The architecture of school governance: Rebuilding democratic legitimacy within an academized system

Successive governments, in embracing a neoliberalist ideology of decentralization and privatization, have radically reformed the nature of community-based, comprehensive state education. The transition from ‘government to governance’ (Rhodes, 1997) combined with the ideology of academization (DfE, 2010a) has created a democratic deficit 1 (Corbett, 1977). Academies are placed outside of local elected scrutiny or community-based accountability systems and governance legitimacy is in crisis (Glatter, 2013). This article explores the problematization of academized governance (Allen and Gann, 2017) with respect to the democratic deficit and the consequential lack of stakeholder engagement – argued as unethical within a democratic society and a system that frequently leads to failings of accountability (Wilkins, 2016). Utilizing the conceptual lens of Empowered Participatory Governance (EPG) (Fung and Wright, 2003), the authors seek to present a new architecture of governance that seeks to restore democratic legitimacy. Democratic governance innovations, the micro-governance network (Allen, 2017) and a refreshed local education board (Gann, 2021) provide a new architecture for a post new governance environment and, in so doing, a counter-narrative to the rhetoric of academization.

Carlos Giménez, España, Una, Grande y Libre (1976-1977), and Comics of the Transition

I reexamine the Spanish Transition in terms of the interventions that cartoonists in the 1970s used to lay bare the machinations of the old regime still in power. Specifically, I analyze Carlos Giménez’s España, Una, Grande y Libre series, an exemplary counter-narrative against the dominant discourse produced by post-Franco government officials and economic power brokers. This collection—which denounces state-sanctioned violence and champions popular mobilizations in the name of a more just society—is also a pioneering work that makes visible the victims of the long-silenced crimes of Francoism.

Language Matters: How Baker Library is Working Towards Conscious and Inclusive Description

Inclusive and conscious archival description can support consistency in researching and describing marginalized groups and can serve to provide context and a counter-narrative reflecting the perspective of the documented community. It can also help to address the power imbalances between creators and subjects of records. In this article, the authors describe efforts to prepare best practice guidelines for inclusive description and for revising descriptions to remediate outdated, problematic, or offensive language and meet modern standards. They also share how the project team is working together to create meaningful and enduring changes that both provide a better experience for staff and users and support Harvard Business School’s Action Plan for Racial Equality.

Constructing a Biopic Screenplay: Fictional Invention in the Biopic with Scant Evidence

<p>As a creative practice research project, this thesis sets out to write a screenplay about Suresh Biswas (1861-1905), a little-known Bengali adventurer who was a wild-life trainer and circus-performer in Europe and later became a Captain in the Brazilian army. The early biographies of Biswas, based on limited and unreliable evidence, pose a challenge to the screenwriter in terms of narrative reconstruction of his life as a biopic. While more information has become available recently, this project examines the creative and critical issues associated with researching this figure, overcoming the problem of scant evidence and positioning him within a presentist context. Drawing on Rosenstone’s conceptual model for understanding how historical knowledge manifests in fictional narratives, it investigates the nature and function of fictional inventions in biopics and the ways in which screenplays make creative use of evidence. In writing Biswas’ biopic, I use the microhistorical research method, knowledge about biopic script-drafting processes, and Bhabha’s notion of ‘vernacular cosmopolitanism’ to present Biswas as a non-Western, non-elite 19th century cosmopolitan, thereby constructing a counter-narrative to the dominant discourse of cosmopolitanism as a matter of exclusive Western, elite privilege. I argue that it is through a judicious mix of fictional invention and a diligent study of evidence that a screenwriter can get closer to the historical subject. The thesis thus initiates in practice, moves to biopic history and criticism, reverts to practice with knowledge about research and writing that not only enables me to overcome my screenwriting problem but also leaves behind a set of insights for other screenwriters working with scant biographical evidence.</p>

Constructing a Biopic Screenplay: Fictional Invention in the Biopic with Scant Evidence

