinforcing existing power relations. Moreover, these discourses fail to challenge the critical though contingent reality of GMOs' location within the wider framework of neoliberal social relations. Fortunately, appeals to natural purity have not been the only effective strategy for opposing GMOs. Activist campaigns that directly target the political economic implications of GMOs within the context of neoliberalism have also had successes without resorting to appeals to the purity of nature. The successes of these campaigns suggest that while nature-culture dualisms remain politically effective normative groundings, concerns over equity, farmers' rights, and democracy retain potential as ideological terrains in the struggle for social justice.

scholarly journals Conflict Between Hizb Ut-Tahrir And Islamic Civil Society In Indonesia:A Countermovement Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-191
Author(s):  
Hasbi Aswar ◽  
Danial Bin Mohd. Yusof ◽  
Rohana Binti Abdul Hamid
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Case Study Research ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Political Narratives ◽  
The Status ◽  
Nahdlatul Ulama ◽  
Movement Study

In a social movement study, countermovement emerges when certain movement is considered to bring threat to the status quo or the current political and social condition. Social movement seeks for changing the existing situation while the countermovement pursues to keep it. As a result, the conflict between two becomes inevitable, where both will compete to win over the other. The existence of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Indonesia (HTI) for years is responded by some Islamic groups especially Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and its allies, as threat to the Indonesian life due to the idea brought by HTI. It becomes the root of conflict between HTI and other Islamic groups in Indonesia. This article aims to explain the conflict between HTI and other Islamic groups by elaborating the effort of the Islamic groups to counter the HTI narratives and mobilization by using countermovement approach in social movement studies. This article is a case study research and using mainly secondary data to analyze the issue. This article found that Nahdlatul Ulama as the main countermovement played significant role to counter Hizb ut-Tahrir`s religious and political narratives as well as its political mobilization.

The Millennial/Gen Z Leftists Are Emerging: Are Sociologists Ready for Them?

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 408-427
Author(s):  
Elaine Bell Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
The Status ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Do So

Sociology is being challenged by the new generation of students and scholars who have another view of society. Millennial/Gen Zs are the most progressive generation since the 1960s. We have had many opportunities to discuss and imagine power, diversity, and social change when we teach them in our classes or attend their campus events. Some Millennial/Gen Z believe, especially those in academia, that social scientists are tied to old theories and ideologies about race and gender, among other inconsistencies. These old ideas do not resonate with their views regarding equity. Millennials are not afraid to challenge the status quo. They do so already by supporting multiple gender and race identities. Several questions come to mind. How do we as sociologists with our sense of history and other issues such as racial and gender inequality help them along the way? Are we ready for this generation? Are they ready for us?

Victimization and Asymmetric Gendered Power Relations: A Linguistic Investigation of Harassment Complaints Registered in Lahore

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Umara Shaheen ◽  
María Isabel Maldonado García
Keyword(s):  
Social Transformation ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Gender Ideologies ◽  
Gender Oppression ◽  
The Status ◽  
Gendered Power ◽  
Status Of Women

This paper presents an investigation of the linguistic choices employed in harassment complaints submitted to the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women and four police stations located in Lahore during 2017-2018. In a patriarchal society such as Pakistan’s, where a woman’s honour epitomizes the whole family’s honour (Atakav 2015, 52; Sharlach 2008, 96), sexual harassment, a stigmatizing issue is hardly ever reported (Ali and Kramar 2015, 241). This paper, using Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis’s (Lazar, 2005, 2007) theoretical perspective of asymmetrical gendered power relations mirrored in harassment complaints, explores the form and severity of harassing practices which had prompted women in Lahore to report them. In order to unwrap the complex interplay of gender and power, linguistic features of the complaints are examined through Fairclough’s text analysis (1989, 1992), the first dimension of the 3D model which explores lexical choices such as adjectives, adverbs, culturally informed metaphors and metaphorical extensions, which are embedded in grammatical structure exemplified through transitivity analysis. In this paper, harassment complaints are analysed as important documents invested with socio-cultural gender ideologies that underline the need for dismantling gender oppression to achieve social transformation.

