Post-structuralist Research Research Articles

Public Legitimation of Foreign Policy Decisions Through Discursive Practices: Truman Doctrine, Foreign Affairs Magazine and the Dissemination of Anti-Communist Discourse in the US

In liberal democracies, it is generally believed that policies are made in accordance with public opinion. Foreign policy decisions are no exception. While pursuing a certain path, decision-makers often have future elections in mind. As a result, public opinion becomes a determining factor in foreign policy-making processes. This paper, however, takes a different perspective. It argues that the media, particularly in the form of think-tank articles written by experts with years of government and private expertise, may facilitate public compliance with official policies via efforts to ensure public consent with the application of a common discursive framework. To be considered as properly specialized on a specific topic, authors should be either members of the elite or closely associated with them. Because of their authors’ expertise, these articles may be very powerful and influential in disseminating information to the public. In times when disseminated information is carefully filtered, this practice provides the legitimation necessary in a liberal democracy. Therefore, official foreign policy texts such as presidential doctrines and think-tank publications written by experts share a textual domain. On that basis, this study explores textual relationships in the United States in the early Cold War era by examining the legitimation process of formal foreign policy declarations of presidents via articles published in Foreign Affairs magazine. A poststructuralist research design is employed to discuss intertextual links between the Truman Doctrine and selected articles from Foreign Affairs within an anti-communist framework. Using Lene Hansen’s Model 2 discourse analysis, this article investigates the discursive domains of these two types of texts. It is concluded that the articles from Foreign Affairs are intertextually linked to the Truman Doctrine and they legitimized official US foreign policy conduct in the eyes of the American public prior to and following the declaration of the doctrine.

Critical discursive approaches to evaluating policy-driven testing: Social impact as a target for validation

This paper addresses the intersection of testing and policy, situating test-driven impact and validation within the context of policy-led educational reform in Korea. I will briefly review the existing validation models. Then, arguing for an expansion of the conventional conceptualization of consequential validity research, I use Fairclough’s dialectic–relational approach in critical discourse analysis (CDA), positioned in critical and poststructuralist research tradition, to evaluate social realities, such as intended and actual impact of policy-led testing, I take, as an example, the context of the development of the National English Ability Test (NEAT) in Korea, which had been used as a means of implementing government policies. Combining Messick’s validity framework for consequential evidence, Bachman and Palmer’s argument-based approach to validation (assessment use argument, AUA), and Fairclough’s dialectic–relational approach, I will illustrate how the impact of policy-led testing is performed and interpreted as a sociopolitical and discursive phenomenon, constituted and enacted in and through “discourse.” By revisiting the previous Faircloughian research works on NEAT’s impact, I postulate that the discourses arguing for and against social impact acquire their meanings from dialectical standpoints.

“Learn to Conserve Your Passion and Care”: Exploring the Emotional Labor of Special-Post Teachers in Rural China

In recent decades, the growing trend of post-structuralist research on teacher emotional labor has offered a discursive lens to elucidate rural teachers’ identities and their teaching practices. To date, however, few studies have explored the emotional labor of special-post teachers in rural China. Through a post-structuralist framework, this study aimed to explore the emotional labor of special-post teachers. Ethnographic qualitative data from a rural primary school in northern China showed that special-post teachers experienced various emotional conflicts embedded in multiple discourses. As teaching experience increases, special-post teachers obtain agentive emotional and practical responses to lighten their negative emotional burden for work. The findings suggested that the role overload and conflicts of special-post teachers were especially prominent in the social context of the urban–rural dichotomy. Emotional reflexivity and vulnerability of special-post teachers in their identity construction as educator, professional-service-provider, and also passer-by were also discussed.

Feminist perspectives on gender and technology entrepreneurship in incubator settings

PurposeThe objective of this article is to map and assess current evidence in women's technology entrepreneurship in business incubators with the aim of producing a conceptual framework that will allow us to understand how gender shapes the life of women technology entrepreneurs.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a systematic literature review. The data set comprises 49 publications, including peer-reviewed articles and prominent book chapters. These are first categorized according to their feminist approach and second analysed using an inductive thematic approach to map dominant concepts and research methods.FindingsThe authors develop a framework with four dimensions: (1) antecedents, (2) challenges, (3) outcomes and (4) solutions. The authors show that current literature mainly focuses on the challenges faced by women technology entrepreneurs in incubator settings. Although liberal feminist research is present, social feminist perspectives dominate, with poststructuralist research as a close second. Interestingly, current research has not focused much on individual characteristics; in other words, the baggage that women bring with them in terms of prior experiences is hardly investigated, even though there is general agreement that socialization shapes women's experiences of and responses to gender challenges.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to the literature in the following ways: The developed framework assists in understanding how gender is an overarching factor that shapes every facet of the life of a women technology entrepreneur, and how incubator environments intensify gender issues. Indeed, being in an incubator environment adds an extra layer of gendered conditions, thus intensifying the challenges that women meet, creating a “triple masculinity trap”. The review highlights that little is known about how early conditioning shapes women technology entrepreneurs' reactions to the gendered conditions they meet and that there is a lack of research on how women “do entrepreneurship”.

