scholarly journals THE STUDY OF POWER DYNAMICS AND IDENTITY CRISIS IN SORAYYA KHAN’S CITY OF SPIES

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 153-160
Author(s):  
Shaista Shahzadi ◽  
Muhammad Hanif ◽  
Rao Akmal Ali ◽  
Asmat A. Sheikh ◽  
Mehnaz Kousar
Keyword(s):  
Power Relations ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Identity Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
Political Novel ◽  
Identity Crises ◽  
Power Tracing

Purpose of the study: This study investigates the identity crises and power relations drawing upon Michel Foucault's theory of power tracing the impacts of power dynamics. The study investigates how power dynamics operate in the novel; what is the nature of these power relations; and how the mode of resistance emerges and in what ways by keeping the concept of power and identity by Michel Foucault. Methodology: This part follows the qualitative method in which Sorayya Khan’s City of Spies is analyzed through Foucault's theory of power. The theoretical background of this research is drawn from the concept of Power which is running in all works of Foucault. Main Findings: This study has examined the novel from a Foucauldian perspective, which posits that Power is everywhere and it comes from everywhere. For him, it is Power which/that shapes everything whether it is Truth or Identity. Foucault sees power as all-around invisibility that exposes rather than encloses like the panopticon. The society he believes works as a panopticon in which the power effectively induces in the subjects a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. Applications of this study: This study can be applied to power dynamics literature. Novelty/Originality of this study: The current interpretation of the novel only sees it as a bildungsroman i.e., as a journey of a girl around the political reality of her era. This present study strives to change it by investigating through the lens of power dynamics and its consequent effect on consciousness leading to an identity crisis. The present study will strengthen the interpretation of the novel as a political novel and will illustrate the effects of the political on the human psyche.

De gemeenten en de lokale politiek in het Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest

Res Publica ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-99
Author(s):  
Jo Buelens ◽  
Kris Deschouwer
Keyword(s):  
Power Relations ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Capital Region ◽  
Political Reality

The municipalities in the Capital Region of Brussels have the same legal statuts as the other Belgian municipalities. Yet the political reality is quite different, and requires a different approach. Three specific aspects of the Brussels municipalities are discussed. They are bilingual, which leads to very specific strategical problems. Moreover the power relations between parties fluctuate a lot in Brussels. And finally the small size of the Region leads to an incremental 'emptying' of a number of local competencies by the powerfull political executive of the Region.

Jane Austen’s Questioning of Gender and Genres

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Laure MASSEI-CHAMAYOU
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Jane Austen ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Conduct Books ◽  
Northanger Abbey ◽  
Gothic Novels ◽  
Opposite View

If Jane Austen admits in her correspondence that she was eventually pleased with Thomas Gisborne’s Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex (1797), the Anglican theologian nonetheless endorsed the prejudices shared by most eighteenth-century moralists towards novels. Now, in Northanger Abbey, a novel filled with literary allusions, Jane Austen’s narrator bravely takes the opposite view by launching into a bold defence of the genre. Besides resorting to a biting irony to scrutinize her society’s axioms, rules and power relations, her novels notably question Manichean representations of masculine and feminine roles. Jane Austen’s choice to distance herself from the strictly gendered models inherited from conduct books, sentimental, or gothic novels, further combines with her questioning of generic conventions. This article thus aims at exploring how Jane Austen engaged with these representations while articulating her subtle didacticism. Her aim was not merely to raise the respectability of the novel genre, but also to provide a possible answer to the crisis of values that was threatening the very foundations of the political and social order.

scholarly journals “Difference” as Mode of Resistance in Jane Austen’s Emma

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (I) ◽  
pp. 187-203
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Sexual Practices ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Physical Force ◽  
Heterosexual Identity

This paper explores “difference” as a locus for changing power relations in Jane Austen’s major novel Emma. While Austen’s preoccupation with courtships has been under scholarly investigations, it has not been properly considered as a tool of resistance: one that strives to displace power from physical force to a discursive one. This displacement is a strategic struggle of middle-class ascendency over aristocracy in a changing English milieu. The study examines courtships within two Foucauldian frameworks. The first one is disciplinary that aims to regulate sexual practices like panopticon---an apparatus of power, producing normative/heterosexual identity through surveillance. Embedded in the first is the second approach that examines the very assumptions of the panoptic discourse through ‘micro techniques of power’. It is the ability of her characters (especially the female) to reject not only undesirable sexual advances but desirable proposals as well that transform their otherwise passive and docile bodies into subjects to be reckoned with. In doing so, Austen does transform signs of class and rank into forms of expression as a pre-requisite for any exchange. This paper is an attempt to look into the power dynamics in the novel from a different angle---the angle of difference impacted by power/knowledge and discourse. Two sites of contestation are analyzed: the first played between Emma Woodhouse and Mr. Knightly, and the second between Mrs. Elton and Jane Fairfax. This transformation can explicitly be viewed in her novel Emma. Foucauldian insights are certainly innovative to a well-read Austen.

