Asymmetrical Power Relations Research Articles

Asymmetries of power in transnational literary celebrity: the case of Elif Shafak’s bilingual website

ABSTRACT This article aims to study the implications of bilingualism on literary celebrity with respect to having two sets of audiences that fall into two distinct categories in terms of linguistic hegemony: a nation/region-specific language and a global language. Using representation as a conceptual framework for both translation and celebrity, it aims to address such cross-cultural issues as pertaining to asymmetrical power relations. It offers as case study the bilingual official website of Elif Shafak, a novelist from Turkey with an international renown. The analysis reveals that addressing a dual audience can lead to the adoption of a double persona and, incidentally, a double standard that furthers unequal power relations on the global scale. Unlike the celebrity persona, which is the promoted face of the literary author and is structured for consumption, these personae are likely to be discernible only through critical analysis and to be operative in reproducing unequal power relations. Both the celebrity persona and the double persona would ultimately function to secure renown in accordance with global measures.

Joint Ventures and Land Rentals in Tobacco: Limitations of Radical Land Reforms in a Neoliberal Economic Environment – the Case of Zvimba, Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe’s fast-track land reform programme has led to the adoption of new patterns of land use by its beneficiaries. Tobacco farming is a case in point. By virtue of the crop’s export viability and driven by changes in land tenure brought about by the reform, investors and resettled farmers are entering into a new generation of land leases and joint-venture agreements. To varying degrees, these agreements are attempts by resettled farmers to mobilise the working capital they need for farming and attempts by investors – mostly white former farmers who lost land to the land reform programme – to regain access to land in order to apply their capital and know-how to farming. The very emergence of these arrangements suggests that Zimbabwe’s land reform programme, although radical, was not backed up by a corresponding financial strategy. The growing control of investors over land through these arrangements is also suggestive of a land reform reversal. This article draws on evidence of joint ventures in tobacco farming in the Zvimba district of Mashonaland West to argue that what are presented on the ground and in the literature as joint ventures are best characterised instead as land rental arrangements with asymmetrical power relations that favour investors. Despite the existence of national policy frameworks aimed at attracting investment in agriculture, there is no legal basis for the regulation of these joint ventures. Through examining the limitations of land reform, this article argues that the lease agreements, widely presented as joint ventures, constitute a certain reversal of the transformation attempted by the land reform programme.

Police stops in Germany – between legal rules and informal practices

PurposeThis paper analyzes micro-political strategies that police officers use during police stops, mostly based on their professional or personal life experience. Police stops take place in an asymmetric power relationship. Actions of police officers during a stop are backed by strong legal powers, and citizens typically do not negotiate how the stop should be carried out.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on ethnographic observation, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with German patrol officers.FindingsThe authors demonstrate that micro-political strategies relying on the officers' personal experience, rather than on strategies developed by the police agency based on empirical evidence, are highly problematic. Depending upon the acting officer, micro-political strategies can vary considerably according to the individual officer’s experience and attitudes. This leads to a risk of discrimination in police stops and of potential infringements on the citizens’ fundamental rights.Research limitations/implicationsSee the paper’s methodology section on the limitations of the empirical approach.Practical implicationsThe paper suggests improvements for the practice of police stops.Originality/valueThe article provides new empirical insights in the practice of police stops in Germany and situates the findings in a broader international debate on police stops and shortcomings of the legal rules that govern the police stops.

Digital togetherness as everyday resistance: The use of new media in addressing work exploitation in rural areas

The literature on spatial-temporal barriers shows that temporary migrant workers are vulnerable to exploitation and has concentrated on how they utilize new media to address underpayment and exploitation. These studies, however, have left unexplored the agency, temporality, and spatial considerations that underpin why workers prefer to activate “informal” mechanisms of complaint rather than accessing “formal” channels of redress, such as the Fair Work Ombudsman or labor unions. Using Working Holiday Makers in Australia as an example, this article focuses on digital togetherness generated through new media. I argue that digital interactions on new media platforms not only change the spatial-temporal limit of temporary migrant workers, but also create digital togetherness and connect workers with different imagined others (customers, arriving migrant workers, and workers who are facing exploitation). This connection can become an everyday resistance strategy, a remedy to space–time limits, and potentially challenge asymmetrical power relations between workers and employers.

