Discursive Movements Research Articles

Twitter, #PreKWeek, and neoliberal childhoods: Posthuman reimaginings of a sigh

This article concerns itself with the everyday politics of childhood and the ways research might continue to attend to inequities while simultaneously engaging in an ontological flattening of the child subject. To do so, the author employs thinking with theory as an analytic process to make sense of a world where humans and more-than-humans are seen as commodities for economic gain. Focusing on a tweet sent out by a US state-led organization during Pre-K Week, the author uses Barad’s concept of the material-discursive apparatus and Bennett’s concept of vibrant matter to explore the phenomenon of neoliberal childhoods. Understood as a political event, the author analyzes the tweet as a public phenomenon etched into a digital socio-material archive that tends to have a life of its own. In doing so, she unravels three threads of capaciousness (the capacity to make boundaries and possibilities) in the tweet: visual aesthetics, discursive movements, and virtual reverberations. These threads of capaciousness can be seen as co-constitutive agents, collectively producing the phenomenon of the neoliberal child. In other words, the visual, the discursive, and the virtual work collectively to ravel and unravel material consequences regarding being a child-human living in the USA well beyond the pre-kindergarten years. The article concludes by inviting those concerned with the politics of childhood to consider the ways that posthumanism offers a theoretical and practical conduit for rethinking, reconfiguring, and reimagining child–world relations while continuing to keep childhood studies focused on issues of equity and justice.

A qualitative UK study exploring counterpublic engagement of marginalized women via a Women's Health Network.

Public engagement is at the forefront of health policy and research. The need for engagement with diverse groups and particularly marginalized groups who face increased health inequalities has been recognized. Yet, there is a lack of research that focuses on marginalized women. This article presents data from semi-structured interviews with members of a Women's Health Network (WHN) in Bradford, one of the most deprived areas of England. WHN is a collective of women who aim to improve women and their families' health, with a particular focus on seldom-heard voices. This article critically explores what realistic, representative counterpublic engagement looks like. It reveals the tension between the ideal of public engagement (direct participation) and what happens in practice. Challenges for direct participation of marginalized groups in formal structures require alternative solutions. It is argued that WHN provides an alternative model of counterpublic engagement by bridging the gap between 'seldom-heard' women and healthcare providers. WHN creates and sustains a discursive space between subaltern counterpublics and official public spheres, enabling two-way communication. Furthermore, this article problematizes the terms 'seldom heard' and 'professionals' for assuming homogeneity and masking diversity. It is argued that WHN's bridging model of subaltern counterpublic engagement is successful at amplifying women's voices and promoting women's health because of the network's diverse membership and reach. This diversity enables the authentic representation of varied communities and the discursive movement of issues relating to women's health. WHN thus offers a transferable model of counterpublic engagement in the absence of direct participation.

Workplace boredom as an empowering experience: a psychoanalytic reconceptualization of boredom and identity in organizations

ABSTRACT The study develops a psychoanalytic perspective on boredom as an important resource for narratively constructing the self with significant implications for how functional or dysfunctional it is. By employing a Lacanian framework, the study suggests that prior research, investigating boredom mainly as a widespread individual problem in organizations, has emphasized one aspect of how boredom interacts with identity, namely its imaginary function. While research emphasizing more constructive aspects of boredom, seems to emphasize boredom's symbolic function. The study explores how we can better understand and facilitate the latter, as it has the potential to unsettle identity work, and, thereby, empower individuals to connect differently to themselves and others in transformative ways. Specifically, the study suggests that the extent to which boredom serves empowering functions depends on the discursive movement that individuals undertake as they engage in identity work. Implications of this and other findings for future research are discussed.

Discursive Chain and Movement in Crisis-Driven Nigerian Political Discourse: Corpus Evidence from Herdsmen Newspaper Headlines

A central tenet of critical discourse analysis spells that language in discourse meant for mass consumption is often permeated with a reproduction and/or a resistance of certain ideologies, assumptions, and knowledge characteristic of different social groups making up the society. One of such best scenarios is news headlines narrating crisis- driven national discourse in Nigeria, where almost all national discourses are driven by certain inherent ideologies and political power. In this paper, we propose a discourse chain principle uncovering the underlying socio-psychological idiosyncrasies of the par- ticipants (inclusive of agents and recipients) and processes in most national discourses in Nigeria. Combining concepts in corpus methods with critical discourse analysis, the paper shows a basic approach to operationalising ideologies in notational form. Apply- ing corpus analytic method to 761 herdsmen news headlines extracted from Nigerian newspapers, the present paper nicely illustrates the extent to which these news headlines move the discourse-at-hand (i.e. herdsmen crisis) to discourse-around. Such movement is performed by reproducing institutionalised ideological patterns revolving around identity politics (ethnicity), religion, question of nationhood, corruption, citizenry distrust, and political power imbalance. The paper argues that this discursive movement is often driven by a chain of discourse that defines the existence of the nationhood.

