Inclusive Discourse Research Articles

Making sustainability transitions in collaborative spaces of making: Exploring opportunities and limitations in Turin

In recent years, makerspaces and FabLabs have proliferated in urban settings. Such venues provide shared workspace, (digital fabrication) tools, and knowledge, lowering the barriers for citizens to engage in DIY (Do It Yourself), and the design and building of artefacts. In recent years, scholars have hailed the return of small-scale manufacturing, independent craft production and making practices to cities. This shift is by some seen as pre-figuring a more progressive and inclusive discourse on urban development, one that is attentive to local communities’ productive needs and opportunities, and that moves us away from the hitherto dominant consumption-centred paradigm of the creative city (Carr & Gibson, 2016; Grodach, 2017; Grodach et al., 2017). Drawing on empirical data collected in Turin in 2021, the paper investigates how and under what conditions community-led spaces centred on making may hold potential as sites of urban vitalism, reconfiguring production and consumption in more democratic, inclusive and sustainable ways. The findings consider a number of emerging tensions, relating to questions of regulating open access, managing community participation, and negotiating project-based versus changing habitual practices.

Breaking Boundaries: Toward Consistent Gender-Sensitive Language in Sexual and Reproductive Health Guidelines.

This review assesses gender-sensitive language in sexual and reproductive health (SRH) guidelines, including a guideline for polycystic ovary syndrome. We conducted a systematic search across databases like Medline, EMBASE, and Cochrane until July 31, 2023, using terms related to gender-inclusivity, SRH, and guideline protocols. Criteria for inclusion were gender-sensitive language, SRH focus, and guideline relevance, excluding non-English articles or those without policy considerations. Our search yielded 25 studies, with 6 included for qualitative synthesis. Results showed significant gaps in using gender-sensitive language in SRH guidelines. The debate on this language mirrors broader societal discourse. Recognizing gender diversity is essential for research, clinical practices, and societal norms. While promoting inclusion, drawbacks like unintended erasure or miscommunication should also be addressed. A gender-additive approach balances inclusivity and biological accuracy. Precise and inclusive discourse is crucial. Future research should focus on systemic approaches in the SRH sector.

The controversy and pragmatic resolution of the introduction of foot sensors in competitive race walking

The adoption of new technology can have a controversial or profound impact upon a sport and how it is performed. Recently, there have been proposals of the potential implementation of sensors in athletes’ footwear to help reduce illegal gait activity during competitive race walking events. This paper investigated the potential impact and implications with this technological introduction. This study utilises a previously peer-reviewed framework proposed for sports technology inclusion discourse and then applies it to the proposed use of foot sensors in race walking. Subsequent to undertaking further scientific inquiry to ascertain whether such technology would cause either significantly disproportionate performance enhancement or injury, it is ultimately proposed on balance that such sensors are appropriate for use in competitive race walking.

“Do our diversities count?” Collaborative reflections on dwelling in academe’s intersectional shadowlands

The promotion of equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives has become routine within Anglophone universities in the Global North. However, critical race scholars have demonstrated that these well-intentioned policies are often formulated in ways that transact empty performatives, where discussions of racism are deemed too challenging. Moreover, the dynamics of social class are often missing from university diversity regimes. Using autoethnography as methodology, we suggest that the practices of “border crossings” of intersectional academics can help track the multidirectional impacts of institutional diversity and inclusion discourses within Australian universities. As class and race intermix, we operate in a metaphorical “shadowland”; our border criss-crossings and places of dwelling highlight the blurriness of privileged and marginalised identities, with some minoritised statuses seemingly too visible while others are obscured. Despite this, and albeit brought into being through largely unrewarded emotional labour, our emphasis is on demonstrating how intersectional subjects’ dialoguing in academe is a form of quiet resistance, offering hope for creating new becomings.

