The Totalisation of Human Social Practice: Open Marxists and Capitalist Social Relations, Foucauldians and Power Relations

2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 332-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Bruff
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Know How ◽  
Critical Approaches

This article critiques Open Marxism for an ontology which totalises human social practice—for Open Marxists, capitalist social relations are the singular constitutive source of human activity. Such a stance is superficially attractive yet ultimately inadequate, and I reinforce my case by demonstrating how other critical approaches—in this article, Foucauldian perspectives on power—suffer from similar deficiencies. Thus there is a need to resist the temptation of claiming to know how human social practice can be understood with recourse to a singular aspect (no matter how important) of such practice. I conclude that an excellent example of how to avoid such pitfalls is provided by Antonio Gramsci's writings, for they acknowledge the multifaceted yet nevertheless anchored existence lived by humans in capitalist societies.

scholarly journals A Critical Discourse Analysis of Representations of Travellers in Public Policies in Ireland

Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Claire Jane Snowdon ◽  
Leena Eklund Eklund Karlsson
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Negative Stereotypes

In Ireland, negative stereotypes of the Traveller population have long been a part of society. The beliefs that surround this minority group may not be based in fact, yet negative views persist such that Travellers find themselves excluded from mainstream society. The language used in discourse plays a critical role in the way Travellers are represented. This study analyses the discourse in the public policy regarding Travellers in the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy (NTRIS) 2017–2021. This study performs a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the policy with the overall aims of showing signs of the power imbalance through the use of language and revealing the discourses used by elite actors to retain power and sustain existing social relations. The key findings show that Travellers are represented as a homogenous group that exists outside of society. They have no control over how their social identity is constructed. The results show that the constructions of negative stereotypes are intertextually linked to previous policies, and the current policy portrays them in the role of passive patients, not powerful actors. The discursive practice creates polarity between the “settled” population and the “Travellers”, who are implicitly blamed by the state for their disadvantages. Through the policy, the government disseminates expert knowledge, which legitimises the inequality and supports this objective “truth”. This dominant discourse, which manifests in wider social practice, can facilitate racism and social exclusion. This study highlights the need for Irish society to change the narrative to support an equitable representation of Travellers.

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 Site of Resistance or Apparatus of Acquiescence? Tactics at the Bakery

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 160-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Ciro Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
The Social ◽  
Resistance State ◽  
Laws And Regulations

This article explores the importance and impact of a set of actions through which bakers manipulate laws and regulations that seek to organize and regulate how they do business. It builds on eighteen months of fieldwork conducted in Jordan, twelve of which were spent working in three different bakeries in the capital, Amman. Moving away from the idea that public policies are simply imposed, the article looks in detail at the social relations through which they are enacted. By honing in on the bakery, and examining arrangements between bakery owners, workers, consumers and ministerial employees, it illuminates modes of political agency that escape conventional binaries of domination/resistance, state/society and legality/illegality. I argue against seeing these practices as easily categorized forms of resistance or frivolous acts of corruption. Nor are they simply reinforcements of hegemonic control. Instead, ‘tactics’ at the bakery subvert the order of things to serve other ends. Foregrounding them in this analysis seeks not only to challenge views of power relations as strictly binary but to elucidate some of the ways in which citizens inhabit and engage with the neoliberal and authoritarian logics that pervade everyday life in Jordan.

The Persistence of Formalism: Towards a Situated Critique beyond the Classic Separation of Powers

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose R. Rodriguez
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Legal Theory ◽  
Theory Of Law ◽  
General Method

Formalism persists everywhere despite 100 years of critical legal theory. The reasons for that are sociological and political and include the persistence of the separation of powers idea as a central concept for the theory of law. In Brazil, this phenomenon manifests itself acutely for two supplementary reasons: (1) the lack of a real differentiation between academic research and professional lawyering and (2) the influence of neo-liberal economic thought.The persistence of formalism is a serious problem for Brazilian development since it naturalizes the existing institutions and their related power positions, creating an obstacle to any project of development that proposes something new. It blocks the development of a critical and reflexive knowledge on institutions, shortening institutional imagination to projects that could transform Brazilian reality.The main objective of this article is to develop a critique of formalism useful both as a general method to criticize formalism and as a tool to criticize its Brazilian manifestation. It will be argued here that the critique of formalism fails when it is only theoretical. An efficient critique must also grasp the ideas and the social relations responsible to reproduce formalism as a conceptual idea that informs social practices.To do that, this article will first propose a characterization of Brazilian formalism that does not fit in the Formalism X Instrumentalism dichotomy and is more adequate to grasp how law rationality works in countries from the Continental Law tradition. Afterwards, it will identify the power positions and the respective ideologies responsible to reproduce formalism in Brazil, giving criticism a sociological basis. Finally, it will show that only a positive view of what law should be will able to overcome formalism, both as a philosophical idea and as a social practice. In its final part, a sketch of such a view will be presented.

