Existing Power Relations Research Articles

Challenges and Paradoxes in Decolonising HCI: A Critical Discussion

The preponderance of Western methods, practices, standards, and classifications in the manner in which new technology-related knowledge is created and globalised has led to calls for more inclusive approaches to design. A decolonisation project is concerned with how researchers might contribute to dismantling and re-envisioning existing power relations, resisting past biases, and balancing Western heavy influences in technology design by foregrounding the authentic voices of the indigenous people in the entire design process. We examine how the establishment of local Global South HCI communities (AfriCHI and ArabHCI) has led to the enactment of decolonisation practices. Specifically, we seek to uncover how decolonisation is perceived in the AfriCHI and ArabHCI communities as well as the extent to which both communities are engaged with the idea of decolonisation without necessarily using the term. We drew from the relevant literature, our own outsider/insider lived experiences, and the communities’ responses to an online anonymised survey to highlight three problematic but interrelated practical paradoxes: a terminology, an ethical, and a micro-colonisation paradox. We argue that these paradoxes expose the dilemmas faced by local non-Western researchers as they pursue decolonisation thinking. This article offers a blended perspective on the decolonisation debate in HCI, CSCW, and the practice-based CSCW scholarly communities and invites researchers to examine their research work using a decolonisation lens.

Taking small steps: Sensitising the police through male sex workers’ community-led advocacy in Nairobi, Kenya

ABSTRACT Kenyan sex worker-led organisations (SWLOs) often play a key role in the national HIV response. Accounts of these organisations frequently focus on their community-led approaches to promote sexual health. This paper addresses sensitisation, an underexplored but significant activity in the political agency of sex workers (SWs). Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a male SWLO in Nairobi, we examine how male SWs strategically use their position in the national HIV response to create spaces of police sensitisation. Taking police sensitisation as a manifestation of community-led advocacy and a ‘politics of small steps’, we examine how SWs respond to, resist and remake the political landscape of police violence. The strategy supports SWs in changing existing power relationships between themselves and the police, albeit within the confines of a criminalising legal system. The analysis of sensitisation practices supports a reimagining of SWLOs that stresses their political agency in the production of new political spaces and expands the focus on African SWLOs beyond HIV work to their political activities, which advance SWs’ health, rights and social justice.

The political economy of socio-technical transitions: A relational view of the state and bus system decarbonization in the United Kingdom

This paper addresses a research (specifically conceptual) gap in socio-technical transitions literature on transport decarbonization: namely, a lack of attention to the state as a defining and constitutive element of any system-wide transition processes.Adopting an explicitly interdisciplinary approach, it develops a conceptual framework that places the state and relations between it and key transportation actors as critical for understanding the dynamics of low-carbon public transport transformations. In so doing, it articulates two political economic dimensions that offer a more relational view of the nature and role of the state in transitions. These are firstly, an historical understanding of state approaches to transition interventions and regulation, and secondly the multiple sites and forms of power through which the state mediates transition relations. In light of the framework, it introduces the UK bus transition as a case study, and offers some preliminary insights on the role and function of the state in transportation transitions. On the one hand, a policy prioritization on ‘greening the car’ within the context of protecting ‘business as usual’ significantly limits bus-based transportation transition prospects. On the other hand, sub-national processes around devolution that embody logics of greater public control of bus networks are found to have transformative potential and questioning existing power relations. The paper concludes by identifying the importance of an interdisciplinary and problem-solving oriented transition research analysis.

Indigenous journalism, media innovation, and social change: A review of previous research and call for more critical approaches

Abstract Indigenous journalism can facilitate the inclusion of Indigenous voices in the public sphere, thereby contributing to social change. Contemporary Indigenous journalism is in part facilitated by the introduction and diffusion of paradigmatic media innovations, including the Internet, mobile technology, and social media. Based on a literature review, we investigate how media innovations are understood to facilitate Indigenous journalism and find that few empirical studies directly address this question. Analyses of Indigenous journalism, reaching beyond the potential for increased access to media and for amplification of Indigenous voice, are lacking. Furthermore, little research investigates how the appropriation of new technological affordances influence the production of Indigenous journalism. Our review also indicates that while Indigenous political participation can be facilitated by media innovation, these innovations can also serve to reinforce existing power relations. We submit that more critical analytical approaches are required to investigate how media innovations might facilitate the potential of Indigenous journalism for social change.

