Multiple Discourses Research Articles

Discourses shaping the language-in-education policy and foreign language education in Nepal: an intersectional perspective

ABSTRACT Language policy and planning in Nepal has been contested due to the co-existence of multiple contradictory discourses concerning teaching and learning of local, national, foreign, and international languages. Recently a multilingual policy was issued to create space for the once-banned ethnic/indigenous languages in public schooling, further complexifying the landscape. A few studies have paid attention to teaching and learning of the lesser taught ethnic/indigenous and foreign languages; however, what discursive orientations have contributed towards enabling (or constraining) the use of such languages in education and how have yet to receive scholarly attention. Framed by the perspectives of the intersectionality of discourses, and drawing on in-depth interviews with policymakers, headteachers, teachers, students, and their parents of five schools of Nepal, this paper concludes that the interplay between broader discourses such as globalisation, neoliberal marketisation and nationalism has played a significant role in shaping language policy decisions and localised practice of language(s). It also reveals that the spaces for ethnic/indigenous languages in education are delimited, in preference of English, Nepali, and other emerging foreign languages, leading to their further marginalisation. Such trends diminish the potential use of lesser taught languages, threatening Nepal’s multilingual education policy towards sustaining existing linguistic diversity.

Toxic YouTubers “hated” by Doctor Who? Animating multiphrenic incarnations of Not My Doctor anti-fandom

This article considers how popular/spreadable misogyny enters into Doctor Who fans’ discourse communities via fan-cultural appropriation, mixing external political and internal fan discourses. This can oppose fannish communal norms such as “convivial evaluation” and “ante-fandom”. The theoretical perspective taken in the article combines work on toxic fandom with anti-fandom to thus understand fan toxicity as “multiphrenic”, i.e. drawing on multiple discourses and self-investments, including responding to its own anti-fans. The article goes on to examine YouTube voiceover-commentary videos from one communally-prominent Whotuber representing Not My Doctor anti-fandom, showing how they use devices such as the acousmetre and “stripped down” subjectivity to open a projective space for toxic fandom and enact a flat affect characterising what is termed “performative rationality”. Crucially, leftwing narratives of toxicity and hate are completely inverted to the extent that Doctor Who and the BBC are presumed, without evidence, to “hate” straight white male conservative fandom.

Critical literacy and social agency

Upon the understanding of Applied Linguistics as an indisciplinary field of inquiry that aims to create intelligibility regarding language-centered social problems (MOITA LOPES, 2006), this article introduces a pedagogical instrument, a Critical Multiliteracies Thematic Project, as a means to develop learners’ critical social agency. The nature of this educational project derives from the pedagogy of critical sociointeractional literacy (TILIO, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2015), whose understanding of language teaching permeates notions of citizenship that defy hegemonic discourses by prompting the analysis of themes and language, and the adoption of a constant critical stance. As the pedagogical project in focus situates its practices through alternative Brazilian female voices, students of an extension English course are led to respond to the multiple discourses on gender-imbricated matters that dwells their social horizons (VOLÓCHINOV, 2017 [1929]). Hence, by investigating the dialogue established between the project and a student, this article intends to contribute to the production of knowledge on social life. In order to do so, we selected a task that integrates the project and a multimodal digital text produced by a student in response to the project. We close off the article by framing the relevance of ethically committed language education in promoting learners’ transforming practices.

Introducing intersex wellbeing and rights and the INIA programme

Abstract Background Intersex people are exposed to human rights violations all over the world. Ongoing practices of sex-normalising surgery and other medical interventions on minors too young to give informed consent encroach on their bodily autonomy. Little is known about the public health implications of bodies with variations of sex characteristics (VSC). What key issues do VSCs raise? Methods In 2020 the INIA international consortium began work on a large research programme to address intersex people's wellbeing and human rights from a variety of new and innovative perspectives. The programme will train a cohort of 10 early-stage researchers working collaboratively to develop knowledge that will inform policy making and practice across a range of key sectors. Drawing on critical intersex studies, the research projects are relevant to stakeholders who are concerned with supporting the wellbeing and rights of intersex people through knowledge sharing and development. The project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 859869. Please see https://www.intersexnew.co.uk/. Results Indicative findings show that VSC could be an important area of public health work concerning diversity and equality. Early-stage results show a dearth of intersex visibility in key areas including social policy, education, and elder care. Intersex people and those with VSC face major health challenges and discrimination. There is a pressing need for appropriate healthcare. Conclusions The interdisciplinary INIA programme surfaces multiple discourses about intersex people and those with variations of sex characteristics. Projects of particular interest to public health practitioners and policy makers include those concerning multi-disciplinary healthcare, ethics, social policy, education, aging, and service user participation.

