Conservative Discourse Research Articles

Keeping Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer: Affective Constructions of "Good" and "Bad" Immigrants in Canadian Conservative Discourse

Keeping Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer: Affective Constructions of "Good" and "Bad" Immigrants in Canadian Conservative Discourse

GENDER EQUALITY AND CHILDREN’S EQUALITY IN LIBERAL AND CONSERVATIVE DISCOURSES: IMPLICATIONS TOWARD LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY

This introductory article is intended to open the volume of work prepared by the participants of the 12th UNESCO Janusz Korczak Chair International Summer School. The participants presented these papers at the RC25 ISA Interim International Conference in Warsaw, entitled: "Language and Society. Research Advances in Social Sciences" (26-27.09.2019), exploring the concepts of gender equality and children's equality in liberal and conservative discourses and practices invested in language. The papers in this volume primarily use the methodology of discourse analysis and a range of tools and methods within this framework. The purpose is to shed light on how discourses inform preferences, behaviours and representations, towards the positioning of individuals in society, based on their respective gender and their individual status - whether an adult or a child. It is interesting to explore what is expected of the holders of these positions and whether they are able to confront and renegotiate their situation. The authors look into gendered childhood, analysing if differences can be found in so-called conservative and liberal discourses. The gender aspect of childhood and the resistance towards children’s expected positions interlinked to their gender is visible to diverse degrees in this selection of papers. The concept of social positioning due to one's gender is at the heart of this volume. Therefore, this Editorial forms a theoretical backstage for the volume of works included in the special post-conference issue of Society Register.

DIVERSIDADE SEXUAL, GÊNERO E SEXUALIDADES: TEMAS IMPORTANTES À EDUCAÇÃO DEMOCRÁTICA

This essay has some observations on the concepts of gender, sexuality, sexual orientation and gender identity, themes that, but never, are necessary to reflect on the school contexts. The reflections that have been made here have been formulated within research projects that deal with the construction of gender identities in the school and part of the formative experiences with teachers of the states of Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul. The teachingdefends a school that, in interrogating the differences, educating the recognition of gender and sexuality dissent, I understand them as inseparable parts of democratic and city society. In addition, the text proposes to offer some epistemological notes to confront the conservative discourses that in the present day renew their fights against the city education, whose main objective is the expansion of human rights, the political participation and the notion of humanity.

Backlash, Intersectionality, and Trumpism

Many feminists theorize backlash as reactionary opposition to progressive gains by those seeking to reestablish the status quo. This essay extends this theorization by raising and answering two related questions: where does backlash come from, and what does backlash do? I argue that backlash emerges from the resurgence of questions regarding who belongs in the polity and that these questions about proper membership are reflected in contemporary conservative discourse that casts certain groups, such as migrants, Muslims, and women—especially transgender women—as outsiders. Backlash thus functions at the level of physical violence as well as existential threat. I illustrate these arguments by focusing on two cases: a personal narrative of backlash I experienced shortly after the 2016 election and an intersectional analysis of rhetoric used by conservative commentator Milo Yiannopolous in two televised appearances that took place in 2017.

Reflecting upon the years of political violence in Peru: An experimental study to promote a culture of peace in higher education

This article analyzes the effect of a pedagogic module, designed to help reflect on political violence in Peru, facilitating political and social attitudes directed toward promoting a culture of peace in higher education settings. As a main source of information for developing the module, Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report was used. The effects of the module implementation were assessed with a 2 × 2 experimental design, with an experimental group (n = 59) and a control group (n = 62), with pre and post evaluations. Results show the effectiveness of the intervention with significant increases in self-reported knowledge about the TRC and its work, and an agreement that the CVR represented a viable and integrative view of the era of violence. Even more, the pedagogic module attained a reduction of attitudes favorable to violence, and also a reduction of conservative ideological discourses that appear as a risk factor in the expression of new conflicts due to collective motives in post-conflict societies. Nevertheless, the effects observed were limited in some aspects, and the article discusses the need for new dissemination mechanisms about the era of violence to complement the positive effects of the module in the aim of generating a culture of peace.