Digging into “Resource War” Beliefs

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 26-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Le Billon
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Resource Control ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
War Narratives ◽  
Water Wars ◽  
The Future ◽  
Widespread Belief ◽  
Multiple Causes

Water wars, oil conflicts and blood diamonds. Three terms reflecting a widespread belief that people fight over resources. Is this belief backed by evidence? What power relations does such a belief reflect and shape? If natural resources have a conspicuous presence in accounts of armed conflicts, the term ‘resource wars’ represents a gross oversimplification. Strategically deployed to prepare for ‘the wars of the future’ or to shame belligerents by exposing their ‘greedy’ motives, ‘resource war’ narratives often overlook the multiple causes of conflict and alternative options to militarized resource control. A main threat from ‘resource wars’ narratives is that they become self-fulfilling prophecies. As such, ‘resource wars’ studies should first be self-reflexive, and then strive to encompass the broad causes, specific historical contexts, and wide variety of effects that resource sectors have on the environment and social relations.

scholarly journals KELOMPOK KEPENTINGAN DAN RELASI KUASA DALAM PENGELOLAAN SUMBER DAYA LAUT PALABUHANRATU

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Royandi ◽  
Arif Satria ◽  
Saharuddin Saharuddin
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Marine Resources ◽  
Steam Power ◽  
Technology Knowledge ◽  
Steam Power Plants ◽  
Sea Transportation ◽  
Transportation Routes ◽  
Access Mechanisms

Tujuan penelitian ini adalah menganalisis aktor dan relasi kekuasaan yang terjadi dalam pengelolaan sumber daya laut Palabuhanratu.  Lokasi penelitian di Perairan Laut Palabuhanratu, Sukabumi, Jawa Barat. Penelitian menggunakan metode kualitatif. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa semua aktor membangun kekuasaan melalui mekanisme akses berbasis hak dan mekanismes akses berbasis struktur dan relasi sosial dengan basis kekuasaan modal, pasar, teknologi, pengetahuan, identitas sosial, otoritas, dan patron klien. Kelompok nelayan lokal, nelayan dari luar (nelayan Banten) dan nelayan pendatang etnis Jawa berupaya mempertahankan akses, sementara kelompok nelayan etnis Bugis berupaya mengontrol akses terhadap sumber daya laut. Perbedaan posisi antar kelompok nelayan menyebabkan terjadinya relasi kekuasaan antar kelompok nelayan dalam memperoleh sumber daya laut Palabuhanratu. Sementara aktivitas pihak pengelola PLTU dianggap membatasi kekuasaan kelompok nelayan melalui penggunaan wilayah pesisir dan penggunaan jalur transportasi laut. Keterbatasan akses kelompok nelayan menyebabkan terjadinya relasi kuasa antara nelayan dengan pengelola PLTU. Title: Group of Interest and Relation Power in The Utilization of Marine Resources PalabuhanratuThe purpose of this study is to analyze the actors and power relations occured in the management of Palabuhanratu marine resources. Research was located in Palabuhanratu Sea Waters, Sukabumi, West Java. Research used qualitative methods. Results of the study showed that all actors built power through right-based access mechanisms and mechanisms based on structure and social relations with a basis of power of capital, markets, technology, knowledge, social identity, authority, and patron clients. Local fishing groups, outside fishers (Banten fishers) and Javanese ethnic fishers tried to maintain access, while Bugis ethnic fishers groups tried to control access to marine resources. Differences in position between fishers groups led to power relations among the groups in obtaining Palabuhanratu marine resources. While the activities of the management of the Steam Power Plant (PLTU) were considered to limit the power of fishers groups through the use of coastal areas and sea transportation routes. Limited access of fishers groups led to power relations between fishers and managers of Steam Power Plants (PLTU). 

scholarly journals Key Components of Musical Discourse Analysis

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evgeniya Aleshinskaya
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
General View ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Social Agents ◽  
The Social ◽  
Musical Discourse ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study

Abstract Musical discourse analysis is an interdisciplinary study which is incomplete without consideration of relevant social, linguistic, psychological, visual, gestural, ritual, technical, historical and musicological aspects. In the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis, musical discourse can be interpreted as social practice: it refers to specific means of representing specific aspects of the social (musical) sphere. The article introduces a general view of contemporary musical discourse, and analyses genres from the point of ‘semiosis’, ‘social agents’, ‘social relations’, ‘social context’, and ‘text’. These components of musical discourse analysis, in their various aspects and combinations, should help thoroughly examine the context of contemporary musical art, and determine linguistic features specific to different genres of musical discourse.

