Oppressive Discourses Research Articles

“Kick the XX out of your life”: An analysis of the manosphere’s discursive constructions of gender on Twitter

The online community of the manosphere uses social media channels such as Twitter to promote a misogynist agenda. Feminist research has identified two key elements to their activism online: the harassment of women and the development of a discourse that presents feminism as threatening to men. Our research examined Twitter content produced in pursuit of both objectives to understand how the manosphere constructs masculinity and femininity. Analysis of the content identified three discursive strategies that we term: co-opting discourses of oppression, naming power, and disavowal by disaggregation. They serve to cast men as victims, construct women as a monstrous other, and reinstate gendered power hierarchies through a constant invocation of the female body within discourses of rape. Though powerful, these strategies are riven with tensions and bind manosphere masculine identities to the very women they wish to eradicate. Manosphere activism has escaped the virtual and leaked into the material world. We conclude by considering the implications of this breach for those women targeted by the manosphere as well as for the broader witnessing community and suggest avenues for future research.

Social workers’ use of critical reflection

Summary This article explores critical reflection as practiced by social workers in the context of their personal and professional privilege. It was found that social workers in direct practice were not invested in critical reflection about oppressive discourses in their consciousness when interacting with clients. Rather, critical reflection often happened in times of crises or when social workers encountered difficult client situations. Using the phenomenological methodology of Van Manen and the social constructionist perspective, I present and discuss the findings of a qualitative study of semi-structured interviews with 20 social workers in direct practice. Findings Data analysis indicated that critical reflection is not a priority for direct practice social workers in the context of privilege. Three themes are identified: (1) No time for reflection, (2) Fear of reflection, and (3) Too much reflection. Nevertheless, social workers were still able to reflect alone, with colleagues and with supervisors, and they outlined the benefits of reflection. Applications Social work agencies should provide infrastructure for reflection, create an atmosphere for workers to freely discuss challenges and difficulties, and reduce their fear of reprisals from management. This article broadens the idea of phenomenological reflection by Van Manen.

Rewriting “That Story:” Anne Sexton, Carol Ann Duffy, and Margaret Atwood

This paper examines the strategies Anne Sexton, Carol Ann Duffy, and Margaret Atwood employ in their revisionist mythmaking project to disclose and denounce the detrimental impact of patriarchal norms and institutions on women and gender equality. The poets rewrite classical myths and fairy tales this time to tell the stories of those who have been excluded from historical and sociocultural narratives. The new stories of Sexton, Duffy, and Atwood unsettle gender stereotypes with humorous and purposely bathetic plot twists and enable women to reject secondary roles historically attributed to them. Female characters in the poems reclaim their power through literary (re)creation by confronting male domination and internalized guilt over feelings of incompetence. This paper proposes that these revisionist strategies may help to forge an independent identity for women, artists and non-artists alike, and to generate the necessary critical response against the oppressive discourse of patriarchy.

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.

My performance is my world. Queer and normativity in the practices of New York’s ballroom culture

The central concept of the article is performance as a form of expression specific to non-normative people. In confrontation with the oppressive discourse of dominant groups, the body of an excluded individual and its metamorphoses in themselves appear to be an alternative way of non-alienated expression. This phenomenon is discussed via the example of the practices of New York’s ballroom culture — primarily via the example of the film Paris is Burning from 1990, directed by Jennie Livingston. In the ballroom community, black and non-heteronormative Americans found a safe space for experiments with their identity, thanks to which they could experience a form of capitalistic success through an ephemeral performance. However, these practices, despite their apparent subversiveness and emancipatory potential, did not have the ambition to change the status quo. They only allowed experiencing the feeling of social advancement within the existing system. The story that ballroom culture members in the 1980s told about themselves through their own performances was part of a unique, non-verbal discourse of excluded groups, which developed a specific communication code based on the human body, its ways of moving and its aesthetic metamorphoses.

Writing Victimhood

Non-consensual sharing of intimate images, here called digital sexual assault (DSA), has been a heavily debated subject in Denmark over the past few years. In the polarized public and academic debate, DSA victims are often either subjected to victim blaming or portrayed as ‘broken’ victims with little agency and hope of redemption. This article presents a methodology for working with DSA victims to construct their own alternative and empowering stories of victimhood.Through an experimental methodology based on creative writing, I have included three young women in a process of collectively developing and exploring aspects of their experiences with DSA. With this methodology, I aim to combine activism and research in investigating DSA and actively supporting victims in constructing progressive stories of victimhood; stories that, as activism, work in opposition to oppressive discourses, and, as research, offer insights into complex experiences of victimhood. The article ends in a discussion of change as the prospect of activist research and experimental methodologies and concludes with a “manifesto for writing victimhood” stating activist aims that encourage and value social, personal and political change in and through research.