Turning things around: A discussion of values, practices, and action in the context of social‐ecological change

Abstract This special feature concerns understanding human‐nature relations through the lens of values to comprehend how values of the natural world connect with wider processes of change, action and transformation in social‐ecological systems. The relationships between values and action have preoccupied several disciplines and multiple discourses concerned with implementing change, including sustainability and health, and conservation. Focusing on the conceptual underpinnings of how values, action and change are generally understood, this paper proposes an alternate view informed by more‐than‐human thinking and theories of social practices. In doing so, it aims to closely scrutinise the relationship between values and actions in the context of creating transformative change. In highlighting this relationship and presenting some different ways to understand it, the paper aims to contribute to deepening understanding of how to relate to, value and act for nature and how this might be encouraged. One of the most common pathways assumed to generate action is based on the idea that action is driven by values, and that in order to change action, we therefore need to change values. The paper questions the assumed relationship between values and actions and its direction, and instead posits that beginning with actions is a more productive place to start. To work through these ideas, I introduce more‐than‐human theories, focusing on theories of social practice, to discuss how these theories can change how values and actions are conceptualised, how the relationships between them can be understood, and what these ideas can mean for rethinking how to achieve social‐ecological change. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Land to the Tiller: The Sustainability of Family Farms

This paper on family farms is in the form of an historical review complemented by current and future perspectives from North America, China, Brazil and Europe. The literature review demonstrates the multiple discourses, concepts and methodologies which underpin contemporary understandings of the family farm. The authors argue that family-based farming units are ubiquitous in most agricultural systems and take on many different forms and functions, conditioned by the structure of agriculture in different locations and political systems. Our review accepts this diversity and seeks to identify some key elements that inform our understanding of the sustainability of family farming, now and in the future. The term ‘family’ is the differentiating variable and behooves a sociological approach. However, economists can view the family farm as an economic unit, a business and even a firm. Geographers see family farms consigned to the margins of good land areas, and political scientists have seen family farms as a class. What emerges is a semantic enigma. As an imaginary term, ‘family farming’ is useful as a positive, universally valued ideal; as a definable entity on the ground, however, it is difficult to classify and measure for comparative policy and research purposes. This ambiguity is utilized by governments to manage the increasing capitalization of farm units while projecting the image of wholesome production of food. The case studies demonstrate the diversity of ways in which family farming ideologies are being mobilized in contemporary agrarian change processes. The notion of ‘land to the tiller’ is resonant with historic injustices in Scotland and Brazil, where family-based agriculture is understood as the ‘natural’ order of agricultural production and actively supported as an historic ideal. In contrast, in the Chinese context, ‘land to the tiller’ is a political means of increasing capital penetration and economic sustainability. Evidence from China, Brazil and Scotland demonstrates the active role of governments, coupled with symbolic ideologies of farming, which suggest that the longevity (i.e., sustainability) of family farming will continue.

The pharmacist's professional identity: Preventing, identifying, and managing medication therapy problems as the medication specialist

AbstractPharmacy has long struggled to embrace a unified professional identity despite many leaders calling for such. With societal and scientific evolutions, the functions of the pharmacist have changed over time, often assuming multiple identity discourses. Pharmacy has also been seen as a very heterogeneous profession with product‐ and patient‐focused practitioners, contributing to the lack of a unifying identity. This commentary argues that to advocate for and promote our profession we must confront the brutal facts and realize the true state of pharmacy practice. The fact is that all areas of pharmacy practice, both product‐ and patient‐focused, have always shared a central theme which is and has been the pharmacist's professional identity: the prevention, identification, and management of medication therapy problems and their root causes as the medication specialist. Fully embracing this professional identity will help the profession assume a clear and unique role on the healthcare team in optimizing patient care and allow for meaningful practice‐based research, grounded in theory, which will improve the education of currently practicing and future pharmacists. A firm professional identity will also allow for a seamless continuation between pharmacist education and practice across a lifetime, strengthening the pharmacy profession as a whole.