On Social Stability and Social Change

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 360-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron C. Kay ◽  
Justin Friesen
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Personal Control ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
System Justification ◽  
Social Stability ◽  
System Justification Theory ◽  
The Status ◽  
System Threat ◽  
Do So

More than a decade of research from the perspective of system-justification theory (Jost & Banaji, 1994) has demonstrated that people engage in motivated psychological processes that bolster and support the status quo. We propose that this motive is highly contextual: People do not justify their social systems at all times but are more likely to do so under certain circumstances. We describe four contexts in which people are prone to engage in system-justifying processes: (a) system threat, (b) system dependence, (c) system inescapability, and (d) low personal control. We describe how and why, in these contexts, people who wish to promote social change might expect resistance.

scholarly journals Bring Your Own Politics: Life Strategies and Mobilization in Response to Urban Redevelopment

Sociology ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 003803852110594
Author(s):  
Anna Zhelnina
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Urban Redevelopment ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Life Strategies ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Strategic Action ◽  
The Status ◽  
Renewal Project ◽  
Urban Renewal Project

This article contributes to social movement literature and theories of strategic action by making the case for an analytic distinction between habitual and intentional life strategies, namely the ways in which people pursue what they value in life. Housing strategies are one example of life strategies. The distinction helps explain how political players, including social movements, bring about social change (or preserve the status quo) by changing or reinforcing people’s minds and their preferred ways of action. They can achieve their goals by first recognizing these habitual strategies, and then prompting people to articulate or adjust them during interactive, group-level situations. My analysis relies on a qualitative study of Renovation, a controversial urban renewal project in Moscow. I examine how Muscovites revisited, articulated and sometimes revised their housing strategies in response to the surprising, and for some, shocking announcement of the relocation project.

scholarly journals Studying a Heterogeneous Array of Target Groups Can Help Us Understand Prejudice

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 292-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark J. Brandt ◽  
Jarret T. Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Perceived Discrimination ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Target Groups ◽  
The Status

Prejudice can be expressed toward a wide array of target groups, but it is often operationalized as being expressed toward a narrower array of groups. By studying a heterogeneous array of target groups, we can draw broader conclusions about prejudice writ large. Here, we describe our research, in which we seek to understand constructs that consistently predict prejudice across a wide array of groups (consistent predictors), as well as constructs that predict prejudice for only some types of groups (inconsistent predictors). For inconsistent predictors, we can also identify the perceived characteristics of the target groups (e.g., status, ideology) that are associated with expressed prejudice. Studying a heterogeneous array of target groups opens up new questions related to morality, cognitive processing, and perceived discrimination but also suggests that prejudice, depending on the group, can be a motivating force preserving the status quo or prompting social change.

Responding to Climate Change Disaster

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 161-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jolanda Jetten ◽  
Kelly S. Fielding ◽  
Charlie R. Crimston ◽  
Frank Mols ◽  
S. Alexander Haslam
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Disaster Preparedness ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Shared Identity ◽  
The Status ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
Tackle Climate Change ◽  
Post Disaster

Abstract. Climate change-induced disasters (e.g., bushfires, droughts, and flooding) occur more frequently and with greater intensity than in previous decades. Disasters can at times fuel social change but that is not guaranteed. To understand whether disasters lead to status quo maintenance or social change, we propose a model (Social Identity Model of Post-Disaster Action; SIMPDA) which focuses on the role of leadership in the aftermath of a disaster. Looking specifically at climate change-related disasters, we propose that intragroup and intergroup dynamics in both the pre-disaster as well as the post-disaster context affect whether leadership (a) has the potential to mobilize social identity resources to enable social change, or else (b) fails to capitalize on emerging social identity resources in ways that ultimately maintain the status quo. Given the importance of urgent climate change action, we predict that status quo maintenance is associated with post-disaster paralysis. In contrast, social change that is set in train by capitalizing on social identity-based resources holds the promise of greater post-disaster learning and enhanced disaster preparedness when it is focused on addressing the challenges brought about by climate change. We apply this model to understand responses to the 2019/2020 bushfires in Australia. Our analysis suggests that while an emerging sense of shared identity centered on acting to tackle climate change provides a window of opportunity for securing increased disaster preparedness, this opportunity risks being missed due to, among other things, the absence of leaders able and willing to engage in constructive identity-based leadership.

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