scholarly journals Kiss of Love Campaign: Contesting Public Morality to Counter Collective Violence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia Kurup
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Public Morality ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
The Public ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Political Groups

The paper studies the immense opposition to a nonviolent campaign against the practice of moral policing in Kerala to understand the dominant spaces, collective identities, and discourses that give shape to the outrage of public morality in India. The campaign through its politics specifically targeted rightwing and political groups as well as socially embedded familial and institutional structures that exercise control over individuals through patriarchal regimes. The adverse reaction to the campaign revealed that collective aggression or violence can be used to impose majoritarian values and exert social control through the authority of public morality and everyday acts of moral policing in masculinized, politico-religious spaces that characterize the traditional public sphere in India. The contested ‘morals’ were gendered and communal notions particular to the middle classes and central to the maintenance of dominant structures of family, marriage, religious community, and the nation. The same informs notions of popular morality that give moral policing its ‘rational’ authority. The research employs online opinion pieces, reports and discussions, and two structured interviews to examine why the campaign became prominent in the public sphere. It gives coherence to the campaign’s agenda to counter the underlying violence of moral policing and suggests measures for peaceful resolution of public contestations.

scholarly journals Language and Revolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 5-37
Author(s):  
Ana Iriarte Díez
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Political Change ◽  
October Revolution ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Third ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Public Sphere

Speakers’ individual and collective identities are socially constructed through their linguistic and social behavior, and inevitably shaped by the socio-political and cultural situation of a region and its observers. It stands to reason, therefore, that significant changes in a community’s linguistic practices are often catalyzed by noteworthy socio-political developments within the same community. In this light, the present study aims to explore recent linguistic developments regarding speakers’ use of Arabic and their perception of its status in Lebanon in the midst of a time of profound social and political change: The October Revolution. The present study opens with an introduction that reviews Lebanon’s linguistic panorama before October 17th, 2019, and provides a brief synopsis of the succession of events now widely known as ‘The October Revolution’. The second section explains the study’s theoretical approach and the nature of the data. The third and last section focuses on how the events of the October Revolution have, at least temporarily, affected the use and status of Arabic in Lebanon and reshaped this language’s place in the public sphere.

Challenging Valuations: How Rankings Navigate Contestation

2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (5) ◽  
pp. 289-305
Author(s):  
Leopold Ringel
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Constant Attention ◽  
The Public ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Public Sphere

Abstract Accounts of why rankings are pervasive features of the modern world focus mostly on their properties as valuation devices that, upon entering the public sphere, exert pressure on the ranked. In doing so, however, research tends to overlook the important role played by the different types of organizations that produce rankings. To remedy this, the article draws from a qualitative study consisting of semi-structured interviews with members of these organizations to show that they put a great deal of effort into addressing and responding to different kinds of criticism. Working towards building and maintaining the credibility of rankings is thus revealed to require constant attention by their producers, who devise multiple procedures and rhetorical strategies to this end.

The good despot: Technology firms’ interventions in the public sphere

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-36
Author(s):  
Eran Tamir ◽  
Roei Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Commercial Society ◽  
Education Inequality ◽  
The Public ◽  
Technology Firms ◽  
Technology Industry ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Tight Labor Market

We examine how the technology industry intervenes in social domains not directly tied to its products, services, and immediate commercial concerns. We intend to develop a framework for considering the ways technology and the technology industry reshape these domains in ways both intended and unintended. Drawing on sociologies of knowledge and technology and a set of 20 semi-structured interviews with technology workers and HR professionals working in the Israeli facilities of two large multi-national technology firms, we find evidence that the intervention allows the industry to re-purpose public education as a means of nurturing a firm’s workforce with the goal of remaining competitive in a tight labor market both nationally and globally. In parallel, the programs allow workers to experience satisfying and pleasant interactions. These re-purposing interventions might aggravate existing education inequality while further cementing the legitimacy of a dominant industry as a model for an idealized commercial society.

4. Consolidation and fragmentation

2021 ◽  
pp. 42-58
Author(s):  
Pippa Virdee
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
The Public ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Public Sphere

‘Consolidation and fragmentation’ recounts how the government of Pakistan has shifted back and forth from democracy and military rule to secular state and religious state from the time the country was created. For the democratically elected rulers of Pakistan, it has always been a case of holding onto power. As a result, institutional structures, party politics, and the public sphere of Pakistan weakened and eroded, while the crucial role of the army was strengthened. Pakistan's army was strengthened and consolidated by a civil bureaucracy of client–patron networks. The army–bureaucracy nexus formed the cornerstone of Pakistan that made it into an Islamic nation-state.

Are schools educating toward active citizenship? The internal school struggle between contradictory citizenship models

2019 ◽  
pp. 174619791985999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hillel Wahrman ◽  
Hagit Hartaf
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Civic Education ◽  
Social Education ◽  
Active Citizenship ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Insight Into

This article investigates the phenomenology of Social Education Coordinators in Israeli high schools regarding school’s civic education. Twenty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted, followed by a two-stage coding process. The Social Education Coordinators indicate that their schools seem to be unified behind the goal of maximal citizenship. However, their unique position as agents of non-formal pedagogies gains them insight into the role of pedagogy in advancing various citizenship models and the struggle in schools between opposing pedagogies and citizenship models. Formal pedagogies are understood to be incoherent; they speak of maximal citizenship, however, habituate minimal citizenship. Informal pedagogies are understood to be coherent, to both speak and habituate maximal citizenship. From the Social Education Coordinators’ perspective, their attempt to insert meaningful informal pedagogies and true maximal citizenship is subversive and a show of agency. They perceive themselves as still weak but significant players in providing students with ‘voice’ in the public sphere. This analysis may advance our understanding of schools as arenas of incoherency and contradictions, of simultaneously pushing toward contradictory civic education ideals; it may highlight the civic significance of pedagogy choice and raise the issue of cultivating informal civic education pedagogies as a basic student right, a democratic right to cultivate ‘voice’.

