Occupied childhoods: discourses and politics of childhood and their place in Palestinian and Pan-­Arab screen content for children

This thesis explores changing discourses of childhood and the ways in which power relations intersect with socio-cultural norms to shape screen-based media for Palestinian children. Situated within the interdisciplinary study of childhood, the research is an institutional and textual analysis that includes discursive and micro-level analysis of the socio-political circumstances within which children consume media in present-day Palestine. The thesis takes a social constructionist view, arguing that ‘childhood’ is not a fixed universal concept and that discourses of childhood are produced at specific historical moments as an effect of power. The study has a three-part research agenda. The first section uses secondary literature to explore theories and philosophies relating to definitions of childhood in Arab societies. The second employs participant observation and semi-structured interviews to understand the history and politics of children’s media in the West Bank. The final part of the research activity focuses on the impact that definitions of childhood and the politics of children’s media have on broadcasting outcomes through an analysis of (a) discourses on children’s media that circulate in Palestinian society, and (b) local and pan-Arab cultural texts consumed by Palestinian children. The analysis demonstrates that complex ideological and political factors are at play, which has led to the marginalisation, politicisation and internationalisation of local production for children. Due to the lack of alternatives, local producers often rely on international funding, and are hence forced to negotiate competing definitions of childhood, which while fitting with an international agenda of normalising the Israeli occupation, conflict culturally and politically with local conceptions of childhood and hopes for the Palestinian nation. While the Palestinian community appreciates the positive potential of local production, discourses and strategies around children’s media show that Palestinian children are constructed as vulnerable, incomplete and in constant need of guidance. Pan-Arab content presents a slightly less didactic approach and in certain cases presents childhood as a dynamic space of empowerment. However, by constructing children as ‘consumercitizens’, it alienates Arab (and Palestinian) children from disadvantaged backgrounds,as the preferred audience is middle-class children living in oil-rich countries of the Gulf.

Cultivating Subjectivities: The Class Politics of Convivial Labor in the Interstitial Spaces of Neoliberal Neglect

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-08

We’re just like everyone else!’ Rethinking the cultural politics of the London Asian urban music scene

This article engages with the practices of politics and its presence and meanings within the Asian scene. Despite work that has taken youth cultures beyond the framework of ‘resistance’ youth cultures are often still imagined and understood through the lens of ‘resistance’. Yet, within the Asian scene, the tensions, disavowal and ambivalence towards politics points toward a more complex, multilayered understanding of contemporary youth cultural forms. This article takes into account the politics of location and of belonging that Asians within this scene are negotiating that are shaping the kind of political outlooks and attitudes that are being voiced. The growth of a middle-class 'desi' community in the UK and the rise of neoliberalism has led to a significant decline in the practice of a radical, deliberative politics within this 'desi' scene.

The politics of establishing catchment management agencies in South Africa: the case of the Breede-Overberg Catchment Management Agency

We reflect on the politics of establishing catchment management agencies in South Africa with a specific focus on the Breede-Overberg Catchment Management Agency (BOCMA), which was recently replaced by the Breede-Gouritz Catchment Management Agency (BGCMA). We do so by applying the framework of adaptive comanagement and its institutional prescriptions: collaboration, experimentation, and a bioregional approach. We start by introducing the history of this catchment management agency (CMA) and then describe the establishment of CMAs in South Africa in general and that of BOCMA in particular. We follow the framework for rule types and types of river basin organizations set out by the editors of this special feature with reference to adaptive comanagement where applicable. We then discuss the politics and strategies involved in the introduction of the CMA concept to the National Water Act and the latest developments around these institutions in South Africa. This is followed by reflections on what can be surmised about BOCMA’s democratic functioning and performance to date. We conclude by reflecting on the future of operations of the new BGCMA and CMAs in South Africa in general. While our research shows that BOCMA’s establishment process has featured several elements of adaptive comanagement and its institutional prescriptions, it remains to be seen to what extent it is possible to continue implementing this concept when further developing and operationalizing the BGCMA and the country’s other CMAs.

The politics of negotiation and implementation: a reciprocal water access agreement in the Himalayan foothills, India

In this paper, we examine the on-the-ground realities of upstream-downstream negotiations and transactions over ecosystem services. We explore the engagement, negotiation, implementation, and postimplementation phases of a “reciprocal water access” (RWA) agreement between village communities and municipal water users at Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, India. We aim to highlight how external actors drove the payments for ecosystem services agenda through a series of facilitation and research engagements, which were pivotal to the RWA’s adoption, and how the agreement fared once external agents withdrew. In the postimplementation period, the RWA agreement continues to be upheld by upstream communities amidst evolving, competing land-use changes and claims. The introduction of cash payments for environmental services for forest-water relationships has given rise to multifaceted difficulties for the upstream hamlets, which has impeded the functionality of their forest management committee. Upstream communities’ formal rights and abilities to control and manage their resources are dynamic and need strengthening and assurance; these developments result in fluctuating transaction and opportunity costs not originally envisaged by the RWA agreement. The paper demonstrates the importance of an explicit understanding of the local politics of negotiation and implementation to determine the effectiveness of compensation-based mechanisms for the supply of ecosystem services.