Buddhistische Mönche und der franziskanische Armutsstreit

Buddhist Monks and the Franciscan Poverty Controversy. How the East Asia Mission Influenced Late Medieval Latin Europe This article scrutinizes the 14th century’s controversy about the doctrine of Franciscan poverty. It considers an overlooked foundation of these debates: the encounters between Franciscan missionaries and Buddhist monasticism in Southern, Central and Eastern Asia since the mid-13th century. By taking a global perspective on a controversy traditionally understood as endemic to Europe, the article shows that European travellers’ experiences in Asia shaped the Latin Church in a deep and consequential way. Instead of looking eastwards to the success (or failure) of the missionary work in India and China, this study argues that we must pay attention to the use and effect of narratives about Buddhism by missionaries who returned to Latin Europe. This enables us to better understand some of the canonical sources that are central to such debates, such as Dante Alighieri, John of Montecorvino, and the Italian version of Nicolaus Minorita. In making this argument, this study brings multiple scholarly discourses into conversation with one another for the first time.

“Doing it Our Way” Participation and Kinship in Traditional Surrogacy Narratives in Aotearoa New Zealand

The practice of traditional surrogacy gives rise to multiple discourses around women’s autonomy and kinship practices globally. In the Aotearoa New Zealand context, traditional surrogacy (where the surrogate donates her own egg as well as gestating the foetus) is legal only on an altruistic basis. Furthermore, it is subject to neither medical nor state oversight, unlike gestational surrogacy which is heavily regulated. Drawing on three years of ethnographic research, this article focuses on both traditional surrogates in Aotearoa New Zealand who have children of their own and those who have chosen a childfree life. Their narratives reveal multilayered motivations that align with and diverge from the ‘help’ narrative often associated with altruistic surrogacy. By drawing on and contributing to current debates on surrogacy globally, I show that traditional surrogates take on their role with clear ideas about kinship and different interpretations of reproductive participation. Their narratives bring to the fore the under-researched topic of traditional surrogacy, and in particular of women who do not want children of their own but choose to donate their eggs and gestate the foetus for another woman. I argue that their negotiation of stigma to make/resist kin disrupts pervasive heteronormative modes of kinship.

"I Didn't See It as a Problem, I Thought It Was Going to Be Taken Away": Narratives From Family Members of Users in Rehab.

There are multiple discourses on addictions that influence the way in which relatives interpret the substance use of a family member. The purpose of this study is to understand the influence of these discourses on the construction of use as a problem by relatives of people in recovery. Narratives were obtained on the path of the illness to identify the phases in the construction of use as a problem and the influence of the discourses on each phase. The process has four successive phases: normalization, impasse, exasperation, and adoption of the treatment ideology. This process goes from the legitimization of use to its moral interpretation and subsequently to the transition to medical discourse. It is concluded that it is important to reduce the influence of the moral discourse in order to facilitate timely detection and early care, as well as to design interventions focused on the reconstruction of use as a problem.

Whose democracy in which state?: Abolition democracy from Angela Davis to W. E. B. Du Bois

AbstractObjectiveThis article argues that a better understanding of the history and reception of W. E. B. Du Bois's abolition democracy helps elucidate contemporary debates by abolitionists about how to engage with the state.MethodsThrough a close reading of Du Bois's Black Reconstruction I show how contemporary focus on abolition as abolishing the carceral state and building alternatives elides viewing abolition democracy as an engagement with and challenge to state power.ResultsViewing abolition democracy from this longer history allows scholars today to view debates among abolitionists themselves as a conflict between transforming how the state work and carving out autonomous spaces of freedom away from the state.ConclusionBy recognizing the confliced history between Du Bois's use of abolition democracy and its invocation by contemporary activists, I show how abolition itself is a fundamentally contested concept deployed for multiple political discourses and struggles.

Dis/Organising Women’s Freedom: Feminist Dialectical Tensions in Women’s Business Networks Blogs

The growing popularity of women’s business networks (WBNs) is paralleled by a critique of their postfeminist character: by promoting individualist ideals in line with neoliberalism, WBNs are considered to disorganise rather than contribute to women’s freedom. To unpack this tension between the empirical phenomena and the feminist critique, we employ an inductive approach combining topic modeling, thematic coding and dialectical analysis to examine over 1,500 blog posts from four WBNs. We show how multiple discourses are circulated in the blogs and exist in tension with each other, and interpret the interstices for change and action that these tensions open. We thus contribute to understanding the ways to women’s freedom at the intersection of neoliberalism and postfeminism and extend the comprehension of how WBNs can contribute to this agenda. Furthermore, we make ancillary methodological contributions by using topic modeling in conjunction with other qualitative analysis tools and a large corpus of blog posts.