How to Watch the Watchers? Democratic Oversight of Algorithmic Police Surveillance in Belgium

In the last decade and more recently triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, algorithmic surveillance technologies have been increasingly implemented and experimented with by the police for crime control, public order policing, and as management tools. Police departments are also increasingly consumers of surveillance technologies that are created, sold, and controlled by private companies. They exercise an undue influence over police today in ways that are not widely acknowledged and increasingly play a role in the data capture and processing that feeds into larger cloud infrastructures and data markets. These developments are having profound effects on how policing is organized and on existing power relations, whereby decisions are increasingly being made by algorithms. Although attention is paid to algorithmic police surveillance in academic research as well as in mainstream media, critical discussions about its democratic oversight are rare. The goal of this paper is to contribute to ongoing research on police and surveillance oversight and to question how current judicial oversight of algorithmic police surveillance in Belgium addresses socio-technical harms of these surveillance practices.

Power, autonomy and interprofessional practice in dietitian clinical decision making: An interpretive study in acute hospitals.

Dietitians learn clinical decision making (CDM) predominantly as an autonomous cognitive process that considers the needs and preferences of the patient. Although interprofessional education is increasing in tertiary dietetic programmes, a paucity of research exists that explores the nature of how practising dietitians make decisions, independent or otherwise. This qualitative interpretative study explored the nature of experienced dietitian CDM in the acute care setting. Philosophical hermeneutic principles guided text construction and interpretation via in-depth, semi-structured interviews with practising dietitians with at least 3years of experience. A reference focus group commented on the emerging findings, increasing the rigour of the research. Ten dietitians participated in the interviews and there were five dietitians in the reference focus group. CDM was found to be a highly social phenomenon with varying degrees of autonomy involving complex power relations with various other health professionals, in particular, medical practitioners. Dietitians respond to existing power relations in key ways, including building and maintaining relationships, advocating on behalf of the patient and negotiating decisions with other healthcare staff when in pursuit of improved health and nutrition related outcomes for patients. Strategic interprofessional communication skills are foundational to effective patient care and advancing the role of the dietitian. Power and autonomy in dietitian CDM are important concepts that could inform interprofessional education when seeking to promote both effective dietetic and interprofessional practice.

Politics as Negotiation: Changing Caste Norms in Rural India

ABSTRACTThis article analyses processes of social change in rural India through an ethnographic analysis of everyday politics in two Indian states, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Its main argument is that even if overt resistance or ‘noisy’ collective action by the poor is rarely seen, a great deal of social change is occurring through a subtle ‘politics of negotiation’ whereby poor, low‐caste agricultural labourers are questioning social norms that underpin their oppression. These negotiations are structured around labour relations and caste norms, which are so inextricably intertwined that a modification of one set of ‘rules’ necessarily has an impact on the other. The processes of democratization, the erosion of patron–client relations, the spread of education, an enduring agrarian crisis aggravated by climate change and the availability of alternative employment opportunities for the poor are chipping away at the dominance of India's rural elite. This continuous negotiating process between the (upper‐caste) landed elite and the (lower‐caste) labouring classes is non‐confrontational and while it would be ambitious to suggest that it overturns the existing power relations, it nonetheless challenges and modifies them in a way that results in progressive social change.

Trust, but verify.. Power relations and control practices in a smart working environment

The world of working is changing and the technological transformations are playing a relevant role in this change. In particular, new technologies are making the physical boundaries of traditional offices increasingly permeable, allowing the diffusion of New Ways of Working (Demerouti et al., 2014; Koops and Helms, 2014), such as smart working. This paper, based on a qualitative research and discursive interviews, intends to reflect on the introduction and top-down management of smart working within a banking institution. At the same time, it aims to grasp the role attributed to and played by technology in its implementation. Starting from the two reconstructed stories, I shall show if and how the innovations introduced whereby technologies enable us to work remotely, are changing existing power relations and what control dynamics emerge from the field.

