Corruption, governance and collective sanctions: : can a wicked problem be tamed?

Tackling a problem requires mostly, an ability to read it, conceptualize it, represent it, define it, and then applying the necessary mechanisms to solve it. This may sound self-evident except when the problem to be tackled happens to be “complex, “ “ill-structured,” and/or “wicked.” Corruption is one of those kinds of problems. Both in its global and national manifestations it is ill-structured. Where it is structural in nature, endemic and pervasive, it is perhaps even wicked. Qualities of the kind impose modest expectations regarding possibilities of any definitive solution to this insidious phenomenon. If so, it may not suffice to address the problem of corruption using existing categories of law and/or good governance, which overlook the “long-term memory” of the collective and cultural specific dimensions of the subject. Such socio-historical conditions require focusing on the interactive and self-reproducing networks of corruption and attempting to ‘subvert’ that phenomenon’s entire matrix. Concepts such as collective responsibility, collective punishment and sanctions are introduced as relevant categories in the structural, as well as behavioral, subversion of some of the most prevalent aspects of corruption. These concepts may help in the evolving of a new perspective on corruption fighting strategies.

Game geek's goss: linguistic creativity in young males within an online university forum (94/\/\3 933k’5 9055oneone)

In this paper the authors explore the use and adaptation of a language specifically developed for, and by, a community of young people who play computer games. Leet speak or 1337 5p34k, the language used by the participants in this study, incorporates symbols and numbers as substitutes for the letters contained in words. Described by the group as an ‘elite’ language or ‘leet speak’, the authors’ interest was captured by the derisive and ironic use of the language in an online forum for a tertiary first year unit of study. Rather than merely defining its participants within an elite cultural boundary, ‘leet speak’ is utilised ironically to unearth ‘wannabees’ (those seeking entrance and acceptance into the game world, generally 12 –16 year olds). Of particular fascination to the authors was that despite the clear self- demarcation of the group from the users of ‘leet speak’, and their insistence on its use solely by ‘newbs and wannabees’, the group continued to use the language to communicate with each other online. In this research, language defines the cultural group of games technology students in terms of the group’s continual subversion of the language’s very foundations whilst still using it to communicate. Perhaps most interesting was the group’s nonchalant admission that they perceived this to be the function of all languages ‘all languages are created purely for communication so dont [sic] have a cry about ppl been [sic] lazy’.

States, markets and communities : is there room for educational leadership?

This paper attempts a comparative analysis of classification and framing relationships as they are exemplified in the four papers presented in this Special Issue. In particular, it interrogates Bernstein's assertion that education is simply a relay for power relations external to it and examines approaches to educational leadership and administration that follow from such analysis. It is concluded that in different times and places power relationships external to education are often complex and contested, producing a variety of relays and attempts at classification and framing that serve differing interests and are articulated through policies containing significant internal contradictions. In such circumstances contingency and immediate local influence may affect the practice of educational leadership as well as offering scope for subversion, resistance, simulated consent and collective action. The possibility of a public pedagogy through which such complexities could be articulated is raised and its importance to the practice of educational leadership affirmed.

Within and against performativity : discursive engagement in adult literacy and basic education