“Refugee Voices,” New Social Media and Politics of Representation: Young Congolese in the Diaspora and Beyond

This article examines the role of new social media in the articulation and representation of the refugee and diasporic “voice.” The article problematizes the individualist, de-politicized, de-contextualized, and aestheticized representation of refugee/diasporic voices. It argues that new social media enable refugees and diaspora members to exercise agency in managing the creation, production, and dissemination of their voices and to engage in hybrid (on- and offline) activism. These new territories for self-representation challenge our conventional understanding of refugee/diaspora voices. The article is based on research with young Congolese living in the diaspora, and it describes the Geno-cost project created by the Congolese Action Youth Platform (CAYP) and JJ Bola’s spoken-word piece, “Refuge.” The first shows agency in the creation of analytical and activist voices that promote counter-hegemonic narratives of violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, while the second is an example of aesthetic expressions performed online and offline that reveal agency through authorship and ownership of one’s voice. The examples highlight the role that new social media play in challenging mainstream politics of representation of refugee/diaspora voices.

The politics of transformative harmony

This paper explores the idea of transformative harmony as a concern of the political. It proposes that the cultivation of harmony as a project of the Self is closely related to the political project of democracy as a quest for social harmony. This is in light of the view that social conflict can be seen as a collective manifestation of individual struggles to establish inner harmony. The paper, firstly, explores the idea that the quest for harmony is an intersubjective, as well as an intra-subjective, undertaking. This is in line with the Gandhian principle that societies ultimately reflect the level of enlightenment of the actors who form them. It also critiques the use of violence as a means of securing transformative harmony and social change. Finally, the paper discusses the way in which transformative harmony, in terms of its focus on the Self as the site for attaining the type of altered consciousness required to bring about social change, shares a philosophical basis with both ideas of ‘deep democracy’ and Habermasian discourse ethics. It is proposed that the project of transformative harmony represents, by default, a project to transform democratic praxis. Keywords: Harmony, politics, ethics, rights, duties, Gandhi, democracy, risk.

CONTEXTUALIZING THE POLITICS OF “BRAZILIAN” SPORT MEGA EVENTS

The first two decades of 21st century were times of great social, economic and political changes in Brazil where sport mega events (FIFA WC 2014, Rio 2016) played a key role in how the nation portrayed and promoted itself in a global scale. Despite the undeniable importance of Presidents Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff in attempt to present the country as global protagonist with more political power and social advancements, this works is intended to discuss and extended the discussion upon mega events as different ways of repeating old traditions and practices, (radically) contextualizing the role of other players and agents (sport officials, local politicians, sponsors and local media), their biases and interests, in accordance to traditional colonial processes and the dominant neo-liberal paradigm.

The politics of masculinity and/as emotion: Walt Whitman's celebration of male intimacy in the first person

This article sets out to demonstrate how the exclusive equation of emotions with femininity is a cultural and historical construction. It analyzes the close, though often veiled, relationship between masculinity and sentiment in American culture and history, especially with a view to demonstrating the political potential of men’s emotions to transform the existing social order. The argument is that friendships and emotional attachments between men could contribute not only to enriching men’s emotional lives but also, and above all, to erasing sexism, racism, and homophobia from our societies. It is argued that men’s friendships with other men might play a fundamental role in promoting greater social equality, as a number of Walt Whitman’s poems, all of them written in the first person, will help illustrate.

Napalm and After: The Politics of Grace Paley's Short Fiction

Comparatively few contemporary writers have accompanied American POWs home from Hanoi, been arrested on the White House Lawn, or been dragged off in shackles to serve time in the Greenwich Village Women's House of Detention. Paley's pacifist, socialist politics are also deeply rooted in a family past where memories were still fresh of Tsarist oppression - one uncle shot dead carrying the red flag, and parents who reached America only because the Tsar had a son and amnestied all political prisoners under the age of twenty-one. At this point, Paley's father (imprisoned in Archangel) and her mother (in exile) took their chances (and all their surviving relatives) and very sensibly ran for their lives. Her grandmother recalled family arguments around the table between Paley's father (Socialist), Uncle Grisha (Communist), Aunt Luba (Zionist), and Aunt Mira (also Communist). Paley's own street-wise adolescence involved the usual teenage gang fights, between adherents of the Third and Fourth Internationals. This article is copyright MHRA 2001, and is included in this repository with permission.

