Bourdieu`s reflexive sociology and `spaces of points of view`: whose reflexivity, which perspective?

This paper considers Bourdieu's concepts of perspectivism and reflexivity, looking particularly at how he develops arguments about these in his recent work, The Weight of the World (1999) and Pascalian Meditations (2000b). We explicate Bourdieu's distinctive purposes and deployment of these terms and approaches, and discuss how this compares with related methodological and theoretical approaches currently found in social and feminist theory. We begin by considering three main ways in which 'reflexivity' is deployed in current sociological writing, distinguishing between reflexive sociology and a sociology of reflexivity. This is followed by a discussion of the main aspects of Bourdieu's approach to 'reflexive sociology' and its relation to his concepts of social field, perspectivism and spaces of point of view. He argues that we need to interrogate the idea of a single 'perspective' and account especially for the particularity and influence of the 'scholastic' point of view. He characterizes this latter point of view as unaware of its own historicity and as largely concerned with contemplation and with treating ideas primarily as abstractions (Bourdieu, 2000b). Bourdieu's intervention is to argue, as he has throughout his work, for a more reflexive account of one's location and habitus, and for sustained engagement with ideas and social issues as practical problems. Bourdieu exhorts researchers to work with 'multiple perspectives' (Bourdieu et al., 1999, p. 3), the various competing 'spaces of points of view', without collapsing into subjectivism or relativism. We then consider recent feminist engagements with and critiques of Bourdieu's notion of reflexivity and chart some of the main points of contention regarding its relevance and conceptual potential for theorizing gender identities and transformations in current times. We conclude with a brief outline of how we are working with a reflexive sociological approach in a cross-generational study of young women in difficult circumstances, 'on the margins' of education and work.

Painting equality : female artists as cultural entrepreneurial marketers

Purpose – There is growing interest by marketers in historical accounts that paint early female artists as entrepreneurial marketers. The purpose of this paper is to challenge the traditional view of entrepreneurship to incorporate a feminist theory of cultural entrepreneurship by considering the role of two female artists.
Design/methodology/approach – Using calls for historical research and new methods of enquiry in marketing, this paper traces early female artists and applies modern entrepreneurial theory to their marketing methods to identify their innovation, adaptability to change and planned marketing approach.
Findings – The paper suggests that entrepreneurial marketing is fused with the artists’ persona resulting in their celebrated status being widely recognised. It contributes an important fresh body of knowledge to the wider entrepreneurship debate by offering a new model of cultural entrepreneurial marketing. The three concepts of innovation, adaptability and marketing approach have not previously been applied to link women artists as entrepreneurs, however, this article argues that there is plenty of evidence to do so.
Research limitations/implications – While these artists are Australian (which could be seen to be a limitation), the art market is indeed international. In this respect, these artists join a longer international history as producers and consumers involved in entrepreneurial organisations from early days.
Originality/value – The artists’ significance falls within the context of emerging modernism, feminism and cultural identity during the 1920s and 1930s in Sydney, Australia. It is combined with and explains the actions and the success of two female artists’ unusual marketing approach. It is of value to readers interested in historical context regarding equality in the visual arts.

Embodied women at work in neoliberal times and places

In this article five women explore (female) embodiment in academic work in current workplaces. In a week-long collective biography workshop they produced written memories of themselves in their various workplaces and memories of themselves as children and as students. These memories then became the texts out of which the analysis was generated. The authors examine the constitutive and seductive effects of neoliberal discourses and practices, and in particular, the assembling of academic bodies as particular kinds of working bodies. They use the concept of chiasma, or crossing over, to trouble some aspects of binary thinking about bodies and about the relations between bodies and discourses. They examine the way that we simultaneously resist and appropriate, and are seduced by and appropriated within, neoliberal discourses and practices.

Opting out of oppositionality : toward an informed and engaged "third wave" feminism

