Power Relations In Society Research Articles

Putting the Margins at the Centre: At the Edges of Protest in Morocco and Egypt

Almost ten years have passed since the uprisings of 2011 turned the social-political equilibrium of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region upside down. Despite successful counter-revolutionary policies, protests continue to challenge the status quo. The main difference with the 2011 is that current and ongoing political and social protests are less visible as they happen at the of society. This paper investigates the role of marginality and marginalisation in the cycle of protests and the dynamic of revolution and counter-revolution in the MENA region. The continuous eruption of social contestations in the rural and urban margins of North Africa forces us to reconsider previous academic analyses which understood the so-called Arab Spring as a predominantly urban youth movement, principally from a middle-class background. Protests at the margins not only constitute the hidden history of revolts of 2011, they also continue these revolts in a less visible, less concentrated, and less articulated manner. Putting the margins at the centre of analysis allows us to conceive of a cycle of protest not only in diachronic terms, as a temporal ebb and flow of contestation, but also a socio-spatial process of converging and refracting protests – from the margins to the centre and back again. We take a closer look at events in Egypt and Morocco. For the Egyptian case we investigate rural and urban protests against the new Law on Building Violations. Through the lens of marginalisation, we are able to reveal the contours of a socio-spatial hierarchy of protests, which has been shaping social movements in Egypt long before 2011. The second case deals with Morocco and presents a counter-story of the post-2011 democratic transition which has led, to everyone's surprise, to the uprising of the Hirak du Rif and Jerada. This counter-story traces the reconfiguration of power relations in society, thanks to mobilisations that took place often underground and at the margins.

SHAKESPEARE VE EGEMENLİK: MACBETH’İN BİYOPOLİTİK BİR OKUMASI

Biopolitics has brought new perspectives on power relations in society with the conceptualization of Michelle Foucault. Although the history of the concept goes back to the past, biopolitics has been used to analyze the power and social power relations in many areas from body control to population politics, thanks to Foucault. Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has carried the concept of biopolitics to another point and contributed to the concept of biopolitics with his studies on sovereignty. Unlike Foucault, who claims that biopolitics is a modern thought, Agamben traces biopolitics in ancient texts. In his book Homo Sacer, Agamben allows us to reflect on the limits of sovereignty with the concept of bare life. Agamben searches for the holy man who can be killed but not sacrificed in Roman Law and makes analyzes on social power relations and sovereignty through this concept. In this article, it is aimed to make a biopolitical reading of William Shakespeare's play Macbeth, based on Agamben's analysis of the Homo Sacer. As Macbeth kills King Duncan and becomes king himself, his struggle with the ghost of sovereignty begins. While this article seeks the reasons for Macbeth's inability to legitimize his power as the possessor of sovereignty and power in Elizabethan political theology and ideological structure, it reveals, in a biopolitical reading, that Macbeth has fallen into the position of the Homo Sacer, who cannot be sacrificed but is legitimate to be killed, that the sovereign is not above sovereignty, and that the king's mystical existence is separated from bodily existence. It is intended to analyze that with the killing of the king, Macbeth seeks to retain sovereignty while trying to cope with the pain of breaking the sacred order as an object of the dominant ideology. In this article, the reason why Macbeth's sovereignty cannot be legitimized is discussed based on the argument that power has a productive rather than an oppressive nature, while examining how his position has transformed into the Homo Sacer in Agamben's theory.

A call to technologists to ensure that responsible outcomes arise from their innovations