Who is the Other?

Abstract: In this contribution I discuss how the (re)production of Otherness can be problematised presenting two practical examples. The first considers the encounter of Otherness from the perspective of another language: by shuffling individual and collective representations, such an experience reveals how Otherness is a relative and situated construct determined by asymmetrical power relations. Drawing from my long practice as a foreign language teacher, I briefly present an activity that I developed in a multicultural high school in Italy in an urban context to show how the construction of Otherness can be problematised starting by challenging the usual perspective from which we look at ourselves. The second example discusses the international project of the online dictionary In Other Words. A Contextualized Dictionary to Problematize Otherness (www.iowdictionary.org) that analyses, problematises and subverts discriminating language through the critical and creative analysis of keywords by using pieces of literature, works of art, cartoons, videos, as well as by deconstructing derogatory visual and rhetorical strategies. The actual practices here presented as examples are grounded in several theoretical and critical perspectives, further evidence that practices and theories are not separate entities, but they rather nurture each other since it is precisely the dialogue between thought and action that shapes human experience, fostering awareness and responsibility for our common world (Arendt 1958/1998). [1] Keywords: otherness, another language, discriminating language, stereotypes, asymmetrical power relations, visual and rhetorical strategies.

Beyond a tokenistic inclusion of indigenous knowledge systems in protected area governance and management in Okhahlamba-Drakensberg

ABSTRACT This paper explores the perception of indigenous communities towards the co-management framework and whether or not this empowered them to utilise their indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) in the management and governance of the Protected Area (PA) in Okhahlamba-Drakensberg. IKS is excluded from the political systems of PA governance but this can be remedied through participation of indigenous communities in the agenda-setting around environmental management programmes. Indigenous community members should be co-managers at every level of the political power hierarchy of the PA if entrenched asymmetrical power relations are to be dismantled and replaced by meaningful partnership that transcends tokenistic normativity.

Online video games and patient-staff power relations. A qualitative study of care and custody in forensic psychiatry.

Accessible summaryWhat is known on the subject? Frontline forensic mental health staff often face challenges when providing recovery‐orientated care, as they must balance between caring for the forensic psychiatric patient and at the same time ensuring safety and security for all other patients and staff at the ward.Research shows that balancing between care and custody in everyday clinical practice is possible, but more practical nursing studies showing ways of balancing power relations are needed to guide clinical practice.Online video games are increasingly recognized as promising new tools to promote social relations, establish competencies and re‐articulate power relations in therapeutic environments. What the paper adds to existing knowledge? This paper provides insights into how using online video gaming interventions may influence the establishment of social power relations of staff and forensic psychiatric patients. It adds to existing research by providing a conceptual way to study and understand how mental health nurses may balance between care and custody, delivering care to accommodate patients' needs without compromising safety and security at the ward.This study answers a call in current research by providing qualified knowledge regarding the use of online video gaming to build and sustain therapeutic relations in mental health care. What are the implications for practice? Our paper suggests that balancing between care and custody is possible by using online video gaming interventions in forensic psychiatry. It moreover provides practice‐close knowledge that may inspire and guide clinical mental health nurses to further develop online video gaming interventions in mental health care for the benefit of their patients. IntroductionIn recovery‐oriented care, forensic psychiatric nurses must engage in care relationships with forensic psychiatric patients (FPs) whilst focussing on ward security. Online video games (OVGs) may provide a platform for negotiating power and social relations. Studies showing how OVG interventions may influence power balances in forensic psychiatric care are needed to guide clinical practice.AimOur aim was to study how power relations were articulated between FPs and staff in an OVG intervention in a Danish forensic psychiatric ward.MethodData consist of three months of observational data and interviews with three staff members and six patients. We used sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's framework of field, power and capital to analyze data.ResultsThe OVG intervention consisted of two power fields, “in‐game” and “over‐game.” In‐game concerned the practice of gaming. Over‐game described the organization of the gaming intervention. Specific logics, skills and symbolic capitals drove power in each field.DiscussionPower in‐game was open to FPs and staff, leading to symmetric power relations. Power over‐game was open to staff only, resulting in asymmetrical power relations.Implications for practiceOnline video game interventions may facilitate power balancing in forensic psychiatry. These insights may guide the development of new OVG interventions for patients and nurses in mental health care.