Нерадикальная «Радикальная ортодоксия»: борьба с секуляризмом методами постмодернизма (на примере работ Дж. Милбанка)

The article analyzes the features of the methodology of the “Radical Orthodoxy” – philosophical and theological movement for the deconstruction of secular “meta-discourse” (by the example of the works of J. Milbank). The author notes that “Radical Orthodoxy” resembles Russian conservative and traditionalist discourse, whereupon it attracts lately the interest of the Russian academic audience. However, this movement is unfolding in a postmodern context, which complicates its identification with Russian traditionalism and religious-conservative approaches. The article notes that the definition of «secular» in “Radical Orthodoxy” is ambiguous. In addition, there are three postmodern features in Milbank's style of presentation: linguocentricity, deliberate complexity, nominalist character. The author explains the postmodernist style of “Radical Orthodoxy” basic texts by the two intentions of its creators: first, the desire to non-radically revise the history of the Modern time in order to preserve the modern construction of global Westcentricity while introducing just soft changes in its content; second, by the desire of the “Radical Orthodoxy” movement participants to protect themselves from marginalization. The author refers to the culture-specific approach (perspective) for the analysis of the “Radical Orthodoxy”. The author comes to the conclusion that the “Radical Orthodoxy” is not an anti-secular, but rather a different-secular movement, which seeks to reconsider secularism peacefully, maintaining the functioning of its structure and rebranding it in Christian forms.

SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND NEW FORMS OF RELIGIOUS TRADITIONALISM IN THE CROATIAN POST-CONFLICT CONTEXT

This paper will focus on sexual violence and new forms of religious traditionalism emerging in the Croatian political context and their engagement with the term gender. Critical Discourse Analysis as a methodological framework will be used to investigate the debates surrounding the ratification of the Istanbul Convention (Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence) in 2018 in Croatia. Religious conservative organisations started to frequently utilize the term “gender ideology” to created fear, confusion and moral panic in the public discourse in connection to the ratification. According to their interpretations, “gender ideology” in the Istanbul convention was smuggled in to destroy the traditional Croatian Catholic heterosexual family by enabling children to choose their own gender. Croatia has undergone significant changes since the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990s dismissing its socialist legacy with the support of the Catholic Church and its staunch anti-communist rhetoric which seeks to undo any progress in terms of gender equality achieved during socialism. Researching sexual violence from the intersectional feminist framework poses a challenge in a climate where the conservative discourse has highjacked any discussion of sexual violence in the public sphere by contesting the term gender itself and making it a questioned category of social analysis. Even though Croatia has ratified the Istanbul Convention in April 2018, the government has issued alongside an “interpretative statement” further legitimizing the term “gender ideology.”

O movimento LGBTI no Brasil, reflexões prospectivas

Esta nota busca contribuir para uma melhor compreensão do atual cenário político brasileiro que, em relação à diversidade sexual e de gênero, aparece marcado pelo paroxismo, pela polarização e por visíveis contradições. Nele, os diferentes poderes da República mostram tomar direções opostas. Simultaneamente, percebe-se uma sensível dessintonia entre o mundo social, no qual o respeito a tal diversidade parece cada vez mais incorporado à vida cotidiana, e os discursos conservadores que se articulam nos púlpitos e nos palanques. Como em outros importantes temas, o mundo contemporâneo parece dilacerado.

The Journalism of Roy Wilkins and the Rise of Law-and-Order Rhetoric, 1964–1968

ABSTRACTIn late 1964, NAACP Executive Director Roy Wilkins became the first African American newspaper columnist syndicated widely in the white, mainstream press. This study looks at how Wilkins used his new journalistic platform to engage in the emerging conservative discourse over law and order. Wilkins tried to combat the pervasive stereotype of the violent black criminal, but as his column spread to more newspapers and his opinions reached deeper into the white mainstream, his efforts backfired. This research argues that his harsh denunciations of black criminality, delivered under the imprimatur of the NAACP, served to legitimize the stereotype, granting it greater authority in the national public sphere. Despite Wilkins’s prominence, his journalism has received little attention in studies of the civil rights movement and the political upheaval of the 1960s.

