Bridging the Social and the Symbolic: Toward a Feminist Politics of Sexual Difference

Hypatia ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 19-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Zakin
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
The Public ◽  
Feminist Politics ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Language Law

By clarifying the psychoanalytic notion of sexual difference (and contrasting it with a feminist analysis of gender as social reality), I argue that the symbolic dimension of psychical life cannot be discarded in developing political accounts of identity formation and the status of women in the public sphere. I discuss various bridges between social reality and symbolic structure, bridges such as body, language, law, and family. I conclude that feminist attention must be redirected to the unconscious since the political cannot be localized in, or segregated to, the sphere of social reality; sexual difference is an indispensable concept for a feminist politics.

scholarly journals Pluralism, Disagreement, and the Status of Argument in the Public Sphere

2005 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Asen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Social Function ◽  
Responsibility Attribution ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Status ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
The Public Sphere

Argument teachers and scholars have frequently invoked external justification-impressing one's viewpoint upon another-as the primary social function of argument. Pluralism and fundamental disagreement in contemporary democratic societies raise questions regarding the status of argument, including the functions argument should serve. In this essay, I suggest alternatives of agenda expansion, responsibility attribution, and identity formation as important functions of argument in diverse societies. These alternative functions are especially important under conditions of social inequality, since they allow less powerful individuals and groups to confront more powerful actors in situations where decision making is not open to all.

scholarly journals The principle of exclusive citizenship and a foreigner's status

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-27
Author(s):  
Predrag Terzić
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Public Sphere

The process of creating a modern state and forming political institutions corresponds to the process of transforming the subjects of the past into a community constituted on the principle of citizenship. The citizen becomes the foundation of the political community and the subject, which in interaction with other citizens, forms the public sphere. However, this does not mean that all members of the community have the same rights and obligations contained in the status of a citizen. Excluding certain categories of residents from the principle of citizenship raises a number of issues that delegitimize the existing order by colliding with the ideas of justice, freedom and equality. The aim of this short research is to clarify the principle of citizenship, its main manifestations and excluded subjects, as well as the causes that are at the root of the concept of exclusive citizenship. A brief presentation of the idea of multiculturalism does not intend to fully analytically explain this concept, but only to present in outline one of the ways of overcoming the issue of exclusive citizenship. In order to determine the social significance of the topic, a part of the text is dedicated to the ideas that form the basis of an exclusive understanding of citizenship, the reasons for its application and the far-reaching consequences of social tensions and unrest, which cannot be ignored.

scholarly journals Women in the social life of a medieval town (based on the material of London in the 14th–15th centuries)

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 320-329
Author(s):  
Larisa N. Chernova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
New Type ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

The article examines the place and role of women in the social life of London in the 14th–15th centuries based on the material of the original sources. It is shown that, despite the restrictions fixed by custom and laws on the social activity of women, the range of occupations of the townsmen –wives and widows – was unusually wide. It is craft and trade, including the right to take apprentices, real estate transactions, and financial deals. Women did not just help men in the craft or trade shops, but also worked independently. The status of women, especially married women, who chose to participate in trade or in town production as their main occupation, was never fully developed. A significant degradation in the position of women in the public sphere in London occurred in the 16th century. The author concludes that, despite all the difficulties, a new type of woman was gradually developed in the city – energetic, enterprising, educated, who acts in society as an independent head of the family and business.

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF THE COURT AS A PREREQUISITE FOR THE LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY OF A JUDGE

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaroslav Skoromnyy ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Legal Responsibility ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Modern System ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Law ◽  
Conceptual Foundations

The article reveals the conceptual foundations of the social responsibility of the court as an important prerequisite for the legal responsibility of a judge. It has been established that the problem of court and judge liability is regulated by the following international and Ukrainian documents, such as: 1) European Charter on the Law «On the Status of Judges» adopted by the Council of Europe; 2) The Law of Ukraine «On the Judicial System and the Status of Judges»; 3) the Constitution of Ukraine; 4) The Code of Judicial Ethics, approved by the Decision of the XI (regular) Congress of Judges of Ukraine; 5) Recommendation CM/Rec (2010) 12 of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Council of Europe to member states regarding judges: independence, efficiency and responsibilities; 6) Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct. The results of a survey conducted by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Razumkov Center, the Council of Judges of Ukraine and the Center for Judicial Studios with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation based on the «Monitoring of the State of Independence of Judges in Ukraine – 2012» as part of the study of the level of trust in the modern system were considered and analyzed, justice, judges and courts. It is determined that a judge has both a legal and a moral duty to impartially, independently, in a timely manner and comprehensively consider court cases and make fair judicial decisions, administering justice on the basis of legislative norms. Based on the study of the practice of litigation, it has been proven that judges must skillfully operate with various instruments of protection from public influence. It has been established that in order to ensure the protection of judges from the public, it is necessary to create special units that will function as part of judicial self-government bodies. It was proposed that the Council of Judges of Ukraine, which acts as the highest body of judicial self- government in our state (in Ukraine), legislate the provision on ensuring the protection of the procedural independence of judges.

LEGAL ESSENCE OF ANCIENT PROVERBS AND SAYS AND THEIR SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Dranishnikova ◽  
Ivan Semenov
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Status Position

The national legal system is determined by traditional elements characterizing the culture and customs that exist in the social environment in the form of moral standards and the law. However, the attitude of the population to the letter of the law, as a rule, initially contains negative properties in order to preserve personal freedom, status, position. Therefore, to solve pressing problems of rooting in the minds of society of the elementary foundations of the initial order, and then the rule of law in the public sphere, proverbs and sayings were developed that in essence contained legal educational criteria.

scholarly journals Quantification and classification in education: What is at stake?