ДОСЛІДЖЕННЯ ІДЕНТИЧНОСТІ В ПОСТГУМАНІСТИЧНІЙ АНТРОПОЛОГІЇ: ТЕРМІНОЛОГІЧНИЙ АСПЕКТ

The actualization of the problem of fluid and multiple identities inherent in the world of "liquid modernity" (Z. Bauman) was reflected in Western science of the last third of the twentieth century. At the same time, with the spread of trans- and posthumanist ideas in the twenty-first century, it is acquiring new, "non-human" horizons. The analytical article is devoted to the problem of the methodology of research and designation of alternative human identities in posthumanist anthropology. The terminological apparatus for the study of non-human identities is proposed for the first time in the post-Soviet area of humanities. The methodology of the study within the disciplinary field of Posthumanist anthropology (Transhumanist Studies, Posthuman Studies) is primarily based on the conceptual foundations of poststructuralism. In order to explicate the actual meaning of the terms "Other", "non-human", "non-anthropomorphic", "otherkin" in the scientific works, structuralism (the method of binary oppositions) was also used to find out the axiological connotations inherent in the concept of posthuman; as well as methods of semantic, terminological, and discourse analysis. The main generalized terms that mark the non-human identity of biological humans in scientific discourse are identified – "Other", "non-human" and "otherkin". The semantics of these terms is explicated, their short definitions are offered, the specifics and range of their use in foreign posthumanist anthropology are revealed. It is proposed to introduce the terms "non-human" and "otherkin" in the Ukrainian scientific discourse as the ones that most accurately reflect the wide range of individual experiences of people with other-than-human identities. It is proved that these terms can become the main generalizing tool for the study of non-human subjects and alternative identities in the Ukrainian science. It is argued that in posthumanist anthropology, poststructuralist research methodology should be preferred as more objective than structuralism and the method of binary oppositions. Key words: cultural studies, transhumanism, posthumanism, other-than-human identities, Other, otherkin, non-human, terminology, binary oppositions, structuralism, poststructuralism.

The “Hungarian Model” – the dialectical relationship of the Self and the Other on the background of the 2015 refugee crisis

ABSTRACT In times of ontological insecurity, identities face pressures of reformulation and doubts over their legitimacy. By analysing the discursive practices of the Hungarian Prime Minister, the following paper addresses the complex process of Hungarian identity construction. Drawing on the intellectual heritage of symbolic interactionism and linking it to the current post-structuralist research, I stress the interconnection of foreign policy and the dialectical Self-Other relationship. Additionally, the article strengthens the argument of previous studies claiming that the Prime Minister intensifies the “othering” in his discourse to gain support for his vision of the Hungarian identity and simultaneously increase the support of voters for his party.

A critical reflection on voluntary corporate non-financial and sustainability reporting and disclosure: lessons learnt from two case studies on integrated reporting

PurposeThis study aims to provide a critical assessment of developments in the field of voluntary corporate non-financial and sustainability reporting and disclosure (VRD). The assessment is grounded in the empirical material of a three-year research project on integrated reporting (IR).Design/methodology/approachAlvesson and Deetz’s (2021) critical management framework structures the arguments in this paper. By investigating local phenomena and the extant literature, the authors glean insights that they later critique, drawing on the empirical evidence collected during the research project. Transformative redefinitions are then proposed that point to future opportunities for research on voluntary organisational disclosures.FindingsThe authors argue that the mainstream approaches to VRD, namely, incremental information and legitimacy theories, present shortcomings in addressing why and how organisations voluntarily disclose information. First, the authors find that companies adopting the International IR Council’s (IIRC, 2021) IR framework tend to comply with the framework only in an informal, rather than a substantial way. Second, the authors find that, at times, organisations serendipitously chance upon VRD practices such as IR instead of rationally recognising the potential ability of such practices to provide useful information for decision-making by investors. Also, powerful groups in organisations may use VRD practices to establish, maintain or restore power balances in their favour.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper’s limitations stem directly from its aim to be a critical reflection. Even when grounded on empirics, a reflection is mainly a subjective effort. Therefore, different researchers could come to different conclusions and offer different lessons from the two case studies.Practical implicationsThe different rationales the authors found for VRD should make a case for reporting institutions to tone down any investor-centric rhetoric in favour of more substantial disclosures. The findings imply that reporting organisations should approach the different frameworks with a critical eye and read between the lines of these frameworks to determine whether the purported normative arguments are achievable practice.Originality/valueThe authors reflect on timely and relevant issues linked to recent developments in the VRD landscape. Further, the authors offer possible ways forward for critical research that may rely on different methodological choices, such as interventionist and post-structuralist research.

