Hegemonic Forces Research Articles

Applying an Equity Lens to Manuscript Writing, Reviewing, and Publishing.

The profession of nursing currently is examining systemic racism within the discipline. Nursing journals, as the gatekeepers of knowledge in the discipline, can reinforce dominant paradigms of racism in nursing science and scholarship. This article discusses the hegemonic forces operating in nursing science with examples of research topics and approaches lacking equity considerations. Recommendations are provided on embedding the core principles of nursing and social justice into the development, implementation, dissemination, and publication of nursing scholarship. Recommendations include committing to antiracism and promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion by ongoing assessment of bias, honing an equity lens, and using inclusive language. Structural changes for instructions for authors, selection of editorial boards, and peer review are necessary to promote an equity lens in nursing scholarship. Intentional actions must be taken to align nursing scholarship with the principles of social justice and health equity. [J Nurs Educ. 2024;63(12):826-834.].

From Erasure to Restoration: Antisemitism and the Visual Reverberations of a Revolutionary Pedagogy

Abstract A set of rediscovered revolutionary posters by the Reprint Collective (which was presented as part of Documenta fifteen) in Brussels provided an incredibly moving window into times past. Notwithstanding how the events addressed by those political artefacts now lie in the historical past, the revolutionary reverberations of the posters remain something to treasure. They bring to life political causes that underline the importance of radical solidarity and activist alliances. To understand why such artefacts were banned, we need to recognise the role of contemporary racism – the projection of the figure of a Palestine-radical left-Muslim subject that encompasses everything the liberal mainstream supposedly is not. This article argues that the New Anti-Semitism is a merely ideological manifestation that has no contribution to make toward the struggle against antisemitism. The posters remind us that 1) the struggle against antisemitism cannot be separated from the struggle against Islamophobia, but also that 2) the erasure of a particular Jewish and Left revolutionary subjectivity is intrinsic to the workings of hegemonic forces that maintain contemporary politics. Going against the account in which antisemitism has conventionally been framed, this article aims to come to terms with the erasure of a left epistemology that had emerged from the region in the 1970s. Moroccan revolutionary Abraham Serfaty is an example of how the erasure of the radical history of Arab and Jewish progressives was no coincidence. Reversing this erasure not only helps in understanding progressive Jewish interventions in liberation politics but also that the flattening of complex histories and Arab, Left, and Jewish subjectivities is in fact a prerequisite for Zionism. Arab Jews do not fit neatly within a pro-Israel ideological framework that itself systematically feeds off anti-Arab racism. This article furthermore reflects on New Anti-Semitism as a key political instrument and as a powerful moralistic force that muzzles the expression of political context and social ambiguity. The notion ‘Arab Anti-Semitism’ arose against the backdrop of Israeli state terror and regional warfare. This article also provides insights into important intellectual interventions of the left between the 1960s and the 1980s. In combination with the rise of counter-revolutionary forces and major anti-left crackdowns, this emancipatory approach building on a critique of imperialism and capitalism, and solidarity politics based on progressive universal values, was undermined. Finally, coming to terms with the erasure of a left epistemology that had emerged from the region and recovering this very legacy serve as an antidote against historical amnesia. This spirit of a progressive universalism – as, for instance, illustrated in Mahmoud Darwish’s rejection of the opportunistic dictum ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ on the grounds that one can readily speak of a ‘world’s enemy’ – is born from the belief that our ethical and moral constellations carry universal value.

Disrupting Dichotomies, Dismantling Hegemonies: Studying Caste Reality in Fiction Through Omprakash Valmiki’s Amma and Other Stories

In the Hindi belt, Dalit literature has taken full shape in the post-Ambedkarite and post-Mandal Commission moments, making this literature layered with the understanding of caste, caste politics and its subtleties, with the central question revolving around the issue of realism. The genre of Dalit fiction transcends the societal and literary boundaries that are guided by hegemonic forces and lifts the cloak of invisibility from the ‘other’. It has the potential to disrupt the dichotomy between the centre and the periphery. By undertaking a critical study of Omprakash Valmiki’s anthology Amma and Other Stories, published in 2008, this article is an attempt to locate the creative and liberating power of Dalit fiction that is seamlessly interwoven with reality. Primarily placed in the rural and urban areas of the state of Uttar Pradesh, Valmiki’s writing situates the Dalit reality directly in front of the readers, all the while challenging the representation and prominent discourse of the Hindi literary tradition. It is in the context of realism that this article focuses on the new kind of realism brought in by Dalit fiction and the revolutionary inversion undertaken by it, which subverts and dismantles the hegemonic traditions of society and literature.