Fatal misconceptions: colonial durabilities, violence and epistemicide in Africa’s Great Lakes Region

The contributions of this special issue explore the concept of colonial durabilities in a bid to unearth both the concrete and invisible sites through which coloniality continues to circulate and materialise in the African Great Lakes Region (GLR). Colonial durabilities, we argue, are non-linear dynamic processes that suffuse the realities and structures of international and national politics, as well as the conduct of daily life. These become particularly evident in the knowledge economy of the GLR, in endeavours as broad as state building and everyday practices, within international development and peacebuilding interventions, and in academic theorising, methodologies and writing formats. We introduce the papers in this special issue that urge us to address an important question: Can we truly decolonise if we do not fully understand the coloniality of the present and its effects? We argue a careful investigation of the structural conditions that enable coloniality to actively form and re-form is essential to accurately understand real-world ramifications of asymmetrical power relations, a crucial aspect of the process of decolonisation. Lastly, we reflect on avenues for re-thinking the effects of colonial durabilities and to work towards generating anti-/de-colonial knowledges to perhaps achieve ‘epistemic freedom’.

The alignment strategies of great powers: Managing power asymmetries and structural changes in the international system

The article aims to contribute to previous research in two main ways. First, we intervene in the debate on the stability of the present unipolar system by offering an analytical framework and an empirical approach for exploring and categorizing the actual strategies pursued by the major powers in the contemporary international system. In doing so, we present an analysis of how the strategies of the five system-determining states interact and affect the stability of the system. Second, in order to be able to explain why states pursue different strategies, we complement the analytical framework of structural realism with insights from research on Power Transition Theory (PTT). Hereby, we offer a new comprehensive theoretical approach for analyzing how asymmetric power relations affect strategic choices of major powers.

Scaling Up? On the Possibilities and Limits of Transnational Labour Organising in Globalised Production

This article provides an overview of theoretical and empirical efforts to understand the multiple dimensions enabling and hindering (transnational) labour organising in the context of globalised production. It situates the contributions to this special issue in the broader debate on the role of labour and workers’ agency in global value chains and production networks. For this, it brings together chain and network approaches with labour studies in a highly productive dialogue. Focusing on labour as a transnational actor, the article further identifies different approaches of and actors within transnational organising and provides empirical insights on the complexity of the politics of scale in organising efforts. Four key issues are identified as complicating labour organising along global value chains: (i) asymmetrical power relations within organising, particularly between the global North and South, (ii) the continued importance of the local and national scale, (iii) difference and dividing lines between workers, and (iv) the red-green divide. The article argues for the importance of a multi-scalar and intersectional perspective on transnational organising beyond binaries. Such an approach recognises the key role of local alliances as well as the possibilities and limits arising from transnational organising initiatives to confront globalised capital.

Workers’ Power in Marikana: Building Bridges of Solidarity in South Africa’s Platinum Mines (2012-2014)

This article provides an overview of theoretical and empirical efforts to understand the multiple dimensions enabling and hindering (transnational) labour organising in the context of globalised production. It situates the contributions to this special issue in the broader debate on the role of labour and workers’ agency in global value chains and production networks. For this, it brings together chain and network approaches with labour studies in a highly productive dialogue. Focusing on labour as a transnational actor, the article further identifies different approaches of and actors within transnational organising and provides empirical insights on the complexity of the politics of scale in organising efforts. Four key issues are identified as complicating labour organising along global value chains: (i) asymmetrical power relations within organising, particularly between the global North and South, (ii) the continued importance of the local and national scale, (iii) difference and dividing lines between workers, and (iv) the red-green divide. The article argues for the importance of a multi-scalar and intersectional perspective on transnational organising beyond binaries. Such an approach recognises the key role of local alliances as well as the possibilities and limits arising from transnational organising initiatives to confront globalised capital.

Covid-19 Vaccine Nationalism and Vaccine Diplomacy: A New Currency in Soft Power?

