Convergence Of Discourses Research Articles

“The Worse Element”

Abstract This article offers an example of how the convergence of discourses on “white slavery” and social hygiene led to the disproportionate criminalization, displacement, and detention of Black sex workers by authorities in early twentieth-century San Diego. The city’s large military presence, proximity to the US-Mexico border, and interracial sociality (between white, immigrant, and nonwhite communities) led to the regulation of its interracial sex tourism industry. As the city prepared for its first major military project, the Panama-California Exposition of 1915, public health officials demolished tenement housing for plumbing violations and followed with the compulsory quarantining of sex workers, couched in concerns about venereal disease. The sexual policing of Black sex workers by local, state, and military authorities was underpinned by discourses that imagined Black women as risks to public health and white women’s virtue in the US-Mexico border town.

Writing a genealogical ethnography of a multi-academy trust

ABSTRACT The multi-academy trust (MAT) is rooted in the restructuring of schools in England through the process of academisation. MATs are independent, non-fee-paying education providers comparable to Swedish free schools and US charter Schools. Using Foucauldian thinking on geneaology I follow the emergence of the MAT. To do this, I trace the intersections and convergence of discourses and legislation which enabled the MAT to emerge. I analyse ethnographic data from a yearlong study of the Lawrence Trust which investigated the leadership praxis of the CEO. I argue disruptions and discontinuities in policy contribute to the advent of the MAT, though its history is non-linear. MATs are formed from a convergence of policy entanglements, an imbrication of discourses requiring new ways of leading. This article highlights the reorganisation of schooling through the existence of a MAT signified by the disintermediation of the local (regional) authority, and the decline of public education embodied in the corporatised leadership practices of the CEO.

Гибридные тексты как форма взаимодействия авангардного художественного и политического дискурсов

This paper explores hybrid texts as a special type of text that forms within ‘inter-discourse interaction’ and relates to the ‘convergence of discourses’. The analysis focuses on the interaction between avant-garde art and political discourses, which have been in close contact since the 20th century and have common typological features. The main methods used in this study are the linguistic pragmatic method, the linguistic poetic method, and discourse analysis. The article proposes a definition of hybridization and hybrid texts while distinguish­ing between the linguistic, genre, multimodal, and multimedia types of hybridization. Special cases of language hybrids are onomatopoeic hybrids, which are based on the sounds of hostili­ties; hybrid words formed with a hyphen or a connecting vowel; bifocal semantic hybrids; and hybrid syntactic constructions. Genre hybridization occurs in avant-garde art and poetic manifestos, decrees, and declarations. Multimodal hybrids include artistic-political texts in which a combination of codes (verbal, visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc.) co-exists with a com­bination of various types of discourse. At the same time, each of the elements of a multimodal hybrid message refers simultaneously to both artistic and political reality. The multimedia type of hybridization includes texts that use innovative technologies and new media channels while combining several information transfer channels. This way, a new system of relation­ships is built and the possibility arises to create a new ‘total work of art’.

Material and Symbolic Forces in the Evolution of Regulatory Institutions of Agrobiotechnology: A Case Study About Brazil

The wide and complex range of technologies produced and used in the contemporary societies has challenged the analysis from the different fields of social sciences. In this sense, in order to elaborate a study that aim at understanding the relationship between technological progress and the ongoing institutional changes that mark the capitalist societies, we believe it is necessary to adopt an interdisciplinary approach combining methodologies from Economics and Sociology fields. Therefore, this study proposes the development of an interdisciplinary dialogue between the economic sociology of Pierre Bourdieu and the evolutionary economics developed by authors such as Giovanni Dosi, Sidney Winter, Richard Nelson and Bhaven Sampat. In doing so, we intend to demonstrate that a theory guided by Marx’s historical materialism, as it is the case of evolutionary economics, can be enriched by a materialist theory of symbolic, such as that of Pierre Bourdieu. In searching the comprehension of the complementarity between material and symbolic forces, this study addresses the conflictual process surrounding the formulation of the regulatory institutions to the biotechnology sector in Brazil over the last two decades. More precisely, through a case study, we seek to demonstrate that the convergence of discourses and interests between prestigious scientific organizations and the multinational companies that control the agrobiotechnology industry has been relevant to allow this new technological paradigm to make progress. Finally, we raise some questions concerning this alliance between business and science and the conflicts that revolve around the rapid expansion of the genetically modified crops worldwide.

The [not so] new digital family: disciplinary functions of representations of children and technology

The main question for consideration in this paper relates to the functional prerequisites for the construction of the so-called ‘digital family’ in the Spanish context. Taking inspiration from Burman’s (1994; 2008) work we start from two assumptions. Firstly, we assume that representations of children and families are important in terms of power and gender. This leads to our second assumption, that when considering representations of the family we also, necessarily, need to address gender regulatory functions, as much as economic and political trends. We argue that since the middle of the last decade reports there has been an intensification of interest in children and their relations with Information and Communications Technology. We identify how a convergence of discourses around family and gender, enshrined in notions of the ‘digital family’ functions to refold the family structure back in on itself, advocating a return to traditional values in much the same way as in previous eras.