The Global Roundtable on Critical Social Theory in the Age of Digital Alienation

The article is an overview of the virtual meeting of researchers who are developing critical theory of society in different forms and in different countries. Restrictions on social activities in the period of COVID-19 pandemics have impacted (among other social structures and interactions) academic exchanges and scientific communications. Overcoming the routine of digital substitutes for traditional academic community life, the participants of the new scientific event contributed intensively to dialectical discourse of oppression and emancipation. The global roundtable was organized around 9 main presentations made by leading critical theorists. Preserving basic ideas from the Frankfurt school and other lines of Marxism and neo-Marxism, critical theorists are working to open new sources for development of rational and at the same time humanist and contextualized critique of new forms of alienation (including digital one) and new forms of oppression (including neo-colonialist one). Participants of the global roundtable have shared idea of permanent reflection aimed at continuation of the critical theorizing and at the emancipation of human beings.

TAKING UP A SOCIAL WORK IDENTITY: PREPARING UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS FOR ENTRY-LEVEL GENERALIST PRACTICE

Undergraduate students who are new to the social work profession enter into a complex socialization experience. New to the profession, they are expected to absorb a variety of knowledge and skills learned in separate courses and then integrate these together into an authentic performance as a social worker. Additionally, students are trained to confront personal bias and must learn to socially locate themselves and begin to form their own critical framework for understanding and responding to the influence of oppressive discourses on everyday systems, structures, practices, and experiences. Although the socialization process is essential to the development of a social work identity, there is little description in the social work education literature about students’ experiences of that process. Through using a practice demonstration video as teaching-learning resource for an undergraduate child welfare practice course, this paper presents our effort to examine how students position themselves in relation to practices and skills shown in the social worker-service-user interactions on the video. For the purposes of this pilot study, we used qualitative content analysis to generate a descriptive analysis of students’ written responses to viewing the video interactions. Analyses of these responses revealed that, although students were able to name and discuss the practices they observed through the video demonstration, they were also challenged by the interactions that demonstrated conflict, client resistance, and the overt use of power in the worker-service-user relationship. The results demonstrate the need for greater understanding of how students become socialized into the profession and develop their own unique identities as social workers.

Articulating Persian identities between Iran and Israel: On nationality, diasporas, and lived ethnicities in online media

AbstractThis study focuses on nationality and ethnicity in the context of diaspora and media studies. By exploring the ways members of the Persian community in Israel (migrants from Iran to Israel) negotiate their ethnic Persian identification, I discuss the unique role online spaces play in the community's cultural, political, and social life. I draw on the case study to propose the term “Lived Ethnicity” as a digitally mediated identity construction process that works towards sociopolitical inclusion on two levels. First, as a user‐based participatory process, this type of self‐articulation pushes against cultural and political oppressions on a local–national level, within dominant oppressive discourses of nationality. Second, as a process performed via global online platforms, this type of self‐articulation becomes a unique catalyst for communal expressions that are based on trans‐national cultures and identifications. The study's novelty is its focus on the ways online platforms allow ethno‐national minorities to both subvert oppressive national structures and maintain them, all while taking part in global political and cultural discussions that were relatively closed to them thus far.

LOCAL WISDOM IN THE FLOW OF CAPITALISM IN SHORT STORY “PEMBURU RUSA SEPANJANG PIPA” (KEARIFAN LOKAL DALAM ARUS KAPITALISME PADA CERITA PENDEK “PEMBURU RUSA SEPANJANG PIPA”)

B.M. Syamsuddin, a writer from Riau, Indonesia, presents his ideology through the short story "Pemburu Rusa Sepanjang Pipa (Deer Hunters Along the Pipe)". By promoting local wisdom, he emerged as a defender of the interests of community groups who were marginalized and ignored by the development process in the flow of capitalism. Through this short story, the author describes the discourse of oppression obtained by the people of Riau—represented by the Sakai ethnic group—who cannot enjoy the wealth of their country. This form of defense is seen through the author's ideology that is inserted in the short story. To explore the author's ideology contained in the short story, the writer applies Antonio Gramsci's thoughts on hegemony and dominance with a functional systemic linguistic approach. Capitalism that brought humans into the process of dehumanization forced society to follow the rules of the game of the rulers. The social values of society are capitalized in the interests of a few people who ultimately marginalize people's lives. From the results of the analysis, it was found that simplicity and ignorance will be suppressed by a power so that local wisdom becomes meaningless. If local wisdom is done wisely, nature will be well preserved, forests will be sustainable, and the balance of ecosystems will form a harmonious life between humans and the natural surroundings.