Responsibility and the hidden politics of directionality: opening up ‘innovation democracies’ for sustainability transformations

ABSTRACT Developing earlier work, this paper explores analytic and political implications of ideas about direction in innovation. Unduly hidden in mainstream innovation and sustainability transformations literatures, crucial issues arise for responsible innovation. Although essential to both rigour and effectiveness, key realities tend to be concealed by general hegemonic forces in contemporary global colonial modernity, as well as by more specific expediencies to power and privilege in particular settings. To help resist these obscuring pressures, three contrasting (frequently conflated) meanings are distinguished. Directing innovation involves driving narrow motivating processes towards some given end. The direction of innovation concerns broader steering of pathways towards more openly chosen ends. Directionality of innovation entails grasping deeper political potentialities spanning pluralities of ends. Seriously eroding innovation policy and research alike, much current governance activity fails appropriately to focus or act on these distinctions. To assist greater policy robustness and legitimacy, this paper points to important (but often neglected) practises in each regard. To properly address social and ecological sustainability imperatives, greater attention is advocated to irreducibly political aspects of responsible innovation. This entails renewed emphasis not only on precaution, participation and accountability, but on actively supporting emancipatory struggle towards plural ‘directions for progress’ in innovation democracies.

Neo‐extractivism, (de)growth and resurgent pink tide governments in Latin America

AbstractThe 21st century in Latin America began with a widespread shift to the left politically, a phenomenon called the ‘pink tide’. Following a period of right‐wing re‐ascendancy, left wing governments are again gaining traction across the continent. This article analyses the end of the last pink tide via a dialogue between the post‐extractivism and degrowth literature by examining Bolivia, Ecuador, and Brazil. This is done through a look at the impacts of both economic growth as a normative policy aim and extractivism as the engine to produce this growth on political developments in these countries. In the tradition of Gramsci this is interpreted as a hegemonic force, recast here as growth‐through‐extraction, that serves to perpetuate the interests of wealthy classes despite political changes. This article concludes with a brief analysis of how academic debates and political processes have moved on since Escobar 2015 and what this might mean for the new left‐wing governments of Latin America.

Hegemony of Political Parties and Regional Political Oligarchy

This study aims to delve into the prevalence of single candidates participating in regional elections across various regions following the Constitutional Court Decision Number 100/PUU-XIII/2015. It explores how political party elites and oligarchs strategically maneuver to either maintain or acquire power. Specifically focusing on Boyolali Regency, this research employs a qualitative descriptive approach to uncover the underlying causes behind the emergence of a single candidate. The findings reveal the significant influence of hegemonic forces wielded by major political parties over smaller ones, orchestrated by oligarchs. Importantly, the study highlights that this hegemonic dominance is not driven by factors such as religious majority affiliations with political parties but rather emerges as a purely oligarchic endeavor aimed at controlling both the nomination process and victory outcomes of single candidates.

Media Reform as Transformation Tool: A Hegemonic Gap in Environmental Research and Policy

Sustainability researchers are writing much about levers for transformations towards sustainability but too little about the most powerful means available for obstructing and activating them: mass-reaching media systems. How media systems are structured and governed form a profoundly important meta-level layer of decision-making that ought to be central in the study of environmental politics and in environmental policymaking. A politics- and media-focused account of the rise of Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency of Brazil illustrates the essential role of media systems and the need for new principles, structures, and policies for their governance if the interlinked goals of democracy, equity, and environmental protection are to be achieved. The pervasive inattention to this in environmental research reinforces hegemonic forces and needs to be widely discussed, understood, and overcome to achieve much needed just transformations towards sustainability.

