Forms Of Political Engagement Research Articles

Media exposure and the engaged citizen: How the media shape political participation

Media exposure is widely known to increase institutional forms of political participation such as voting. Less well understood is whether media exposure also affects protest, a less institutional form of engagement. This paper examines the mechanics through which this relationship operates by considering the media's direct and indirect effect on voting and protesting, via political trust, efficacy, and knowledge. We make these comparisons by analyzing the unique Jennings panel dataset that collects information on respondents at three separate points. The results show that media exposure affects voting more than protesting and that these relationships operate through different mechanisms. While media exposure leads to voting because it increases political knowledge, it is associated with protest via external political efficacy. Furthermore, while this relationship is causal for voting it is only correlational for protest. The results illustrate the importance of disentangling forms of political engagement when considering media effects.

A green garden on red clay: creating a new urban common as a form of political gardening in Cologne, Germany

In March 2012, a brownfield site in Cologne was transformed into “a green garden on red clay”, when a community garden called NeuLand (new land) was created. This paper investigates in how far NeuLand is typical for a new form of political engagement 2.0, focused on local problems at people's doorstep rather than global critiques of political systems, which finds its expression in direct actions typical for the networked society, e.g. “green flash mobs.” Its potential to provide a blueprint for imagining and enacting alternative futures and new ways for citizens to claim their “right to the city” is being assessed. NeuLand provides an experiment with new forms of (urban) commons and possibly a (re)turn to the “liveable city” to replace the current neoliberal ideal of the “entrepreneurial city” [Harvey, D., 1989. From manageralism to entrepreneuralism: the transformation of urban governance in late capitalism. Geografiska Annaler, Series B, Human Geography, 71 (1), 3–17], developing new solutions to problems of urban management and city development that extend beyond the voluntary engagement of citizens within the logic of the neoliberal “big society.” Extending the scope beyond the analysis of urban gardening projects as examples of sustainable food production, or as vehicles for fostering community cohesion, integration or social capital, the NeuLand experiment is linked to wider debates of alternative and more sustainable socio-ecological futures than those currently practised in the newly “neoliberalizing cities” of Germany.

Afterword: Tracing the civic

Alfred Schutz once wrote that ‘my knowledge of the world of contemporaries is typical knowledge of typical processes’ (1964: 44). That is not how it feels to today’s ethnographers of civic and political engagement. Or at least, that is not the impression that the articles of this special issue give. They confront us rather with particulars, urgent and diverse particulars that repel any typifying or synoptic gaze. There are reasons for this, some of them long-standing. The empirical study of political and civic life has always been partial. Many aspects of political and civic experience have tended to fall through the cracks between the standard, quasi-curricular blocks of ‘civic culture’, ‘public sphere’, and ‘public opinion’. We therefore need to ask, as Debra Vidali does in her article, ‘where one looks, ethnographically, for evidence of civic engagement or disengagement’, without assuming that we will find ready answers. Specific reasons for caution about too-confident explications of what is going on with new forms of political engagement are multiple. First, we know too little about how it feels to be ‘civic’ or ‘political’, and how this varies from one culturally specific context to another. We must ask, as does Vidali: ‘what is engagement?’ We cannot assume we have a clear grasp of engagement’s elements and dynamics today. Second, in an age when the nature, boundaries and scales of political action are changing, ‘connection’ itself – the multiple ways in which diverse sets of agents are linked up by particular actions – becomes important, and extends beyond engagement with specific political objects (parties, elections, manifestoes). But what is, what counts as, ‘connection’? This question, in turn, raises a third reason for caution about ready-made accounts of political change: the only partly charted and always fast-moving contribution to civic and political engagement/ connection of media, particularly digital media. The constant stream of new digital platforms, especially social media platforms, clearly have the potential to engage and connect, but it is much more difficult to know whether they do so in any longterm and effective way. Equally as difficult is to know what type of detailed questions to ask on the ground in order to judge what is effective engagement and