Interseccionalidad, identidad y articulación: hacia una política de la agregación

El avance del neo-conservadurismo liberal amenaza las conquistas de los derechos sociales y civiles en un contexto de crisis económica. La incorporación de las políticas de identidad en los discursos conservadores, en tiempos de progresiva individualización y fragmentación social, dificulta la articulación de una respuesta emancipadora a las necesidades sociales de redistribución y reconocimiento. Esta contribución analiza el potencial de movilización y politización de la interseccionalidad como base articulatoria que reconoce las diferencias de posición. Partiendo del descentramiento de la identidad, el artículo explora tres figuras: ensamblajes, mundo zurdo, y política de lo múltiple. Estas figuraciones proporcionan metáforas articulatorias a la vez que reconocen simultáneamente diferencias, complejidad, singularidad y multiplicidad.

Negotiating conflicting discourses of quality teaching in Fiji: Initial teacher education and practicum at the University of the South Pacific

This article identifies a number of conflicting discourses informing education in Fiji and their impact on Initial Teacher Education (ITE) students. The socially constructivist progressivism of the Ministry of Education and the ITE provider is being eroded by a set of socially conservative discourses symptomatic of neoliberal education reforms elsewhere. It is the Practicum where the conflict is most acutely evidenced. To highlight the conflict 90 ITE students, as ethno-graphic fieldworkers, have used an accepted quality teaching checklist to record the teaching they witnessed while on practicum. The resulting misalignments between discourses of quality teaching identified in this article and highlighted by ITE students contributes to debates about what constitutes effective teaching in Fiji. Additionally, despite the multi-discursive reality of Fijian education the article suggests ITE based on a learning-centred rather than learner-centred approach where teachers make critical choices for teaching based on links between pedagogy, context and consequence.

Slovak Views of Ukraine (1880–1914)

The Ukrainian themes appeared in the Slovak context of the period 1880–1914 within three thematic lines: 1) the Slavophilic line (a wide complex of ideological, historical, linguistic, ethnological, confessional and cultural issues concerning Russia and Eastern Slavs); 2) the documentary factual line (travelogue narratives); and 3) the literary line (translations of Ukrainian literary works and information about the Ukrainian literary life in the genres of literary journalism). These lines overlapped, but the first one, i.e. ideologically-based line of Slavic solidarity, was the most significant. This line substantially determined the nature of the Slovak views on the Ukrainian religious life, emancipation movement (in correlation ‘Little Russia’ – ‘Great Russia’), institutions, personally witnessed affairs and also the Ukrainian literature. In terms of the conservative national discourse, the Ukrainian independence movement was represented as a manifestation of separatism and the distinct Ukrainian nationality was rejected or questioned. Its acceptance was a matter of the later period. The interliterary contacts were sporadic and occasional. At the beginning of the 20th century, under the influence of the modernization and liberal attitude of the rising generation to the right of self-determination, the Ukrainian literature was primarily perceived as a literature of a close Slavic nation, which was, as well as the Slovak nation, in the position of an oppressed ethnic group lacking its own political independence.

Citizens’ Councils, Conservatism and White Supremacy in Louisiana, 1964-1972

This article examines the development of Massive Resistance, in particular Citizens’ Councils, in Louisiana after the council movement in the South had passed its zenith when being unable to prevent the passage of federal civil rights and voting rights legislation. This article argues that grassroots white supremacist groups in Louisiana faced a winding path of decline and revitalization, and a number of councils proved adaptive to the changing political, social, and economic landscape by devising activist strategies that focused on direct action, white voter registration, and tapping into broader conservative discourses on law and order, welfare, and morality. Similar to questions about a “long civil rights movement,” white supremacist resistance against the civil rights movement did not vanish in the latter half of the 1960s but transformed its rhetoric while seeking to align with the conservatism.