DECODING BUDDHIST IMAGERY: DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF POLITICAL REPRESENTATION IN 'PAPILIO BUDDHA' AND 'MADRAS'

Buddhism, a religion and philosophy founded by Gautama Siddhartha, (Buddha) around 2,500 years ago, has been utilized as a counter-hegemonic force to challenge dominant socio-political structures in India. By embracing Buddhism, individuals and communities can resist and subvert the oppressive structures and ideologies that have been used to marginalize and exclude them. This research analyzes how the films "Papilio Buddha" (2013) and "Madras" (2014), deploy Buddhist themes and motifs to critique socio-political issues, particularly Dalit struggle, resistance against caste oppression and Rights. The objectives of this research are to investigate how Buddhist symbols and imagery address social and political issues and to explore the significance of Buddhism in forming political identities and promoting collective resistance. Furthermore, this research examines the political symbolism of Buddhism in the films "Papilio Buddha" and "Madras", Through the insights of B.R. Ambedkar who argued that Buddhism has emerged as a counter–hegemonic force to the oppressive Brahmanical system, perpetuating inequality and social injustice by applying Saussurean semiotics and structuralism theory to interpret the deliberate application of Buddhist symbolism in these stories, highlighting the power of film as a medium for political discourse.

The Same God Question in the context of oppression

In recent years, the ongoing debate regarding whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God has predominantly been discussed from theological and philosophical perspectives. Yet, a significant gap exists in exploring this discourse through a sociological lens, particularly in understanding how the “Same God Question” resonates within the contexts of minority groups and the oppressed. This article addresses this gap by investigating the viewpoints of those often marginalized in discussions of religious identity. Drawing upon Henning Wrogemann’s observations on the complex interplay between contextualization to those in positions of influence versus the rights of the oppressed, as well as Robert Priest’s insights on experience-near theology, this article argues that it is possible for contextualization to one group to unwittingly perpetuate oppression to another group. Furthermore, it asserts the fundamental right of oppressed individuals to distance themselves from the overarching theological frameworks imposed upon them by hegemonic forces. These insights are subsequently applied to the broader discourse surrounding the “Same God Question” in order to highlight the complex interplay between contextualization, power, and oppression.

Expanding Political Capital: Why Social Democratic Women Participated in Middle-Class Feminist Educational Organisations in Sweden c.1890–1910

ABSTRACT This article seeks to introduce a new historical explanation as to why left-wing working-class women engaged in liberal, middle-class organisations during the first wave of feminism. The article specifically deals with middle-class associations and clubs that had educational purposes. Instead of focusing on the larger explanatory scheme of the power of patriarchal societal structures or bourgeois feminisms as a hegemonic force, the account revolves around the political educational functions of liberal feminist engagement for some politically active social democratic women in Sweden. The case of social democratic women who entered the liberal middle class educational organisation Tolfterna (the Dozen) is the point of departure for a micro-historical analysis of the political capital accumulation practices that class collaboration entailed. Finally, the article explores how working-class women’s choices and actions can be considered a group-specific strategy to expand their political resources to attain what is called feminist liberal political capital.

Rehearsals of Release

Dispossession is not only harmful for the material deprivations it instantiates (though these harms are brutal, even genocidal). To the extent that dispossession occurs within a societal context in which possession is the ultimate virtue, dispossession further diminishes the social significance of those dispossessed; beneath a global regime of neoliberalism, to be lacking in possessions is to be rendered non-agential, unworthy of political representation, and, ultimately, subject to premature death for the profit of others. In the United States and other white-dominated nations, the sickness of white supremacy and its coinciding colonial incursions are rooted in liberal notions of property, doctrines of what can be possessed, what significance possession confers, and who is permitted to do the possessing. This possessive individualism benefits those who have longest held the ability to accumulate wealth via dispossession: already-wealthy white men. This social reality has ruinous effects for those whose cultural values are not predicated on possession yet are subject to the hegemonic forces of white supremacy. In this writing, I propose three “rehearsals of release,” replicable and mutational performances, that can be practically implemented in the lives of those with Settler inclinations. These rehearsals are designed to lessen tendencies toward dispossession and replace them with practices of de-possession, the exploration of a life lived in affinity with ongoing transfers and transitions of unbound matter rather than its monumental hoarding. While none of these rehearsals “solve the problem” of white supremacist neoliberalism, they permit practitioners to meaningfully engage with decoloniality in material, experiential, and intuitive ways and, with hope, encourage the emergence of a shared consciousness that turns away from dispossession and toward the circulation of care.