scholarly journals Egypt’s feminist counterpublic: The re-invigoration of the post-revolution public sphere

2019 ◽  
pp. 146144481989057
Author(s):  
Dalia Elsheikh ◽  
Darren G. Lilleker
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Feminist Movements

This study examines the current feminist counterculture movements which appears to be reinvigorating the Egyptian public sphere. The study argues women in particular have been able to find themselves alternative ways to develop a discourse focused on a desire for social changes around which they can unite. In focusing on lifestyle issues that normally are discussed only in small private spheres, they are able to challenge norms while not provoking the state or security apparatus and avoiding becoming part of the polarised political environment. This article explores the dynamics and motivations of these groups through a case study of three of the networked feminist movements. Our data from semi-structured interviews with the founders show that they grew from networks to movements which then evolved in order to be sustainable. This article argues that through the process of their evolution, these movements are helping strengthen the public sphere and enhance Egyptian democracy.

scholarly journals Parenthood and Partnerhood in the Context of Involuntary Childlessness and Assisted Reproduction in Greece

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aglaia Chatjouli ◽  
Ivi Daskalaki ◽  
Venetia Kantsa
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Assisted Reproduction ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Family Relations ◽  
The Body ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
State Laws ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

Ta en oiko mi en dimo is a popular Greek proverb meaning that whatever happens at household [ oikos] should not be exposed into public [ dimos]. In the Greek cultural context sexuality, reproduction, family relations belong to the realm of private domesticity. In this paper we trace the way women and men in Greece resituate themselves towards their reproductive desires and decisions, towards medicalized reproduction and towards each other, when in the context of involuntary childlessness, infertility and ART use, reproduction moves outside the body and the private sphere of the household and becomes part of the public sphere exemplified in state laws, doctor's decisions, hospital laboratories, IVF forums. Drawing from the research project (In)FERCIT and based on 130 semi-structured interviews of both women and men the paper explores the shifts related to parenting, the imagining and making of a family, the couple, in the context of neoliberal reproductive potentialities. Which relationships and practices change through the ongoing challenges of infertility and the experience of ART? What is kept within the couple and what is shared with others (family members, friends, strangers, experts)? What is the significance of reproductive socialities in managing the demands of infertility within an ever-increasing intensification of parenthood? How does this challenging context reinforces or weakens the couple's relationship, their reproductive agency and desire? Finally we explore how proper parenthood but also proper partnerhood are constructed in Greece following local demands regarding family making and localized medicalization of reproduction.

scholarly journals Second-order impartiality and public sphere

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 757-771
Author(s):  
Michal Sládecek
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Institutional Structure ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Public Morality ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

In the first part of the text the distinction between first- and second-order impartiality, along with Brian Barry?s thorough elaboration of their characteristics and the differences between them, is examined. While the former impartiality is related to non-favoring fellow-persons in everyday occasions, the latter is manifested in the institutional structure of society and its political and public morality. In the second part of the article, the concept of public impartiality is introduced through analysis of two examples. In the first example, a Caledonian Club with its exclusive membership is considered as a form of association which is partial, but nevertheless morally acceptable. In the second example, the so-called Heinz dilemma has been reconsidered and the author points to some flaws in Barry?s interpretation, arguing that Heinz?s right of giving advantage to his wife?s life over property rights can be recognized through mitigating circum-stances, and this partiality can be appreciated in the public sphere. Thus, public impartiality imposes limits to the restrictiveness and rigidity of political impartiality implied in second-order morality.

Women, the public sphere, and collective identities

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Gleadle
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Pressure Group ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
The Public ◽  
Women's Experiences ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Gendered Patterns

Despite his acknowledgement of women's contribution to constituency and electoral politics, James Vernon has suggested that by the 1830s women were marginalized from the public sphere and participated as observers rather than as agents in their own right. This chapter examines features of female citizenship through a different lens by focusing on their experience of the public sphere. It considers the public sphere of pressure-group campaigns, parliamentary elections, constituency celebrations, and royal visits. It argues that the gendered patterns of public conduct which typified gatherings of this nature had a significant impact upon women's experiences of politics and their own attitudes towards female citizenship. It also discusses ultra-Protestantism and two contrasting case studies, both drawn from the networks of liberal nonconformity: Lydia Becker and Priscilla McLaren.

Evaluating Communication in the British Parliamentary Public Sphere

2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 280-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aeron Davis
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Uk

This article begins with a re-evaluation of political communication research based on Habermas' original theory of the public sphere. It presents Habermas' alternative framework for assessing communication in contemporary ‘actually existing democracies’. The model is then tested with a case study of the UK parliamentary public sphere based on 95 semi-structured interviews with political actors (politicians, journalists and officials). It concludes that parliament today operates rather better, according to public sphere norms, than the public sphere described in Habermas' accounts of 18th and 19th-century England. Such a finding, on its own, is clearly at odds with public perception. The research accordingly offers two explanations for this disparity and the (perceived) crisis of political legitimacy in UK politics.

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