Public Sphere Research Articles

RACISM IN FOOTBALL: CONTRADICTIONS AND POSSIBILITIES FROM THE REGENCY IN THE PEDAGOGICAL RESIDENCE PROGRAM

This abstract exposes racism in football in a discriminatory way, with its implications in conscious or unconscious practices (Almeida, 2019). The topic was addressed in the training of students through Physical Education (PE) classes, in the Pedagogical Residency Program (PRP), of the Federal University of Alagoas - Arapiraca Campus, at the Aurino Maciel Field School, of the state network, in the city of Arapiraca-AL. General objective: to work on racism in football, with a view to overcoming racial discrimination in the social sphere. Specific objectives: to combat the different forms of prejudice existing in football practices; to identify stereotypes and position oneself critically in the face of prejudiced behavior; to respect the diversity of gender, ethnicity, among others. Methodology: approach of Critical-Overcoming PE (Coletivo de Autores, 2012) and method of social praxis of Historical-Critical Pedagogy (Saviani, 2021). Taking social practice as a starting and finishing point, starting from everyday practice and equipping students, aiming for catharsis (incorporation of the constituent elements of sports practice). Activities developed: seminars, guided study, individual and group work, and practical classes with simulations of racist acts. Conclusions: racism was and still is very present in our society, and this becomes contradictory due to the existing measures to criminalize this behavior. People still insist on committing acts of racial discrimination, through gestures towards athletes. Finally, we conclude that soccer was developed within a historical context marked by racial prejudice.

Beyond homocolonialism: working towards queer decoloniality in Bangladesh

AbstractThe queer movement in Bangladesh suffered a crisis in 2016 with the murder of two activists, leading to an unwanted hyper-visibility in wider society, and a chilling effect on activism. We detail what it means to think beyond postcolonial critiques of international LGBTQ rights, briefly explaining the realities and limits of queer politics in Bangladesh, focusing on sexual health infrastructures and the emergence of legal citizenship for the “third-gender” hijra population. We argue that these dimensions of queer existence remain circumscribed, and that a public discourse of sexualities remains difficult to create as a terrain for equality. We explore whether the framing of ‘decolonial’ is useful here, conceptualized as a process of working through the postcolonial critique of western structures of financial and sexual frameworks, towards an understanding of crisis that requires reading colonialism in its later evolution in the context of nationalism, neoliberal development, and religious fundamentalism.

Reclaiming and remediating space: The dynamics of queer presence in audio drama platform

The censorship of Boys’ Love (BL) content in mainland China is marked by inconsistencies in both its intensity and scope. Amid these shifting regulatory boundaries, this study analyzes the systematic removal and occasional reappearance of visual BL content from the public sphere. We found that as visual channels are most susceptible to suppression, audio – though still monitored – emerges as a crucial medium, leveraging the agentive power of sound and media remediation to sustain fan engagement with BL narratives. Focusing on Miss Evan, a Chinese audio streaming platform, we explore how it navigates state censorship and market marginalization while restoring the BL subculture through innovative design features, sexually appealing voice performances, and provocative sound effects. Additionally, we investigate the agency of Chinese BL fans in reclaiming BL’s presence through polymedia engagement. We argue that the dynamic negotiation between the platform, state censorship, and fandom reveals an ongoing contest between queer marginalization and restoration. While the platform seeks mainstream acceptance by conforming to censorship through the minimization of queer visual representation, the BL fandom employs counterstrategies to sustain the subculture in audio form. This tension highlights the cultural resilience and technological adaptability of queer subcultures as they navigate and resist the censorship imposed by state and societal norms.