I begin by citing a definition of "third wave" from the glossary in Turbo Chicks: Talking Young Feminisms at length because it communicates several key issues that I develop in this project. The definition introduces a tension within "third wave" feminism of building and differentiating itself from second wave feminism, the newness of the term "third wave," its association with "young" women, complexity of contemporary feminisms, and attention to multiple identities and oppressions. Uncovering explanations of "third wave" feminism that go beyond, like this one, generational associations, is not an easy task. Authors consistently group new feminist voices together by age under the label "third wave" feminists without questioning the accuracy of the designation. Most explorations of "third wave" feminism overlook the complexities and distinctions that abound among "young" feminists ; not all young feminists espouse similar ideas, tactics, and actions; and for various reasons, not all young feminists identify with a "third wave" of feminism. Less than a year after I began to learn about feminism I discovered Barbara Findlen's Listen Up: Voices From the Next Feminist Generation. Although the collection nor its contributors declare association with "third wave" feminism, consequent reviews and citations in articles identify it, along with Rebecca Walker's To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Voice of Feminism, as a major text of "third wave" feminism. Re-reading Listen Up since beginning to research "third wave" feminism, I now understand its fundamental influence on my research questions as a starting point for assessing persistent exclusion in contemporary feminism, rather than as a revolutionary text (as it is claimed to be in many reviews). Findlen begins the introduction with the bold claim, "My feminism wasn't shaped by antiwar or civil rights activism ..." (xi). Framing the collection with a disavowal of the influence women of color's organizational efforts negates, for me, the project's proclaimed commitment to multivocality. Though several contributions examine persistent exclusion within contemporary feminist movement, the larger project seems to rely on these essays to reflect this commitment, suggesting that Listen Up does not go beyond the "add and stir" approach to "diversity." Interestingly, this statement does not appear in the new edition of Listen Up published in 2001. And the content has changed with this new edition, including several more Latina contributors and other "corrective" additions.

Educational organizations and gender in times of uncertainty

In this chapter I identify and elaborate, from a feminist perspective, upon the theoretical shifts and key concepts that inform sociological analyses of gender and educational organizations. Gender inequalities are embedded in the multi-dimensional structure of relationships between women and men, which, as the modern sociology of gender shows, operates at every level of experience, from economic arrangements, culture and the state to interpersonal relationships and individual emotions. (Connell, 2005: 1801) Even naming this a sociology of gender and organizations is problematic. Many sociologists consider gender as a key sociological concept, but not necessarily from a feminist perspective. Feminism is a multidisciplinary, transnational movement that 'focuses on the relationship between social movements, political action and social inequalities' (Arnot, 2002: 3) and on the everyday experiences of women and girls and how they translate into social and structural 'ruling relations' (Smith, 1988). Feminism takes on multiple trajectories and imperatives in different cultural contexts, although with familial resemblances, most particularly the shared objective of equality for women and girls. Education as a primary institution of individual and collective mobility and social change, but also social and economic reproduction, has long been a focus of feminist theory and activism. So a feminist sociology needs to address this complexity of feminist sociological 'encounters' with gender and organizations.

Communication and meaning : the first year experience of off-campus study

The substantive field of the thesis is the sociology of distance education. The issues investigated centre on the relationship between off-campus students and the institutions of higher education with which they enrol, in which the first year experience is construed as an encounter between the students’ personal contexts and institutional cultures. A theoretical framework is constructed which synthcsises elements of phenomenology, hermeneutics and feminist theory. The author reports research into the way a small sample of people experienced off-campus study. The students selected resided in Victoria, Australia, and were enrolled with one of two Victorian tertiary institutions: the (then) Gippsland Institute of Advanced Education and Deakin University. Using a case study approach, the subjective experiences of the students were studied by means of a series of interviews which took place at their homes or places of employment in the period January 1988 to November 1989. Methodological issues relating to the application of hermeneutic principles to the use of interviews in educational research are explored. The results of the interpretation of the interview material are presented in terms of an integrationist model of socialisation. The thesis argued is that certain theoretical and practical issues in distance education are best understood as social and cultural phenomena rather than as technical problems. The implications of the findings about the effects of gender and culture on student experience are discussed in relation to the issues of access and equity, student support, and models of teaching and learning.