Daimyo Gardens by Shirahata Yōzaburō

Reviewed by: Daimyo Gardens by Shirahata Yōzaburō Christian Tagsold Daimyo Gardens. By Shirahata Yōzaburō. Translated by Imoto Chikako and Lynne E. Riggs. Kyoto: International Research Center for Japanese Studies, 2016. 209 pages. Nichibunken Monograph Series 19: http://nichibun.repo.nii.ac.jp. Shirahata Yōzaburō’s Daimyō no teien is among the most important books on the history of Japanese gardens to have been published in recent decades. Though aimed at a broad readership, that book introduced a new paradigm in scholarship on the subject, shifting the focus from reductionist Kyoto gardens, for decades erroneously labeled “Zen gardens,” to the lively and colorful world of Edo gardens. The English edition under review here is part of a translation project of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) aimed at making books by its scholars more accessible to an international readership. Translated by Imoto Chikako and Lynne E. Riggs, Daimyo Gardens offers a significant restructuring of the original, with a discussion of pleasure gardens in Japan and Europe, for example, presented early in the book rather than hidden in later chapters. This edition also has a larger format and is much more lavishly and colorfully illustrated than the original paperback. Thus [End Page 260] Anglophone readers are afforded a better visual impression of the daimyo gardens than their Japanese counterparts.1 Shirahata, a leading scholar of Japanese garden history, was one of the first to challenge the orthodox view that Kyoto gardens from the middle ages represent the pinnacle of Japanese garden culture while Edo gardens symbolize its general decline. His 1997 Daimyō no teien preceded another work with an iconoclastic take on the Japanese garden, published in 2005, by fellow Nichibunken scholar Yamada Shōji; the book by Yamada, as it happened, appeared in English in 2009, seven years prior to Daimyo Gardens.2 These two works in English place Nichibunken at the forefront of redefining Japanese garden history, which is remarkable for an institution founded in 1987 to sustain conservative discourses of Japaneseness. Prior to Shirahata’s scholarship, daimyo gardens had been largely neglected by historians notwithstanding the more than one thousand gardens of feudal lords that in their time had been the pride of the capital. The quarters of the shogunate’s retainers, which dominated Edo, must have resembled a large garden landscape, making it a green city indeed despite the extreme population density in the commoner’s quarters. Today not even a dozen of these daimyo gardens still remain, most of them having been scrapped in the construction of modern Tokyo. The book under review brings the rich culture of daimyo gardens back to life. Most daimyo built several gardens in Edo. Though initially they would maintain only one residence, after the great fire of the Meiroku era in 1657 they added more as retreats in case of emergency. Typically, a daimyo would own a main, a middle, and a lower residence in what today is the Yamanote area of Tokyo, and each residence was adorned by a garden (p. 101). Aesthetically, the daimyo gardens were different from those in Kyoto, which were smaller in size, more secluded, and often part of a temple. In contrast, the Edo gardens featured open vistas, huge ponds, and large lawns as the daimyo competed to build spacious, open gardens that reflected their wealth and political influence. The sites often took up literary allusions and mimicked famous landscapes. Daimyo Gardens does more than elaborate on the aesthetic splendor of the gardens, focusing rather on their social function—another area that has been mostly neglected by traditional histories. Shirahata uses the famous garden of Katsura Detached Palace in Kyoto to illustrate the problematic consequences of the predilection for aesthetics in previous scholarship. With scrutiny placed exclusively on the aesthetic qualities of the Katsura garden, its rich history of “gaiety and fun” was supplanted by a “stiff image” of an “elegant garden modeled on Heian-period standards of beauty” (p. 8). Daimyo and imperial gardens like Katsura served a multitude of social purposes in the Edo period. They set the scene for banquets, garden parties, meetings for composing renga, horseback riding, duck hunting, fishing, and so on. Lawns were a...