Festival Participation, Inclusion and Poverty: An Exploratory Study

Music festivals (in the UK) have the potential to enhance the quality of life of attendees and participants, and therefore it might be argued they should be accessible to all. However, the barriers to participation that some may face when seeking to access and engage with festival experiences can often be attributed to the issue of marginalisation due to poverty. Utilising the three discourses of social inclusion put forward by Levitas as a framework, the study explores what UK music festival organisations are doing and could do to make their events more accessible to people living in poverty. Through an analysis of a series of festival websites and semi-structured interviews with festival organisers, some of the financial considerations that can influence participation and act as a barrier to making festivals an inclusive aspect of our cultural life were identified, and solutions were explored. The paper found that despite the social benefits of attending, those living in poverty have become an increasingly marginalised group of festival goers as a result of the disproportional rise in costs associated with attendance, which often goes beyond only the ticket price to include hidden extras. Whilst several festivals undertake outreach work and donate to charitable organisations, only a handful have specific initiatives that improve access for those living in poverty beyond spreading out the price of the ticket via instalments and volunteering opportunities. Findings suggest whilst many music festivals are starting to recognise the importance of the issue, few have specific initiatives but are willing to consider what they can do moving forward.

Kindness-informed allyship praxis

PurposeThis paper explores intergenerational perceptions of kindness in the context of Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and the COVID-19 global pandemic. The purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate perceptions of kindness in the context of traumatic events and its potential value in authentic allyship in organizational environments.Design/methodology/approachAuthors interviewed 65 individuals (31 self-identifying as non-racialized and 34 self-identifying as Black, Indigenous and People of Colour aka BIPOC). Participants included Generation Z (Gen Z; born between 1997–2012/5) and Generation Y (Gen Y; also referred to as Millennials, born between 1981 and 1994/6) across North American, Europe and Africa. Millennials currently represent the largest generation in the workplace and are taking on leadership roles, whereas Gen Z are emerging entrants into the workplace and new organizational actors.FindingsThe paper offers insights into how to talk about BLM in organizations, how to engage in authentic vs performative allyship and how to support BIPOC in the workplace. The study also reveals the durability of systemic racism in generations that may be otherwise considered more enlightened and progressive.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors expand on kindness literature and contribute theoretically and methodologically to critical race theory and intertextual analysis in race scholarship.Practical implicationsThe study contributes to the understanding of how pro-social behaviours like kindness (with intention) can contribute to a more inclusive discourse on racism and authentic allyship.Originality/valueAuthors reveal the potential for kindness as a pro-social behaviour in organizational environments to inform authentic allyship praxis.

Patterns of populist mobilization: comparing narratives on COVID-19 in the global South

Abstract This article explores the narratives shaping the official discourse on COVID-19 in five countries governed by populists in different world regions. It is based on the assumption that a crisis like the pandemic constitutes a perfect occasion for populist mobilization, allowing populist leaders to construct reality in their favour by deliberately promoting own narratives about the pandemic, its origin and management. Analyzing 357 original-language speeches and statements by representatives of the populist governments of Brazil, Israel, India, Mexico and Turkey, the article shows that populists in power use crises to mobilize support in very different ways. Surprisingly, most populist governments neither resorted to anti-scientific claims or conspiratorial discourses attributing the crisis to obscure elites, nor blamed minorities not belonging to the ‘true people’. By contrast, except for Bolsonaro in Brazil, all other populist governments tried to mobilize support by emphasizing the strength of the ‘people’ or even by promoting an inclusive discourse of national unity, leaving aside the more divisive elements of their general populist discourse. Based on the cases analysed, the article concludes by developing hypotheses on the possible drivers of such variations in patterns of populist mobilization.