Desejo de performance na arena discursiva da desprofissionalização docente

O princípio da gestão democrática no sistema educacional brasileiro avança, discursivamente, mediante direcionamentos da Constituição Federal de 1988 e da Lei de Diretrizes e Bases n° 9.394/96, o que, de certo modo, movimenta re/configurações do trabalho docente. E é a partir desse contexto que repousa o presente estudo, tendo como interesse problematizar como o enfoque democrático/neoliberal e suas dissoluções de sentidos têm operado paralelamente à cultura da performatividade, delineando novos papéis e novos perfis para o trabalho docente. Para tanto, realizou-se uma pesquisa de cunho bibliográfico para subsidiar a discussão em torno das noções de trabalho, gestão e da arena discursiva global e local das políticas educacionais. Concluiu-se que, quando uma cultura performativa opera sobre o trabalho docente, desencadeiam-se sentidos de desprofissionalização, atrelados, sobretudo, a um processo de autonomia imaginada, o que poderá gerar maior controle e adesão por parte do professorado às políticas de responsabilização docente. Nesse sentido, o professor é peça fundamental para o funcionamento discursivo das políticas, haja vista o possível engajamento desse sujeito relacionado, tanto, ao desejo de performance, quanto, para delinear os rumos da recontextualização dessas políticas, as quais poderão conduzir ao sucesso e/ou fracasso escolares.

Os memes de Lula na Operação Lava Jato

O objetivo deste artigo é analisar memes sobre a condução coercitiva do ex-presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, em 2016. A fundamentação teórico-metodológica está ancorada na Análise do Discurso de linha foucaultiana. O corpus analisado, memes retirados de três sites noticiosos e de jornais online, desconstroem a imagem de Lula graças às suas filiações a formações discursivas opostas a ele. O campo simbólico das imagens torna-se uma arena para a confrontação ideológica e a disputa de sentidos, no contexto sócio-histórico de crise política instaurada pela Operação Lava Jato. Compreendemos que, no cenário da interatividade e da convergência midiática, o dito e o não dito coexistem na superfície dos memes, construindo significações a partir dos jogos de visibilidade e de invisibilidade das imagens. No movimento discursivo das imagens analisadas, observamos a construção de efeitos derrisórios calcados no corpo do petista.

Debating Racism During Initial Teacher Education: A Case Among Chemistry Students

Discussions on racism in classrooms pose a huge educational challenge today, since racism has become naturalized within society, and racial issues are rarely addressed in science teacher education courses. Considering the social problems originated from racism, this paper discusses some aspects of them through a dialogical activity conducted among students in a chemistry teacher-training course. In order to engage the students in the dialogue, a poem that enable discussing social and scientific issues was chosen and had been set to music. At the first part of the discussion, only one student took the poem’s key message as referring to racism. This seems to be directly related to the poor discussion of this topic within society. Through interactive discourse characterized by integrated transition between dialogic and authoritative communicative approaches, a common viewpoint about racism was achieved by all participants, including students who had not identified the matter in the poem initially. Although isolated activities are not enough to consistently develop teachers’ beliefs and attitudes against racism, the findings suggest that discursive movement can encourage critical thinking about this.