Politicising the Public Space: On Dalit Women Sanitation Workers in India

Caste determines the life worlds of people in India in particular and South Asia in general. Historically, it is observed that caste has conditioned the nature of public spaces. Upper castes can appropriate the public spaces legitimized by caste ideology and practice. However, colonial and post-colonial India witnessed changes in the caste system due to its (modern) legal interventions. Paradoxically, caste persists in its crude and subtle forms. It has also acquired new forms in post-independent public spaces. Caste determines certain bodily dispositions within the so-called public spaces. The ambiguous nature of modernity and the weight of tradition have drastically transformed the public space. A socially regulated economy and public institutions are determining the people, space, and mobility of the castes, too. This article investigates the nature of the stigmatized labour of Dalit women sanitation workers (who come under the manual scavenging community) within diverse public urban spaces. It analyses the various questions related to the Dalit women sanitation workers who work in select public universities, urban housing colonies, and slums in Delhi, India. It probes the Dalit women sanitation workers’ day-to-day life in caste-ridden spaces of urban- “public” spaces. One of the central questions that needs to be addressed is whether the socioeconomic space of these Dalit women workers has changed in contemporary India. Why do Dalit women have to do stigmatized work in public spaces? How are purity and pollution reinforced in elusive ways? Thus, it initiates a critique of the Indian feminist understanding of public spaces. This article acts as a way to engage with the epistemic priority of women sanitation workers to problematize Brahmanic feminism in India. Can there be any social-political engagement with the public space in the case of Dalit women sanitation workers? At the level of theory, this article critiques the dominant-Habermasian idea of the public sphere and Nancy Fraser’s counter-public to reflect on conceptual practice grounded in the Dalit women sanitation workers and public space.

Rhetoric-Linguistic Analysis of Argumentation in Political Discourse

This paper delves into the fascinating world of argumentation in language, aiming to provide an in-depth analysis of argumentation strategies utilized in political speeches, to uncover the techniques employed by public figures to persuade, influence, and shape public opinion. This research examines the linguistic and rhetorical devices prominent in political discourse. By dissecting speeches from political contexts, the study reveals how politicians construct and present their arguments to advance their agendas. Through the exploration of persuasive language and emotional appeal, this paper offers insights into the art of rhetoric in the realm of politics. The findings highlight the intricate interplay between language, power, and public discourse, ultimately contributing to a nuanced understanding of the role argumentation plays in shaping political landscapes. The study aims at analyzing how the Toulmin model is used in conjunction with emotional appeal in political speeches, specifying the effect of the social relationships between the speaker and the audience on the way arguments are constructed and presented, and identifying the effects of the goals of the speech on the way arguments are constructed and presented. The data of the study includes YouTube videos of politicians` speeches. The study uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to identify and analyze the method of arguing that is used, the strategies used to persuade the audience, and the rhetoric used to influence their effectiveness. The findings of the study show that the effectiveness of this arguing act is influenced by a number of factors, including the credibility of the speaker, the strength of the argument, and the social relations and common ground between the participants. The study also finds that emotional appeal is used to sway public opinion and advance political agendas.

Pious people, patronage jobs, and the labor market: Turkey under Erdoğan’s AKP

AbstractIn fragmented societies, electoral competition often entails using public office to advance group interests. Using individual-level polling data from 2012 to 2018, we analyze whether age cohorts entering the labor market before and after the religiously conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) assumed power in Turkey experienced different public employment outcomes based on their religion and religiosity. Our analysis reveals that under the AKP rule, pious Sunnis (who constitute a large part of the society) significantly increased their presence in public sector employment (notably among women) and in high-status private jobs (notably among men). Furthermore, the subset of highly religious Sunnis (only 9.3% of the population) improved their likelihood of being employed in the public sector compared to other pious Sunnis and everyone else. Our findings are likely to be driven by the lifting of the headscarf ban in public employment and AKP’s strategic use of public employment and resources to reward like-minded groups in both the public and private spheres.

Documentary Objects, Textual Materials, and Performative Testimony in Memory Reconstruction – Mi vida después (2009) by Lola Arias

Mi vida después by Lola Arias premiered in 2009 in Buenos Aires, as a stage proposal about people who reconstruct their childhood experiences and the life stories of their parents, some of them disappeared because of the repressive State that organized and executed the most atrocious dictatorship in Argentine history between 1976-1983. In this paper, we inquire about the use of documentary materials on stage, the figure of the witness, and the value given to testimony. We postulate that this stage experience develops procedures that give shape to a dramaturgy of the living based on performative testimony that allows new approaches to the memories presented in the public sphere as proof of truth. The documents and testimonies emerge from the representational gap that opens up between the generation of the parents who suffered censorship and repression and the generation of the young performers who can give an account of their childhood memories. From their stories, one can see the lack, the absence, the emptiness, and the difficulties in speaking. These forms of expression function as dual discursive devices that express both subjective experience and the reflection of a political and social dimension.

