Dueling discourses, power, and the construction of the recovering addict: When social assistance confronts addiction in Toronto, Canada

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amber Gazso
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Social Assistance ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
Work First ◽  
Depth Interviews

In this article, I undertake a critical discourse analysis of policy documents and in-depth interviews with seven caseworkers and 28 benefit recipients to explore how two discourses, ‘work first’ and ‘distance from the labour market,’ inform how persons living with addiction access and then experience social assistance in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Drawing in Foucauldian insights on power, I reveal the conceptualisation of benefit recipients’ eligibility for Ontario Works through these two discourses and how this is replete with ideological assumptions and disciplining power relations, constitutive of a subject position of ‘the recovering addict’, and suggestive of social control implications. I argue that the coercion and regulation of benefit recipients’ lives on Ontario Works has not disappeared but transmuted for Torontonians living with addiction, and conclude by considering the governance of this population as biopower.

scholarly journals An Internet Radio from Turkey as an Example of Community Radio: Nor Radyo

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (11) ◽  
pp. 75-103
Author(s):  
Figen ALGÜL
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Field Study ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Community Radio ◽  
Community Media ◽  
Internet Radio ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Article Study

In this article study, community media and community radios, as different kinds of alternative media will be examined under a theoretical framework. Then Nor Radyo, an internet radio which is an example of the community radios from Turkey will be taken into consideration as the field study. Nor Radyo will be examined within the context of the rhizomatic approach and community radios, over the example of Nor Radyo, will be measured as to whether or not they voice the sound of the counter publicity. For the field study, in-depth interviews were made by Nor Radyo programme-makers; and content and critical discourse analysis was applied in relation with the Nor Radyo programmes.

scholarly journals ICT Capacity Building: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Rwandan Policies from Higher Education Perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 46-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Claude Byungura ◽  
Henrik Hansson ◽  
Kamuzinzi Masengesho ◽  
Thashmee Karunaratne
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Capacity Building ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
National Level ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Institutional Policies ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
Ict Infrastructure ◽  
Implementation Level

Abstract With the development of technology in the 21st Century, education systems attempt to integrate technology-based tools to improve experiences in pedagogy and administration. It is becoming increasingly prominent to build human and ICT infrastructure capacities at universities from policy to implementation level. Using a critical discourse analysis, this study investigates the articulation of ICT capacity building strategies from both national and institutional ICT policies in Rwanda, focusing on the higher education. Eleven policy documents were collected and deeply analyzed to understand which claims of ICT capacity building are made. The analysis shows that strategies for building ICT capacities are evidently observed from national level policies and only in two institutional policies (KIST and NUR). Among 25 components of ICT capacity building used, the ones related to human capacity are not plainly described. Additionally, neither national nor institutional policy documents include the creation of financial schemes for students to acquire ICT tools whilst learners are key stakeholders. Although there is some translation of ICT capacity building strategies from national to some institutional policies, planning for motivation and provision of incentives to innovators is not stated in any of the institutional policies and this is a key to effective technology integration.

The American gaze east

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Trentman ◽  
Wenhao Diao
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Study Abroad ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Intercultural Learning ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
Studying Abroad

Abstract The 21st century has seen an emphasis in US media and policy documents on increasing the numbers of US students studying abroad and also the amount of US students studying ‘critical’ languages. This paper examines the intersection of these discourses, or the experiences of critical language learners abroad. We analyze this intersection by using critical discourse analysis to examine US media and policy documents and data from students studying Arabic in Egypt and Mandarin in China. This analysis reveals considerable discrepancies between rhetoric and experience in terms of language and intercultural learning. We argue that a critical examination of current discourses of study abroad (SA) reveals that they in fact recreate the colonial map, mask global inequalities, and create a new global elite. We conclude that language and intercultural learning abroad will remain a source of tension until SA students and programs critically engage with these discourses.

scholarly journals Systemic Functional Linguistics as appliable linguistics: social accountability and critical approaches

2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (spe) ◽  
pp. 435-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Systemic Functional Linguistics ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
General Category ◽  
Functional Linguistics ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Work First

This article is concerned with the relationship between Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), and with SFL as a resource for socially accountable academic work. First it locates SFL within the general category of appliable linguistics (as opposed to either theoretical or applied linguistics), an approach to the study of language that is also designed to be socially accountable. Then, against the background of SFL, it traces the development first of Critical Linguistics and then of CDA, also identifying other influences incorporated within these traditions. Next, it compares CDA with other orientations within discourse analysis from the perspective of SFL, and proposes the notion of appliable discourse analysis (ADA). This leads to an overview of the dimensions of ADA, and finally to the question of the place of ADA within a general appliable linguistics.

scholarly journals Understanding the health of lorry drivers in context: A critical discourse analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Caddick ◽  
Veronica Varela-Mato ◽  
Myra A Nimmo ◽  
Stacey Clemes ◽  
Tom Yates ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Healthy Living ◽  
Lifestyle Choices ◽  
The Face ◽  
Combination Of Methods

This article moves beyond previous attempts to understand health problems in the lives of professional lorry drivers by placing the study of drivers’ health in a wider social and cultural context. A combination of methods including focus groups, interviews and observations were used to collect data from a group of 24 lorry drivers working at a large transport company in the United Kingdom. Employing a critical discourse analysis, we identified the dominant discourses and subject positions shaping the formation of drivers’ health and lifestyle choices. This analysis was systematically combined with an exploration of the gendered ways in which an almost exclusively male workforce talked about health. Findings revealed that drivers were constituted within a neoliberal economic discourse, which is reflective of the broader social structure, and which partly restricted drivers’ opportunities for healthy living. Concurrently, drivers adopted the subject position of ‘average man’ as a way of defending their personal and masculine status in regards to health and to justify jettisoning approaches to healthy living that were deemed too extreme or irrational in the face of the constraints of their working lives. Suggestions for driver health promotion include refocusing on the social and cultural – rather than individual – underpinnings of driver health issues and a move away from moralistic approaches to health promotion.

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