This article merges and examines the following four phenomena, (1) pandemics which are predominantly a human security matter, (2) vaccines and vaccinations, which are predominantly a public health matter, (3), power which is the alpha currency in international relations and, (4), fi nally ideology. Global developments such as wars, revolutions and pandemics usually give rise to new forms of power, redrawing power confi gurations and in some cases shift ing and redrawing biographical and geographical boundaries. This article explores the rise of vaccine nationalism and how it will impede the global eff orts to curtail the devastation of the Covid-19 pandemic. I also present the Covid-19 vaccine as a new currency in soft power that, unlike hard power, is owned by an emerging vaccine oligarchy epitomised as Big Pharma. Vaccine nationalism is positioned as being counterproductive to eff orts to reduce the eff ects of the virus. This way, vaccine nationalism and vaccine diplomacy constitute new forms of and fronts for colonialism. I conclude by asserting that vaccine nationalism will result in more asymmetrical power relations in international relations as the vaccine will gradually become a new form of soft power. As a form of soft power, the vaccine will entrench and perpetuate coloniality. Vaccine nationalism and vaccine diplomacy are self-defeating, will aid those paddling eugenics and result in a new form of inequality, vaccine inequality.

The Transnational Labor Alliances Database Project: Methods, Problems, and Progress

This article provides an overview of theoretical and empirical efforts to understand the multiple dimensions enabling and hindering (transnational) labour organising in the context of globalised production. It situates the contributions to this special issue in the broader debate on the role of labour and workers’ agency in global value chains and production networks. For this, it brings together chain and network approaches with labour studies in a highly productive dialogue. Focusing on labour as a transnational actor, the article further identifies different approaches of and actors within transnational organising and provides empirical insights on the complexity of the politics of scale in organising efforts. Four key issues are identified as complicating labour organising along global value chains: (i) asymmetrical power relations within organising, particularly between the global North and South, (ii) the continued importance of the local and national scale, (iii) difference and dividing lines between workers, and (iv) the red-green divide. The article argues for the importance of a multi-scalar and intersectional perspective on transnational organising beyond binaries. Such an approach recognises the key role of local alliances as well as the possibilities and limits arising from transnational organising initiatives to confront globalised capital.

“Nothing about us without us” or “The most effective way to get it implemented”? Global South Workers’ Power in Australian Civil Society Initiatives in the Garment Sector

This article provides an overview of theoretical and empirical efforts to understand the multiple dimensions enabling and hindering (transnational) labour organising in the context of globalised production. It situates the contributions to this special issue in the broader debate on the role of labour and workers’ agency in global value chains and production networks. For this, it brings together chain and network approaches with labour studies in a highly productive dialogue. Focusing on labour as a transnational actor, the article further identifies different approaches of and actors within transnational organising and provides empirical insights on the complexity of the politics of scale in organising efforts. Four key issues are identified as complicating labour organising along global value chains: (i) asymmetrical power relations within organising, particularly between the global North and South, (ii) the continued importance of the local and national scale, (iii) difference and dividing lines between workers, and (iv) the red-green divide. The article argues for the importance of a multi-scalar and intersectional perspective on transnational organising beyond binaries. Such an approach recognises the key role of local alliances as well as the possibilities and limits arising from transnational organising initiatives to confront globalised capital.

Amefricanity: A Black Feminist Proposal for a Political Organization and Social Transformation

AbstractThis article analyzes the work and thought of Lélia Gonzalez on the experience of Black women in Brazil. It highlights her legacy within studies of Black Feminism in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the importance of her articulation between sex, class, and race with the intention of understanding the social inequality Indigenous and Black women suffer. Gonzalez's political-cultural category of Amefricanity is presented in this article as an instrument of analysis specific to the region, which promotes an epistemological shift within Black feminism. This category seeks to interpret the stories and survival strategies of previous generations of Black women on the continent, as well as to learn their methods and transgressive practices of asymmetrical power relations as pedagogical processes.