Beyond citizenship: emergent forms of political subjectivity amongst migrants

This article traces the formation of the International Migrants Alliance (IMA) through a study of its leading organisations and central campaigns. Founded in 2008 by 108 self-described ‘grass-roots’ migrant organisations, the IMA is a transnational coalition of groups from nearly every continent of the world. I suggest that through their work in IMA, migrants express a new form of political subjectivity, a form of ‘migrant labour transnationalism.’ Migrant labour transnationalism, unlike the homeland-oriented, citizenship-based, state-supportive forms of migrant political transnationalism generally identified in the scholarship, is based on counter-hegemonic nationalisms through which migrants contest their home states’ complicity with the project of neoliberal globalisation. Migrant labour transnationalism is, moreover, formed through contentious forms of political engagement and new transnational networks through which migrants are cultivating class-based collective identifications.

What drives unconventional political participation? A two level study

There is little evidence on the factors that drive peaceful unconventional political participation. This study evaluates the impact of seven individual level constituents – age, income, education, gender, satisfaction with the government, engagement in civil society organizations and voting – as well as five macro-level factors – economic development, democratic experience, income inequalities, a country's regime type and federalism – on citizens’ participation in boycotts, demonstrations and petition signing activities. Participation in all three protest activities hinges on education, voting, participation in civil society organizations, and lack of satisfaction with the government. Moreover, the influence of some macro-factors, such as democratic experience and economic development, and micro-level factors, such as gender differs between the three forms of political engagement.

Disconnection and resistance: anti-terrorism and citizenship in the UK

The corroding impacts of anti-terrorism measures on citizenship have been much discussed in recent years. Drawing on qualitative research from the UK, this article argues that citizens do indeed frequently feel that aspects of citizenship – such as rights, duties, identity claims and the ability to participate in the public sphere – have been significantly dampened by developments in this policy area. At the same time, however, participants in our research also articulated a number of strategies through which they or others have sought to resist the logics, exercise and impacts of anti-terrorism powers. These included voicing explicit opposition to particular measures, resisting ‘outsider’ or ‘victim’ subject positions, and a refusal to withdraw from established forms of political engagement. Whilst such resistance should not be overstated, we argue that these strategies emphasise the co-constitutive rather than linear relationship between public policy and citizenship. Anti-terrorism powers do indeed impact upon citizenship claims, for instance in the curtailment of formal rights. Equally, the everyday, lived, experiences and practices of citizenship contribute to, and help shape, the perceptions and understandings of anti-terrorism policy from within the citizenry

Political engagement as an element of social recovery: a qualitative study.

Taking a qualitative approach, this study sought to describe consumer attitudes toward political participation and the association between political engagement and social recovery. This study used data from seven focus groups of self-identified consumers of mental health services in the New York City area (N=52). Attitudes and behaviors related to voting and other forms of political engagement were identified and classified according to grounded theory, with a focus on the relationship between political engagement and broader social functioning, participation, and recovery. Participants described the symbolic meaning of voting and political participation in terms of connection to social inclusion versus exclusion. Participants described political participation as a component of empowerment for minority groups in general, including persons who use mental health services and those from racial-ethnic minority groups. Qualitative studies of the symbolic meanings of political participation are an important component of understanding the broad yet interconnected dimensions of social recovery.