The Garden City: Infrastructure, spatial politics and resistance behind the nation‐building mode of “tropicality” in Singapore

Abstract“Tropicality” has historically been used as an epistemological tool by colonial settlers and thereafter local rulers to naturalize and espouse Western rationality and modernity. Singapore is no exception to this lingering Western framing, which continues to define state narratives of success and heritage. “Tropicality” as a hegemonic force manifests in infrastructures of large physical networks, institutionalized knowledges, and media representations. This paper dissects three chronological dominant modes of “tropicality”—the colonial, the nation‐building, and the contemporary neoliberal mode—alongside their corresponding subaltern lived worlds that speak of an alternative “tropicality” often unnoticed (Figure 1). These diametric strands are studied through hegemonic infrastructure and everyday acts that resist, appropriate, or hybridize these power‐laden spaces. A heterogenous methodology was adopted, capturing the epistemologies and metis employed in dominant and alternative tropicalities, respectively. Maps, charts, and archives are used to study the former; ethnographic observation, family memory, and affective experiences elucidate the latter. In this paper, I focus on the nation‐building mode of “tropicality”, which shaped Singapore's rapid urbanization in the 1960s. Modernist public housing schemes borrowed from the Tropical Architecture movement are situated within a larger infrastructural field that de‐skilled, cleansed, and civilized an “unruly” population, conflating natural and social order. However, these attempts at creating modern subjects were thwarted by everyday resistance performed at a critical mass, in which displaced populations tapped upon past metis, habitus, and ecological aesthetics to appropriate alienating modern infrastructure. Through these ad hoc infrastructural reconfigurations, a hybrid modern “tropicality” was negotiated. It is through deprivileging infrastructures of “tropicality” and drawing out alternative “infra‐structures” of multiple, lived tropical worlds that we may move toward post‐tropicality—a mentality built on an expanded understanding of how our modern environment is and has been shaped equally by dominant, neocolonial forces and also forsaken memories, practices, and everyday acts of resistance, which hold the key to alternative futures beyond the limited scope delineated by our inherited “tropical modernity”.

Post-Truth's Effect on the Brain and the Future Self: A Critical Communication Pedagogy Response

The university was created for the critical examination of ideas to seek truth. However, the proliferation of post-truth messages has made this goal more difficult to reach, creating an important communication pedagogy problem. Hegemonic forces create post-truth messages to mislead people and play to their existing beliefs in order to maintain and advance power. Post-truth messages are particularly effective because they cause cognitive overload and temporal discounting. Critical communication pedagogy (CCP) is a means by which instructors and students can evaluate post-truth messages. CCP allows for dialogue to reduce the cognitive issues that post-truth messages cause and allow for the critical evaluation of post-truth messages for their (lack of) veracity. Doing so can lead students to take action to resist post-truth messages and their effects.

Censorship and the Nationalization of Dance in India: An Overview from 1947 to the Present

In this essay, I present a broad overview of the intersections between dance and censorship in independent India. I try to explore the consequent exclusions within the mainstream dance discourse and practices as they were shaped by hegemonic forces of nationalism. I also look at how the changes in instruments and objectives of censorship reflect changing visions of nationalism. Thisessay broadly examines two major forms of censorship, both of which have been crucial in the appropriation and reconstruction of dance as an integral part of the nationalist cultural identity of India. First, there are the overt forms of censorship, which have been enforced by instruments of state power like legislation and statutory bodies. The post-independence government enacted the Madras Devadasis (Prevention of Dedication) Act 1947 and Cinematograph Act 1952 ostensibly for socialreformandprotectionofpublicmorality,butineffectthey carried forward socio-political biases of Orientalism and colonialism into the postcolonial project of constructing the Indian imaginary. The process necessitated the elimination of hereditary artist communities and professional women performers (and many of their movement idioms) from mainstream practices of dance, even as their art was decontextualized and reconstructedtosuittheofficiallysanctifiedhighculture. This mode of erasure also influenced popular forms ofdance, especially those appearing in Indian cinema, by inscribing them with nationalist notions of womanhood, sexuality, and, more recently, religious majoritarianism. Second, I trace the covert operation of censorship, in which state institutions play a key role in the support and promotion of art. Through selective funding and promotion, conferring privileging labels like “classical,” and presiding over the formalization and classicization of dance, these institutions helped fit dance practices within the nationalist framework of a normative Indian cultural identity that is predominantly Hindu and rahminical. This process resulted in hierarchization, stigmatization, and even omission of certain dance practices, some of which I have highlighted in this essay. The sustained influence of direct and indirect modes of censorship created standardized codes of aesthetics and performance practices, contributing to a chilling effect and leading practitioners to censor themselves. Finally, I argue that the centrality of dance in the national cultural discourse enabled its use as propaganda to censor negative actions of or perceptions about the government. The phenomenon, which may be described as artwashing, has become increasingly prominent in the contemporary context of Hindu majoritarian nationalism seeking to launder itsexclusionary tendencies in the process of redefining Indian cultural identity on its terms. Thus, I argue that censorship in the domain of dance has played not just a repressive role but also a productive role by enabling discourses of nationalism. It has acted as a tool of governmentality, by which nationalist ideologies have been established and reinforced to public, such that they are no longer confined to the sphere of the state but have percolated down to the conduct of individuals.