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to encourage technologists, those who design and manage technology systems, to collectivize and get closely involved in defining the priorities of their organizations, their countries, and the world, so that responsible outcomes can arise from their labour. Design/methodology/approach The author examines this problem from three viewpoints: From a design perspective about what is missing in most design practices to build information systems that undesirable outcomes still happen; from an ethics perspective about how to incorporate values in building and managing information systems; and from a political economy perspective about why ensuring responsible outcomes from technology is not easy. The author describes several limitations faced by technologists in achieving this, ranging from gaps in the design methods in use currently, a piecemeal approach to following ethical principles in the design and management of technologies, influence of the organizational culture and structure and the wider political economy of technology itself. Findings The author suggests several measures to address these challenges and conclude with a call to technologists to collectivize and engage politically to influence their organizations and governments to invest in meaningful objectives for a just and equitable world, and design and manage the solutions in ethically consistent ways. Research limitations/implications It is argued that a new paradigm of information systems is needed for digital platforms, which is grounded in ethics-based guidelines that should be followed by the designers and managers of these platforms to help ensure responsible outcomes. Practical implications Having such a paradigm is especially important in today’s winner-takes-all digital platform era because these platforms are governed by only a few people; therefore, it is imperative to build guardrails to responsibly manage these platforms, and to have technologists who design and manage these platforms to play a role in their governance. Social implications Information systems have the potential to alter power relationships in society, and it is suggested that they should be designed to empower the weak. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is a unique perspective that draws from his personal experience as a researcher and practitioner designing technologies for social good, and examines the problem from many different viewpoints.

Visualization of Social Strata in Media

Visualization of social strata in the media space. - Visual communication is gaining in importance today. The perception of the world around us is mediated by visual images. The visual image cannot be fully expressed by verbal means; it is perceived as a whole, not sequentially. To depict social strata, their detailed definition is necessary, which would make it possible, through indices, icons and symbols, to express culturally specific codes that will create specific cognitive images for the participants in communication. Due to their ideological function, visual images justify unequal power relations in society. It turns out that visualization is an integral part of the endless semiosis of stratification processes and the formation of class identity. However, any visual image is a construct and can be deconstructed. Therefore, through visualization, it is possible to deconstruct or reconstruct the system of social stratification.

Soolisuse esitamine Eesti grafitis ja tänavakunstis / Representing of gender in Estonian graffiti and street art

Soolisuse esitamine Eesti grafitis ja tänavakunstis / Representing of gender in Estonian graffiti and street art

Discourse Analysis as a Qualitative Methodology

The article analyses the term discourse and discourse analysis with reference to Foucault and other critics. Foucault used the role of discourses in wider social processes of legitimating power, and emphasizing the construction of current truths. The article argues that discourse analysis, as employed by Foucault, concentrated on analysing power relationships in society, as expressed through language and social practices. The article examines the use of genealogy, where Foucault attempted to trace the beginnings of internalised moral behaviour, or a reflexive relation to the self in human beings. Examples are presented of various approaches to discourse analysis, including deconstruction and preferred reading and interpretation of the text. The article concludes with the evaluation of discourse analysis as a qualitative methodology.

Racialised voices of Maghrebi-French women in films

Performances in the media (Bell and Gibson 2011; Bucholtz and Lopez 2011) are rich multimodal resources, which enable the analyst to look into the social practice of language ideologies and highlight discursive strategies that contribute to unequal power relations in society. This article examines the overt and covert racialisation of Maghrebi-French female voices in French films. After analysing the discursive patterns associated with migrant women of first and second generations (mothers and daughters), it brings to the forefront the processes by which their voices are marked, arguing that they perpetuate discriminatory discourses of gender and race. It finally considers the dynamics between the erasure/racialisation of ethnic voices in films and politics of recognition in society (Fraser 2001).

Practising the Common Good: Philanthropic Practices in Twentieth-Century Denmark

Since the beginning of the 1990s, civil society has attracted both scholarly and political interest as the ‘third sphere’ outside the state and the market, strongly amplified by the sectorial conceptualisation of state, market and civil society. In contrast, this article shows that civil society is and has never been a pre-existing location separated from state and market. Its boundaries are constantly produced through practices interweaving political, economic and moral components. This will be studied through an exemplary Danish historical case of the Egmont Foundation 1920–2018. The study shows how different and changing philanthropic practices took part in producing distinction between state, market and civil society by demarcating categories of deserving and underserving needy as part of the ‘common good’ through changing donation practices and organisational forms. As a consequence, we can trace ongoing re-distributions of power relations in society over time. The study’s contribution to develop a post-sectorial concept of civil society is two-fold: first, by showing how political, economic and moral components are interlinked through the ongoing stabilisation of the ‘common’ and the ‘good’; second, by showing how these interlinks and transgression constantly re-distribute power relations in society and in turn create possibilities and limits for actions both in past, present and future.