The field of adult literacy and basic education (ALBE) has undergone dramatic changes in recent years with the advent of labour market programs, accreditation, competency-based assessment and competitive tendering for program funds. Teachers' working conditions have deteriorated and their professional autonomy has been eroded. ALBE has been increasingly instrumentalised to fulfil the requirements of a marketised economy and conform to its norms. The beliefs and value systems which traditionally underpinned the work of ALBE teachers have been reframed according to the principle of 'performativity' and the demands of the 'performative State' (Lyotard, 1984: 46, Yeatman 1994: 110). The destabilisation of teachers' working lives can be understood as a manifestation of the 'postmodern condition' (Lyotard 1984; Harvey 1989): the collapse of the certainties and purposes of the past; the proliferation of technologies; the impermanence and intensification of work; the commodification of knowledge and curricula; and the dissolving of boundaries between disciplines and fields of knowledge. The critiques of the modernist grand narratives which underpin progressivist and critical approaches to adult literacy pedagogy have further undermined the traditional points of reference of ALBE teachers. In this thesis I examine how teachers are teaching, surviving, resisting, and 'living the contradictions' (Seddon 1994) in the context of struggles to comply with and resist the requirements of performativity. Following Foucault and a number of feminist poststructuralist authors, I have applied the notions of 'discursive engagement' and 'the politics of discourse' (Yeatman 1990a) as a way of theorising the interplay between imposed change and teachers' practice. I explore the discursive practices which take place at the interface between the 'new' policy discourses and older, naturalised discourses; how teachers are engaged by and are engaging with discourses of performativity; how teachers are discursively constructing adult literacy pedagogy; what new, hybrid discourses of 'good practice' are emerging; and the micropractices of resistance which teachers are enacting in their speech and in their practice. My purpose was to develop knowledge which would support the reflexivity of teachers; to enrich the theoretical languages that teachers could draw upon in trying to make sense of their situation; and to use those languages in speaking about the dilemmas of practice. I used participatory action research as a means of producing knowledge about teachers' practices, structured around their agency, and reflecting their standpoint (Harding 1993). I describe two separate action research projects in which teachers of ALBE participated. I reflect on both projects in the light of poststructuralist theory and consider them as instances of what Lather calls 'within/against research' (Lather 1989: 27). I analyse written and spoken texts produced in both projects which reflect teachers' responses to competency-based assessment and other features of the changing context. I use a method of discourse mapping to describe the discursive field and the teachers' discursive practices. Three main configurations of discourse are delineated: 'progressivism', 'professional teacher' and 'performativity'. The teachers mainly position themselves within a hybridising 'progressivist /professional teacher' discourse, as a discourse of resistance to 'performative' discourse. In adapting their pedagogies, the teachers are in some degree taking the language and world view of performativity into their own vocabularies and practices. The discursive picture I have mapped is complex and contradictory. On one hand, the 'progressivist /professional teacher' discourse appears to endure and to take strength from the articulation into it of elements of performative discourse, creating new possibilities for discursive transformation. On the other hand, there are signs that performative discourse is colonising and subsuming progressivist /professional teacher discourse. At times, both of these tendencies are apparent in the one text. Six micropractices of resistance are identified within the texts: 'rational critique', 'objectification', 'subversion', 'refusal', 'humour' and 'the affirmation of desire'. These reflect the teachers' agency in making discursive choices on the micro level of their every day practices. Through those micropractices, the teachers are engaging with and resisting the micropractices and meanings of performativity. I apply the same multi-layered method of analysis to an examination of discursive engagement in pedagogy by analysing a transcript of the teachers' discussion of critical incidents in their classrooms. Their classroom pedagogies are revealed as complex, situated and eclectic. They are combining and integrating their 'embodied' and their 'institutional' powers, both 'seducing' (McWilliam 1995) and 'regulating' (Gore 1993) as they teach. A strong ethical project is apparent in the teachers' sense of social responsibility, in their determination to adhere to valued traditions of previous times, and in their critical self-awareness of the ways in which they use their institutional and embodied powers in the classroom. Finally, l look back on the findings, and reflect on the possibilities of discursive engagement and the politics of discourse as a framework for more strategic practice in the current context. This research provides grounds for hope that, by becoming more self-conscious about how we engage discursively, we might become more strategic in our everyday professional practice. Not withstanding the constraints (evident in this study) which limit the strategic potential of the politics of discourse, there is space for teachers to become more reflexive in their professional, pedagogical and political praxis. Development of more deliberate, self-reflexive praxis might lead to a 'postmodern democratic polities' (Yeatman 1994: 112) which would challenge the performative state and the system of globalised capital which it serves. Short abstract Adult literacy and basic education (ALBE) teachers have experienced a period of dramatic policy change in recent years; in particular, the introduction of competency-based assessment and competitive tendering for program funds. 'Discourse politics' provides a way of theorising the interplay between policy-mediated institutional change and teachers' practice. The focus of this study is 'discursive engagement'; how teachers are engaged by and are engaging with discourses of performativity. Through two action research projects, texts were generated of teachers talking and writing about how they were responding to the challenges, and developing their pedagogies in the new policy environment. These texts have been analysed and several patterns of discursive engagement delineated, named and illustrated. The strategic potential of 'discourse polities' is explored in the light of the findings.

Tracking phenotypically and functionally distinct T cell subsets via T cell repertoire diversity

Antigen-specific T cell receptors (TCRs) recognise complexes of immunogenic peptides (p) and major histocompatibility complex (MHC) glycoproteins. Responding T cell populations show profiles of preferred usage (or bias) toward one or few TCRβ chains. Such skewing is also observed, though less commonly, in TCRα chain usage. The extent and character of clonal diversity within individual, antigen-specific T cell sets can be established by sequence analysis of the TCRVβ and/or TCRVα CDR3 loops. The present review provides examples of such TCR repertoires in prominent responses to acute and persistent viruses. The determining role of structural constraints and antigen dose is discussed, as is the way that functionally and phenotypically distinct populations can be defined at the clonal level. In addition, clonal dissection of “high” versus “low” avidity, or “central” versus “effector” memory sets provides insights into how these antigen specific T cell responses are generated and maintained. As TCR diversity potentially influences both the protective capacity of CD8+ T cells and the subversion of immune control that leads to viral escape, analysing the spectrum of TCR selection and maintenance has implications for improving the functional efficacy of T cell responsiveness and effector function.