Reflections on the Discourses of Inclusion: A Case Study of the Banality of Good

Reflections on the Discourses of Inclusion: A Case Study of the Banality of Good

Technologies of Power in Digital Inclusion

This study moves beyond the conventional focus on technology access, adoption, and participation in communities, and instead presents a perspective on digital inclusion as a complex process of both empowerment and subjugation. Drawing on Foucault’s theorization on subjectivity and power, our case study of community health workers in rural India reveals that the adoption of an mHealth application simultaneously subordinated and strengthened the subjectivity of the community health workers. The study explicates the process through which the health workers oscillated between the enhancement of their individual efficacy, and their submission to institutionalized power as facilitated by the mHealth application during their everyday work practices. Thus, by shifting the focus from “who” is digitally included to “how” they become digitally included, our research provides a fresh perspective that enriches and deepens the discourse of digital inclusion. It generates both theoretical and practical implications for anyone interested in understanding digital inclusion from a more granulated and practice-based perspective.

Enacting a diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice emphasis in graduate and professional leadership education

This article explores leadership education, leadership scholarship, and leadership practices with a focus on the continued growth in thought, paradigm development, research and practices that address societal problems in relation to human existence. We respond to the question "how can the integration of counter narratives into leadership education - all while integrating diverse perspectives into our leadership education conversation so the complexity we now understand to be true can be revealed?" The exploration creates opportunities to deepen the diversity, equity, and inclusion discourse incorporated into graduate leadership education programs.

Who Deserves to be Refugee? : The Instrumentalization of Art and Culture in the Solidarity Discourse of Ukrainian Refugees in Social Media

This article explores the online display of artistic ability and cultural practice to express support for the resistance in Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees while blaming the Russian attack on the country starting in 2022. Social media engagement is essential in constructing discursive traits of belonging through bottom-up articulations of ‘us’ and ‘them’ dichotomies. Here, I question the distinguished characteristics of representation related to art, artistic practices, and abilities under solidarity social media posts in the case of Ukrainians fleeing their homes. Social media users who include art and culture concerning solidarity use a discourse of inclusion and exclusion to depict refugees as parts of civilization and hence not reducible them to the bare life position. This study is guided by critical multimodal discourse analysis. I contend that these social media posts that convey specific art and culture-related representations serve to distinguish characteristics of war-torn Ukraine, people displacement, and Ukrainian refugees from the generic tendencies of otherization reflected on the ‘Southern’ refugee figure deprived of capability or motivation for logos.

‘Go home to the second wave!’: Discourses of trans inclusion and exclusion in a queer women’s online community

As the visibility of trans movements has increased in recent years, so too has the antagonism between trans rights supporters and some sections of the feminist and lesbian communities (Phipps, 2016; Hines, 2017, Pearce et al., 2020). This antagonism is especially pronounced in digital spaces, where online discussions have fuelled an increasing polarisation of the debate (Hines, 2017). This paper examines the representation of trans identities on Autostraddle: a popular entertainment, news and lifestyle website for lesbian and bisexual women. It focuses on the longest and most controversial comment thread in the 2-million-word Queer Women’s Advice Corpus. The thread is a response to a guide to dating trans women for cis women. Using a combination of critical discourse analysis, sociocultural linguistics and corpus linguistics, I unpack the argumentation strategies (Fairclough and Fairclough, 2012) that commenters use to construct stances on the inclusion of trans women in the queer women’s online space. The major strategies include persuasive definitions of lesbian, imaginaries about trans women’s hypothetical bodies and the illegitimation of trans-exclusionary commenters as bad feminists and community outsiders. I find that that trans inclusion is successfully negotiated on a community level, but that trans women are still problematised on an intimate level due to their (imagined) genitalia. Trans women are ‘hyperembodied’ in the data, with the presence or absence of a penis acting as the focal point for inclusion and desirability.

Research on Male Gaze in Mass Media Opinion Guidance from the Perspective of Feminism

This paper is a study and analysis of the gender consciousness embedded in the mass media in the news reports. Social media provides women with an open and inclusive discourse field in the way of autonomous and interactive expression, which also produces female discourse different from that in the context of mass media. In the process of civilization construction, the role composition of mass media not only reflects many social problems, but also participates in the construction of people's social cognition. From the perspective of mass media, we can get a glimpse of the current situation of gender. To be specific, from the perspective of the brand new social and cultural phenomenon and concept of "male gaze", this paper will take criminal news released by the official media as real case, and further analyze and criticize the potential gender opinion guidance in the press release of China’s official media based on the change of social gender consciousness and the awakening of feminism.