When did ‘the true king of hardcore’ start to cry? Investigating Rocco Siffredi’s stardom

ABSTRACT With a career in the adult industry spanning 40 years, Rocco Siffredi is undoubtedly one of the most important male porn stars to date. Despite his undoubted importance, however, he has not been the subject of extensive research in the fields of porn studies and adult film history. This article is intended to be the first step in a long-term research project dedicated to the Italian porn star. Combining reflections on the cultural positioning of pornography with the theoretical framework and methodology of star and celebrity studies, we will first analyze the construction of Rocco Siffredi as a pornographic star; secondly, we will examine Siffredi’s image in the public sphere (specifically in the Italian context). In both cases, we will draw on a variety of sources – such as hardcore productions, trade journals, mainstream media, public appearances, general press, social media, and so on – selected for their theoretical and historical relevance.

Communicative Responsibility in an Age of Fragmented Connectivity

In the face of technological advances, questions of communicative ethics seem to become more important than ever. This paper first introduces the notion of fragmented connectivity to explain major structural aspects of how public discourse can be seen to unfold today. Then we summarize two distinct studies, focusing on (i) the political weaponization of free speech, and (ii) academic complicity in politically driven historiography. Both point at the need to re-emphasize attention to communicative responsibility.

Cow, union buster! Identitarianism and organizing in Bombay’s mills, 1850s-1990s

ABSTRACT This essay examines the role of cow protection in resisting labour struggles in Bombay’s cotton mills from the birth of industrialization in the 1850s to its eventual decline in the 1990s. Relying on public discourse in newspapers, government reports, and union documents, it shows that cows, sacred to Hindus, became a symbol of identity and a basis for elective affinity between mill owners, political/religious leaders, and a pro-capital city government. Mill owners funded cow protection societies, political/religious leaders supported cow protection and mediated directly with mill owners, and the state offered legitimacy, further resisting the negotiating power and innovations of labour unions to demand better living and working conditions. By implicating cow protection (identitarianism/communalism more broadly) in the political economy of industrial capitalism, this essay shifts attention from its primarily nationalist, majoritarian, and often agrarian discourse.

Redefining human–nature relations: decolonial perspectives on Inter-American Court environmental jurisprudence

ABSTRACT Debates surrounding environmental protection and its intersection with human rights have gained significant traction in the past decade, coinciding with the advancement of decolonial thought across political, academic and social spheres. These discussions and agendas have become intertwined as humanity faces unprecedented threats to essential global ecosystems while indigenous peoples and traditional black communities, often the primary stewards of the environment, seek emancipation from historical violence. This dynamic struggle between resilience and violence, along with the link between nature and human rights, is also evident within the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Drawing upon decolonial insights and employing a dialectical method, our analysis aims to scrutinize the Court’s jurisprudence to understand its approach concerning the connection between human and environmental rights.

Feminisms: The Tide to Come

This article tackles the political emergence of feminisms. It centres and reflects on the gestures and uprising of women against a hegemonic discursive order, an order of the text. The logic of the explicit or implicit agreement so that women’s voices are not heard is broken with the appearance of countertexts which mean the politicization of the public sphere. I propose the figure of the palimpsest as a reflection on the different layers of memory of the passions of the past in the present and of the present that is a past.