Fashionable Resistance: Queer "Fa(t)shion" Blogging as Counterdiscourse

Fashion is often dismissed as, at best, irrelevant and, at worst, downright counterproductive to the presumably more serious and high-minded business of political action. But is it possible to think of fashion not only as compatible with politics but also as a form of political engagement in its own right? This essay offers one possible answer to this question through a case study of a virtual fashion community that represents bodies typically excluded from participation in mainstream fashion - namely, fat, queer, and femme-identified bodies. This online community disrupts the politics of body size, gender, beauty, and consumerism that predominate in fashion as both an economic and a cultural economy, creating a virtual (Deleuze and Foucault 1977) in the process. Exploring how this counterdiscourse was constructed, contained, and challenged, this essay demonstrates the very real potential of fashion as a site of political action and contestation even as it also reveals formidable limitations to this potential.Sociological considerations of fashion commonly characterize it as a key marker of social distance and distinction (Bourdieu 1984; Simmel [1911] 1984). According to this literature, fashion is a vehicle for conspicuous consumption (Veblen [1899] 2007) and the accrual of cultural capital (Bourdieu 1984). While these definitions of fashion capture its ability to produce social distinctions, they do not, on the whole, attend to ways that fashion's meanings are mediated by bodies (Entwistle 2000). As Crane (2000) points out, part of the function of fashion is to produce bodies that are easily distinguishable by sex, race, and class. Particularly because the case study at hand attempts to disrupt this sorting process, it is appropriate to instead draw primarily on Entwistle's (2000) definition of fashion as a bodily practice. This definition brings the importance of embodiment to the fore, which shifts the unit of analysis from fashion as cultural artifacts to fashion as styled bodies.Further, there is a tendency in sociology to characterize fashion as a strictly constraining and regulating social process, thereby ignoring or dismissing the pleasure of fashion. Yet there is reason to suggest that fashion can be more than just a source of oppression. Chittenden (2010) examined the phenomenon of fashion blogging and found that it can mitigate social isolation and create a sense of community that goes far beyond displays of conspicuous consumption. Pham's (2011) analysis of fashion blogging done by Asian Americans argues that it also has the potential to disrupt racist hierarchies of beauty, authority, and knowledge production. In light of such analyses, this essay defines fashion not only as a situated bodily practice (Entwistle 2000), but also as one that produces unique pleasures - and pains - with respect to gender, race, class, and sexual identities.Fa(t)shion February for Femmes and Friends: A Sociological Case StudyChittenden's (2010) and Pham's (201 1) works suggest that online fashion might be an especially promising venue for assessing fashion's potential as a tool of resistance and social justice. New media scholars argue that the Internet is, by its very nature, a form of participatory culture (Shirky 2010) where ideas and language provide the grounds for community (Lehdonvirta 2010). Crane's (2000) historical analysis of fashion and identity shows that the Internet has increased both the diffusion and the democracy of fashion discourse. Ihe extent to which the Internet can facilitate a freer exchange of ideas remains hotly debated within media studies (Pham 2011), but the increased ability of former fashion outsiders to participate in the production of fashion discourse through the medium of the Internet has been persuasively documented (Pham 2011; Rocamora 2012). The proliferation and popularity of virtual taste communities (Blakley 2001) through fashion blogging has diluted the power of mainstream fashion tastemakers and created a symbiotic relationship between mainstream and virtual fashion (Rocamora 2012). …

Personal mobilisation, civic norms and political participation

Previous analyses of the role of context in political participation have tended to focus on voting, and on electoral context (in particular, the closeness of the local campaign and the marginality of the electoral district). However, neither this form of political engagement nor these measures of context capture the range of possible influences. This paper therefore analyses the role of civic norms and personal mobilisation on participation in a range of different forms of political activity. In general, individuals are responsive both to actual mobilisation and to their perceptions of how others in their acquaintance circles and neighbourhoods are likely to act. The more the local environment encourages participation (whether in the form of more frequent invitations to get involved or of stronger perceived norms for participation), the more likely individuals are to get involved. However, contextual influences on participation are stronger for the less politically motivated than for the more motivated.

ENGLISH NEWSBOOKS, STORYTELLING AND POLITICAL CRITICISM

The question of how newsbook storytelling contributed to the cultivation and development of thinking about particular political practices during the English Civil Wars in the 1640s needs systematic attention. A sustained examination of newsbook narratives reveals assumptions about political order, activity and legitimacy that were being continuously reiterated in public discourse. Examining how the author of the Royalist Mercurius Aulicus chronicled, selected and ordered recent events into a series of narrative episodes across a number of issues, this article offers a preliminary approach towards understanding how newsbooks contributed to everyday political thinking. Using Charles Taylor's notion of ‘social imaginaries’, it outlines the ideas and assumptions that constituted Aulicus' discussion of the Solemn League and Covenant's introduction in September and October 1643. As an important form of political engagement, the stories newsbooks told were used to shape ideas about political propriety on a weekly basis.

