Feminist theory, method, and praxis: Toward a critical consciousness for family and close relationship scholars

2022 ◽  
pp. 026540752110657
Author(s):  
Katherine R. Allen
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Critical Consciousness ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Family Science ◽  
Historical Structures ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Critical Feminist ◽  
Disciplinary Affiliation

Feminism provides a worldview with innovative possibilities for scholarship and activism on behalf of families and intimate relationships. As a flexible framework capable of engaging with contentious theoretical ideas and the urgency of social change, feminism offers a simultaneous way to express an epistemology (knowledge), a methodology (the production of knowledge), an ontology (one’s subjective way of being in the world), and a praxis (the translation of knowledge into actions that produce beneficial social change). Feminist family science, in particular, advances critical, intersectional, and queer approaches to examine the uses and abuses of power and the multiple axes upon which individuals and families are privileged, marginalized, and oppressed in diverse social contexts. In this paper, I embrace feminism as a personal, professional (academic), and political project and use stories from my own life to illuminate broader social-historical structures, processes, and contexts associated with gender, race, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, nationality, and other systems of social stratification. I provide a brief history and reflections on contemporary feminist theory and activism, particularly from the perspective of my disciplinary affiliation of feminist family science. I address feminism as an intersectional perspective through three themes: (a) theory: defining a critical feminist approach, (b) method: critical feminist autoethnographic research, and (c) praxis: transforming feminist theory into action. I conclude with takeaway messages for incorporating reflexivity and critical consciousness raising to provoke thought and action in the areas of personal, professional, and political change.

A Poet’s Journey as A/r/tographer: Poetic Inquiry With Junior High School Students

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 239-253
Author(s):  
Sean Wiebe
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Junior High School ◽  
Critical Consciousness ◽  
Junior High ◽  
Junior High School Students ◽  
School Students ◽  
Poetic Inquiry ◽  
Classroom Conversation

In this paper I explore the connection between a/r/tography and poetic inquiry, and how together they cultivate multiple ways of understanding. I further claim that classroom situations are most provocative of thoughtfulness and critical consciousness when each student participates in the classroom conversation from his or her lived situations. While difficult, teachers who can facilitate rich interchanges of dialogue within a plurality of voices are genuinely creating communities of difference and thus imagining real possibilities for social change.

Utopia, Labor, and Informational Capitalism

2015 ◽  
pp. 49-68
Author(s):  
Marco Briziarelli
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
User Generated Content ◽  
Economic Approach ◽  
Informational Capitalism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Liberal Ideology ◽  
Political Economic

Through the lens of a political economic approach, I consider the question whether or not social media can promote social change. I claim that whereas media have consistently channeled technological utopia/dystopia, thus be constantly linked to aspirations and fear of social change, the answer to that question does not depend on their specific nature but on historically specific social relations in which media operate. In the case here considered, it requires examining the social relations re-producing and produced by informational capitalism. More specifically, I examine how the productive relations that support user generated content practices of Facebook users affect social media in their capability to reproduce and transform existing social contexts. Drawing on Fuchs and Sevignani's (2013) distinction between “work” and “labor” I claim that social media reflect the ambivalent nature of current capitalist mode of production: a contest in which exploitative/emancipatory as well as reproductive/transformative aspects are articulated by liberal ideology.

Women’s Rights are Human Rights

2019 ◽  
pp. 223-230
Author(s):  
Bai Guimei
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Cultural Setting ◽  
Chinese Perspective

This comment on the contribution by Hilary Charlesworth and Christine Chinkin focuses on three apparent antinomies of women’s rights: margin–mainstream, specialist–generalist, and family–individual. Adding a Chinese perspective to these discussions, the comment highlights the importance of choice of terminology in a particular cultural setting. It also questions the positioning of actors in terms of centre–periphery and shows how various actors can work across limits and perceived locations. Going beyond the discussions in UN bodies, the comment emphasizes the local social contexts and persisting stereotypes that need to be at the centre of social change. This requires a translation of international normative endeavours into local public and private spheres of civil society, economy, and government.

Mediating Social Media's Ambivalences in the Context of Informational Capitalism

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Marco Briziarelli ◽  
Eric Karikari
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
User Generated Content ◽  
Capitalist Mode ◽  
Informational Capitalism ◽  
Liberal Ideology ◽  
Transformative Function ◽  
Political Economic

This essay explores the dialectics of media, by considering the socially reproductive and transformative function of social media from a political economic perspective. The authors claim that while media have consistently generated aspirations and fear of social change, their powerful capability of shaping societies depend on the historically specific social relations in which media operate. They engage such an argument by examining how the productive relations that support user generated content practices such as the ones of Facebook users affect social media in their capability to reproduce and transform existing social contexts. In the end, the authors maintain that the most prominent mediation of social media consists of the ambivalent nature of current capitalist mode of production: a contest in which exploitative/emancipatory as well as reproductive/transformative aspects are articulated by liberal ideology.

E-Learning as Nation Building

2011 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Marco Adria ◽  
Katy Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Continuing Education ◽  
Geographic Location ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Learning Needs ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Progressive Development ◽  
E Learning ◽  
Prior Experiences ◽  
Diverse Cultures

This chapter is concerned with how individuals may examine the potential for social change arising from interactions in an e-learning environment. We explore continuing education as the site for e-learning in the context of developing a civil society. Referring to Anderson’s (1991) work on nationalism, and Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder’s (2002) discussion of communities of practice, we argue that the transition from face-to-face teaching to e-learning has the potential to appeal to those learners, and their instructors, who are interested in the capacity of a community to contribute to social change. We are particularly interested in the potential of e-learning to be socially transformative in its power to be inclusive, that is, to support diverse cultures, languages, work contexts, learning needs and styles, prior experiences, generations, economic circumstances, social contexts, and geographic location. We have suggested that the metaphor of an e-learning nation supports the reflective and progressive development of learning communities in which identity is consciously and critically examined.

scholarly journals Why psychiatrists should watch films (or What has cinema ever done for psychiatry?)

2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 286-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Byrne
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Shared History ◽  
People With Mental Illness

SummaryCinema is at once a powerful medium, art, entertainment, an industry and an instrument of social change; psychiatrists should neither ignore nor censor it. Representations of psychiatrists are mixed but psychiatric treatments are rarely portrayed positively. In this article, five rules of movie psychiatry are proposed, supported by over 370 films. Commercial and artistic pressures reduce verisimilitude in fictional and factual films, although many are useful to advance understanding of phenomenology, shared history and social contexts in psychiatry. Acknowledging some negative representations, three areas are explored where cinema gets it mostly right: addictions, bereavement and personality disorder. Although there are excellent representations of psychosis on film, film-makers have more often portrayed it violently – ultimately demonising people as psychokillers in more than 100 films cited. When people with mental illness are stigmatised through stereotypes, examining unwelcome depictions can uncover important truths. Psychiatrists' engagement with film will ensure professional and artistic gains.

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