The Social Pedagogical Discourse of Modernity. The Politics of Human Rights and International Social Work

The basic thesis of this paper is that the helping professions have an indispensable task: to reflect the constitution of society in the context of the perception of the other. This discourse of social pedagogy addresses the conditions under which we encounter each other and under which we recognize each other. It is to be asked to what extent this discourse of social pedagogy could contribute to open the horizons of the common, which have been closed by all conceivable forms of violence. The background of the discourse, mentioned here, is close to the social philosophical discourse of modernity. It reflects the form of modernity in all its moral, social and political dimensions. The social-philosophical reference to the present is accompanied by the indispensable critique of power. It designates stages of reflection of that critique that make possible a theory of society. It thus forms, which is to be shown as aa result, the categorical framework of an analysis that enables a view of the structures of existing power relations. It thematizes the essential approaches to the practical overcoming of these phenomena. For this purpose, it will be reflected by way of introduction which theoretical reference the mentioned discourse has and how it is to be understood in comparison to other discourses - thus, it is first about the connections from social philosophy to social pedagogy (2). Within this framework, it will then be shown that the helping professions have an internal reference to the world, which is of eminent importance for the self-description of the discourse (3). How the language of human rights can be translated into transcultural perspectives of action is a complex question that is answered here from a fundamental anthropological perspective (4).

The marketisation of education and the democratic deficit

This article deals with the question of what has happened to ‘the public’ in the Swedish education system during the last three decades. In our search for an answer we illuminate and discuss how the process of marketisation, together with the learnification and individualisation of education, replaced ‘the public’ from public education with the logic of the market place. To shed some further light on the current discourse on Swedish education, we contrast two principles in education and teaching, the aristocratic principle and the democratic principle. According to the aristocratic principle, education is about fixating and reproducing existing power relations as the cornerstone of a well-ordered society. According to the democratic principle of education, equality is the cornerstone of a well-ordered democratic society. Considering the shift in the very infrastructure of the Swedish educational system, we arrive at the conclusion that the principles in education and teaching are characterised by the aristocratic principle, rather than those we have characterised as democratic principles. The educational message is clear: upcoming generations are to accept the rules of the market economy and play the game accordingly.

Women's experiences of breech birth and disciplinary power.

To explore women's experiences of breech pregnancy and birth to identify areas in practice for improvement. A descriptive exploratory study was conducted involving 20 women who had experienced a breech birth between 2013 and 2018. Semi-structured interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. Transcripts were examined using a free-form 'circling and parking' style of analysis. Foucault's concepts of power/knowledge were utilized to describe existing power relations. Women experienced varying degrees of disciplinary power throughout their experiences. Knowledge was used as a means of enforcing disciplinary power by some clinicians and by women to 'arm' themselves and 'fight' to regain what they perceived as a loss of power and autonomy. Midwives were seen as navigators of a restrictive, medicalized healthcare system. By better understanding the power dynamics which exist as well as the stages women go through when experiencing a breech presentation, there remains the potential to identify areas in practice which need improving, and aid clinicians in better supporting women through what can be a very difficult time.

A ‘data realm’ for the Global South? Evidence from Indonesia

This article examines the international and domestic pressures that shape the governance of personal data in the Global South. As developing countries become new terrain for the expansion of US Big Tech and develop their own digital economies, international policy discourses urge the adoption of data governance as self-evidently ‘good policy’ moving into existing regulatory vacuums. However, like any valuable resource, the competition to govern personal data is subject to existing power relations, political interests, institutional pathways and ideologies. With evidence from Indonesia, this article shows how the governance of personal data in the digital economy is influenced by international and national commercial interests, and instrumentalised by domestic state and political elite. In doing so, it adapts the North American ‘information-security complex’ for developing countries with their post-colonial economies, self-interested oligarchic elites and hybrid state-commercial data firms. The significance of this approach lies in its realistic understanding of the challenges and opportunities for supporting data governance reform around the world.

The Relevance and Presumed Innocence of Learning: A Reply to Soeters and Talbot and Fischer

Responding to Soeters and Talbot and Fischer, we clarify our position that learning in military organizations is highly contingent on established organizational frameworks, vocabularies, and understandings and constrained by existing power relations. The danger present in military operations increases the importance of minimizing internal frictions and constrains local experimentation and the application of different solutions. Thus, while there is learning in military organizations, the latter are less prone than large, civilian organizations to venture into the use of new and unproven solutions. The present debate about learning in military organization reflects the different basic assumptions about formal organizations in management studies as opposed to the field of organizational sociology.