A Progressive View on Religion and Modern Art

This article examines the Religious Art of Today exhibition, originally held in 1944 at Boston’s Institute of Modern Art and then reformulated for the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio. The exhibition was eclectic in that it included a wide range of artists and a diversity of faiths, and engaged the debate held among museum professionals about the relationship between religion and modern art. The article focuses closely on Catholic, Jewish, and Navajo art included in the exhibition. The IMA’s commitment to the figurative tradition afforded artists the opportunity to explore their identities—as Jews, as Catholics, as Navajos—using recognizable religious subjects. That the works in the exhibition were selected as representative of modern art resulted in a convergence of discourses related to modern art with those of religious/cultural identity.

Towards a Global Agenda on Migration and Development? Evidence from Senegal

ABSTRACTThe migration‐development nexus has been of increasing importance in international relations between African and European countries since 2000. Linking migration to development has spurred political interest in the development potential of migrants as a substitute for official development assistance. This paper analyses the convergence in discourse and practices on migration and development in the context of migration policies formulated to manage migration between Africa and Europe. The discourse on migration and development is mobilised by different actors to justify their actions; it stems from different migration management concepts and frameworks advocated by the European Union, particularly in its Global Approach to Migration. The migration and development discourse is sustained by increased funding from the European Union and some member states to instil a particular view of the nexus between migration and development. The case of Senegal in this paper illustrates the application of the dominant discourse. The first section provides an analysis of the discourse mobilised by different actors at the European and African levels to justify the promotion of the migration‐development nexus. The second section scrutinises the practices and roles of the actors involved in the design and implementation of recent programmes in Senegal. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Uma compreensão ideográfica e nomotética da natureza da ciência por professores de ciências

Science teachers are interviewed about their ideas on the statement “What is this, science?” Teachers’ discourses are understood by means of a phenomenological reduction in the Husserlian perspective. Teachers and their discourses are understood in pre-reflections and in the perspectives of construction of knowledge and of the image of Science given by reflection. Convergence of discourses is forwarded after situation and ideographic comprehension have been reported. They are then grouped into categories which form nomothetic comprehension. The question posed initially “What is this, science?” is finally answered. The paper ends with a phenomenological profile of the teachers about the nature of Science and opens a perspective that would justify a constructivist mode in Physics and in Science teaching.

Gambling and the Contradictions of Consumption

This article argues that the emergence of “problem gambling” as a distinct social phenomenon is the result of a particular convergence of discourses and socioeconomic formations that express the underlying contradictions of late-modern consumer societies. Although historically gambling has been criticized for undermining the ethic of production, today the notion of problem gambling is articulated in terms that are oppositional to the ideology of a “consumption ethic” based on the values of self-control, self-actualization, responsibility, and reason. This is related to wider socioeconomic trends whereby the decline of external forms of regulation is matched by rising demands for individual self-control, which is conducted through consumption. In the case of gambling, the liberalization and deregulation of the industry and the simultaneous expectation that individual players govern themselves express the tensions inherent in consumer capitalism and create the conditions for the emergence of the problem gambler as a unique historical type.

“How to be Thankful for Being Free”: Searching for a Convergence of Discourses on Teaching Patriotism, Citizenship, and United States History

Immediately after the events of September 11, 2001, there was a dramatic upsurge in exhibitions of patriotism, most generally in the form of flags prominently displayed on houses, storefronts, and automobiles. There also was a renewed zeal for inculcating patriotic feelings in children at public schools across the country. This paper, based on a study of teacher credential candidates at a large urban midwestern university, suggests that there may be a need to create a new discourse of patriotism. Such a project might integrate patriotism, the discourse on citizenship education, and the discourse of multicultural education, into a coherent whole. This new discourse on patriotism might, then, ground the emotionalism of patriotism in the responsibility of citizenship, employing the critical thought generated in discourses of multiculturalism.

HRM and the irresistible rise of the discourse of competence

Despite debate and criticism, the notion of “competence” has risen to prominence very rapidly and now has an important place in the vocabulary of human resource management (HRM). Seeks to explain such a rapid rise by drawing on discourse theory. The discourse of competence may be seen to arise through the convergence of discourses in four separate domains, and thereby gain legitimacy from the stocks of already formulated meanings in these separate domains. Taking a discourse theory approach also exposes the control aspects of competence through the constitution of the individual as a social subject in terms of the inscription of assessment judgements. However, the convergence of discourses has not resulted in complete closure. Concludes with some speculation about the degree to which the competence approach will successfully achieve employer commitment.