Mixed-Heritage Individuals and Systemic Risk During Negotiation of Identity

ABSTRACT Poststructuralist research in language and identity demonstrates how individuals exert agency to enact alternative identities, reshape power structures, and gain access to resources. However, this approach to agency carries immense risk for minoritized individuals, who must regularly negotiate their identities under systemic racism and linguistic discrimination. We focus on mixed-heritage individuals (MHIs), who are regularly questioned about or denied their ethnoracial identities through everyday microaggressions, and examine 293 MHIs’ responses to open-ended survey questions, describing the strategies they use and risks experienced during negotiation of identity. Findings reveal MHIs use explanations, cultural capital, and linguistic styling to express ethnoracial identities; however, experiences of denial, objectification, racial imposter syndrome, and anxiety lead many to assess which situations are safe to enact their identities and which are not. Consequently, we discuss the importance of recognizing systemic risk during negotiation of identity for racialized individuals.

Russia’s cultural diplomacy in the post-Soviet space: the making of “one people”

ABSTRACT In the aftermath of the Ukraine crisis, a wave of scholarship resorted to realism and its core assumptions in an attempt to explain Russia’s assertiveness. This article challenges these predominant accounts by contending that the co-constitutive link between identity and foreign policy deserves far greater attention to understand Russia's international actions. To this end, it examines the evolution of an underexplored yet central subset of Russia’s foreign policy in the post-Soviet space, namely its cultural diplomacy. Concretely, it applies a poststructuralist research design to a textual selection including official documents and Presidential declarations from 2008–2018, semi-structured interviews with policy-makers, cultural operators and experts, and participant observation. The article finds that, between 2008 and 2012, three competing articulations of identity were proposed in Russia's cultural diplomacy, targetingRussian (Russkiy) ethnicity, thecountry’s multi-ethnicity, and its collective memory. However, after the 2012 presidential elections, thesewere replaced by a new articulation reproducing Russia’s identity through a) radicalization of cultural differences (with the West/the EU) and b) negation of alternative identities (within Russia and the post-Soviet space). Amidst increased political contestation with the 2011–2 Russian protests, this hegemonic intervention from the state-level sought to (re-)produce this identity through an antagonistic delimitation of the social and secure the regime’s survival.

Absence of the Transcendental Signified: Tracing the Dynamics of Intertextuality in Selected Essays of Shoaib Bin Hassan

This research aimed to analyse selected essays from the anthology Aesthetics of Incompleteness by Shoaib Bin Hassan to prove the intertextual nature of language in the Pakistani postmodern Anglophone literature. The objective was to explore the linguistic and thematic intertextual underpinnings to highlight how literary, cultural, and historical narratives are interwoven in the text, which denotes the absence of a transcendental signified and the text becomes a web of textuality. Using a deconstructionist approach, the study postulated that language bears the absence of a transcendental signified, which marks its decentred nature, complemented by the concept of intertextuality. In this research, the language and referents employed by Hassan in his essays were specifically analysed. This study fills the research gap that appears in contemporary Pakistani Anglophone literature due to a lack of poststructuralist research. The critical ideas propounded by (Derrida, 2009; Catherine Besley, 2008; Peter Barry, 2007; Leitch, 1983; Maria Jesus Martinez Alfaro, 1996) served as the basis of the theoretical framework utilized in this study and secondary texts for this research. Opening up similar poststructuralist viewpoints for the exploration of postmodern literature, this study paves the way for more research on Pakistani Anglophone literature intended to analyse textual innovations, specifically in contemporary texts. Moreover, since literary essay is a withering genre in Pakistani Anglophone literature, this research is likely to play a significant role in rejuvenating its importance and adding a new literary dimension to it.
 Keywords: decentred, intertextuality, language, transcendental signified

Reconciling Socrates and Levinas for the Community of Inquiry: A response to Sharp and Laverty (2018)