Ayahuasca on Trial

In 1986, American scientist and entrepreneur Loren Miller received Plant Patent No. 5, 751 on a “novel” strain of the ayahuasca plant, which he named “Da Vine.” Indigenous tribes and healers had been using ayahuasca for hundreds of years before it was brought into Western culture. Miller’s accepted claim to novelty, however, was founded on this particular strain’s color and medicinal properties. Several years after his “discovery,” Indigenous peoples of Ecuador learned that their sacred plant had been patented and demanded that Miller’s patent be revoked for not meeting the novelty requirements of the US Plant Patent Act. In 1999, the US Patent and Trademark Office revoked Miller’s patent based on evidence of the strain’s existence in US botanical museums prior to Miller’s licensing. Subsequent to this decision, however, Miller filed for an appeal, and his “Da Vine” patent was reinstated for its remaining life span. This case demonstrates how international patent law reinscribes asymmetrical power relations between the “West and the rest” by deferring to a legal structure that remains inherently colonial in nature and practice. Beginning with a history of patent law, this paper examines Miller’s case as it disregards Indigenous existence, legitimizes property theft, and commodifies a sacred plant.

A Techno-Socio Exploration of Mental Health Communication on Social Media

Drawing on the social media affordance construct, this paper presents a deeper understanding of the process of producing, circulating, consuming, and reproducing mental health information on social media. The paper examines mental health-related subreddits, Facebook pages, and online website forum threads. This paper goes beyond the binary perspective of identifying positive or negative effects of using social media on mental wellbeing to interrogate how social media affordances shape and are shaped by the communication process. The findings show that social media affordances shaped production, circulation, consumption, and reproduction processes through three main aspects namely sustaining already existing mental health information, and to a less extent creating opportunities for new information to emerge as well as sustaining dominant asymmetrical relations of power.

TRANSBOUNDARY ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE IN THE EU AND SOUTHEAST ASIA: CONTESTING HYBRIDITY IN THE BIOFUELS AND PALM OIL REGIMES

The research addresses the complexities of the European Union’s Renewable Energy Directives (EU RED and RED II), contextualising them within the palm oil sector in Southeast Asia, in which Indonesia and Malaysia are known to be the two largest producers and exporters of palm oil. It aims to question the effect of this expanding role of markets on power dynamics and political processes. Examining these developments at different organisational scales highlights the asymmetrical power relations that circulate through such transboundary networks to shape patterns of resource access and the distribution of environmental risks. Employing a qualitative approach, the research uses case study method to reflect on how market forces and broad political dynamics establish the hybrid environmental governance regime of biofuels. The research concludes that this transboundary market approach to biofuels and palm oil should be regarded with caution, as it (1) lowers regulatory quality within the biofuels sustainability regime, (2) undermines the sustainable palm oil market, and (3) indirectly bolsters unsustainable practices outside the palm oil sector.

Theorising English as a Linguistic Capability: A Look at the Experiences of Economically Disadvantaged Higher Education Students in Colombia

ABSTRACT The current study used the capability approach (CA) to explore the English learning experiences of 10 economically vulnerable higher education (HE) students in Colombia in order to better conceptualise English from a capability perspective. In doing so, this paper builds on the empirical and theoretical work of capability scholars which has looked at the role of English in educational settings. It highlights the importance of viewing linguistic capabilities as inchoative since viewing them as fully formed can obscure injustices. These injustices can include poor quality English language education (ELE), an unfavourable financial situation, and a lack of opportunities for exposure to and practice of English. This last-mentioned injustice foregrounds another important dimension of linguistic capabilities: their inter-subjective, relational nature. To aid in this conceptualisation, the paper also draws on Phillipson’s [1992. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press] theory of linguistic imperialism to better illustrate how English is implicated in asymmetrical power relations which give rise to oppression and domination. However, this paper also shows how some injustices can be navigated by educationally resilient individuals. The findings of this thesis are therefore of interest not only to language policy experts and other language education stakeholders in developing contexts, but also to capability scholars.

Reimagining geographies of public finance

The study of public finance—the role of government in the economy—has faded in geography as attention to private finance has grown. Disrupting the tendency to fetishize private financial power, this article proposes an expanded conception of public finance that emphasizes its role in shaping geographies of inequality. We conceptualize the relationship between public and private finance as a dynamic interface characterized today by asymmetrical power relations, path-dependent policy solutions, the depoliticization of markets, and uneven distributional effects. A reimagined theory and praxis of public finance can contribute to building abolitionist futures, and geographers are well positioned to advance this project.