Age and political participation in Germany, France and the UK: A comparative analysis

In this article, we evaluate the relationship between age and three types of political participation: voting, demonstrating and signing petitions. Our comparative analysis of individual-level data from the three largest European countries – Germany, France and the United Kingdom – reveals three interesting findings. First, we find that younger generations are less likely to vote than their older counterparts. Second, our results indicate that those trends are reversed for unconventional participation. Individuals born between the late 1970s and early 1990s are significantly more likely to engage in forms of direct action, such as demonstrations and petitions. This suggests we are experiencing changing patterns of participation for young adults, rather than declining civic engagement. Third, we discover that the relationship between age and various forms of political engagement is frequently not linear. While some forms of political involvement are strongest among the elderly (that is voting), other types are more pronounced among individuals between the ages of 34 and 65 (that is signing petitions) or the young (that is participation in demonstrations).

Special Issue: New Directions in the Sociology of Human Rights Foreword

New Directions in the Sociology of Human Rights is a contribution to both sociology and to human rights research, particularly where these are oriented to challenging power relations and inequalities in contemporary societies. It expands and develops the sociology of human rights as a sub-field of sociology and of interdisciplinary human rights scholarship. The volume suggests new directions for the use of social and sociological theories to analyse issues such as torture and genocide; and addresses a range of issues and themes which have not previously been a sustained focus in the sociology of human rights literature, ranging from climate change and the human rights of soldiers to corporate social responsibility and children’s rights in relation to residential care. The collection is thus multi-dimensional, examining a range of specific empirical contexts, and also considering relationships between sociological analysis and human rights scholarship and activism. Hence in a variety of ways it points the way for future analyses, and also for human rights activism and practices. It is intended to widen our field of vision in the sociology of human rights, and to spark both new ideas and new forms of political engagement. We have co-edited this volume as conveners of the British Sociological Association’s Sociology of Rights Study Group. 1 New Directions in the Sociology of Human Rights is a successor to our previous special issue of the International Journal of Human Rights, titled ‘Sociology and Human Rights: New Engagements’, which was published in November 2010 and edited by the same team. 2 That original volume included an introductory article outlining the history of the relationship between sociology and human rights and the state of our sub-field as we saw it, 3 together with contributions by members of the study group, on a wide range of themes. The collection was subsequently published as a book of the same title. 4 More recently we have co-edited the annual special issue of the British Sociological Association’s journal Sociology, presenting a volume titled The Sociology of Human Rights which was published in October 2012. 5 That volume originated with a Call for Papers which received 83 submissions, and we were informed this was the highest number in the recent history of Sociology, demonstrating a huge appetite for the development of the sociology of human rights as a field. ‘The Sociology of Human Rights’ included a range of articles which delineated and engaged with the major analytical axes and conceptual parameters of the sociology of human rights, as suggested in a substantial editorial foreword; it thus offered an extensive map of the field in theoretical terms, while simultaneously including research from a number of empirical contexts internationally. New Directions in the Sociology of Human Rights by comparison is distinctive for opening up and addressing a wide range of substantive issues, empirical contexts and topics in the sociology of human rights, with a somewhat greater emphasis on examining the application of human rights in practice, while also pressing forward sociological analysis in areas where its deployment is underdeveloped. The collection addresses the place of human rights in relation to key social

‘I am not a trained historian. I improvise.’ Jeremy Deller interviewed by Jerome de Groot

Jeremy Deller is one of the most important – and influential – British artists working today. His work encompasses social memory, folk art, re-enactment, situationist polemic and a dedicated interest in art as a social form of political engagement. This interview introduces his work and explores some of his key ideas. He is particularly interesting to those working in the field of history for his continuing engagement with memory, re-enactment, the nature of the artefact, and the ways in which the past is produced (and reproduced) in popular culture. Images and video from all of Deller's work are available here: http://www.jeremydeller.org

Political Dropouts and the Effects of Participatory Innovations: What Ontario got Wrong and Norway gets Right