From ink to influence: analyzing the impact of media translations in late Qing China through media system dependency theory

ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of periodicals in late Qing China through Media System Dependency theory. It emphasizes the synergy between media and translation studies, exploring how this combination influenced public discourse and catalyzed social reforms. It also focuses on how periodicals – as exclusive access to foreign knowledge – created a dependency among readers. This exclusivity and dependency empowered these publications to shape the intellectual and cultural milieu through strategically embedded translations. After analyzing cognitive, affective, and behavioral effects, this study demonstrates how media messages, particularly translations, introduced progressive concepts and advocated for social reforms, ultimately driving social and cultural shifts. By applying Media System Dependency theory, this study underlines the role of media as an agent of social change, extending insights beyond the historical context of late Qing China to contemporary media dynamics. This interdisciplinary approach contributes to a deeper appreciation of how media and translations collectively function as catalysts for cultural exchange and social transformation.

“Change, continuity and crisis in the legal profession: the role of gender”

ABSTRACT This paper discusses a theoretical framework for understanding gender in the legal profession, and in legal professionalism, over the past thirty years. Although women's subordinated position in legal professions across the globe seems well understood, the project of assessing the extent and the dynamics is ongoing in many jurisdictions and intersects with issues of race, gender in intricate and complex ways. The theoretical framework in this paper that aims to account for the multi-dimensional, multi-level and processual nature of change in the gendered profession draws on three main sources: Glucksmann's accounts of changing formations of labour, which provides a framework for understanding the exogenous and endogenous forces working on the profession; Fraser's concept of recognition and its relation to participation in the public sphere, and Bourdieu's conceptual vocabulary of field, capital and habitus, which facilitates understanding of the transactional processes which frame women's choices and which work to determine their position within the profession and organizations. The relevance of the framework will be illustrated through reference to a series of studies of gender and the profession, conducted since 1990.

“Strike with visual bullets”: Digitalized deep play and floating emotional public sphere in the Bilibili bullet comments

The bullet comment refers to a real-time built-in comment system attached to online video services on the Chinese Internet. It provides a mechanism transforming online spectatorship into an “audiencing” experience. This study interviews 16 bullet comment users to explore the digital media practices in bullet comments. We argue that the “audiencing” subjects are involved as players in the imagined communities through emotional invitations, implicit cultural “contract,” and diverse textual hijacking strategies. It is a digitalized subject deep play with the stake of cultural interpretation mastery. Based on space discourse deep play, the bullet comment forms a floating emotional public sphere through the flexible technological infrastructure, sustained subject involvement mechanisms, adaptable playing strategies, and a strategic discourse evolution. Its openness helps youth generate a sense of place to express their subjectivities in response to social pressures and paternalistic rhetoric in an alternative manner. This study provides a new perspective on the Chinese youth culture and online public sphere research.

Navigating brain drain: understanding public discourse on legislation to retain medical professionals in Nigeria.

Nigeria is witnessing a mass emigration of its active labor force to more advanced economies, just like other developing countries. Approximately half of licensed medical doctors in Nigeria have emigrated, contributing to a widening doctors-to-patients ratio. In response to this concerning trend, in 2023, a legislator introduced a bill to restrain doctors from leaving Nigeria upon completing their studies by withholding their full license for five years. The public, including health professionals, criticized the bill. This study investigates the public discourse on the bill by extracting and analyzing responses published in newspaper articles, blogs, tweets, and LinkedIn posts. The analysis revealed that, while a few politicians supported the bill, the general populace opposed it due to perceived inconsistencies, a lack of focus on the core causes of migration, allegations of political elite's hypocrisy, concerns about human rights violations and unemployment. By conducting this research, this article sheds light on the complexities of public opinion surrounding the proposed legislation, providing valuable insights into the multifaceted challenges associated with addressing the medical brain drain in Nigeria. The article contributes to the ongoing debate on the migratory trends of highly skilled workers from developing countries to advanced economies.