Journeys of endurance: stories of exclusion from pupils, caregivers and school professionals

ABSTRACT Permanent exclusion from primary school is an issue of national and local concern; previous literature has primarily focused on secondary school experiences of school exclusion. Furthermore, research offering detailed insights into the experience of permanent exclusion from the perspectives of pupils, parents and school staff is limited. This research aims to provide an in-depth exploration of the stories of permanent exclusion from primary school in England from the perspectives of two pupils, three parents and two members of school staff. Using a qualitative design and narrative inquiry approach, data was gathered through unstructured interviews. The findings illustrate the emotional impact of permanent exclusion from primary school as well as the wider impact it can have on family life. This research illustrates the complexity of permanent exclusion in how it is experienced through interacting systems and discourses of SEN and inclusion. Implications for schools and professionals within the wider systems are suggested.

Stakeholder Perceptions Can Distinguish ‘Paper Parks’ from Marine Protected Areas

While numerous Marine Protected Areas (MPA) have been created in the last decades, their effectiveness must be assessed in the context of the country’s biodiversity conservation policies and must be verified by local observations. Currently, the observations of local stakeholders, such as those from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), academics, government civil servants, journalists, and fishers, are not considered in any MPA database. The Sea Around Us has added observations from local stakeholders to address this gap, adding their perspectives to its reconstructed fisheries catch database, and to at least one MPA in each country’s Exclusive Economic Zone. It is important to pursue and incentivize stakeholder knowledge sharing to achieve a better understanding of the current level of marine protection, as this information is a valuable addition to the existing MPA databases. To address this gap, we demonstrated that personal emails containing a one-question questionnaire about the fishing levels in an MPA are an excellent way to gather data from local stakeholders, and that this works especially well for respondents in NGOs, academia, and governments. Of the stakeholders who replied to our personalized email, 66% provided us with the fishing level of the MPA that we asked for. The paper also presents how to access this information through the Sea Around Us website, which details in anonymized form the most common fishing levels for each selected MPA, as perceived or observed by different local stakeholder groups. This information is a unique and novel addition to a website that is concerned with marine conservation and contributes to a more accurate and inclusive discourse around MPAs. This information also helps to identify the gaps that need to be addressed to turn ‘paper parks’ (i.e., MPAs that are legally designated but not effective) into effective MPAs, which can contribute to climate-resilient ‘blue economies’.

Multinational Corporations as Cultural Translators: Interpreting Difference in Diversity and Inclusion

This article brings Translation Studies and Language-Sensitive International Business Studies into sustained and in-depth critical conversation through an investigation into how multinational corporations (MNCs) represent and culturally translate discourses of diversity and inclusion (D&I). Grounded in a discrete textual analytical investigation of MNC approaches to D&I, the authors use a skeptical interpretive perspective to examine D&I video content published on MNC group websites. The study points towards the imposition of a common corporate language as an act of mediation on the part of parent companies. D&I discourse remains ambiguous and attempts to reach multiple audiences simultaneously. While the primary audience appears to be job applicants, the use of language also demonstrates a sensitivity to the needs and expectations of business-facing audiences, including customers, investors, and shareholders. Interdisciplinary in character, this article employs the concept of cultural translation as a critical lens through which to demonstrate how positional power shapes the representation of D&I discourse published on MNC websites. By extending understandings of the role and value of cultural translation in an MNC setting, the authors demonstrate the value of continued expansion of the field through enhanced comparative analysis of MNC self-perception with regard to D&I, versus published representations of the same.