A number of innovations have been introduced to reduce the democratic deficit. I am particularly concerned about the deficit as reflected in the decline in voting at elections among young citizens, and, more widely, the apparent decline in attentiveness to (and, thus, knowledge of) political life. The result is a large number of political dropouts, a phenomenon that tends to be ignored in the literature on alternate forms of political engagement. In a number of democratic countries, a majority can be characterized as political dropouts. I first portray this situation, drawing on comparative, generational indicators of political participation and knowledge. The main part of the paper looks for ways to address this state of events in the form of innovations that aim to promote participation and improve democratic skills what is being done, and needs to be done.

The Style of the State in French Theater, 1630–1660: Neoclassicism and Government by Katherine Ibbett

in the male-dominated dynamic of modern capital. It is worth noting in this context that the authors of the texts analyzed are overwhelmingly male; and that authenticity, which Hiner rightly identifies as one of modernity’s “most obsessive debates” (169), is “compromised when it is only performed, staged and not innate” (30). Fashion challenged fixed notions of identity, gender, and class often only to replace them with new constructions. This study will appeal to social historians as well as specialists of nineteenthcentury French literature and art, thanks to Hiner’s theoretical foundations and her discussions of the actual material conditions involved in the making and importing of cashmere shawls, the architecture of fans, or the evolution of handbags from simple dress pockets. The book’s illustrations place the reader in the atmosphere of the period considered (1830–70) and are used effectively and with wit. Hiner asserts that Emma Bovary reaches a significant threshold of awareness by “reading the material objects of fashion through which aristocratic ball-goers communicate and construct their identities” (145). It is an apt mise en abyme for the well-met goals of this study. Skidmore College (NY) John Anzalone IBBETT, KATHERINE. The Style of the State in French Theater, 1630–1660: Neoclassicism and Government. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009. ISBN 978-0-7546-6566-3. Pp. 176. $99.95. This book deals with frames, perspectives, and things hidden from view. In her study of the ways seventeenth-century French theater engages with political thought and practice, Katherine Ibbett asks what we might learn from our cultural monuments when we displace them from the brightly lit stage of tradition and consider them from the wings, as it were. At issue here are neoclassical tragedy and Pierre Corneille, two institutions made monumental during the nineteenth century. The story is well known: the education system of the Third Republic actively sought the origins of French national identity in the moral probity of the Cornelian hero, an exemplary “Frenchman” who resisted foreign invaders just as Corneille, enshrined as a national(ist) hero after 1870, eschewed in his plays stylistic and political corruptions creeping in from abroad. Ibbett, however, reads this narrative in a quite different way. She suggests in chapter one that Corneille’s plays involve complexly decentered considerations of the relations of state and theater. They stage dramatic engagements with political power that require of their characters tactical skills of patience, dissimulation, improvisation, and, indeed, scheming. By arguing that playwrights are compelled to employ related strategies to achieve their aesthetic goals, Ibbett suggests that the theater is itself a form of political engagement. In so doing, she seeks to give lie to the entrenched critical notion that Corneille had an obvious distaste for Italianist reason of state political theory. Ibbett lays the groundwork for this argument in the second chapter by considering two minor martyr plays by Puget de La Serre and Saint-Balmon. She shows how these plays draw the spectator’s attention away from the familiar portrait of the suffering saint and refocus it on the waiting women who tend his wounds. Ibbett understands this development as offering insight into the changing nature of spectacle: as the neoclassical scene of suffering is pushed decorously offstage, these plays effect a shift in emphasis Reviews 555 from spectacular event to quiet observation, giving Fronde-era audiences an alternative to political resistance in the form of a more docile civic companionship. Ibbett therefore draws our attention to what happens around the edges of the spectacular. She argues that political subjectivity emerges in the mundane activities that occur apart from, and in more passive witness to, the centrality of heroic events. In subsequent chapters, she makes the quotidian a model for understanding Corneille’s dramatic reflection on the nature of political action. Reading Corneille against early modern political thought, she argues that Corneille reflects on the necessity of “making do” in the exercise of state authority , an insight to be found not only on the neoclassical stage, but in the very theories of reason of state Corneille is so often described as having unambiguously rejected. The colonial governors of Polyeucte and Théodore (chapter three) and the female sovereign of...