The Fourth Attempt to Construct a Politics of Welfare Obligations

Since the 1980s there have been three main attempts to ground citizenship upon the principles of duty, obligation and responsibility: conservative, communitarian and Third Way. Each of these are reviewed below. The principal task of this article, though, is to examine the emergence of a fourth attempt which, by relating duty to equality through the principle of reciprocity, represents a synthesis of traditional social democracy with the new politics of obligation. Our focus will be upon The Civic Minimum by Stuart White since this is arguably the most cogent expression of duty-based egalitarianism to have emerged in recent years. Key words: citizenship, equality, reciprocity, Basic Income

Imperfect indifference : the rhythm, structure and politics of neutrality

Cette thèse propose l’émergence d’une poésie de l’entre deux dans la littérature expérimentale, en suivant ses développements du milieu du vingtième siècle jusqu'au début du vingt-et-unième. Cette notion d’entre-deux poétique se fonde sur une théorie du neutre (Barthes, Blanchot) comme ce qui se situe au delà ou entre l'opposition et la médiation. Le premier chapitre retrace le concept de monotonie dans la théorie esthétique depuis la période romantique où il est vu comme l'antithèse de la variabilité ou tension poétique, jusqu’à l’émergence de l’art conceptuel au vingtième siècle où il se déploie sans interruption. Ce chapitre examine alors la relation de la monotonie à la mélancolie à travers l’analyse de « The Anatomy of Monotony », poème de Wallace Stevens tiré du recueil Harmonium et l’œuvre poétique alphabet de Inger Christensen. Le deuxième chapitre aborde la réalisation d’une poésie de l’entre-deux à travers une analyse de quatre œuvres poétiques qui revisitent l’usage de l’index du livre paratextuel: l’index au long poème “A” de Louis Zukofsky, « Index to Shelley's Death » d’Alan Halsey qui apparait à la fin de l’oeuvre The Text of Shelley's Death, Cinema of the Present de Lisa Robertson, et l’oeuvre multimédia Via de Carolyn Bergvall. Le troisième chapitre retrace la politique de neutralité dans la théorie de la traduction. Face à la logique oppositionnelle de l’original contre la traduction, il propose hypothétiquement la réalisation d’une troisième texte ou « l’entre-deux », qui sert aussi à perturber les récits familiers de l’appropriation, l’absorption et l’assimilation qui effacent la différence du sujet de l’écrit. Il examine l’oeuvre hybride Secession with Insecession de Chus Pato et Erin Moure comme un exemple de poésie de l’entre-deux. A la fois pour Maurice Blanchot et Roland Barthes, le neutre représente un troisième terme potentiel qui défie le paradigme de la pensée oppositionnelle. Pour Blanchot, le neutre est la différence amenée au point de l’indifférence et de l’opacité de la transparence tandis que le désire de Barthes pour le neutre est une utopie lyrique qui se situe au-delà des contraintes de but et de marquage. La conclusion examine comment le neutre correspond au conditions de liberté gouvernant le principe de créativité de la poésie comme l’acte de faire sans intention ni raison.

The EU and the Domestic Politics of Welfare State Reforms

Does European integration influence national social policies? What is the use of EU laws, orientations and guidelines? Based on a systematic comparison of ten national cases, including both old and new member states, representing all families of welfare regimes, this volume explores and specifies the mechanisms through which the EU plays a role in domestic social policy changes. It focuses on where, when and how national actors use the tools and resources offered by the process of European integration to support them in the national welfare reforms they are engaged in. The comprehensive research design and the systematic comparisons provide a unique opportunity to fully grasp the mechanisms of domestic welfare state change within the context of the European Union multilevel political system. This book proposes both a new step within the Europeanization and the welfare state literatures. It confirms the idea that Europe matters in a differential way since EU social policy will be selectively used by domestic political actors in accordance with their political preferences. It provides a clear explanation of why no EU-induced social policy change can occur without an overall support offered by key domestic decision-makers. (Résumé éditeur)

Ergonomics as authoritarian or libertarian: Learning from colin ward's politics of design

Ergonomics is intrinsically connected to political debates about the good society, about how we should live. This article follows the ideas of Colin Ward by setting the practices of ergonomics and design along a spectrum between more libertarian approaches and more authoritarian. Within Anglo-American ergonomics, more authoritarian approaches tend to prevail, often against the wishes of designers who have had to fight with their employers for best possible design outcomes. The article draws on debates about the design and manufacturing of schoolchildren's furniture. Ergonomics would benefit from embracing these issues to stimulate a broader discourse amongst its practitioners about how to be open to new disciplines, particularly those in the social sciences.

Hygiene and biosecurity: the language and politics of risk in an era of emerging infectious diseases

Infectious diseases, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and avian influenza, have recently been high on the agenda of policy makers and the public. Although hygiene and biosecurity are preferred options for disease management, policy makers have become increasingly aware of the critical role that communication assumes in protecting people during outbreaks and epidemics. This article makes the case for a language-based approach to understanding the public perception of disease. Health language research carried out by the authors, based on metaphor analysis and corpus linguistics, has shown that concepts of journeys, pathways, thresholds, boundaries and barriers have emerged as principal framing devices used by stakeholders to advocate a hygiene based risk and disease management. These framings provide a common ground for debate, but lead to quite different perceptions and practices. This in turn might be a barrier to global disease management in a modern world.