La huelga cañera de CATSA, cuarenta años después: una reconstrucción de los hechos a través de los reportes de la prensa escrita

Las notas de prensa que a continuación se presentan, dan muestra de las contradicciones o, más bien, los controvertidos discursos de corte neoliberal y conservador que llenaron páginas y dominaron el discurso y orientación editorial de los medios de comunicación, en el marco del movimiento de huelga protagonizado por los trabajadores de los ingenios azucareros de la Central Azucarera del Tempisque, Sociedad Anónima (CATSA), durante la década de 1970.

História, memória e leituras do passado: o que as apropriações sobre Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns e o Cel. Brilhante Ustra no tempo presente podem nos ensinar?

Este artigo pretende discutir as tensões na construção de memória e esquecimento no Brasil sobre dois personagens emblemáticos no período da Ditadura militar brasileira recente: Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns e o Cel. Brilhante Ustra. A partir da análise de matérias do Jornal Folha de São Paulo sobre suas mortes e homenagens prestadas, investiga-se as apropriações de leitores sobre as mesmas, coloca-se em relevo formas de leituras do passado, as permanências de discursos conservadores em nossa sociedade e as dificuldades com as quais os leitores lidam com as representações do passado em seu cotidiano.

Women, Feminism and Politics in Post-Revolution Tunisia

During periods of flux generated by Tunisia's transition to democracy, all classes of women found the ‘political opportunities’ to push for change even if they did not necessarily share the same ambition or dream. The mobilisation, contestations, confrontations and struggle of Tunisian women in the post-revolution period alert us to the need to examine the factors behind this activism and the extent of its visibility. It is important to revisit the Tunisian women's movement in order to understand its interaction with other forms of power such as politics, religion, and class; as well as the extent to which such activism is a renegotiation of women’s identities and status in post-revolution Tunisia. Indeed, the extent to which the rise of Islamism and its conservative gender ideology can affect feminist movement activities has been one of the main issues of debate. The divide between Tunisian women - secularist and feminist versus Islamist women (Nahdhawiyat) begs to be explored. This divide can be understood as the expected materialisation of binaries that manifestly reveal the hard task of pursuing accountability of feminist movements regarding broader and universal feminist issues of epistemology, agenda, and ethics within the new local context. 
 This article is an attempt to address the binary framings of secular/liberal/elitist/Westernised feminist movements against the re-emerging religious/indigenous/ethical and conservative discourse. It aims to shed light on the influence of such opposed frames and their impact on women’s struggles for empowerment, and the accountability of both state and non-state actors.

Transforming the Gendered Regime Through Reproductive Politics: Neoliberal Health Restructuring, The Debt Economy and Reproductive Rights in Turkey

The “Health Transformation Program,” started by the AKP (Justice and Development Party) in 2003 in Turkey, is part of the global neoliberal “Health Sector Reforms-HSRs” which have been undertaken since the late 1980s and early 1990s with the support of World Bank advisers and reports, in various ‘developing’ countries such as Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan, always with the rationale of a “health crisis” (increasing costs of health care), a need to prevent public corruption and bring “efficiency.” Similar to these other contexts, the Turkish health reform or health restructuring as we call it, comprised changes to finance mechanisms and provision of care and introduced a premium-based compulsory health coverage system. Alongside the neoliberal policies, there has also been a rise in the New Right under the AKP regime, which had at its center anti-women discourses, policies and implementations, including a pronatalist discourse and implementations and statements equating abortion with murder. To contribute to the existing feminist literature that analyzes the intricate links between capitalism, neoliberalism and gender, especially on connecting the latest stage of neoliberalism–the debt economy- to reproductive rights, we designed a multisite feminist research to investigate the effects of neoliberal health-structuring on reproductive rights in Turkey, France and the U.S. Our theoretical groundings are in transnational feminist theory and writings on the state of neoliberalism and the debt economy, especially those of Lazaratto and Berardi. In this paper, we discuss our findings in Turkey, especially the focus-group interviews with healthcare providers working in family health centers, in order to reveal how the gender regime in Turkey is being transformed via reproductive and body politics. Analyzing our existent data on Turkey in light of the writings on the debt economy, we observed the neoliberal mechanisms of the dismantling of the public/privatization and the creation of individual debt and quantification of care (as related to mathematization of life and language). We witnessed how these neoliberal mechanisms interact with the conservative discourse leading to the erosion of women’s rights to access contraceptive and abortion care in Turkey and a transformation of the gender regime through the alteration of its reproductive politics.