Nontraditional News Negativity: The Relationship of Entertaining Political News Use to Political Cynicism and Mistrust

Although past research suggested that entertainment viewing may weaken political trust, only a few studies have investigated this outcome for specific types of nontraditional news shows. This study examines the relationship between exposure to three forms of nontraditional news that merge entertainment with informational content— comedy talk shows, satirical news, and cable opinion news—and political mistrust and cynicism. Using data from a national survey (n1⁄4 777) conducted in the United States, findings indicate that viewing satirical news programs appeared to be related to systemic cynicism, while exposure to all three shows was either directly or indirectly associated with distrust in politicians. Mistrust in the news media, on the other hand, appeared for comedy talk shows and satirical news use only in particular contexts. The news is often criticized for contributing to the public’s distaste for politics, especially because the tone of its political coverage is frequently negative. Yet, the growing popularity of alternative news options, such as cable opinion news (Project for Excellence in Journalism [PEJ], 2009) and satirical news, and the declining audience for traditional television news (Pew Center, 2008) indicate that individuals may be supplementing their use of traditional television news or replacing it altogether. How might the use of these more entertaining news forms affect the public’s political views? Such shows depict negativity, but possibly in ways differing from conventional news programs. While traditional news is argued to generate deep mistrust, or cynicism, All correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Lauren Guggenheim, Department of Communication Studies, University of Michigan, 5344 North Quad, 105 S. State Street, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-1285, USA. E-mail: lguggen@umich.edu especially towards politicians, potentially leading to declining turnout and weakening democracy (e.g., Cappella & Jamieson, 1997), the treatment given to politics by nontraditional news, while portraying other types of negativity, may nonetheless produce similar outcomes. Three forms of news on American television that are both negative and designed to be entertaining include comedy talk shows, cable opinion news programs, and satirical news. While previous research has looked at traditional news, this study looks solely at these three nontraditional forms of news. Past work suggested that entertainment viewing may weaken political trust (Bennett, Rhine, Flickinger, & Bennett, 1999; Holtz-Bacha, 1990; Pfau, Moy, Radler, & Bridgeman, 1998); however, only a few studies have considered specific types of nontraditional news shows (Baumgartner & Morris, 2006, 2008; Forgette & Morris, 2006; Hoffman & Thomson, 2009; Mutz & Reeves, 2005; Tsfati, Tukachinsky, & Peri, 2009). This study expands on research about nontraditional news (also commonly called soft news or infotainment) by considering how it might produce distrusting and cynical attitudes. Content analyses are reviewed to make the case that nontraditional news targets different players within the political system for negativity. Then, the relationship between the viewing of these shows and distrust and cynicism targeted at different political actors is examined. By more closely considering the type of negativity employed by each infotainment show, as well as whom each show targets, a clearer, more nuanced understanding of how entertainment, specifically entertaining news, is associated with public distrust and cynicism may be gained. Media Negativity and Political Trust Since the early 1970s, research has attempted to connect the rise of television viewing with declining political trust, and ultimately turnout. Robinson’s (1976) ‘‘videomalaise’’ concept defined public distrust as an outcome of television news’ emphasis on negativity. Some have since argued that news (both television news and print news) negativity is common because journalists consider negative topics, such as scandals and behaviors that violate typical norms of conduct, to be newsworthy (Fallows, 1996; Gans, 1979; Patterson, 1994). However, Norris (2000) argued that if learning and other forms of political engagement are taken into account along with attitudes towards government, there is actually a virtuous rather than vicious circle, demonstrating that news actually contributes to civic health. Other survey studies also indicate that, in many cases, the news fails to contribute to cynicism or distrust and can even be related to more trusting attitudes (e.g., Holtz-Bacha, 1990; Newton, 1999; Wilkins, 2000). On the other hand, this literature stands in contrast to studies using other methodologies, such as experiments and panel designs, as well as I N T E R N A T I O N A L J O U R N A L O F P U B L I C O P I N I O N R E S E A R C H 288