Witnessing the Pandemic with Foucault: Power, Politics, and COVID-19

Drawing heavily on the works of Michel Foucault, I examine the different political responses to the pandemic of COVID-19. In the first part of this article, I examine the Chinese government’s response to COVID-19 and expose the relationship between biopower and the political ideal of societies, arguing that technology also entered into the realm of biopolitics and helped society accomplish its political ideal of mobility, productivity, and security. In the second part of this article, I suggest that COVID-19 reshaped and rearranged the power mechanism in societies, arguing that new forms of power might emerge in the future. Synthesizing these two cases, I challenge the reader to reflect critically upon the relationship between the pandemic and the power architecture of societies and suggest that the pandemic might lead to the emergence of new power relations in societies.

Papo reto sobre violência contra a mulher: relato de experiência de uma prática de extensão universitária

O presente relato de experiência tem como objetivo apresentar entendimentos e percepções sobre a intervenção dos membros do projeto de extensão Direito Intergeracional e Transversalidade da Universidade do Vale do Itajaí–UNIVALI, com 31 estudantes do ensino médio de uma escola não pública e dois professores da mesma instituição, em que se focou na conscientização e na prevenção da violência contra a mulher. A fim de alcançar o objetivo proposto demonstrar-se-á o planejamento e a atividade realizada (palestra dialogada) pelos extensionistas na comunidade. A partir dessa experiência, foi possível evidenciar que a comunidade em que a intervenção ocorreu esteve e está receptiva a dialogar sobre a violência de gênero. Ademais, ao estabelecer essa discussão, trabalhou-se com uma demanda social real e urgente, em que se compartilharam saberes entre as duas pontas – Universidade e comunidade–possibilitando contribuir para modificar, minimamente, as relações de poder vigentes na sociedade.

Stories of the storm: the interconnection between risk management strategies and everyday experiences of rurality

Households play an important role in risk management. In this article, we take a closer look at risk management strategies applied by rural citizens in relation to an actual situation: a specific storm. The storm chosen, named Ivar, hit the northern parts of Sweden in December 2013 and caused major blackouts and heavy problems for road and train traffic due to extensive tree falls. After the storm, there were persistent problems with electricity, Internet, telephone communications, heating and drinking water supply, especially in the affected rural areas. The aim of this article is to explore the interconnection between risk management strategies and living conditions among rural citizens affected by this storm and its aftermath. The empirical material consists of narrative interviews with households from the area most affected by the storm: a small company town where the citizens were without electricity for 5-10 days after the storm. Our analysis resulted in two broad storylines (‘stories of social dismantling’ and ‘stories of capability’) illustrating how household risk management is intertwined with subjective experiences of rurality. That is, the households made sense of their experiences of the storm by relating them to an urban norm and to the everyday experience of living in ‘the periphery’. By that, rural households’ risk management strategies can be understood as a manifestation of different power relations in society (urban/rural, centre/periphery) as well as being embedded in the everyday experience of rurality.

FEMINISMO E DISCURSO DE GÊNERO EM REDES SOCIAIS: EMPODERAMENTO FEMININO?

Neste estudo analisamos parte da discussão nos sites de redes sociais sobre as questões de gênero em torno do lançamento do filme Mulher-Maravilha, em quatro publicações na página de Facebook oficial da obra. Investigamos, nos comentários sobre o lançamento do filme, a presença de debate sobre as questões feministas, a fim de identificar os temas discutidos e sua perspectiva. A hipótese do trabalho original, a dissertação de mestrado de Maria Cecilia Baini, foi de que o filme iria mobilizar discursos sobre empoderamento feminino. Partindo das discussões sobre questões de gênero a partir dos anos 1930, apresentamos estudos de gênero tal como entendidos hoje e discorremos sobre a presença do feminismo na Internet. Questões sobre poder e discurso são trazidas à tona ancoradas nos preceitos de Bourdieu (1996) e Foucault (2013), a fim de pensar a produção do discurso como resultado de relações de poder na sociedade. A linguagem é entendida, recorrendo-se ao conceito de habitus (BOURDIEU 1989), como passível de naturalizar o poder e como um instrumento que pode estar a serviço da perpetuação da desigualdade dos gêneros. Recorremos a Recuero (2012, 2014) para descrever a comunicação mediada por computador, em seus aspectos relevantes para nossa análise, compreendendo-a como um produto social capaz de simular elementos da conversação oral. Seguindo Herring, (2001, 2004), vemos a comunicação textual como parte dos discursos que vêm a construir comportamentos, recorrendo aos aportes teóricos e metodológicos da Análise do Discurso Mediada por Computador, desenvolvidos por Hering, a fim de tentar identificar padrões recorrentes do discurso examinado, com ênfase nos vinculados à discussão sobre o empoderamento feminino.