Regional Alliance - Lublin Triangle: geopolitical priorities and dynamics of foreign policy transformation in the context of security challenges and threats

The article is devoted to the current problem of the effectiveness of the Lublin Triangle Alliance as a multilateral security cooperative format between Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania in the military-political, economic, cultural and social spheres. The strategies and directions of activity of the Lublin triangle are analyzed in the context of modern geopolitical and security challenges, including Russian expansion and aggression. The decisive role of the Alliance in the development of the European security system, the provision of military-technical, financial-economic, and humanitarian aid to Ukraine during the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war is substantiated. The role of the Lublin triangle in maintaining the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Ukrainian state has been studied; the de-occupation of the territories captured by Russia, as well as the realization of Ukraine's European and Euro-Atlantic integration aspirations, including membership in the EU and NATO. The article analyzes the dynamics of transformations of partnership strategies and interactions of Poland-Lithuania-Ukraine in the context of security threats from Russia during the full-scale war. The priority areas of cooperation for 2022-2024 have been outlined and characterized. The effectiveness of cooperation between the states of the Lublin Triangle in the field of security and defense is substantiated; cybersecurity; energy security; strategic communications, comma and countering hybrid threats. It was emphasized that in the conditions of modern geopolitical challenges and threats, security strategies in the activity and foreign policy of the «Lublin Triangle» are a priority.

Shaming, Condemning, and Calling for Consequences: Contemporary Anti-dialogic Responses to Harmful Speakers in Public Discourse

ABSTRACT Many now criticise the purported tendency to condemn, shame, or call for consequences for those we disagree with in public debate, suggesting these actions are the antithesis of democratic participation. In this paper, I situate these frequently critiqued forms of anti-dialogic expression within an emerging tradition that recognises the democratic value of these kinds of expression, and elucidate the democratic credentials of speech acts more commonly derided as a contemporary cancel culture. I argue that these kinds of anti-dialogic counterspeech are a route to empowerment for otherwise silenced voices in the public sphere, and a necessary disruption to patterns of domination and subordination that enable harmful speech to proliferate in the public sphere. Acts of public shaming, condemnation, and calls for consequences that both eschew and seek to frustrate public debate can bolster inclusivity in the public sphere and undermine the unjust patterns of exclusion to which democratic deliberation ordinarily adheres.

”Vi behöver fler akutskolor i Sverige för de elever som inte kan uppföra sig som folk”

The aim of the article is to explore constructions of the disciplinary measure emergency school, understood as an institutionalization of the policy for and the public discourse about “forceful measures for safety and discipline” in schools. Theoretical approach is critical policy analysis. The empirical material consists of, in this context, relevant policy documents, Swedish media discourses and international research. Emergency schools have made a rapid journey through the Swedish school-institutional landscape. From loosely defined local inventions, with a plenty of labels to being constructed as a matter of national urgency. The public discourse has rapidly evolved from stressing that the goal of emergency schools is to offer support to students at-risk (discourse of equity) in a secluded environment to becoming a site where rowdy, violent and criminal students at least temporary can be evacuated (discourse of safety). The question of knowledge is completely absent from public discourse and from the policy foundations. One of the risks with emergency school, apart from anticipated stigmatization and negative impact on learning progress, is that its sheer existence can negatively affect the primary responsibility of ordinary schools for safety, positive school climate and equity of all students. The pressing issue to be raised is not just what emergency schools do with their students, but also what they do with the ordinary schools’ overall responsibility for safety and positive school climate.

Electric vehicle adoption in Vietnam: usefulness and pro-environmentalism in an emerging market

ABSTRACT Future sustainable mobilities are emerging in public discourses in Vietnam, Southeast Asia’s third most populous country and one of the first three late developing countries to commit to net zero carbon by 2050. In response to the global push towards low-emission transport, Vietnam has flipped from being a significant fossil fuel producer to having a strategic plan for becoming a net zero carbon partner. This policy shift includes a top-down commitment to developing the electric vehicle (EV) market in Vietnam. This article maps academic literature and public discourses in the online news media about EV development and consumer attitudes to EV adoption in Vietnam’s domestic market. We find that, despite policy settings to achieve net carbon zero, economic drivers outweigh environmental concerns in the emerging EV market. Drawing on Baudrillard’s consumer society, we find that the use value of EVs is more important at the current time than the sign value associated with prestige, lifestyle and pro-environmental behaviours. The article concludes with recommendations for future research to unpack social and policy issues in the emerging EV market in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.