On critical approaches, unintended consequences and the data of everyday life in ‘performing towns’

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Fleisher
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Urban Communities ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
Theory Of Practice ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
The Way

I welcome Axel Christophersen's effort to offer a new approach to the study of Scandinavian medieval urban communities, and his outline of an ‘urban archaeology of social practice’. His presentation of a theoretical framework and language offers many insights as to how archaeologists can analyse the way people constructed their social lives through practice. It is exciting to see studies that grapple with the complexities of everyday life in urban settings. This article makes a significant contribution in its explicit approach to a theory of practice that archaeologists can use to explore and describe social change. Christophersen draws heavily on the work of Shove, Pantzar and Watson as detailed in their 2012 bookThe dynamics of social practice. Everyday life and how it changes; I was unfamiliar with this work until reading this essay and I am impressed with the way this framework offers a language and a concrete approach to understanding how practices emerge, evolve and disappear. My goal here is not to revisit the details of this argument, but rather to push on some select issues raised in the paper. I first discuss the way that Christophersen frames his arguments against a processual archaeological approach, suggesting that his effort to provide an alternative might be unintentionally minimizing a more critical approach to everyday life. Next, I discuss the role and place of unintended consequences in Christophersen's argument. And finally I examine the way that Christophersen's approach might be more fully operationalized with data, providing some examples from my own work in eastern Africa.

In the General's Valley

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-197
Author(s):  
Robert Wyrod
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Rural Setting ◽  
Scale Transformation ◽  
New Politics ◽  
Development Partner ◽  
Dramatic Shift ◽  
Development Approach

Since the turn of the millennium, the landscape of development in Africa has undergone a dramatic shift. China has significantly expanded its foreign aid and investment in the region, decentering the West as Africa's main development partner. What is largely missing from China-Africa scholarship, however, is attention to how the new Chinese presence in Africa is both embedded in and altering everyday social relations. This article examines these issues in a rural setting in Uganda that is in the midst of a large-scale transformation into a China-funded industrial park. It reveals that the complex new politics of Chinese development assistance are intertwined with, and often exacerbate, existing social inequalities based in politics, class, ethnicity, and race. More conceptually, these dynamics demonstrate the need to rethink how we frame development as a transnational field of social practice. China is more than an outlier within the global field of development and instead should be viewed as pursuing its own form of development, what I call “developmental pragmatism.” As this case study illustrates, this developmental pragmatism often turns on synergies between the business-focused development approach of the Chinese and the priorities of more authoritarian governments—synergies that require much greater critical attention.

Geo-locations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peta Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Spatial Turn ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Humanities And Social Sciences

Since around 1970, and across a broad spectrum of humanities and social sciences disciplines, there has been an ongoing and critical reassessment of the role played by space, place, and geography in the formation and unfolding of human knowledge, subjectivity, and social relations. Starting with the identification of a distinctive “spatial turn” within critical and social theory in the second half of the 20th century, it has become a commonplace to recognize space as being political and as having a particular affective and effective power. A distinctive constellation of socio-technological changes at the start of the 20th century brought the question of space to the critical foreground, and, by the end of the 20th century, a loosely defined and interdisciplinary “spatial theory” had emerged, while a number of fields across the humanities and social sciences had avowedly undergone their own “spatial turns.” More recently, new critical approaches have emerged that foreground the geo- as both a starting point and method for critical analysis as well as new inter-disciplines—namely the geohumanities and spatial humanities—that provide a focus for the range of work being done at the interstices of geography and the humanities. With the rise to ubiquity of geospatial and geolocative technologies since around 2005—and their almost wholesale penetration into everyday life in the global North in the form of the GPS-enabled smartphone—the question of the geo- and its role in locating and mediating human experience, knowledge, and social relations has become ever more salient. In an era where the geo- becomes geolocation, and is increasingly defined by networked relations among humans, digital media, and their locational data traces, new approaches and schools of thought that transect geography, digital media, and critical and cultural theory have once more emerged, constituting what may be thought of as a new, digital spatial turn. Charting the trajectory of the geo- as a key site and mode of critique across and through these often overlapping “spatial turns”—across time, space, and disciplinary boundaries—is itself a work of geolocation.

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