Beautiful, unethical, dangerous : screening surveillance and maintaining insecurities

Many films critiquing the perpetuation of surveillance in contemporary society simultaneously highlight the apparently essential role(s) it plays in resolving social problems – problems that were often created by the technologies themselves. Such films construct surveillancescapes of various kinds – from the physical, to the psychological, to the virtual – and hold considerable importance in mediating understandings of technology, society and humanity. In this paper, we employ content and textual analyses of various films to reveal a rich ideological fabric that engages with vexed questions of identity, agency and ‘reality.’ We analyse an array of filmic representations of surveillance, arguing that significant contradictions lie at the heart of much mainstream cinema, and evaluating the medium’s potential for ideological subversion. An examination of the growing trend by filmmakers to either focus explicitly on surveillance or provide brief, naturalised portrayals of new media use for surveillance purposes highlights the crucial role of film in the development of hegemonic societal power structures. Through this process, we ask the question: who is actually watching whom?

Bunker-de-bunk 2012

Geelong fringe festival : the new wilderness

I coordinated a series of workshops - involving researchers Merinda Kelly, Dr Jondi Keane and David Fitzsimmons - on object, space and performance which led to a major exhibition outcome for participating artists. Specifically I led a workshop with installation artist David Fitzsimmons on spatial practices.

Editorial : Surveillance and sport

Sports represent an ideal field to explore the importance of everyday surveillance practices. The routines of preparation associated with conducting or participating in a sports mega event at international level highlight unique facets of surveillance as everyday and normalised elements of elite international or professional sports performance. While these routines do have potential individual or social costs, or are open to various forms of subversion by athletes willing to challenge the broader objectives of fair play, other forces, such as the media or formal governance reactions to a detected rule violation, provide fuel for more rigorous forms of surveillance. This spiral of surveillance permeates downwards to impact on prospective elite athletes, and outwards to impact on other forms of behaviour considered to compromise integrity or fair play. How these values mirror and intersect with norms of surveillance in everyday life is a fruitful site for on-going research and theorisation.

Something like an emergency

‘Something like an emergency’, a sonic poem recorded on CD, investigates the hunger of writing as a desire, not for a return of the dead, but for a breakthrough of impasses in language, both in love and in the writer’s (frustrated) translation of vision. Proceeding from Bachelard’s phenomenological observation that the poetic image puts language in a state of emergence, this work argues, instead, that poetry puts language in a state of emergency. Deleuze and Guattari’s idea of music as a deterriorialization of the refrain; a rhythmic pattern which marks out a territory, is invoked in both the music performance and in the words. The writing uses a ‘matting’ (rhizomatic) effect in its verse fragments which echo and refract others. Reverberation is also explored in the piano and its sonic processing which provides elements of dissonance and consonance, refracting dialogues in the text. Voice and music sometimes argue, sometimes agree, and sometimes are indistinguishable. However, this dialectic is further disturbed: at times the piano and voice seem to pay no attention to each other, taking off on their own ‘lines of flight’, in subversion of ‘collaboration’. In its use of recorded improvisational techniques this work also challenges the ‘superiority’ of live improvisation.
It was first performed at Double Dialogues conference, ‘The Hunger Artist: Food and the Arts’, Toronto, 2010. The text and accompanying discursive article form a book chapter in 2012 Food and Appetites: The Hunger Artist and the Arts, Ann McCulloch and Pavlina Radia(eds). It has been broadcast on RRR, 3CR radios and is released on CD and Youtube. By invitation it was performed at the Midsumma Festival, 2014.

Feminine freakishness: Carnivalesque bodies in Angela Carter’s nights at the circus

Angela Carter described herself as being in the “demythologisingbusiness” (“Notes”, 38) and in her 1984 novel Nights at the CircusCarter’s interrogative scope is both broad and complex. The wingedaerialiste Fevvers and the rag-bag of circus freaks with whom shejourneys evoke the Rabelaisian carnivalesque that Bakhtin cites as apowerful challenge to the spatial, temporal, and linguistic fixities of themedieval world. The transformative and regenerative potential ofRabelais’ grotesque is evident in Nights' temporal setting, whichforegrounds the possibilities of birth through death. Set at the “fagend” of the nineteenth century (19), the characters are witness tohistory on the cusp as “[t]he old dying world gives birth to the newone” (Bakhtin, 435). Here Carter has shifted the point of historicalregeneration from Rabelais’ subversion of the Neo-Platonic medievalcosmology to, rather hopefully, symbolize the demise or at least thederailment of the Age of Reason, industrial progress, Imperialism, andtheir respective ideologies of misogyny. For Fevvers and Walser theexcess of the carnivalesque prompts a crisis of subjectivity thatsignals both the redundancy of restrictive ideologies of demarcationand hierarchy, but also the playful possibilities of corporeal fluidity andreferential relativism.