White faces in the dark forest: A discussion surrounding whiteness and hegemonic masculinity in Norwegian black metal

The heavy metal subgenre of black metal has been a source of controversy and intrigue for the past couple of decades. From the realm of extreme metal, it has been seen as a peak that many subgenres have not reached in real-world violence, dedication and mystery. This article intervenes into this scene by examining how masculinity and whiteness are constructed through its music and subculture. By doing so, it expands the work being done not only in whiteness and gender studies, but also metal music studies. This is also an endeavour to turn to sonic rhetoric as I address the way that topics of race and gender are addressed lyrically and sonically. In this article, I uncover the intersections between how Norwegian black metal has constructed and pushed against the boundaries of race and gender through lyrics and sonic qualities in a search for freedom from hegemonic forces they were facing, and upholding.

Analysis of key threats to European security and the Republic of Moldova

In humanitarian law, the terms public order or public security describe the general conditions that must exist for citizens to enjoy their rights and freedoms.
 States thus become responsible for the defense of public safety. The Republic of Moldova, like other countries around the world, remains influenced by events outside its borders, especially those that can trigger conflicts. Directly or indirectly, due to a strategic geopolitical positioning, the Republic of Moldova is forced to create mechanisms that are functional and appropriate to the real contexts in order to be able to deal with possible difficulties, which, moreover, continue to leave their mark on the citizens.
 In the present study we will refer to the threats, risks and vulnerabilities as they are understood in the controversy of researchers and specialists in security and public order, both on the internal and external (regional and international) dimensions.
 Thus, the definitions of the stated concepts do not belong to us, but we completely rely on the definitions of the notions invoked in the previous studies, with strict references.
 So, by Threat to security is an action or sequence of events that seriously threatens to degrade the quality of life of the citizens of a state, in a relatively short period of time, or constitutes a threat that cannot be ignored to the freedom of choice of the policy of a government or a private or non-governmental entity within a state [1, page 153].
 Risks refer to possible but uncertain events that can cause harm. The impact of the risk depends on the evolving threats, plus the level of vulnerability to those threats, as well as the capacity available to deal with those threats. Plus, the risks affecting national security will be evaluated according to the fields of activity and their level of gravity and probability will be taken into account.
 Vulnerabilities are analyzed from a classical point of view. Vulnerability depends on the nature of the state’s situation: either the state of war/conflict, the «apparent» state of peace, or it depends on the objectives/ interests pursued by an actor/disturber in the region. In general, vulnerabilities are processes or phenomena in the internal life of a state (weaknesses), which reduce the ability to react to existing or potential risks or which favor their emergence and development. Specific to the Republic of Moldova, vulnerabilities can be evaluated from an internal and external perspective (depending on where they are generated). For example, the unilateral dependence of the Republic of Moldova on foreign systems in the energy field is a major vulnerability that, in the current security environment, turns into a threat to national security. It can also be a question of vulnerabilities characteristic of weak countries, as well as the emigration of highly qualified specialists and the weakening of the country’s development potential.
 Also, the Republic of Moldova can be affected not only by classic threats, such as international terrorism or cross-border organized crime. In this sense, the situation in Transnistria and the involvement of the Russian Federation as a hegemonic force should also be outlined.