<p>As a creative practice research project, this thesis sets out to write a screenplay about Suresh Biswas (1861-1905), a little-known Bengali adventurer who was a wild-life trainer and circus-performer in Europe and later became a Captain in the Brazilian army. The early biographies of Biswas, based on limited and unreliable evidence, pose a challenge to the screenwriter in terms of narrative reconstruction of his life as a biopic. While more information has become available recently, this project examines the creative and critical issues associated with researching this figure, overcoming the problem of scant evidence and positioning him within a presentist context. Drawing on Rosenstone’s conceptual model for understanding how historical knowledge manifests in fictional narratives, it investigates the nature and function of fictional inventions in biopics and the ways in which screenplays make creative use of evidence. In writing Biswas’ biopic, I use the microhistorical research method, knowledge about biopic script-drafting processes, and Bhabha’s notion of ‘vernacular cosmopolitanism’ to present Biswas as a non-Western, non-elite 19th century cosmopolitan, thereby constructing a counter-narrative to the dominant discourse of cosmopolitanism as a matter of exclusive Western, elite privilege. I argue that it is through a judicious mix of fictional invention and a diligent study of evidence that a screenwriter can get closer to the historical subject. The thesis thus initiates in practice, moves to biopic history and criticism, reverts to practice with knowledge about research and writing that not only enables me to overcome my screenwriting problem but also leaves behind a set of insights for other screenwriters working with scant biographical evidence.</p>

Zionism’s Redemptions

In this volume, Arieh Saposnik examines the complicated relations between nationalism and religious (and non-religious) redemptive traditions through the case study of Zionism. He provides a new framework for understanding the central ideas of this movement and its relationship to traditional Jewish ideas, Christian thought, and modern secular messianisms. Providing a longue-durée and broad view of the central themes and motivations in the making of Zionism, Saposnik connects its intellectual history with the concrete development of the Zionist project in Israel in its cultural, social, and political history. Saposnik demonstrates how Zionism offers lessons for a politics in which human perfectibility continues to serve as a guiding light and as a counter-narrative to the contemporary politics of self-interest, self-promotion and 'post-truth.' This is a study that bears implications for our understanding of modernity, of space and place, history and historical trajectories, and the place of Jews and Judaism in the modern world.

Narratives of human trafficking: Defining policy, practice and positioning in a contested field

<p><b>This research uses narrative criminology to investigate the way the problem of human trafficking is narrated in New Zealand and international settings. It draws on accounts from professionals who are responsible for defining and responding to human trafficking, and reports, policy, and other guiding documents. The main issue driving this research is the contested nature of human trafficking. Human trafficking is a crime type that has been highly politicised resulting in shifts and changes to the way the problem of trafficking has been approached over the past 20 years, with differing trends coming to the fore and dominating trafficking practices at different times. The internationally dominant approaches which emphasise prostitution, harsh criminal responses, and border security have come under criticism for having harmful impacts for migrant workers. This research aims to understand how human trafficking is defined, what discourses are drawn on, and how international narratives may be influencing local responses with the overall aim of identifying new and less problematic ways of conceptualising human trafficking and responding to migrant exploitation.</b></p> <p>This thesis finds that different ways of narrating human trafficking are constitutive of different trafficking realities. Narratives determine the shape the problem takes, who is involved, what the causes and solutions are, who responds, and who are classed as victims and perpetrators. This research concludes that as narratives structure reality and action, in order to change how we deal with certain problems, the way the problem is narrated must also change.</p> <p>The findings of this thesis reflect current challenges in the wider international anti-trafficking field of how to avoid positioning western states and systems as outside of the problem of trafficking, issues with broadening definitions of victimhood, and questions of the role of international versus local bodies in defining problems involving migration and crime. As well as reflecting these current challenges, the findings from this research provide insights for moving forwards by proposing an alternative narrative. This counter narrative is created through drawing together components of narratives identified in this research. It avoids the issues of western exceptionalism, narrow forms of victimhood, and a focus on sex trafficking, and provides a different method for conceptualising migration, exploitation, and harm.</p>

News & the politics of satire: TV3's 7 Days

<p>As New Zealand’s favoured satirical television show 7 Days reconstitutes the week’s current affairs and offers up a valuable counter narrative to traditional news media through its remixing of the conventions of news and the panel quiz show. Whilst many academics have studied satirical television in the US and UK contexts very little attention has been paid to the collection of New Zealand television satire and local audiences’ preference for satire over other local comedy forms. In comparing the three television systems several characteristics emerge as unique to 7 Days and New Zealand’s satiric tradition; an affinity for self-deprecating humour, the targeting of hubris, and the assailing of tall poppy syndrome; the hailing and sustenance of public feeling, and thereby the nourishment of nationalism and a communal ‘Kiwi’ identity. Television satire dealing in news and review is a well-established practice but is often referred to in academia and popular culture as simply a ‘genre’ when it rather operates as somewhere between a discourse and a genre. Television satire is born of a strong literary tradition but literary criticisms fail to adequately address the functions of contemporary satire; its affective powers, the limits of its uptake, and the ideological footing of its critiques. Examples from US and UK television are considered as precursors to New Zealand satire, and a close analysis of 7 Days reveals that it is not only the conventions of genre that limit satire’s incarnations but also an unstable broadcasting history and an uncertain future.</p>