In the publication <em>In Community of Inquiry with Ann Margaret Sharp</em> (2018) the editors, Maughn Rollins Gregory and Megan Jane Laverty present a series of significant essays that honour Anne Margaret Sharp and her significant contribution to the Philosophy for Children (P4C) program. One of the essays, <em>Looking at others’ faces</em> (Sharp &amp; Laverty 2018), is a revised version of Sharp’s earlier essay (see Sharp &amp; Laverty 2018, p. 128, note 2) and further develops her original themes and interests in post-structuralist research and its implications for the P4C program. Sharp and Laverty argue for recognising alterity as informed by Emmanuel Levinas and his notion of the ‘Other’ (<em>L’Autre</em>) in the Community of Inquiry (CoI) alongside the well-established model of Socratic maieutics. But can Socrates and Levinas be reconciled as Sharp and Laverty invite us? In this essay I examine an interpretation of maieutics from Levinas that makes it both incompatible and yet, ultimately, reconciled with alterity in his notion of teaching. Finally, I explore ambiguities and implications that emerge from accepting this approach and suggest further questions that remain to be explored in relation to the pedagogy of the CoI.

ОТЧЕТЫ АКАДЕМИЧЕСКИХ ЭКСПЕДИЦИЙ ВТОРОЙ ПОЛОВИНЫ XVIII В. КАК ИНСТРУМЕНТ КОНСТРУИРОВАНИЯ ИМПЕРСКОГО ПРОСТРАНСТВА

Statement of the problem. The article deals with the problem of constructing the imperial space in Russia in the 18th century through the reports on Academic expeditions. It is about mental geography, ideas about oneself and the Other, center and periphery, colonies and metropolis. The purpose of this article is to analyze the situation of constructing an imperial space through the text of a scientific study. Review of scientific literature on the problem. A lot of both Russian and international studies are devoted to this problem. These are works by E. Said, M. Bassin, T. Roboli, Y. Slezkin, A. Etkind. Methodology (materials and methods). The approach to the analysis of the imperial mental map formation toolkit is interdisciplinary. The work uses the structural and typological method and is grounded on post-structuralist research (M. Foucault). The study was carried out on the basis of reports on the Academic Expeditions of P. Pallas, I. Lepekhin, N. Ozeretskovsky. Research results. Based on the analysis made, it can be concluded that reports become an important link in the construction of a new imperial space, it is in them that ideologically important oppositions are identified: center-periphery, friend-foe, colony-metropolis. The documentary character of the texts maintains maximum objectivity in assessing the representations presented in them.

Desire, freedom, and pain in English learners’ emotional responses to SLA: A holistic look at English learners’ multilingual identity construction

The paper examines Hungarian English majors’ emotional and identity responses to second language acquisition (SLA) and proposes that the two are inherently linked. The theoretical underpinnings of the study draw on the holistic post-structuralist approach that looks at learners in their entirety and complexity (Kramsch 2009) and language learning as an embodied experience (Damasio 1994) that can be more or less transformative for the learner. The participants’ multilingual identities are mapped in terms of desire (Kristeva 1980) and pain (Lacan 1977) in SLA, imagination (Anderson 1983), symbolic language use (Kramsch 2009), and conceptual blending (Fauconnier &amp; Turner 2002). The paper is based on a multiple case study that involved 31 English majors as participants from the University of Pécs, in Hungary. Data were collected via a structured written task that contained three open-ended questions about the participants’ language learning experiences and preferences. The questions addressed the participants’ emotional and identity responses to SLA. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis in an iterative manner. The findings confirmed that language learners respond emotionally to language learning and these emotional responses shed light on their identities associated with SLA. The magnitude of the learner’s transformation resulting from SLA corresponds to the magnitude of their emotional responses, shaping their multilingual identity accordingly. Emotions were frequently captured with the help of metaphors as a result of conceptual blending. Three recurring emotional responses emerged from the data addressing the experience of desire, pain, and freedom associated with English learning./ Keywords: identity, emotions, post-structuralist research, imagination, desire in SLA, symbolic pain, conceptual blending

Poststructuralist Perspectives on Language and Identity: Implications for English Language Teaching Research in Pakistan

Before the 1990s, Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research conceptualized language as a system or structure that the language learner acquired and developed, mediated by the learner's motivation and his/her strategies learning a language. With “the social turn” in social sciences, the language came to be viewed from a social constructionist perspective as a socially situated practice influenced by various social, cultural, class, gender, and ethnic factors. This shift towards the social aspects of language learning marks the change from a psycholinguistic and structuralist theory of language to a poststructuralist one. This paper reviews the development of poststructuralist research foci in language and identity studies in applied linguistics. The paper argues that broadening SLA research purview is useful, for example, in illuminating how social class mediates access to learning powerful languages like English and how indigenous languages suffer shrinking of use domains due to the hegemony of powerful languages. The paper attempts to tease out the implication of this research body for English language learning research in Pakistan's multilingual context. It concludes with a few suggestions for more socially-oriented language learning research in Pakistan.