Controvérsias sobre o aquecimento global e ato responsável: uma categoria bakhtiniana para ajudar a pensar questões sociocientíficas em aulas de ciências

No presente trabalho objetiva-se identificar elementos e dimensões preponderantes nos movimentos discursivos de professora e estudantes do 1º ano do ensino médio, ao fazerem juízos teóricos, agirem responsavelmente ou “tentarem escapar” de suas responsabilidades frente às controvérsias circulantes sobre o aquecimento global. Recorreu-se a elementos da filosofia moral e Teoria da Enunciação de Mikhail Bakhtin, por meio da análise de cadeias de enunciados em dois episódios recortados de uma sequência didática de dez aulas sobre o tema. Flagrou-se compreensões em ritmos e acentuações diversas, as certezas e dúvidas teóricas como não correlacionadas linearmente ao agir responsável, e o “ser apenas um na multidão” como principal álibi de escape de tal responsabilidade. Por fim, discute-se a implicação de repensar a criticidade e as tomadas de decisão como metas de aprendizagem, além de se recomendar estratégias para a ignição de atos responsáveis dos estudantes durante a abordagem de questões sociocientíficas.

O nome da língua... Um modo de fazer...

Temos problematizado, já faz um certo tempo, dois eixos de pesquisa que se manifestam em um entremeio teórico e de objeto, a saber, a compreensão do processo de disciplinarização de um conteúdo científico no fazer acadêmico, pedagógico e - ou escolar e, o outro, a relação (in)suspeita do sujeito e da língua pelo viés da historicidade e da ideologia. O presente artigo tem por objetivo, portanto, apresentar as reflexões decorrentes da relação entre esses dois eixos as quais serão construídas em cinco pontos. No que lhes concerne, eles darão sustentação ao movimento discursivo que estamos empreendendo na atualidade sobre a língua e o nome dado a ela no entrelaçamento em uma rede de memória, proporcionando uma paisagem mais figurativa do que a habitual.

Novels in the Time of Democratic Writing: The American Example. Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. Pp. 252.

<i>Novels in the Time of Democratic Writing: The American Example</i>. Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. Pp. 252.

Mythological Indifference in Schelling and Nerval

Mythological Indifference in Schelling and Nerval

Os fundamentos essenciais da argumentação no ensino de Ciências: um estudo a partir das unidades, elementos taxonômicos e qualidade do argumento

Este estudo tem por objetivo compreender as discussões argumentativas estabelecidas por crianças durante o desenvolvimento de Atividades de Investigação no Ensino de Ciências (AIEC). Para isso, elaboramos dois instrumentos de análise da argumentação. O primeiro, denominado de Elementos Taxonômicos da Argumentação Científica (ETAC), procura caracterizar a estrutura e a progressão do argumento e o segundo, denominado de Qualidade do Argumento Modificado, visa hierarquizar o argumento em diferentes níveis. Para exemplificar o uso desses instrumentos, foi analisado o argumento de crianças e jovens em uma oficina que trabalhou com conceitos de Física sobre o “Voo dos Aviões”. Como resultado, as categorias evidenciadas pelos ETACs não podem ser pensadas como unidades isoladas e autônomas, mas sim num continuum de evolução, caracterizando-se em movimentos discursivos do mais simples ao mais complexo.

Discursos midiáticos: o jogo discursivo em funcionamento no processo de validação de matérias de um jornal on-line do estado do Paraná

Neste estudo, propôs-se analisar o funcionamento do jogo discursivo no processo de validação de dizeres do jornal on-line Gazeta do Povo. Para isso, tomamos como base teórica e metodológica a Análise do Discurso (AD) francesa, em sua linha pecheutiana. Objetivou-se verificar quais recursos discursivos e textuais foram utilizados na construção da matéria principal “Tudo sobre a greve e a ocupação nas escolas do Paraná” e das matérias secundárias que estão ligadas à principal, as quais conduzem à produção de sentido e à validação dessas matérias. A análise possibilitou colocar em visibilidade um jogo discursivo que foi construído a partir da organização textual e de um movimento discursivo que ora valida os dizeres dos sujeitos jornalistas, ora valida os discursos da equipe de redação, ora valida a própria instituição, Gazeta do Povo.