To the very ground of meaning, to vary the ground of meaning

Parody may be understood as the absorption of a revolutionary impulse into the everyday production of meaning as continuous variation and soft subversion. Considered in this way, parody is transformative because it operates on the components within a system of meaning and/or the context, logic or spatial perspective that grounds the possibility of meaning. It is the conditions under which shared meaning, sense and sensation depend that I aim to unpack in order to suggest the ways in which parody can alter a person’s relationship to the world. By approaching parody as a mode of lived abstraction and as an embodied approach to affective self-organisation, body-environment co-construction and a challenge to identity, it becomes possible to move from formal concerns that have characterised parody to a set of transformative practices. Thus parody indicates where the anchors of embodied, embedded, extended, enacted and affective are dug in and hold identity and the ground of meaning in a steady state. This paper will examine how parody moves from the impulse to overthrow and invert — ‘Beneath the street, The beach’—to a collective impulse that moves the ground of meaning into a reconfigurative process that is allows totalised systems of meaning to collide and intersect. What is left is not the rubble and ruins of meaning but revitalised fragments, stems cells of meaning ready-to-be-remade.A lineage of parodic works will be paraded and discussed that directly address the tacit relation of ground, horizon, orientation and position. This parody parade will form the basis of a critique and the analysis of the ontological orientations that for example, opposing systems of perspective insert as the very ground of meaning. The implication of this line of inquiry leads to the assertion that all descriptions of the world, universe and the cosmos are parodies in search of an origin. Totalised or unified images of the ground of meaning are already parodies of a/the set of conditions by which meaning operates that also produce a trajectory that as a lived-abstraction directs or hijacks subsequent productions of meaning

Blogosfera, estratégias de subversão e o campo da comunicação no Brasil: uma análise do Movimento dos Blogueiros Progressistas sob uma perspectiva de estudos organizacionais

O campo da comunicação tem passado por um processo de intensas mudanças no que tange ao modo como a notícia é produzida, distribuída e consumida em seus diversos segmentos. Tal fenômeno está ligado, principalmente, a mudanças de ordem tecnológica que têm possibilitado novas alternativas de se produzir e comercializar a noticia e que fogem ao modelo estabelecido pelas organizações dominantes nesse espaço. A Internet, além de ter modificado o processo tradicional de produção, comercialização e distribuição da informação praticado pelas corporações de mídia, possibilitou também que diferentes grupos da sociedade civil pudessem expressar-se de maneira mais livre. Nesse sentido, graças à utilização das novas tecnologias de informação e comunicação por parte de tais grupos, viu-se o surgimento, no campo da comunicação no Brasil, de um conjunto de blogs políticos que possui como principal intuito desafiar o poder da mídia tradicional e também o de permitir a difusão de pontos de vista políticos distintos aos das organizações mainstream. Tal espaço é aqui denominado como uma blogosfera política alternativa. Dentre os diversos grupos de agentes que ingressaram no campo da comunicação nos últimos tempos, pode-se mencionar um movimento organizado específico que ganhou visibilidade nos últimos anos tanto por sua atuação política, como por seu engajamento na discussão sobre a democratização da mídia no Brasil: o Movimento dos Blogueiros Progressistas (BlogProg). O BlogProg, que é composto por jornalistas egressos de grandes organizações de mídia tradicional, jornalistas ligados a veículos de mídia alternativa e militantes políticos vinculados a partidos de esquerda, foi responsável pela realização de diversos encontros nacionais em que foram feitas diversas reivindicações em prol da formulação de políticas públicas que garantissem a democratização do campo da comunicação no Brasil e que incentivassem a própria blogosfera. Nesse sentido, a presente tese possui como objetivo analisar de que maneira a gênese e a consolidação de uma blogosfera política alternativa possibilitou, sobretudo a partir da criação do Movimento de Blogueiros Progressistas (BlogProg), o surgimento de estratégias de subversão por parte de diferentes agentes pertencentes ao campo da comunicação no Brasil. Procura-se realizar uma articulação entre a teoria sociológica de campo social desenvolvida pelo sociólogo francês Pierre Bourdieu, e a perspectiva de ativismo de mídia advinda dos campos dos estudos de mídia e comunicação e da sociologia, especialmente aquela desenvolvida por autores como Carroll e Hackett (2006) e Hackett (2008). Para que o objetivo deste trabalho pudesse ser atingido, optou-se por coletar diferentes tipos de dados que pudessem ser contrapostos e que permitissem uma maior profundidade no que tange à analise dos elementos aqui sob investigação. Assim, foram coletados dados provenientes de treze blogs vinculados ao movimento BlogProg. Também, foram coletados dados provenientes de observação participante nos principais eventos promovidos pelos agentes que compõem o movimento. Por fim, foram entrevistados dezoito pessoas, dentre blogueiros e ativistas digitais que possuem algum tipo de relação com o movimento aqui analisado. Como resultado foi possível verificar que este novo movimento social faz uso de diferentes micro e macro estratégias de subversão não só para que seja possível desafiar as organizações dominantes vinculadas aos meios de comunicação tradicionais, mas também para modificar as regras dominantes e a ordem estabelecida no campo da comunicação. Entretanto, evidenciou-se que as estratégias de subversão, ainda que sejam orientadas por um desejo de promover transformações revolucionárias no campo por meio da defesa de práticas opostas às práticas dominantes, ainda assim muitas vezes são obrigadas a incorporar algumas práticas ou elementos que também estão presentes nestas últimas, o que está relacionado à força do habitus dos agentes que exercem mais peso no movimento e também pela necessidade do movimento continuar a disputar o jogo em questão. Espera-se que a pesquisa aqui proposta contribua para os estudos sobre as organizações e o elemento poder presente em toda a sua rede de relações sociais. Tais estudos, de acordo com Faria (2003), deve ser capaz de revelar não apenas o que é manifesto e que somos capazes de ver facilmente, mas também o que não pode ser expresso, o que jaz oculto.