Music video and gendered pleasures in the lives of young women and men

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the cultural and social significance of music video in the lives of a group of young women and men. In so doing the thesis pays particular attention to issues of gender and pleasure. This research examines the interaction of a group of young people with music video in relation to four areas of research. Firstly, the importance of music video in terms of social interaction and the pleasure this entails is explored. Secondly the thesis looks at the ways in which gender is seen by the young people in this study to be established by music video performers. Thirdly, how gender becomes inscribed on the body is explored, and fourthly I examine the process of sexualization of the body. Theoretically this thesis draws upon feminist theory, poststructuralist theory, music video scholarship and educational theories. This eclectic approach has been necessary as this research speaks simultaneously to several distinct areas of scholarship: education, cultural studies and feminism. My research with a young audience of music video took place within a secondary school. Over two semesters I conducted research with two separate classes of Media Studies students who were aged fifteen and sixteen. A total of 49 students were interviewed, however I chose mainly to work with a small group of eleven students - five girls and six boys. The school where I conducted this research is located in a working class suburb of a provincial and industrial Australian city . The young people's social positioning in terms of class and ethnicity has been considered in some depth in relation to the construction of the gendered subject. Methodologically the thesis is skewed towards the audience, and also towards dealing with what is normally unspoken in the research process. For example, much academic research does not include the author of the research as an integral part of that research. In this thesis I include myself in a number of ways: historically, personally and as a feminist. This thesis places a high priority on ethics and the effects of research on those who participate in the research process. The thesis uses a number of research methods: structured interviews, informal conversations, memory-work and written responses to music videos. Generally the research methods used in this thesis have been developed reflexively; that is, they have developed directly in relation to the participants’ reactions, responses, suggestions, interests and comments. The research seeks to demonstrate the place of music video in the lives of the young people who participated in the study. I look at how the young people in this study connect music video to other cultural forms and social interactions. In this way the intertextuality of music video is demonstrated. The research looks at how young viewers 'read' the gender of music video performers, and how this affects their own gendering. The social and cultural meanings which are attached to certain parts of the body are also examined. Theorizing the body in terms of its social meanings is a significant part of this thesis. The research argues that young people often experience music video as pleasurable, and that music video can provide young people with access to powerful speaking positions. This is demonstrated through transcripts of our conversations and interviews, and also through the young people's written comments. However, these powerful speaking positions invariably invoke dominant discourses (homophobia and racism, for example). Thus the disruptive potential of music video is called into question. These dominant discourses are gendered in nature. Pleasure in the text (music video) and cultural inscriptions of gender on the body then, are realized differently for the girls and for the boys in this study. My research into music video, gender and young people has implications for research methodology generally, and for music video scholarship specifically. Music video scholarship to date has rarely focussed upon the audience of this cultural form. My research has certain implications for the ways in which research is currently conducted with young people in relation to popular culture generally, and music video specifically, and gendered subjectivity.

Critical fictions

This thesis draws on feminist theory from the sciences and the humanities to analyse dystopian literature for children and adults. It demonstrates that fiction plays a critical role in understanding how subjectivity and coporeality is implicated in the directions that new science is taking.

Discriminating ethics

This article examines ethics in work organization and in academic, particularly Critical Management Studies, research. It is centred on empirical data exploring the actions of three employees of a higher education institution who variously failed to resist and/or colluded in the sex discrimination of a colleague.We bring ethics to bear in our analysis of these data in three ways. First, reflecting upon our own methodology, we highlight the difficulties of balancing competing ethical responsibilities when engaging in critical research in contexts defined by adversarial relationships. Second, we highlight how research subjects, who we interpret as exercising problematic agency, draw upon discourses of care, friendship and responsibility to discursively construct their behaviour as moral. Third, drawing upon feminist theory, we reflect upon the ethical warrant of academic critiques of research subjects’ agency. Our analysis raises unsettling implications both for the ethics of Critical Management Studies research and for the function of ethics in organizations.We end by being as concerned by the capacity of ethical discourse to enable and legitimize discrimination as we are reassured by its utility to enable us to discriminate right from wrong behaviour in organizations.

Performing an intervention

What does it mean to intervene, or to perform an intervention? Presumptively conflictual, the term finds meaning in its clinical and behavioural application as an enforced practice of modification: one performs an intervention on an (often) unwilling subject. Cut one way, you could tell a history of sex/ualities education as a history of interventions of this kind: efforts to interrupt and redirect affective investments, sexual practices and undesirable identifications. The sexually active young person, the homosexual, the single mother, people of colour, people with disabilities, indigenous people, promiscuous poor people – these are some of intervention’s favourite things. These are subjects constituted in part through histories of psycho-therapeutic, medical and health educational correction, histories that are still elaborating themselves through a series of familiar contemporary concerns and campaigns.

A desarticulação do universo patriarcal em The awakening, de Kate Chopin

Pós-graduação em Estudos Literários - FCLAR

A construção do gênero nas propostas curriculares para o último ano da educação infantil e primeiro ano do ensino fundamental elaboradas pelo município de Marília/SP

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Literatura e cinema: representações do feminino em Washington Square, Daisy Miller e The Europeans

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Los cuerpos del sistema sexo/género : Aportes teóricos de Judith Butler

En el presente artículo se presentan algunos lineamientos generales sobre la distinción sexo/género y su impacto en la delimitación de la categoría cuerpo en la teoría feminista. Luego se ofrecen argumentos que cuestionan el dimorfismo sexual en términos naturales, a partir de conceptualizaciones de Judith Butler, de la ambigüedad de cuerpos intersexuales y de ciertas prácticas corporales subversivas. En esta línea, se exponen aproximaciones esencialistas y constructivistas en relación con el cuerpo, ilustradas a partir de los planteos de Luce Irigaray y Judith Butler. Finalmente, se concluye la necesidad de someter a debate la categoría sexo como ocasión privilegiada para reformular las múltiples conceptualizaciones que involucran la dimensión del cuerpo