Living with Barren Truths: A Tale of Triumphalism and Tribulations of a Technology

Science, technology and human values have been the subject of enquiry in the last few years for social scientists and eventually the relationship between science and gender is the subject of an ongoing debate. This is due to the event of globalization which led to the exponential growth of new technologies like assisted reproductive technology (ART). ART, one of the most iconic technological innovations of the twentieth century, has become increasingly a normal social fact of life. Since ART invades multiple human discourses—thereby transforming culture, society and politics—it is important what is sociological about ART as well as what is biological. This article argues in commendation of sociology of technology, which is alert to its democratic potential but does not concurrently conceal the historical and continuing role of technology in legitimizing gender discrimination. The article draws the empirical insights from local articulations (i.e., Odisha state in eastern India) for the understandings of motherhood, freedom and choice, reproductive right and rights over the body to which ART has contributed. Sociologically, the article has been supplemented within the broader perspectives of determinism, compatibilism alongside feminism.

Emerging Multi-Professional Assemblages of Precision Guidance Producing the Resilient and Future-Oriented Citizen

In this paper, we examined how EU-initiated ‘integrated approach’ to youth social exclusion is manifested in local contexts and in the ways in which youth problems and solutions come to be defined in particular schemes of thought. Inspired by assemblage theory we looked at local multi-professional youth guidance networks as assemblages consisting of multiple organisations, interests, steering, discourses, and knowledge formations. In this article we were especially interested in seeing which ‘lines’, understood as trajectories of assemblage components, produce both ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’ for seemingly complex life situations of young people considered at risk. This article is based on the analysis of interview data produced in the context of an ongoing Academy of Finland project <em>Interrupting Youth Support Systems in the Ethos of Vulnerability</em> (2017–2021) exploring cross-sectoral policies and practices of youth support systems in the ethos of vulnerability. Based on our analysis, the new assemblages framing multi-professional guidance and support have given rise to more precise neoliberal governing mechanisms that we have named precision guidance. Precision guidance focuses on young people’s vulnerability, resilience and future potentiality while leaving societal and structural problems largely unaddressed.

Social equity in higher education: a wicked problem exacerbated by multiple discourses

Social equity in higher education has been a priority for universities and policy makers throughout Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations for more than a decade. Limited improvement is seen among students in under-represented groups which remains a concern and for this reason social equity in higher education is presented as a wicked problem. This article will outline the steady massification of higher education where elitist discourses were largely abandoned, while social equity discourses flourished. The discussion will include key documents that have wielded great influence on discourse including The Bradley Review, Performance-Based Funding (PBF) and the Job-Ready Graduates legislation. After illuminating the Australian political context, this article will define four social equity discourses currently distinguishable in higher education literature: meritocratic, economist, social justice and human potential. Interrogation of these discourses will reveal complexity and divergence that contributes to the wicked nature of improving social equity in higher education.

Sexual Violence against Women, the Laws, the Punishment, and Negotiating the Duplicity

On 16 December 2012, India erupted in national outrage against the rape of a 23-year-old female student in New Delhi, christened “Nirbhaya” (fearless). In the aftermath, there was a convergence of multiple discourses that framed post-independent India’s feminist consciousness. In 2020, four men convicted of Nirbhaya’s rape and murder were executed. An eight-year old girl in Kashmir was brutally raped and murdered in January 2018. The trial court sentenced the main accused to life in prison. In December 2019, four men held in yet another horrific rape and death of a 27-year veterinarian in Hyderabad were killed by the police in what has been called an extrajudicial killing. More recently, in 2020, a 19-year old was raped and killed in rural Uttar Pradesh. The victims came from different social locations, castes, tribes, and religious communities. This paper presents a feminist critique of the legal discourse on rape and the death penalty. It looks at an ironical cooptation of the critique of sexual violence by a patriarchal discourse on social injury and collective conscience. The paper examines how fleeting rage against the culprits and the call for death penalty immunizes larger misogynist cultural assumptions. This myopic rage is oblivious to sexual violence in women’s daily lives. Finally, the paper looks at why legal reforms triggered by brutal acts of sexual violence, receiving widespread media attention, fail to achieve systemic societal changes.