A narratological analysis of D. M. Thoma`s: the white hotel (1981)

“A Narratological Analysis of D. M. Thomas’s The White Hotel (1981)” originated within a seminar on British Postmodernist Literature during the first Master’s Degree in “British and North-American Culture and Literature” (2001-04) at the Universidade da Madeira set up by the Department of English and German Studies. This dissertation seeks to present a narratological analysis of Thomas’s novel. The White Hotel stands as a paradigmatic example of the kind of literature that has dominated the British literary scene in the past three decades, commonly referred to as postmodernist fiction, owing to its formal craftsmanship (multiplicity of narrative voices and perspectives, mixing of differing genres and text types, inclusion of embedded narratives) alongside the handling of what are deemed as postmodernist topoi (the distinction between truth and lies, history and fantasy, fact and fiction, the questioning of the nature of aesthetic representation, the role the author and the reader hold in the narrative process, the instability of the linguistic sign, the notion of originality and the moral responsibility the author has towards his/her work), The narratological approach carried out in this research reveals that Thomas’s text constitutes an aesthetic endeavour to challenge the teleological drive that is inherent in any narrative, i. e., the inevitable progression towards a reassuring end. Hence, the subversion of narrative telling, which is a recurrent feature in Thomas’s remaining literary output, mirrors the contemporary distrust in totalising, hierarchised and allencompassing narratives. In its handling of historical events, namely of the Holocaust, The White Hotel invites us to reassess the most profound beliefs we were taught to take for granted: progress, reality and truth. In their place the novel proposes a more flexible conception of both the world and art, especially of literary fiction. In other terms, the world appears as a brutal chaotic place the subject is forced to adjust to. Accordingly, the literary work is deemed hybrid, fragmented and open. So as to put forth the above-mentioned issues, this research work is structured in three main chapters. The initial chapter – “What is Postmodernism?” – advances a scrutiny not only of the seminal but also of more recent studies on postmodernist literary criticism. Following this, in Chapter II – “Postmodernist British Fiction” – a brief overview of postmodernist British fiction is carried out, focusing on the fictional works that, in my opinion, are fundamental for the periodising of British postmodernism. In addition, I felt the need to include a section – “D. M. Thomas as a Postmodernist Novelist” – in which the author’s remaining literary output is briefly examined. Finally, Chapter III – “A Narratological Analysis of The White Hotel” – proposes a narratological analysis of the novel according to the particular Genettian analytical model. To conclude, my dissertation constitutes an approach to D. M. Thomas’s The White Hotel as a text whose very existence is substantiated in the foregrounding of the contingency of all discourses, meeting the postmodernist precepts of openness and subversion of any narrative that claims to be true, globalising and all-inclusive.