Disraeli as Political Egotist: A Literary and Historical Investigation

1989 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 387-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard G. Weeks
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Benjamin Disraeli ◽  
Story Line ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Political Novel ◽  
Historical Investigation ◽  
Social Circumstance

Not many statesmen of world renown have had reputations as accomplished novelists. Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81) was a novelist who wanted to become a politician, a great politician. He succeeded and, in so doing, challenged his biographers to make connections between his thought, as expressed in his numerous political writings and novels, and his actions, as evidenced by his career as a leading Conservative politician in Victorian England. Disraeli's novels were like masks. Whatever the story line, whatever the configuration of main characters, the ambitious Disraeli, hungry for recognition, can be found somewhere inside. His psychology, his values, his objectives all can be discovered with greater or lesser facility in his novels. The writings of Disraeli the novelist serve as an instrument to penetrate the facade of Disraeli the politician.The political novel allows the reader to experience political constructs in context. Political tracts seldom have the power to draw their readers into a sense of intimacy with their implications for everyday life. To the extent that a novelist can generate empathy in the reader for his characters, the reader can begin to feel the outrage, despair, joy, or tediousness of a political or social circumstance. Disraeli employed the novel to good purpose to express and spread his political ideas. But these ideas represented less of a coherent political platform than an agenda of his personal reactions to the politics of his day, particularly as they related to his own political advancement.

ICTs, Empowerment, and Development

2008 ◽  
pp. 2450-2463
Author(s):  
Hannah Beardon
Keyword(s):  
Digital Divide ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Applied Technology ◽  
Poor Communities

The digital divide has its roots in the political and power dynamics that underlie all inequality. It follows, therefore, that the response from the development sector should be rooted in learning from the long experience of tackling inequality and unequal power relations in many other fields. This chapter draws on the example of the Reflect ICTs Project to show how participatory theories, tools, and processes can be applied to ensure that ICT initiatives fundamentally address power and empowerment issues rather than ignoring or, worse, exacerbating them. The project methodology is described and some findings shown, in an attempt to show how attention to the human communication dimension of ICTs can make applied technology more sustainable and appropriate for poor communities in their struggle to access their rights.

ICTs, Empowerment, and Development

2011 ◽  
pp. 2452-2464
Author(s):  
Hannah Beardon
Keyword(s):  
Digital Divide ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Applied Technology ◽  
Poor Communities

The digital divide has its roots in the political and power dynamics that underlie all inequality. It follows, therefore, that the response from the development sector should be rooted in learning from the long experience of tackling inequality and unequal power relations in many other fields. This chapter draws on the example of the Reflect ICTs Project to show how participatory theories, tools, and processes can be applied to ensure that ICT initiatives fundamentally address power and empowerment issues rather than ignoring or, worse, exacerbating them. The project methodology is described and some findings shown, in an attempt to show how attention to the human communication dimension of ICTs can make applied technology more sustainable and appropriate for poor communities in their struggle to access their rights.

ICTs, Empowerment, and Development

2006 ◽  
pp. 44-61
Author(s):  
Hannah Beardon
Keyword(s):  
Digital Divide ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Applied Technology ◽  
Poor Communities

The digital divide has its roots in the political and power dynamics that underlie all inequality. It follows, therefore, that the response from the development sector should be rooted in learning from the long experience of tackling inequality and unequal power relations in many other fields. This chapter draws on the example of the Reflect ICTs Project to show how participatory theories, tools, and processes can be applied to ensure that ICT initiatives fundamentally address power and empowerment issues rather than ignoring or, worse, exacerbating them. The project methodology is described and some findings shown, in an attempt to show how attention to the human communication dimension of ICTs can make applied technology more sustainable and appropriate for poor communities in their struggle to access their rights.

scholarly journals Introduction

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Élise Massicard
Keyword(s):  
Social Stratification ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Interdisciplinary Perspective ◽  
Turkish Case ◽  
Anthropological Literature

In an increasingly authoritarian Turkish context that precludes any serious chance of making tangible political gains, challenging common conception of ‘the political’ may expand our understanding of power dynamics. Attempting to track power relations outside the most official, legitimate, conventional and formalised forms of politics provides alternative and sharper insights into how the political is being reframed and how actors retain, uphold, perpetuate or transform their capacity for agency. In an interdisciplinary perspective, but drawing mainly on anthropological literature and methodology, the issue addresses four questions – both empirically in the Turkish case and more conceptually: politicisation, visibility, social stratification and domination.

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