Thomas Aquinas on Persuasion: Action, Ends, and Natural Rhetoric by Jeffrey Maciejewski

Reviewed by: Thomas Aquinas on Persuasion: Action, Ends, and Natural Rhetoric by Jeffrey Maciejewski Giuseppe Butera Thomas Aquinas on Persuasion: Action, Ends, and Natural Rhetoric. By Jeffrey Maciejewski. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2014. Pp. vii + 111. $70.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-7391-7128-8. Aristotle defined man as a rational and political animal. In this creative appropriation of the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, Jeffrey Maciejewski argues that man is also a rhetorical animal. There is in each one of us a natural inclination to use persuasive modes of thought and speech, and this moves us [End Page 154] to reason about ends and to act in pursuit of them. More pointedly (and radically), Maciejewski argues that all discursive reasoning is, by its very nature, rhetorical. To understand how radical this thesis is, it is important to understand that ancient thinkers limited rhetoric to the social dimension of human discourse. On this view, "if our nature, as social animals, is defined by a coming together to form cities, to establish laws, and to discover arts, it is a coming together made possible by a rhetorically motivated faculty of discourse, a seemingly innate power of persuading each other, a power that is necessary to bring about social cohesion" (1-2). Maciejewski has no objection to this view as far as it goes. But this standard perspective is problematic: it does not go far enough. For on Maciejewski's view, the very essence of discursive thought is teleological, directed towards action. This by itself is enough to make all discursive thought (practical and speculative: see chap. 2) rhetorical, since as Maciejewski puts it, "the proximate end of rhetoric is to precipitate action" (16). From ancient times, thinkers such as the Greek Isocrates and the Roman Cicero have noted the necessity of rhetoric for the maintenance and flourishing of human society. As Cicero put it, "many cities have been established, many wars extinguished, many most enduring alliances and most holy friendships have been cemented by deliberate wisdom much assisted and facilitated by eloquence" (2, quoting De inventione). Nature, it seems, has outfitted us with the ability to engage in persuasive discourse. If asked how nature has done this, Maciejewski claims that none of the ancients has an answer. It is in attempting to answer this question himself , through creative appropriation of Aquinas's views, that he arrives at the conclusion that "the discourse Aquinas refers to [in his discussion of the discursive movement of the intellect] … is persuasive; that is, it is rhetorical insofar as it is a form of discourse that precipitates movement" (8). Underlining its essential rootedness in human nature, Maciejewski gives this "discursive action of the intellect" the name "natural rhetoric" (ibid.). At the risk of oversimplification, Maciejewski seems to be saying that the social use of rhetoric is an end (the end) that determines the nature of human discourse at every level. All of our thinking is social in this respect because all of it is directed toward persuading ourselves or others to act: "So it is that the good for man—as it is constituted individually and as it is apprehended socially—what enables us to live with one other [sic] well, is dependent on a form of naturally occurring rhetorical abilities, a form of persuasion that is characteristically human, that is natural in the richest sense, that is natural rhetoric" (106-7). Maciejewski's argument spans four chapters. In the first, he develops the notion of a natural rhetoric, making use of Aristotelian essentialism and Thomistic action theory to conclude that we have, by nature, the ability to develop "the basic goods of prudence, justice, and sociability" thanks to "a [End Page 155] mechanism [i.e., natural rhetoric] by which action is constituted" and directed to these goods as to their natural ends (28). In the remaining chapters, Maciejewski elaborates the notion of natural rhetoric by applying it to the study of the act of understanding, defective action, and the formation of the moral virtues, all with a view to explaining "why it is we have been given [the] uniquely human capacity" of persuasion (104). In attempting to assess the success of Maciejewski's...

Never social and entrepreneurial enough? Exploring the identity work of social entrepreneurs from a psychoanalytic perspective

Building on an analysis of interviews with 61 social entrepreneurs, the study offers a more fine-grained exploration of the identity work of social entrepreneurs from a psychoanalytic, particularly Lacanian, perspective. Specifically, it suggests that what defines social entrepreneurial identity work is the blurring of beatific and horrific aspects of fantasies and a desire for struggle and lack. This in turn creates an emancipatory space in which discursive movement enables alternative forms of market enjoyment and ethical agency. The latter unsettles macro-discourses of capitalism by demanding and amplifying their lack. The study contributes new avenues for exploring Lacanian concepts such as the traversal of fantasy as a product of discursive movement particularly relevant for transformative readings of identity narratives.

