Transforming relationship marketing via subversive readings

Where is the consumer represented within the discourses of Relationship Marketing? In our paper we deconstruct and critically (but productively) interrogate current Relationship Marketing discourse; and we argue for reconceptualising RM as a field of study through a transformatory process which involves the subversive reading of its academic texts. We argue that the consumer is silenced within relationship marketing discourse in a way that is fundamentally analogous with the gynopia (absence of women) in early sociological enquiry. Given that the means of transformation can potentially be found within contemporary feminist research, one of the main aims of this paper is to examine the parameters of feminist research and theory by presenting and explaining three representative frameworks (Fonow & Cook 1991, Maynard & Purvis 1994 and Harding 1988). The interrogative questions generated from the reading of feminist texts provide a framework to enable a close reading of RM ‘texts’. Using a form of discourse analysis, we read both ‘with the text’ and ‘against the grain’ (Tonkiss 1998:258) looking for ‘silences and gaps’ and making ‘conjectures about alternative accounts which are excluded by omission’ as well as those deliberately ‘countered by rhetoric’ (Tonkiss 1998:258). By striking together feminist methodology and a selected Relationship Marketing text to see if they spark (Brown 1999) our stance is activist and our purpose is to accelerate a restoration of the consumer’s voice as a central theoretical concern of this branch of Marketing.

Russia and the Arab Spring: supporting the counter-revolution

Russia’s response to the Arab Spring ranged from apprehension to deep anxiety and diverged significantly from the US and the EU responses. While initially welcoming the popular demands for political reform in North Africa, the Russian reaction rapidly became more critical as a result of Western military intervention into Libya and the threat of the spread of Islamist extremism. It was these twin fears which prompted the Russian leadership to adopt an uncompromizing stance towards Syria. While geopolitical factors certainly played a role in driving Russian strategy, domestic political factors were also more significant. As the Russian leadership felt internally threatened by the growing opposition within the country, conflict in the Middle East highlighted the perceived flaws of the imposition of Western liberal democracy and the virtues of Russia’s own model of state-managed political order. There was, as such, a significant ideational and ideological dimension to the Russian response to the Arab Spring.

“An Absurdly Quiet Spot”: The Spatial Justice of WW1 Fraternizations

Recent research on WW1 shows that incidents of fraternization across enemy lines took place regularly. However, fraternization remains a taboo in many contexts. The fact that the 2005 film Joyeux Noel by Christian Caron, which explicitly deals with the subject, encountered resistance from the authorities, is an indication of the kind of difficulty associated with the issue. I am drawing my inspiration from the way fraternizations are depicted in the film and in the literature in order to explore the concept of spatial justice. I define spatial justice as the question that emerges when a body desires to occupy the same space at the same time as another body. Defined like this, the question of spatial justice opens up in the dread of No Man’s Land and in particular the exchange of affects, objects and narratives that went on during fraternizations. I trace the movement of spatial justice as one of withdrawal from the asphyxiating atmosphere of the war and the propaganda machine. This withdrawal is not one of unpatriotic stance but of a courageous and difficult detachment from the supposed legality of the war that could only function on the basis of hate and demonization. While fraternizations did not end the war, they allowed for the possibility of spatial justice to emerge, as an opportunity to reorient the space and the bodies within.