Dynamic Sustainabilities: Technology, Environment, Social Justice

Linking environmental sustainability with poverty reduction and social justice, and making science and technology work for the poor, have become central practical, political and moral challenges of our times. These must be met in a world of rapid, interconnected change in environments, societies and economies, and globalised, fragmented governance arrangements. Yet despite growing international attention and investment, policy attempts often fail. Why is this, and what can be done about it? How might we understand and address emergent threats from epidemic disease, or the challenges of water scarcity in dryland India? In the context of climate change, how might seed systems help African farmers meet their needs, and how might appropriate energy strategies be developed? This book lays out a new 'pathways approach' to address sustainability challenges such as these in today's dynamic world. Through an appreciation of dynamics, complexity, uncertainty, differing narratives and the values-based aims of sustainability, the pathways approach allows us to see how some approaches are dominant, even though they do not produce the desired results, and how to create successful alternative 'pathways' of responding to the challenges we face. As well as offering new ways of thinking about sustainability, the book also suggests a series of practical ways forward - in tools and methods, forms of political engagement, and styles of knowledge-making and communication. Throughout the book, the practicalities of the pathways approach are illustrated using four case studies: water in dryland India, agricultural seeds in Africa, responses to epidemic disease and energy systems/climate change. Published in association with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

Salman Rushdie and the “war on terror”

My aim here is to explain the topicality of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in the midst and aftermath of the so‐called “war on terror”. The principal merit of the novel is that it sees fundamentalism not only in militant Islamism but also in the West’s unselfconscious belief in its own social and economic practices. It engenders a kind of migrant sensibility that moves between and casts doubt on fixed cultural and ideological positions. Alas, the extraordinary torrent of literary writing and punditry about 9/11 and the subsequent “war on terror” has often failed to combine a vehement critique of Islamism with an equally penetrating appraisal of other forms of fundamentalist belief. Indeed, the enduring significance and salutariness of The Satanic Verses has not been matched by the tendentiousness of Rushdie’s own media‐based analyses of Islam, terrorism and western power. The article is also therefore a defence of literature as an efficacious form of political engagement.

Turning to Narrative: Toward a Feminist Theological Interpretation of Political Participation and Personhood

Framed in the introduction and conclusion by an analysis of U.S. Congressional hearings about Hurricane Katrina and its socio-political aftermath, this article explores the theo-political significance of narrative in order to give a feminist theological interpretation of political participation and personhood. It attends to and expands on the role of narrative at the intersections of moral philosophy, feminist theory, sociology, and public and women's liberation theologies, retrieving key insights from these sources to highlight some of the heretofore neglected implications of subaltern narratives as an alternative form of political engagement in U.S. public life. Especially when viewed through a richly textured feminist, womanist, and mujerista theological lens, this article provides a theological perspective on narrative as one rhetorical practice of public engagement utilized by marginalized groups for prophetic justice. It concludes by showing how a feminist theology of narrative provides an innovative index to measure the efficacy of public engagement on the grounds of increasing solidarity rather than shaping public policy.

The Soviet Sausage Renaissance

ABSTRACT In Lithuania, the first country to secede from the Soviet Union, the term Soviet has been used in public space to refer to the vanished Soviet empire and to experiences of colonization and resistance. However, in 1998, the “Soviet” symbol was successfully revived in the Lithuanian consumer food market as a brand name for meat products—primarily sausages. In this article, I argue that the market is a political arena in which values, ideologies, identities, and history are being shaped. The marketing and consumption of “Soviet” sausages is a form of political engagement that negotiates current power relations and inequalities. The meanings and practices surrounding “Soviet” sausages tell an intriguing story about broader processes of change. The “Soviet” sausage renaissance in Lithuania implies a critique of the postsocialist neoliberal state and constitutes an attempt to create an alternative modernity that is both post‐Soviet and European.