The care by obstetric nurses: the encounter between self care bodies and other woman who is cared for

ABSTRACT Objective: To analyze the obstetric nurses’ discourse on self-care and decisions make of their life and body, and their relation with care for other women. Method: A qualitative, post-structuralist research with 14 obstetric nurses. Data were obtained from in-depth interviews and submitted to discourse analysis, based on the concepts of Foucault. Results: The findings reveal that caring of obstetric nurses is produced in the encounter between their own body and the body of the women under their care. The nursing profession was presented not only as a means of work and support but as an essential device for the training of women as subjects. The collective narrative is marked by the attitude of compassion, by the processes of subjectivity incited by the professional practice, by indicators of critical and political care, and by the construction of an interlocking network among obstetrical nurses. Conclusions and implications for practice: Acting in obstetric nursing results in self-care and care(less) effects of other women. The study contributes to the analysis and knowledge of the life and work scenario of obstetrical nurses. It also reassures the potential of care as an art that is present in the women’s practices.

Poststructural Research in International Political Economy: Problematizing and Politicizing Agency, Structure and Objectivity

Poststructural Research in International Political Economy: Problematizing and Politicizing Agency, Structure and Objectivity

Beyond words: Academic writing identities and imaginative (artistic) selves

Abstract Exploring the de/construction of our imaginative (artistic) selves in relation to our academic writing, we foreground the notion that imaginative processes are part of the assembly of self/selves even as they are part of that de/construction. These imaginative selves are important for our professional identities and the daily negotiations we undertake in the context of institutional norms and expectations. Significant for our outward identities, these imaginative selves allow us to speak from different positions, possibly ones that resist conformity and compliance and actively contribute towards a personally ethical academic identity. Through narratives, images and a post-structural research lens, we explore our ‘hidden’ imaginative (artistic) selves in relation to our academic (writing) selves. Two themes emerged from the analysis of our narratives: (1) Into the unknown; and (2) Finding ourselves. We suggest that engagement with artistic, expressive and aesthetic activities in our personal time are important for processing – through metaphor and sensory means – our understanding of our professional identities, particularly, our writing selves. These incursions into our subjectivities reveal incongruity and ambiguity but also provide a sense of renaissance and regeneration.

Leadership in organisational change: A post-structuralist research agenda

The organisational change literature remains dominated by macro- and microexplanatory models which tend to exclude conflict, mess and power in favour of enumerating universalistic steps or, as is the subject of this article, leadership definitions and factors for successful change. In this article, I review and question some of the mainstream literature on leadership in organisational change, drawing on Laclau and Mouffe’s political discourse theory and its mobilisation by critical leadership studies of organisational change. This article problematises change leadership as a set of multiple and changing practices, pragmatically deployed by organisational players. In exploring those avenues, I deploy a five-step ‘logics of critical explanation’ approach – specifically designed by Laclauian discourse theorists – characterising organisational change practices according to social (rules and norms), political (inclusions and exclusions) and fantasmatic (fears and hopes) logics. Rather than a set of factors or top–down causes and effects, I offer a situated and critical explanation of leadership in organisational change. This research contributes to critical explanations of organisational change politics by considering leadership as a set of changing discursive practices and by developing four situated dimensions of leadership, which build on concepts of empty and floating signifiers, to add to discussions of the role of individuals in organisational politics.

Animating Disability Differently

This article takes up Goodley’s challenge to explore the ways in which poststructuralist research methodologies open up new ways of thinking about encounters with disability. Working with the materiality of their own encounters with disability and the conceptual possibilities opened up in poststructuralist and new materialist thought, the six authors deconstruct the ability/disability binary through animating disability differently. They draw on memories generated in a collective biography workshop to explore the ways in which concepts, such as heterotopia, can be put to work to mobilize a humanity-in-common that is both multiple and open to differenciation, that is, to continuously becoming different.

Editorial: Geographie als Geisteswissenschaft – Geographie in den Geisteswissenschaften

Abstract. This editorial provides the intellectual background for a themed issue that argues for a (re)consideration of human geography as a "Geisteswissenschaft". Engaging with the question of how a geography anchored in the arts and humantities might look like today, it tries to unsettle the kind of "theory-driven", post-structuralist research that has come to dominate human geography following the "cultural turn". In proposing a more thorough engagement with the potential of intrepretative, hermeneutic and phenomenological approaches, we conceptualise a "geisteswissenschaftliche" human geography as a much-needed irritation of the social scientific mainstream.