Versklavte Replikanten und die Konstruktion von »Whiteness« in Blade Runner und Blade Runner 2049

The release of the anticipated sequel to Blade Runner and the largely unaltered adoption of the spatial and discursive setting in Blade Runner 2049 gave newfound relevance to the topic of the Whiteness of the enslaved replicants. Because Blade Runner positions the enslaved replicants in a discursive framework that repeatedly references African American history and slave narratives, their hyperbolically white depiction has caused concern and criticism among Anglophone scholars. This essay examines the construction of Whiteness in Blade Runner and discursive differences in the sequel Blade Runner 2049 from the perspective of Critical Race Theory, based mainly on the theoretical groundwork of Richard Dyer and Daniel Bernardi. It will outline the construction of whiteness as a means to critically portray the oppressive discourse in both films, by discussing the detachment of the replicants »invisible privileges« of whiteness. In order to appropriately characterize the, on its face very questionable, positioning of enslaved white replicants within a framework of African American slavery, the analysis will establish how both films utilize whiteness to construct a critical depiction of the historically stereotypical connection between blackness and slavery. The epitome of this criticism is to be found in the hyperbolically white stylization of Roy Batty. The depiction of »White Flight« in Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 will be discussed against the backdrop of racial Othering. The implied migration of white humans to the superior »Off-World« establishes a fear of the Other and its assimilation in the white population. The exclusion of black characters in the original film, and their inclusion in the sequel, affect the way in which the movie portrays replicants within the framework of African American enslavement. Along with the distinct non-hyperbolic depiction of the white replicants in Blade Runner 2049, this necessitates an analysis of the perpetuation of the oppressive discourse. This essay aims to establish the analytical fertility of Critical Whiteness Studies within the Germanophone Blade Runner debate.

The exclusionary effects of inclusion today: (re)production of disability in inclusive education settings

Current inclusive education practices remain entrenched in deficit-oriented discourses. An interrogation of these discourses is necessary to enact inclusion driven by diversity and collective belonging. This collective case study explored 10 cases of parent and child experiences in inclusive school settings and addressed the following questions: What disability discourses are (re)produced in inclusive school settings? What are the effects of these discourses on families’ experiences of inclusion in inclusive school settings? Using disability discourses as sensitizing concepts, 5 themes were generated framed in ‘disability as’ statements: disability as fragile, deviant, currency, defining, and affirmative. Despite a shift towards inclusive rhetoric, normative and oppressive discourses permeated inclusive school settings examined in this study. Normative discourses produced the following effects: the Othering of disabled children, governance of disability, internalised oppression, ontological violence, and invisible work. Findings from this study call for critical reflexivity on current inclusive education policies. Points of interest In this study we asked parents and disabled children about their experiences in inclusive school settings. Parents and children talked about how disability was largely viewed as negative by others, which led to the exclusion of disabled children in their neighbourhood schools. Findings from this study remind us that even if a school setting is labelled as inclusive it does not necessarily mean disabled children and parents feel included. Becoming aware of the negative messages about disability operating within inclusive school settings can help schools become more welcoming and inclusive of disabled children and their families.

Playing chess against the military

My contribution engages in close-reading analysis of the award-winning picture book The Composition, written by Chilean author Antonio Skármeta and illustrated by Alfonso Ruano. It explores the political potential of fiction to recast children as creative subjects with political awareness and instruments to resist oppressive discourses and practices in the context of military dictatorships.

Charisma und Gehorsam. Zur Semantik kolonialer agency in der deutschen Kolonialliteratur

This article analyzes German colonial literature as a genre preoccupied with issues of colonial power and obedience. While narratives concerned with colonial power usually centre on the relationship between the ruling colonizers and the (dis-)obedient colonized, I highlight the intricate correlation between the repressive militaristic drill and bureaucratic subordination in Wilhelmine culture and the longing for personal freedom in the colonial realm. The novels discussed here depict the challenges of establishing a functioning colonial administration and aim to establish colonial protagonists who are both obedient to bureaucratic rules and able to make independent decisions if necessary. Thus, the novels participate in a discourse on obedience and agency in a colonial context that is closely related to the domestic discourses of submission and oppression in the Kaiserreich.