O estilo verbal como o lugar dialógico e pluridiscursivo das relações sociais: um estatuto dialógico para a análise linguística

RESUMO Neste trabalho, defendemos um estatuto dialógico à atividade de análise linguística na leitura de textos. O conto A causa secreta, de Machado de Assis, é tomado como corpus, por a literatura constituir, esteticamente, uma representação tensionada dos fenômenos de linguagem analisados. A análise compreende o estilo verbal como o lugar dialógico e pluridiscursivo das relações sociais, cujas escolhas vocabulares e sintáticas da autoria estão orientadas às ligações objetais e semânticas de caráter cognitivo e ético, refletindo o compartilhamento de axiologias sociais sustentadoras da constituição textual/discursiva. A discussão se respalda nos trabalhos do Círculo de Bakhtin e nas pesquisas decorrentes. Os resultados demonstram a presença de movimentos discursivizados estilístico-composicionalmente, demarcadores da interação autor-criador, interlocutor e tema, os quais apresentamos como dialógicos/valorativos e cuja descrição exige uma interpretação axiológica da forma e estilístico-gramatical do funcionamento linguístico. Daí advém o estatuto dialógico da análise linguística empreendida.

Discurso oral en el envejecimiento: estudio de caso

Este trabajo describe el discurso oral de adultos mayores sanos, bajo la mirada de la funcionalidad discursivo–pragmática, cuya unidad básica es el discurso como producción textual, como interacción y como contexto de enunciación. El estudio es descriptivo, transversal y se apoya en el desempeño oral de dos ancianas en la tarea descriptiva de la Lámina Robo de Galletas y en los diálogos de una entrevista semiestructurada. Los datos fueron analizados según el número de unidades de información de la Lámina y el Protocolo de Funcionalidad Discursiva. Estos datos indican que los dos sujetos utilizaron movimientos lenguajeros del discurso oral, de tipo retomada y reformulación, a través de la expansión, vacilación, sustitución, repetición, inserción y modificación del discurso. Estos movimientos favorecieron el desarrollo y mantenimiento natural de la interacción. El 80% de las unidades informativas de la Lámina Robo de Galletas fue nombrado por ambas mujeres.

DISCURSO ORAL EN EL ENVEJECIMIENTO: ESTUDIO DE CASO

This work describes the oral discourse of healthy elderly adults under the paradigm of the discursive–pragmatic functionality, whose basic unit is discourse as text production, interaction and enunciation context. This is a descriptive, transversal case study based on the oral discourse of two healthy elderly women describing the Cookies Theft picture task and dialoging in a semi- structured interview. The results were analyzed according to the number of information units of the Cookies Theft picture and the Discursive Functionality Protocol. The results indicated that both subjects used oral discursive movements of formulation and reparations by expansion, hesitation, substitution, repetition, insertion and modification of discourse. Those movements favored the collaborative process in which reorganization and reorientation of meaning functioned to promote natural interaction during language activity. Both subjects named 80% of the Cookies Theft information units.

A construção do discurso argumentativo em perspectiva foucaultiana

Este artigo recupera o esquema argumentativo descrito pela Nova Retórica para discutir como a organização dos raciocínios por ligação e por dissociação podem ser analisados sob os estudos de Foucault (2008 [1969], 2004 [1971]) acerca da constituição do discurso na sociedade, com o intuito de promover uma reflexão acerca das possibilidades de análise de produções discentes no ensino médio e de organização do ensino da argumentação na educação básica. Por meio de uma metodologia interpretativista (ERICKSON, 1986), pretendemos compreender os movimentos discursivos depreendidos de produções realizadas durante o Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio, em 2004, e indicar alternativas para desenvolver práticas pedagógicas comprometidas com a formação de um sujeito crítico. As análises ilustrativas apontam que os estudantes elaboram reflexões autorizadas por certa formação discursiva, o que exige a delimitação de uma identidade e a elaboração de argumentos alinhados às escolhas políticas assumidas no discurso. Assim, evidencia-se a necessidade de diversificar os processos de ensino e aprendizagem quando se quer ampliar as possibilidades de o sujeito assumir posicionamentos relativamente a outras posições.

Speaking of Justice: Encounters in a Legal Self‐Help Clinic

This article explores a new form of legal aid commonly referred to as “legal self‐help.” Through ethnographic research in a legal self‐help clinic, I examine the techniques through which help to legal self‐help is produced, sustained, and sometimes even challenged as a means of better understanding and critiquing the reformist ideal of “access to justice.” In exploring this new context for the negotiation of legal disputes, I show how the shift from legal help to legal self‐help blurs the boundaries between professional and lay people, between procedure and substance, and between rules and relationships. By tracking the discursive movement across and through these categories, I explore the logic of legal self‐help as a form of access to law and the legal process.