Business Power in Noisy Politics: An Exploration Based on Discourse Network Analysis and Survey Data

This study links voter-centred and interest group perspectives to assess the role structurally powerful businesses can play in contested political issues. Revisiting the literature on business influence in politics, incumbent businesses are theorised to strategically use their structural power to influence voters’ preferences. The conceptual framework is illustrated with a case study of a direct democratic vote related to Swiss energy policy. To empirically trace the role incumbent businesses played in the run-up to the vote, the study employs a two-step approach. First, it uses Discourse Network Analysis (DNA) to examine arguments and actor coalitions in the public debate preceding the vote. Second, the DNA results inform a statistical analysis of survey data on voting behaviour. The findings suggest that incumbent businesses can use their structural power strategically to shape voting behaviour. The study stimulates the discussion about political power relationships in societies and enriches the nascent debate about phasing out unsustainable energy infrastructure. Importantly, it opens up ways to combine DNA with other methods, an avenue that shows promise for use and further refinement in future applications.

IDENTITY, STATE, AND TRADITION: A THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE

Purpose of the Study: This research endeavors to highlight the complex notion of ‘identity’ and the process of identity formation that involves complex socio-political dynamics that need to be located within the larger socio-cultural spectrum.
 Methodology: The study is based upon a socio-political and socio-anthropological analysis of the questions of identity, state, tradition, and culture. It has been carried out using relevant theories and concepts borrowed chiefly from the available literature on political sociology and anthropology. It is based on a theorization of the concept of identity as a societal construct and its dynamic relationship with not only the state but also people’s traditional beliefs and practices.
 Main Findings: Based upon secondary sources, the results of the study showed that ‘identity’ as a social construct is based on various conflicts and contestations centering around people’s diverse identities at one and the same time. Identity politics plays a crucial role in the context of the state machinery, which is not a static entity. It is very much affected by the changes taking place within society, which, in itself, is representative of diversity and heterogeneity. People’s traditional beliefs and practices also play a significant role in the formation of identities through institutions recognized as “traditional.” They play an important role in reflecting the changing power relations in society through the instrument of law.
 Applications of this Study: Both formal state laws and community-backed laws are indispensable in our society because they function within a particular social context that is responsible for the gradual process of internalization of the law and legal processes among people. This, in turn, gets reflected in the formation of various social identities among different groups and communities of people.
 Novelty/Originality of this study: This research builds a model to understand the different ways in which institutions recognized as “traditional” create new identities or reinforce the already existing ones vis-à-vis the different stages of political development in a society.

Critical Discourse Analysis of Technology-Based Rural Government System in Bengkalis Riau

The Government of Indonesia has formed a team to accelerate the implementation of the Electronic-Based Government System from the national government to the rural government. The main target is the empowerment of the rural government through a technology-based rural government system. By making an application for the rural government system, like ePlanning, eBudgeting, eProcurement, eAudit, etc. One of the areas that are intensely doing this, is the Bengkalis Regency Government, through the implementation of the Broadband Rural program, almost all rurals in Bengkalis Regency already have websites. The interesting question is does the rural have to understand technology? Does the rural have to implement a technology-based government system? Does the state forget that the rural and they community have a Self Governing System?. This will be answered by using discourse analysis. Because discourse believes that power relations in society influence and shape ways, how knowledge is created. The discourse in this paper is the implementation of a Technology-Based Government System, which is believed to be a tool that forms power relations in society through processes of defining, isolating, justifying. This paper then tries to express the state power represented in its efforts to implement a technology-based Rural government system.