Power Relations, Knowledge Productions, and Teaching against Oppression in an Elementary Classroom on the Canadian Prairies: A Self-Study

ABSTRACT This article is inspired by my experience of aiming to teach against oppression on my return to an elementary school classroom after completing doctoral studies in education. The tensions that surfaced as I attempted to disrupt oppressive school knowledge in my second and third grade classrooms motivated me to engage in self-study. Locating my work within the context of the Canadian Prairies, I answer the question of how power relations both constrained and opened up possibilities for disrupting oppressive discourses circulating in everyday life at school by offering a power/knowledge analysis of three critical incidents. My analysis traces how power was always at play through competing discourses of Whiteness, femininity, and colour-blindness as I aimed to resist traditional norms around school discipline; work against the privileging of White, male students; and accept the discomfort of talking to my young students about race and racism. By demonstrating how anti-oppressive practices necessitate the disruption of cherished narratives of neutrality and innocence in education, the findings contribute to understandings about what makes anti-oppressive education both difficult and possible. I emphasize the potential within everyday moments at school for disrupting oppressive discourses and highlight the usefulness of self-study as a tool for learning to teach against oppression as a lifelong endeavour.

Funhouse Mirror Reflections: Resisting Internalized Sexism in Family Therapy and Building A Women-Affirming Practice

ABSTRACT Despite increasingly nuanced conversations about women’s issues in family therapy, discussion about internalized oppression in women remains limited. Without addressing internalized sexism within our clients and ourselves as therapists, the growth that women clients experience in therapy and society will remain limited by sexist dominant discourses. In this paper, we have explored the effects of four dimensions of internalized sexism on the therapy process, discussed the metaphor of the funhouse mirror in family therapy, and provided questions that therapists can use to assess for the ways in which their own lives may be influenced by internalized oppressive discourses. Finally, we offer suggestions for building a woman-affirming practice.

Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona: The Romance that Became a Tourist Guide and Silenced the Mestiza

This study focuses on American writer and activist Helen Hunt Jackson and aims to explain why her romance Ramona (1884), originally intended as a form of literary activism on behalf of California’s Native Americans, failed to effect actual change in the situation of the state’s indigenous population and, instead, ended up as an accomplice in the late 19th-century development of Anglo California. Said development brought along not only the advance of railroad companies, real-estate investors and the tourist industry, but, most poignantly, the displacement and consequent genocide of its Native inhabitants. All in all, the paper will prove that a social and political vision like Jackson’s, weighed down by the systems of imperialism and capitalism, as well as the oppressive discourses of racism and sexism, was bound to entrench economic, sexual and racial inequalities despite its good intentions.

Mundane Populism: Politics, Practices and Discourses of Roma Oppression in Rural Slovakia

AbstractIn this article, we explore populist politics, discourses and social practices regarding the ethnic Roma in the rural regions of eastern Slovakia. Our approach was guided by a theoretical discussion of right‐wing populism and social inequalities. Methodologically, we relied on Bourdieu's conceptual apparatus as a useful scholastic device to translate very practical data from interviews and observations into structured analytical information. The article is based on field research, in which we explored waste management practices in the municipality of Laborov. We came to the conclusion that essential components of right‐wing populism in Laborov rest on what we characterised as ongoing racialised stigmatisation, reconfiguring previously racially uncategorised issues into ethnic problems and thus, reinforcing the stigmatisation and oppression of the disempowered Roma minority groups.

Muted resistance: The deployment of youth voice in news coverage of young women’s sexuality in Aotearoa New Zealand

Youth sexuality is typically constructed as a social problem, and associated with a range of negative consequences for larger society and for young people themselves – especially young women. The media play a role in perpetuating this dominant construction, but may also offer a space for resistance. In this article, mainstream news media reportage on youth sexual and reproductive issues in Aotearoa (New Zealand) is discursively analysed to identify instances of resistance to oppressive discourses. Taking a feminist poststructuralist perspective, the aim is to connect news reporting, as a representational practice, with broader relations of power. The focus of the analysis, therefore, is on whether and how young people are allowed a voice in news reportage, and to what effect their voices are deployed. The analysis demonstrates not only that youth voice is relatively muted in comparison to experts, but also that it is frequently used to reinforce the dominant constructions of youth sexuality (as problematic and risky). Yet, instances of resistance are also evident. These are assessed in relation to their impact on gender power relations, and possibilities for amplifying resistance are discussed.

A Literacy of Armed Love: Confrontation and Desire in Aesthetic and Critical Projects

The article argues that creative confrontations with damaging discourses as part of a critical literacy curriculum can be viewed as acts of love, for self and community. Using data from a multi-sited critical ethnography, the study considers the literacy productions of two focal students in diverse schools, a charter middle school and a large urban high school. Mediated discourse analysis of their work explores their aesthetic and critical literacy productions as refusals of oppressive discourses pressing against marginalized identities, and as expressions of desire for imagined, better realities. This research views such performances of multimodal creative resistance as an audacious literacy of desire, valuable as standards-meeting persuasive compositions, but also immeasurably valuable because of the emotional experience of the student producers, who were powerfully affected through the twin pleasures of resisting and imagining. This study illustrates how literacy projects might both inhabit and move forward Freire’s concept of armed love.