The phenomenon of spiritual homelessness in transnational spaces among international students in the United States

AbstractAlthough student mobility and educational border crossings, particularly from non‐Western economies to English‐speaking countries, such as the United States, are not new, theoretical concepts that help illuminate global student mobilities rarely examine lived realities of university students in transnational spaces. We aim to explore the phenomenon of ‘spiritual homelessness’ experienced by international students in the United States and how their perceived sense of belonging and not belonging in their home or host places contribute to their reconstruction of identity in transnational spaces. Based on a 3‐hour focus group discussion with international students from eight different countries (N = 11) studying at a large southern university in the United States, this study highlights the nexus between multiple, contradictory and simultaneous processes of belonging and identity through student‐defined transnational higher education spaces. Findings demonstrate that international students are part of multiple and contradictory discourses, where there is a synergetic construction of transnational spaces as open and diverse, but also discriminatory and exclusionary as they negotiate where they belong or not belong. This study provides a critical scoping of student‐defined spaces and foregrounds the typological theoretical construct of spiritual homelessness to provide new insights into global student mobilities and identity reconstruction in transnational spaces.

Bodies, Power and Fashionable Femininity in Designer Fashion Boutiques: Between the “Panopticon” and the “Confessional”

Fashionable femininity is a complex discursive terrain. Multiple discourses compete to assert meanings for fashionable femininity and these discourses influence women’s experiences of their bodies. This article focuses upon oppressive and celebratory discourses as two powerful forces within designer fashion boutiques. From philosopher Michel Foucault, I consider how these discourses operate through a boutique “panopticon” and “confessional,” with this analysis illuminating complexities of power within the pursuit of fashionable femininity in boutique settings. This inquiry draws from a study that combined autoethnographic memoir and in-depth interviews with 18 women working in designer fashion boutiques in Melbourne, Australia. I argue that the duality of panopticon and confessional dynamics intensifies lived tensions between oppressive and celebratory discourses beyond the boutique. With fashion part of contemporary ideals of femininity, boutiques become political sites of discursive contest creating contradictions in how the fashionably feminized body is experienced, necessitating constant negotiation without the possibility of reconciliation.

Directions of theoretical and research changes in Polish early school pedagogy - from mono to polydiscoursiveness

The article presents the specificity of early school pedagogy as one of the sub-fields of pedagogy with its decades-long heritage experience. Particular attention was given to the major directions of changes in the perception of a child as the empirical subject and a childhood being constructed in the educational institution, in the meaning of school. The most important problem areas of early school pedagogy were characterized, including those referring to reconstruction of early education culture, contemporary discourses of child/pupil education and preparation of early school teachers for working professional life, both in traditional and alternative models of education. Significant theoretical and empirical trends in study of children and early school teachers (1-3 class of primary school) were determined, supported by the illustration of the list of selected monographs published from 2000-2020. The article highlights, the multiplicity of discourses and diversity of approaches to child education typical for contemporary early school pedagogy, which is considered to be the positive indicator of development in the discussed sub-field.

Unemployment Experts: Governing the Job Search in the New Economy

In recent years, sociologists have examined unemployment and job searching as important arenas in which workers are socialized to accept the terms of an increasingly precarious economy. While noting the importance of expert knowledge in manufacturing the consent of workers, research has largely overlooked the experts themselves that produce such knowledge. Who are these experts and what kinds of advice do they give? Drawing on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork conducted at three job search clubs, the author develops a three-fold typology of “unemployment experts”: Job Coaches present a technical diagnosis that centers mastery of job-hunting techniques; Self-help Gurus present a moral diagnosis focused on the job seeker’s attitude; and Skill-certifiers present a human capital diagnosis revolving around the job seeker’s productive capacities. By offering alternative diagnoses and remedies for unemployment, these experts give job seekers a sense of choice in interpreting their situation and acting in the labor market. However, the multiple discourses ultimately help to secure consent to precarious labor markets by drawing attention to a range of individual deficiencies within workers while obfuscating structural and relational explanations of unemployment. The author also finds that many unemployment experts themselves faced dislocations from professional careers and are making creative claims to expertise. By focusing on experts and their varied messages, this paper reveals how the victims of precarious work inadvertently help to legitimate the new employment regime.