Anti-gender politics in East-Central Europe: Right-wing defiance to West-Eurocentrism

Anti-gender actors in East-Central Europe (ECE) too claim that gender is an ideological colonization. In this article, in contrasting these accusations with actually existing power relations of the global and European gender architecture, I discuss whether they are – at least to some extent – based on social realities. Neither anti-gender campaigns nor the rise of illiberal forces are ECE phenomena per se and should not be treated as such. However, the relevance of the geopolitical embeddedness of gender equality policies, of gender studies and of feminist and LGBT politics needs to be analysed thoroughly in order to better understand the right-wing discourse. This paper offers a theoretical explanation, based on existing empirical studies and critical theoretical literature. Focussing on the four Visegrád countries, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, it attempts to demonstrate the specific drivers of the anti-gender mobilization in this region and argues that anti-gender discourse is a right-wing language of resistance against existing material and symbolic East-West inequalities in Europe.

O colonialismo informal da Egiptologia: da missão francesa ao Estado de segurança

Esta contribuição é uma revisão crítica da história colonial da Egiptologia. Ele traça o desenvolvimento do campo desde seus primeiros dias sob o colonialismo europeu e a competição geopolítica intraeuropeia até o advento do controle egípcio nos tempos atuais. A exploração do passado do Egito antigo foi enquadrada como parte de uma missão civilizadora por meio da qual a Europa arrancaria o Egito das garras da dominação otomana e restauraria a terra à sua antiga grandeza, e também como um veículo para os interesses ocidentais no Nordeste da África. Por meio da Bíblia cristã e do antigo domínio grego e romano, o Egito foi posicionado como uma forma inicial de civilização ocidental, portanto, reforçando as reivindicações europeias sobre a área e possibilitando a apropriação da história egípcia. Estudiosos europeus, ao promoverem a ideia do antigo Egito como um paraíso perdido e paternalista, criaram uma estrutura ocidentalizada e um enquadramento e centro-ocidental para seu estudo, que ainda hoje inspira os padrões de produção do conhecimento, o qual pode ser identificado na produção acadêmica dos centros geográficos e nas línguas primárias em que são produzidos. Os egípcios, cada vez mais autônomos desde a descolonização formal na década de 1950, posteriormente adotaram e mantiveram as práticas estabelecidas quando o controle formal sobre o passado egípcio passou para suas mãos. As narrativas coloniais da antiguidade foram usadas para apoiar o turismo como uma economia vital e passaram a servir ao nacionalismo egípcio e à legitimação das relações de poder existentes, enquadrando a história egípcia como um contínuo do governo do homem forte. O artigo traça essa transição do colonialismo formal para o informal ao discuti-la a partir de conceitos descoloniais, tal como a matriz colonial de poder.

A gender analysis of the processing sector of the tuna value chain in General Santos City, Philippines

This paper aims to examine the roles and relations of women and men in the processing sector of the tuna value chain in General Santos City, Philippines. Based on the household survey, focus group discussions and key informant interviews the study reveals the gender division of labor in canning, frozen and tuna value-adding processing (TVAP). Women are assigned to tasks that require more attention to details and thoroughness while men do the physically demanding and mechanical work. College graduates have full time jobs in canneries but the females’ income is at most only 60% of the males’ income. Although women are perceived to be more efficient in processing tuna and more trustworthy than men on money matters, they are economically disadvantaged and are likely to experience sexual harassment at work. It is the men in TVAP who are the most marginalized due to the intersections of gender, age, education and migrant status. The paper proposes that there should be more gender responsive policies and programs that will challenge the existing power relations at the household, community, and industry level. Processors and other value chain enablers should work towards women’s empowerment and gender equitable outcomes.

Party Politics and Radical Right Populism in the European Parliament: Analysing Political Groups as Democratic Actors

AbstractThe European Parliament's political groups have traditionally been studied using quantitative methods and roll call votes. This article expands such research agendas by applying qualitative methods and interview data to expose existing power relations not just on macro level but within and between political groups. This generates insights on the ways in which radical right populism impacts on democratic practices and their erosion in parliamentary politics. The article examines intergroup and intragroup activities as fundamental, under‐researched areas of the functioning of political group. The research material consists of 123 interviews with members of the European Parliament and staff and ethnographic field notes all gathered in Brussels and Strasbourg between 2018 and 2020. The findings show that the impact of radical right populism on political group dynamics cannot be understood by focusing on formal institutions only but has to be analysed at the level of informal institutions.