CRÍTICA AO “ESCOLA SEM PARTIDO”: UM OLHAR PELA PERSPECTIVA CRÍTICO-SUPERADORA DA EDUCAÇÃO FÍSICA

Este ensaio tem por objetivo analisar e debater criticamente o movimento denominado Escola sem Partido, discutindo sua origem, o contexto sociopolítico no qual ele se desenvolve e quais são as teses que o sustentam. Busca traçar um breve olhar pela área de conhecimento da Educação Física, especificamente pelo viés da perspectiva crítico-superadora, e quais são os desdobramentos e as consequências, imediatas e futuras, para o seu ensino e para o trabalho do professor no âmbito da escola pública. Por fim, sugere possibilidades e ações de enfrentamento ao discurso conservador em defesa de uma educação e uma Educação Física crítica em que alunos e alunas sejam sujeitos ativos do processo de ensino-aprendizagem.

«Я с этими людьми в один автозак не сяду»: солидарности и конфликты в феминистских инициативах Петербурга

Ольга Аркадьевна Сенькова – магистр социологии, стажер-исследователь Центра молодежных исследований, Национальный исследовательский университет Высшая Школа Экономики, Санкт-Петербург, Россия; аспирантка, факультет социологии, Карлов Университет, Прага, Чешская Республика. Электронная почта: oasenkovao@gmail.com
 Статья посвящена анализу солидарностей и противостояний, возникающих среди участниц феминистских инициатив Петербурга, включающих в себя жизненно-стилевые стратегии, основанные на принятии (либо отрицании) тех или иных ценностей, норм и смыслов. Статья выстроена в логике солидарного подхода, в рамках которого феминистские инициативы понимаются как молодежные культурные формирования и рассматриваются с целью выделения основных линий ценностно-культурных притяжений и конфликтов. За основу взяты 28 интервью с участницами феминистских инициатив Петербурга в возрасте от 17 до 39 лет, подкрепленные 32 днями включенного этнографического наблюдения. Сбор эмпирического материала проводился с 2015 по 2017 гг. Особое внимание в статье уделяется полевым рефлексиям исследовательницы, в том числе посвященным становлению её собственной феминистской идентичности. Несмотря на то, что «женский вопрос» обсуждается в России с середины XIX в., современный отечественный контекст, в силу своей консервативности, не является благоприятным для развития феминизма. В то же время наблюдается активный рост низовых, «уличных» феминистских инициатив, участницы которых не только по-разному определяют цели своей борьбы, но и следуют различным критериям при определении «своих» и «чужих» в феминистском поле. Анализ эмпирических данных показал, что, несмотря на существование актуальной феминистской повестки, объединяющей участниц инициатив, информантки имеют различные взгляды на её интерпретацию: с одной стороны, акцент ставится на защиту прав женщин, с другой стороны – на противодействие всем видам дискриминации через сотрудничество с активистами левого политического спектра, внесистемной оппозиции, ЛГБТИК, зоозащитниками. Особое внимание уделяется категории гендерного режима в активистских сообществах, который чаще всего определяется как патриархатный и препятствующий совместному сопротивлению доминирующему консервативному дискурсу. Кроме того, важными линиями феминистских дискуссий оказывается гендерный аспект определения безопасного пространства, а также восприятие коммерческого секса как принуждения или свободного выбора. При этом, принятие или отрицание тех или иных ценностей выстраивается не в дихотомических оппозициях «за» или «против», а в неоднородных континуумах солидарностей.