scholarly journals The orphanage as an institution of coercive mobility

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (8) ◽  
pp. 1905-1921 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Disney

This article reconsiders children’s mobilities through the relationship between care and control in the context of Russia’s disability orphanages. Drawing upon the lens of carceral mobilities, the article challenges the dominant conceptualisations of children’s mobilities as ‘independent’ or necessarily intertwined with notions of ‘wellbeing’. Instead this piece draws upon ethnographic research into the Russian disability orphanage system to present three typologies of multi-scalar carceral mobilities which children experience in this context; firstly as a form of spatial segregation and containment, secondly as a form of punishment and finally enforced stillness and restraint as a form of care. In doing so it provides new insights into the nature of the everyday for children in restricted institutional environments, largely absent from the wider geographical literature. Through the lens of carceral mobility this article provides a more nuanced geographical reading of the orphanage beyond an environment variously understood to harm or problematically to provide shelter, but as an institution enmeshed in biopolitical processes of power and control.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 132-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constantine Gidaris

This paper examines the relationship between interactive life insurance companies and their policyholders and the way in which wearable fitness devices are deployed by these companies as data-generating surveillance technologies instead of personal health and fitness devices. Working within an expanded framework of “surveillance capitalism” (Zuboff 2015), I argue that while the notion of self-care generally associated with wearable fitness devices is underpinned by neoliberal constructs, the incentivization of interactive life insurance programs works to obscure the immense value placed on information capital. This paper briefly considers the legal loopholes involved in the harvesting of sensitive health and fitness information from consumer wearables and suggests that the push toward fitness trackers has little to do with any real concerns for the health and fitness of consumers and policyholders. Lastly, I consider different forms of unwaged labour in the relationship between policyholders and interactive life insurance programs. I contend that policyholders do not recognise the free and immaterial labour that goes into sustaining the data-based business model that interactive life insurance companies and social media platforms use and rely on for profit. In so doing, they relinquish power and control over the data they work to produce, only so that the information can be commodified and used against them.



Author(s):  
Mohan Jyoti Dutta

Power constitutes discourse and is in turn, constituted by discourse. Power mediates the relationship between economics and discourse, working through discourse to reproduce the extractive interests of capital. It is on hand, embedded in economic structures; on the other hand, it is often enacted through discursive processes, discursive spaces, and discursive tactics. A conceptual framework for theorizing power is offered in this overview in order to understand the various approaches to power in communication studies, the divergences between these approaches and the convergences between them. A Marxist analysis of power as rooted in economic structures and exerted in oppression is positioned in relationship with post-structuralist reading of power as fragmented and multi-sited. Reading power and control through a framework of intersectionality foregrounds the intersections between class, race, gender, caste, and colonial formations. The various sites of workings of power are examined, from interpersonal relationships, to groups, to organizations and communities, to mediated spaces. The roles of communication strategy, communicative inversions, and communicative erasure are articulated in the context of power, depicting the ways in which power plays out through communication. These concepts then grapple with the contemporary context of power and communication in the realm of the digital, and outline potential anchors for communication scholarship seeking to explain & resist power amid the digital turn in the neoliberal transformation of the globe. Attention is paid to the extractive industries, poor working conditions, big data industries driving behavior change, and digital development markets that are continually consolidating new forms of capitalist profiteering.



2020 ◽  
pp. 128-153
Author(s):  
Steven M. Ortiz

This chapter examines power and control issues that emerge in the marriage as a result of the relationship between wives and their mothers-in-law, and how the husband, wife, and mother-in-law use control work in various types of power struggles. In an attempt to move beyond negative stereotypes, a more realistic interpretation of the origins and construction of in-law relationships in the sport marriage is analyzed, including the origins of a durable mother-son bond and its effect on the marital relationship. The chapter introduces the concept of subordination work, which allows for an insightful evaluation of how the wives manage their subordinate status as they try to preserve their marital relationship and avoid offending their mothers-in-law. Attention also is given to a distinctive role reversal initiated by some mothers-in-law, resulting in the mother taking on the surrogate role of wife in public life.



1988 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy J. Smith-Hefner

ABSTRACTThis article explores the relationship between the status of Javanese women and the politeness or formality of their speech. I examine the hypothesis that, cross-culturally, women will speak more politely than men as an expression of their secondary status. Ethnographic research from East Java reveals that Javanese women are required to be more polite within the family where they receive less polite speech and offer more. In the wider context of Javanese culture, however, it is Javanese men who strive to cultivate politeness for the purpose of expressing their superior status and authority. The potentially coercive or political power of politeness in Javanese is related to the ambiguity of the polite codes themselves, which may be used to express both deference or humility on the one hand and status, refinement, and power on the other. Speech patterns are linked to a number of social-structural variables: patterns of socialization, models of appropriate male and female linguistic behavior, and men's and women's social roles and typical spheres of interest. Where, as in Java, polite codes are associated with public power and control, we should expect that men may be especially concerned with the cultivation of polite styles of speech. (Politeness, gender roles, linguistic socialization, Indonesia)