Citizenship in friction: becoming “Zega” in Ethiopia

ABSTRACT In this article, I focus on the concept of zega as theorised by queer Ethiopians for whom the promises of citizenship are far from available and whose national belonging is unrecognised in a political order that takes ethnicity as its main ground for citizenship. In its official iteration, the Amharic word zega means a citizen and as such it is a constitutionally recognised category. Ironically, zega is also a codeword some members of Ethiopian queer communities use. Based on how queer Ethiopians deploy zega, I highlight the ways in which they push the limits of citizenship that otherwise understands only the language of ethnicity with its undercurrent heteronormativity. I reflect on how queer Ethiopians persistently rub against mono-cultural Ethiopia to imagine other possibilities of belonging. I am interested in these practices of belonging by those whose citizenship and the entitlements that come with it are contested by hegemonic forces. Drawing on Keguro Macharia’s articulation of frottage as (among others) rubbing, I explore what frictions of zega as queer with zega as a normative category of the citizen might reveal about different forms and ways of belonging. The article is based on research done with queer Ethiopians living in Ethiopia and abroad. I take my cues from the debates, conversations, reflections and observations in both online and offline spaces.

Amidst Clinical Dissonance: Offensive Agency as a Survival Strategy in Plural Southeastern Nigeria

From the colonial days, the dibia (folk practitioner) in the Igbo-speaking southeast of Nigeria, as elsewhere, has been maligned by hegemonic Christianity and biomedicine. The consequent public reluctance to openly pursue indigenous healing remains a core part of the challenges to patronage the dibia has had to navigate. Drawing empirical materials from the Igbo town of Nsukka, this ethnographic account narrates how the dibia not only resists these hegemonic forces but even instrumentalizes their allures to advance folk healing. This I term forward or offensive agency, as against inclined or defensive agency along which lines decolonial and postcolonial discourses have ordinarily framed patterns of local reaction in much of today's South. In offensive agency, a smokescreen of change is projected by the locale, indicating, to an external eye, that change has happened while the core of the epistemic sphere in question remains shielded behind that façade of cosmetic change.

Why don’t more college athletes engage in activism? A multilevel analysis of barriers to activism in the hegemonic arena of intercollegiate sport

ABSTRACT Drawing from interviews with 31 collegiate athlete activists, the goal of this study was to identify barriers to athlete activism in the hegemonic arena of U.S. college sport. I utilize a multilevel analysis to map how activism is rendered counter-hegemonic, non-normative behavior in college sport through barriers manifesting at the macro-level (societal), meso-level (organizational), and micro-level (individual). Barriers at the macro-level include social norms prioritizing athlete identity and stigma attached to activism, while barriers at the meso-level include the strict regulation of athletes’ lives, isolation on campus, team cultural norms, and institutional power relations. Finally, emotional exhaustion and lack of rapport with peers manifested at the micro-level, further constituting barriers to activist efforts. The complex interplay of barriers at multiple levels, I argue, perpetuates a hegemonic order where contemporary collegiate athlete activists and the arena of sport become sites for the struggle for power – that is, cultural sites in which the battle between hegemonic forces and agents of resistance becomes manifested and visible.

Mirabai in public spheres

ABSTRACT Stories, myths and legends travel across time and spaces, and constitute the very essence of a nation’s culture. The way certain popular narratives originate and circulate in public spheres—constantly challenging yet cohabitating with hegemonic forces of dominant cultures—is pivotal to understand why such narratives endure and how they evolve with the socio-political culture of an age. The case of the sixteenth-century bhakti poet-saint Mirabai along with the multiple narratives of her life and legend that currently circulate in public spheres is crucial to understand the discourse of bhakti that once emerged as a social movement but eventually took the form of a religio-political enterprise which assimilated the marginalised with the centre, and provided new meanings of cultural interactions. Bhakti as an epochal sensibility valorised cultural resistance and thrived upon the creative energies of poet-saints such as Mirabai. This paper explores the reception of Mirabai as an icon of resistance in Indian cultural landscape when she moves along the public domains of canonised popular memory. It also maps the transition in her portrayal in various narratives while situating her bhakti and bhajans within the cultural locus of public-private negotiations.