Social and emotional learning is hegemonic miseducation: students deserve humanization instead

ABSTRACT The ahistorical objectives of social and emotional learning fall short of repairing the cultural contempt of hegemonic miseducation and does not address the primary social forces negatively impacting the health and wellness of communities of color – their colonial relationship with inequitable social systems. In this article, we posit humanization in place of social and emotional learning because SEL’s inadequate analysis of intersecting oppressions justifies existing power relations in communities and schools. In essence, this article examines the pedagogy and psychology of humanization as a viable framework to confront systemically imposed self-hate, divide and conquer, and suboppression if it teaches students knowledge (and love) of self, solidarity, and self-determination.

Imag(in)ing Colombian post-conflict in corporate sustainability reports

Purpose This paper aims to study the use of photos in corporate sustainability reports (CSRs) as a means to gain legitimacy concerning Colombian post-conflict representations. Design/methodology/approach From a critical perspective based on legitimacy theory and political economy theory, and using visual semiotics and critical discourse analysis, this paper examines the use of photographs in sustainability reports as a mechanism to account for corporate actions regarding peace in Colombia. This paper relies on 121 pictures from 30 CSRs. Findings The analysis shows that companies are gaining legitimacy by referring to post-conflict through visual forms. Nonetheless, the structural conditions that caused the Colombian conflict are still present. Sustainability reporting that includes peace action representations becomes a control and subordination mechanism to reproduce existing power relations in the Colombian social order. Indeed, the generation of opportunities for civilians and ex-combatants, victims reparation, security and reconciliation remains unresolved structural issues. Hence, the use of corporate economic resources and their strategic visual representation in reports is just one business way of representing firms as aligned with government initiatives to obtain tax incentives. Research limitations/implications This study is centered on Colombian CSRs for the period 2016-2017; however, 2017 reports by some companies have not yet been published. This study also explored the messages contained in the images that include people. Images that do not depict persons were not examined. Originality/value This study provides evidence on visual representations of corporate peace actions aimed at gaining corporate legitimacy. Furthermore, this research examines a unique scenario that promoted more significant corporate social participation, following the signing of the peace agreements between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, Ejército del Pueblo).

The “nurse as hero” discourse in the COVID-19 pandemic: A poststructural discourse analysis

BackgroundNurses have been labelled “heroes” by politicians, the mass media, and the general public to describe their commitment to providing front-line care to people with COVID-19, despite the risks of exposure and lack of clinical resources. Few studies have examined the implications of the hero discourse to nurses’ professional, social, and political identities. ObjectiveTo critically examine the effects of the hero discourse on nurses who are contending with the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and to consider the political, social, cultural, and professional impact of this discourse on nursing work. MethodsA poststructural discourse analysis, employing the theoretical ideas of truth, power, knowledge, subjectivity, and normalization, was conducted to explore the mass media's constructions of nurse as hero in the contexts of COVID-19. Media electronic databases were searched between March 1, 2020 to August 1, 2020 to locate newspaper and magazine articles, corporate advertisements, videos, social media postings, and institutional/corporate websites. SettingData sources included English language media accounts that originated from Canada, the USA, and the UK. ResultsThree main elements of the hero discourse include: 1. Nurses as a “necessary sacrifice” - portraying nurses as selfless, sacrificing, and outstanding moral subjects for practicing on the front-line without adequate protective gear and other clinical resources; 2. Nurses as “model citizens” - positioning nurses as compliant, hardworking, and obedient subjects in contrast to harmful individuals and groups that ignore or resist COVID-19 public health measures. 3. Heroism itself as the reward for nurses - characterizing hero worship as a fitting reward for nurses who were unappreciated pre-pandemic, as opposed to supporting long-term policy change, and highlighting how heroism reconfigures nursing work from the mundane and ordinary to the exciting and impactful. ConclusionsThe hero discourse is not a neutral expression of appreciation and sentimentality, but rather a tool employed to accomplish multiple aims such as the normalization of nurses’ exposure to risk, the enforcement of model citizenship, and the preservation of existing power relationships that limit the ability of front-line nurses to determine the conditions of their work. Our study has implications for approaching the collective political response of nursing in the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and formalizing the ongoing emotional, psychological, ethical, and practice supports of nurses as the pandemic continues.