Author(s):  
José Luis González Quirós

ABSTRACTIn order to examine relations between political authorities and the health system we need a historical view that allows us to understand the drift of the ever expanding health system under liberal systems and the introduction of new concepts such as the right to health under so-called Welfare States. State appropriation of citizens’ health, through health systems, changes the paradigm of the doctor-patient relationship as understood traditionally and historically, and makes us cautious about what may be a threat to our individual liberties, with a disproportionate health service and states that intervene directly in the lives of their citizens not only as regards the law but also their health and bodies. This all needs to be analyzed unreservedly and we must be careful that the right to health does not become an instrument of power and control by states over citizens, thus diminishing our liberties.RESUMENLa necesidad de examinar las relaciones entre poder político y sistema sanitario requiere de una mirada histórica que nos permita comprender la deriva que al amparo de los sistemas liberales ha ido teniendo el cada vez más expansivo sistema sanitario y la introducción de nuevos conceptos como el derecho a la salud propio de los llamados Estados del Bienestar. La apropiación por parte de los Estados, a través de los sistemas sanitarios, de la salud de los ciudadanos cambia el paradigma de relación medico / paciente que había sido tradicional a lo largo de la historia y nos hace ser precavidos sobre lo que puede resultar una amenaza a nuestras propias libertades individuales con una sanidad seguramente desmedida y unos Estados que intervienen directamente en la vida  de sus ciudadanos no solo jurídicamente, sino sanitariamente, corporalmente. Todo ello requiere ser analizado sin reservas de ningún tipo y estar atentos no vaya a ser que el derecho a la salud acabe siendo un instrumento de poder y control por parte de los Estados sobre los ciudadanos que permita una disminución de nuestras libertades.



2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Ferry ◽  
Mark Sandford

PurposeThe relationship between central and sub-national (local) government is contentious around distribution of power and control. There is a specific concern when a (local) place has power devolved, but centralised hierarchical accountability pervades.Design/methodology/approachThis paper addresses that concern by considering recent innovative developments around place-based accountability arrangements in England, through analysis of official reports and news media.FindingsThe article illustrates aspirations towards accountability to the local electorate clash with hierarchical accountability that remains an omnipresent mechanism of central control. It is suggested, accountability forums be developed to blend hierarchy and the place leadership role of directly elected mayors. This could enable local accountability to the electorate, whilst taking account of the context of specific regional level complexities.Originality/valueThis is one of the first papers to consider issues of place leadership and place based accountability within the framework of hierarchical accountability for central and local government relations.



Author(s):  
Patrick Quinn

This paper will examine some of the epistemological issues that emerge in the context of discussing the relationship between knowledge, control and power. These concerns raise questions about self-authenticating intuition and about who should control knowledge and how it should be disseminated. The importance of Plato as a key contributor to this debate will be discussed and it will be suggested that his writings provide a basic frame of reference for subsequent thinkers whose concerns also lie in this area. The political importance of philosophy, the centrality of education, the use of language and the function of censorship are issues in Platonic epistemology that merit some discussion. The medieval views of Averroes, Maimonides and Aquinas will be examined for their contributions to the literature on this subject in the context of the respective theological frameworks, and something will be said about the implications of their conclusions for a theocratic society. Finally, I suggest that there is a need for a contemporary reappraisal of how an adequate balance between the individual's right to know and the socio-political implications of knowledge might be achieved.



2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadine Newman ◽  
Dunstan Newman

Purpose – The paper aims to focus on the issues relating to the concepts of knowledge management (KM) and the learning organization and discusses the relationship between these concepts and the issues of power and control. It looks at Coopey’s (1998) critical review of the “Foucauldian gloom” with regard to the learning organization and helps to assess whether the concept is a dream or a nightmare for the employees and the organizations as a whole. While both concepts have many positive attributes and have helped to transform many organizations, the issues of power, control, trust and empowerment have been overlooked and disregarded. This paper will attempt to answer some of these questions. Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents an analysis of literature in the field of KM and learning organizations and its relationship with the concepts of power, control and trust. Findings – This paper shows that one of the main features of the management of organizational culture is to comprehend and effectively deal with the perceived connection involving knowledge, learning and power in organizations. It notes that while some writers are disproving of the learning perception in research on organizations, they also obscure issues of politics and power in organizations and do not focus on the more important question of whose interests are being provided. To spread democracy and liberation and create a democratic utopia in the learning organization requires more focus on the issue of power in the concepts of the learning organization and KM. Originality/value – This paper will bring together research which links learning, knowledge and power. It also builds on the literature in learning and KM and offers essential information to human resource practitioners.



2011 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 376-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara B. Moore

In the following essay I draw on existing literature to suggest that homebirth represents the convergence of knowledge, power, and control during pregnancy, labor, and delivery. I pay particular attention to the ways in which working-class women are disadvantaged by the medicalized model of childbirth and are less likely to acquire extensive knowledge about birth, less likely to feel as though they have power over their own birthing experiences, and less likely to exercise control over obstetric interventions and their birth environments. This is a problem that is, on the one hand, caused by a problematic health care system and inadequately staffed public health clinics and, on the other, a model of childbirth that values medicalized birth knowledge over embodied birth knowledge. I argue that all women can and should be made more aware of the various birthing options that are available to them so they can make birthing decisions that are not based solely on fears of obstetric dysfunction. I also encourage birth activists to explore the relationship between social class and birth options so their advocacy efforts can better address women's needs.



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