2021 ◽  
pp. 147821032110320
Author(s):  
Ann Christin Eklund Nilsen ◽  
Ove Skarpenes
Keyword(s):  
Sociology Of Knowledge ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
Ian Hacking ◽  
The Public ◽  
Statistical Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Bureaucracy ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Different Levels

Histories of statistics and quantification have demonstrated that systems of statistical knowledge participate in the construction of the objects that are measured. However, the pace, purpose, and scope of quantification in state bureaucracy have expanded greatly over the past decades, fuelled by (neoliberal) societal trends that have given the social phenomenon of quantification a central place in political discussions and in the public sphere. This is particularly the case in the field of education. In this article, we ask what is at stake in state bureaucracy, professional practice, and individual pupils as quantification increasingly permeates the education field. We call for a theoretical renewal in order to understand quantification as a social phenomenon in education. We propose a sociology-of-knowledge approach to the phenomenon, drawing on different theoretical traditions in the sociology of knowledge in France (Alain Desrosières and Laurent Thévenot), England (Barry Barnes and Donald MacKenzie), and Canada (Ian Hacking), and argue that the ongoing quantification practice at different levels of the education system can be understood as cultural processes of self-fulfilling prophecies.

scholarly journals The Public Sphere in the Field of Power

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Calhoun
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Social Foundations ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Public Sphere

In this article I ask (1) whether the ways in which the early bourgeois public sphere was structured—precisely by exclusion—are instructive for considering its later development, (2) how a consideration of the social foundations of public life calls into question abstract formulations of it as an escape from social determination into a realm of discursive reason, (3) to what extent “counterpublics” may offer useful accommodations to failures of larger public spheres without necessarily becoming completely attractive alternatives, and (4) to what extent considering the organization of the public sphere as a field might prove helpful in analyzing differentiated publics, rather than thinking of them simply as parallel but each based on discrete conditions. These considerations are informed by an account of the way that the public sphere developed as a concrete ideal and an object of struggle in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Britain.

State contestations in constructions of 1Malaysia

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-65
Author(s):  
Mary Varghese ◽  
Kamila Ghazali
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Public ◽  
Malaysian Population ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This article seeks to contribute to the existing body of knowledge about the relationship between political discourse and national identity. 1Malaysia, introduced in 2009 by Malaysia’s then newly appointed 6th Prime Minister Najib Razak, was greeted with expectation and concern by various segments of the Malaysian population. For some, it signalled a new inclusiveness that was to change the discourse on belonging. For others, it raised concerns about changes to the status quo of ethnic issues. Given the varying responses of society to the concept of 1Malaysia, an examination of different texts through the critical paradigm of CDA provide useful insights into how the public sphere has attempted to construct this notion. Therefore, this paper critically examines the Prime Minister’s early speeches as well as relevant chapters of the socioeconomic agenda, the 10th Malaysia Plan, to identify the referential and predicational strategies employed in characterising 1Malaysia. The findings suggest a notion of unity that appears to address varying issues.

Eritrean Asylum Seekers’ Lament Ceremonies in Israel as Contested Sites of Identity Formation

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galia Sabar ◽  
Adam Rotbard
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Multiple Identities ◽  
Public Parks ◽  
Transnational Identities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Religious Rituals ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Shed Light

Based on extensive qualitative research, this paper focuses on lament ceremonies Eritrean asylum seekers in Israel performed in public parks in 2008–2014.1 Specifically, we expose social and political structures of this diaspora, including mechanisms of survival in a context of harsh living conditions, a fragile legal status and a hostile environment. Following Werbner’s analysis of diasporas as chaordic entities, having no single representation and fostering multiple identities, we show how chaordicness underlies this diaspora’s ability to survive and thrive in Israel, and to embrace the unique Eritrean trans-local nationalism. We highlight how these public religious rituals were transformed into contested sites of identity formation following Israeli struggles against them. Finally, we shed light on the role that such ceremonies play in shaping transnational identities, as well as how disenfranchised communities of asylum seekers aim for visibility and recognition in the public sphere.

scholarly journals Conspicuous Invisibility: Votive Offerings from Female Dedicators on the Athenian Acropolis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Stacey Wellington
Keyword(s):  
Working Women ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Financial Resources ◽  
Significant Extent ◽  
The Public ◽  
Patriarchal Ideology ◽  
Essential Components ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Votive Offerings

<p>The mechanics of Athenian society in many ways empowered citizen women as essential components of their community. This reality, being at odds with Athens’ pervasive patriarchal ideology, was obscured by men anxious to affirm the status quo, but also by women who sought to represent themselves as ‘ideal’ examples of their sex. Using the votive offerings dedicated by women to Athena on the Athenian Acropolis in the Archaic and Classical periods as a basis, this thesis explores such tensions between the implicit value of Athenian women, which prompted them to engage meaningfully with their wider community, and the ideological edict for their invisibility. This discussion is based primarily on two points: firstly, that the naming of a male family member in votive inscriptions denotes female citizen status, thus articulating citizen women’s independent value and prestige within the polis; and secondly that the ubiquity of working women among the dedicators, and value of the offerings themselves, reveals women as controlling financial resources to a more significant extent than other sources would have us believe. In both cases, the actual value and authority of the female dedicators is concealed as the women aimed for a perception of conspicuous invisibility to legitimise their engagement with the public sphere.</p>

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