Discourse on Social Exclusion and Inclusion in Nepal: A Review

The discourse of social exclusion and inclusion is debatable issue in contemporary Nepali society. The issue of social exclusion should be addressed by adopting the process of social inclusion in several sectors of Nepali society which helps to establish society with equality. The article Social Exclusion and Inclusion tries to address the issue raised in the discourse of social inclusion. Similarly, it tries to explore the issue of social exclusion and inclusion from new line. Article is based on the review of the several articles published addressing the issue of social exclusion and inclusion. In introduction, I have mentioned the context and origin of social exclusion and inclusion debate. Different views of various renowned scholars on Social Exclusion and Inclusion have been mentioned. In Nepalese context, political movement and academic effort of social exclusion and inclusion have been discussed. The achievement that excluded group got in the Constitution and other Acts from the political and other inclusion movement have been disclosed here. In Nepal, there are three types of notions/domains: Inclusive based on Caste Ethnicity, Economy Prosperity and Meritocracy. I critically support the Inclusive based on Caste Ethnicity Movement.

Contracting out public participation to external consultants: Observations on epistemic justice

AbstractRecent years have seen a rapidly growing trend of outsourcing elements of public participation from public institutions to external citizen engagement consultants (CECs). This study examined this phenomenon using the theoretical framework of epistemic in/justice. It is based on a sequential deductive‐inductive analysis of interviews with public administrators, private CECs, and citizens, all involved in participative initiatives in localities across Israel. While previous research on public participation has focused primarily on the dyadic relationship between governing institutions and selected beneficiaries of their services, the findings of the present study enable offering some observations about what happens when this dyad turns into a triad. A critical review of the findings suggests that while outsourcing public participation is often presented using discourses of progress and inclusion, in fact, it may preserve, or even deepen, epistemic injustices, especially for citizens belonging to vulnerable and marginalized communities.

Studi Praktek Diskriminasi Agama Minoritas di Desa Terpencil

This article discusses the dynamics of the practice of discriminating religious minorities in Oi Bura Village, Tambora District, Bima Regency, West Nusa Tenggara Province by dominant ethnic and/or religious adherents there. The practice of religious discrimination took the form of prejudice, different treatment, and political-economic restrictions experienced by Hindus as immigrants from Bali. The study case approach used in this study examined the relevance of two main aspects. These aspects include (1) the history of Oi Bura Village and the phenomenon of social segregation, and (2) the practice of discrimination against religious minorities in that village and the strategy of eliminating it through the iterative construction of social inclusion discourse. The process of separating the location of settlements between a group of people from Bali and other groups in Oi Bura Village reflects the continuity of the colonial heritage in the form of ethnic and religious residential segregation. As a result, this practice has triggered the emergence of social distances between community groups that have violated the principles of inclusion or social solidarity.

Paradoxes Experienced in Embracing Inclusiveness among Students: Stories from Progressive Schools of Kathmandu Valley

The discourse of inclusion in education is getting a great emphasis both in international and national arena these days. Talking especially about Nepal, with the rising voice for paradigmatic shift in education, the number of progressive schools is increasing which are in rigor of preparing a more democratic learning environment for teaching learning. However, since the discourse of inclusion in education demands addressing different needs of learners, inclusion meant to one might not be so for another. Hence, this paper aims at unraveling paradoxes the school leaders have experienced in course of practising inclusion among students. In this course, two school leaders from two different institutional progressive schools were selected purposively as research participants while Kathmandu valley was selected as research site. The study embraced narrative inquiry as research methodology whereas interview was used as method of data collection. Focusing basically on the areas of integrating cultural diversity and learning abilities of students, data were collected from the participants in the form of narratives for which open ended questions were used. From the study, it was revealed that inclusion tended to create in one way might result in exclusion in the other way. The basic paradoxes the school leaders narrated were regarding how to preserve and celebrate cultural sensitivity of each group in class and how to address students with different learning abilities without making them feel segregated in any way. Moreover, it even provided me an insight that inclusion in education has to be understood in contextual manner rather than generalizing it based on what the state says or how state defines.