Die Großmütter und wir: Freiwilligkeit, Feminismus und Geschlechterarrangements in der Schweiz

What is voluntarism, and how can we conceptualise it as a subject of historical research? In this article we address these questions with regard to the relationship between gender arrangements and voluntarism in modern Switzerland. Our considerations are based on the assumption that voluntary aid is not a spontaneous act or an amorphous activity but rather constitutes a mode that regulates social relations and structures social order. Building on this premise, we first outline the emergence of a political culture in the nineteenth century that organised public life and the social division of labour around a gendered discourse on rights and duties, and accordingly assigned different tasks to men and women. In the second part of this article, we argue that feminists in the 1970s radically challenged this arrangement, a rupture we interpret as the recodification of voluntarism. Corresponding with the emergence of new practices of solidarity among feminists, such reclassification changed the significance of voluntarism. Instead of providing services in support of the state and the common good, feminists defined voluntary engagement as a means of women’s liberation and an instrument for revolutionising power relations in society.

Use of information technologies of management in public authorities activities

At present, the state is striving to introduce modern information technologies into the sphere of interaction between the government and society, since this allows for more dynamic interaction between the state, municipalities, citizens and organizations and encourages the increase in the stability and sustainability of power relations in society. While developing the state apparatus, the role of information technologies has taken on increased significance as one of the tools to promote management decisions aimed at ensuring the greater efficiency of the state.

Ordering Disability. How Can Modernity Theory Inform Disability History?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of applying modernity theory to ‘disability history’? Giving voice to people with disabilities, disability history aims to show how disability is a part of broader, complex power relations in society. The article discusses several possible approaches. The framework of modernity and eugenics developed by Zygmunt Bauman is shown to be too one-sided for disability history. Ulrich Beck’s modernity theory proves to be more useful. Actor Network Theory (ANT), and in particular the theory developed by Annemarie Mol, offers the most sophisticated approach to disability history. ANT enables disability historians not only to give voice to people with disabilities, but also to approach disability as existing in multiple ways. This allows scholars to take into account seriously criticism of the influential, so-called ‘social model’ of disability.

Rethinking the Socialist Voice: Jack London and “The Dignity of Dollars”

The writings of Jack London offer a nuanced reading and opportunities for dynamic interpretation. He is one of the most prolific and debated writers of the twentieth century American literature. The “rags to riches” writer, whose early life was one of struggle and loss; he was very much influenced by the disparity in the social structure. Though he himself declared in an interview that he writes for money and caters to the demand of the market, in another place he was very displeased at the caging and categorizing that was often done by critics. He emphasized that an approach to his writings should be attempted towards bringing out the “motif under the motif” and not just labelling him. One such categorizing is his adherence to socialism. The purpose of this paper is to go beyond the theoretical premise of socialism and tend to unearth the contestations to the socialist ideals through his non fictional writing “The Dignity of Dollars”. An effort has been made to use the premise of Michel Foucault to understand the power relations in society and how Jack London even years before conformed to it.

An Anthropological View on the Taboo Incest as a Mean for Maintaining Social and Family Order

Incest was and is a universal taboo in human society. It is stigmatized as a deviation and leads to sanctions, in particular when minors are involved. Oral and written stories and narratives are stories that interpret and shape reality through the prism of power relations in society. In the present study, I carried out narrative analysis of incest stories in Hebrew Bible texts, those primordial stories and myths that shaped human society today. The article shows that incest was taboo from the onset, and is one of the seven Noahide laws. However, the social order was undermined already after the story of Creation: consanguineous marriages; sexual relations between a son and his stepmother, between a father and his daughters, and between a father and his daughter-in-law. The analysis shows that the brevity and ambiguity that characterize the Hebrew Bible “invited” interpretations and legends which biblical sages wrote over the generations. As a result, the text became part of a dynamic unit that forms new creations out of dialogue with the Book. Furthermore, the text is expropriated from the time axis and also serves as a relevant cultural work today. The feminist interpretation that attributes an important position to the reader enables reading that serves the feminist ideology and turns attention to subversive possibilities.