Crisis Of Representation Research Articles

Aardvarkian gothic

ABSTRACTGothic motifs figure strongly in several storylines in Dave Sim’s Cerebus series, albeit initially for predominantly parodic purposes. One of Sim’s earliest multi-issue arcs, comprising issues 23–25, involves not merely parody of specific mainstream comic elements but also of gothic tropes. Sim’s genre-bending is one of the strengths of Cerebus, and this arc demonstrates Sim’s skill in weaving gothic elements into the book, for parodic purposes but also to serve Sim’s gestational thematic interests. Sim exploits several characteristic elements of the gothic to trouble questions of gender and representation. He reverses the standard trope of the vulnerable woman in a mysterious space, threatened explicitly with violence and implicitly with sex, by making the male Cerebus the vulnerable figure, surrounded by sexually tempting adolescent girls. The story further complicates questions of gender in its invocation of drag, climaxing its interrogation with an innovative take on the doppelgänger motif by introducing Woman Thing and Sump Thing as parodic monstrous others whose violent/sexual encounter literalises Sim’s sexual politics, not to mention the crisis of representation sometimes seen as a key element of gothic. In doing so, he lays the groundwork for much of what will follow in Cerebus.

Challenging business as usual? The rise of new parties in Spain in times of crisis

The two-party system in Spain collapsed in the aftermath of the Great Recession with the appearance of two new parties, Podemos and Ciudadanos. How are we to understand the sudden emergence of these new formations? Using 2015 and 2016 post-electoral survey data to map the ideological space and model voting behaviour, it is shown that economic voting is only part of the story. This article contends that the transformations in the Spanish party system are best understood through the prism of the crisis of representation that unfolded alongside the severe economic crisis. It is dissatisfaction with the political system that drives the vote for both new parties. The results also show that a unidimensional ideological structure and a generational divide cut across these critical attitudes. The young and politically dissatisfied are more likely to vote for new parties, each on different sides of the ideological spectrum.

Resistant identities: culture and politics among Kuwaiti youth

ABSTRACTThe present paper investigates the role of youth in contemporary Kuwait, and how their diverse resistance strategies contest and challenge dominant cultural and political paradigms, affecting identity construction and social patterns. It examines the distance between the government and youth, and a growing crisis of representation through the analysis of three main areas of resistant practices enacted by youth, seemingly interdependent and possibly overlapping: political mobilisation, political radicalisation and civic engagement. Political mobilisation concerns the protests staged in Kuwait mainly in 2012; political radicalisation examines political violence and terrorist episodes, while civic engagement investigates examples from an invigorated civil society. The article investigates and addresses youth practices employing classic and alternative social movements literature developed in Latin America and the Middle East, together with original ethnographic data.

Percepciones sobre la autonomía universitaria de los docentes-investigadores de la Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica de la Universidad de Buenos Aires

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la vigencia del concepto de autonomía universitaria en la Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA), ante la apertura de vínculos de investigación con empresas de capital. Para ello, se distinguen tres dimensiones de dicha autonomía (corporativa, de la razón y financiera). Se sugiere que es la autonomía financiera la actualmente jerarquizada y que su búsqueda ha orientado a la UBA a la producción para el mercado, direccionando sus investigaciones según demandas privadas que ponen en riesgo a la autonomía de la razón. Asimismo, se sostiene que la crisis de representación de sus órganos de gobierno ha transformado la autonomía corporativa en escudo de necesidades de grupos reducidos. A partir de entrevistas en profundidad a un grupo de docentes-investigadores de una de sus llamadas facultades de investigación, la Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica, estudiamos luego cómo son entendidas esas dimensiones de la autonomía universitaria, indagando si tales riesgos aparecen en sus percepciones.

The New Zealand Project


 Review of Max Harris, The New Zealand Project. Is a ‘values-based politics’ the answer to the current crisis of legitimacy and representation?

Ideational Populism in Chile? A Case Study

AbstractThis paper conducts an experimental test of the theory of ideational populism in a most‐likely case: a well‐known Chilean populist presidential candidate, Roxana Miranda. At the time of our study, Chile had the necessary conditions for ideational populism: corruption scandals and a crisis of political representation that lowered citizens’ trust in establishment elites. The stimulus was a speech that included the core elements of ideational populist discourse. Despite the careful experimental design and a ripe political atmosphere, we found no effects of populist discourse on voting intentions or evaluations of Miranda among the research participants. We discuss the possible reasons for these null findings. Rather than disqualifying the theory of ideational populism, we conclude that our research calls theorists to incorporate other elements – ideology, gender, issue positions, strategic voting – into their models of ideational populism.

Ein Ende mit Schrecken – Frankreich nach den Wahlen

The presidential and parliamentary elections were a political earthquake for the French political system. While the two big parties experienced massive losses of political support, the rise of new political formations took place. Emmanuel Macron is not only the youngest president of the V. Republic so far, he is also the first president not to be supported by either one of the two biggest parties. This article argues that the election results are an expression of a deep crisis of representation in France that is rooted in the economic transformations of the 1970s. The article analyses the political situation after the elections and tries to give an outlook on further political developments in France.

Heritage Studies and Islam: A Crisis of Representation

It is perhaps not surprising that discussions on the topic of destruction gain the most traction in the work of heritage in public and academic discourses alike, since this is an instrumental part of the epistemology that constructs heritage as a subject of study—what is heritage if not a subject “at risk”? Concordantly, discussions of heritage destruction are a dominant theme in contemporary conversations and concerns for the fate and management of cultural heritage in the Middle East overall (i.e. Exell and Rico 2013), a tendency that is associated with the persistence and visibility of conflict in the region during a time when heritage concerns are significantly shaped by various global “observers.” What is problematic, however, is first the way that the inherently negative mantle of destruction dominateseveryconversation about the heritage of the Middle East, and how easily academic debates have incorporated institutional and public discourses about destruction, empowering a monolithic debate that would benefit from a more critical—and ethical—analysis. Secondly, what is also alarming is the degree to which destruction is often associated with specific perpetrators in this region, notably, a caricaturized Islam whose main feature is a dislike for preservation that articulates through scandalous acts of iconoclasm across the broad Middle East region (witnessed through highly circulated vignettes of destruction in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Mali, and other countries and regions). Yet, the representation of an Islam that is at odds with global heritage constructs has been extensively challenged academically, considering the varied and changing attitudes to non-Muslim forms of representation through time (Elias 2012), individual variations (Flood 2002), and their relationship to changes in political regimes (Elias 2007; Flood 2002), in such a way that a consistent or universal attitude to this type of representation cannot be supported. But, as I argue in this essay, the specter of the iconoclast unfortunately remains firmly established in popular discourse—and surprisingly, in some disciplinary discourses. But what happens outside of the realm of destruction in the heritage of the Middle East? Further, how can heritage studies support the integration of Islam in the heritage debates for the region in a way that circumvents the current misrepresentation?

A presença infantil e o lugar do espectador em práticas cênicas com crianças: os alcances da crise da representação nas infâncias cubanas

Os estudos sobre a presença infantil na cena e o lugar do espectadorcriança no contexto cubano vêm encarando grandes desafios a partirdos impactos da chamada crise da representação. Esse é um fenômeno que manifesta a tensão presente no modelo de representação da Primeira Modernidade que instaurou as equivalências entre o representante e o representado, trazendo para as culturas infantis uma alteraçãoradical do simbólico, situando as crianças cubanas num entrelugar. Nessesentido, o artigo expõe os fenômenos que em Cuba vêm incidindo naconfiguração da presença infantil e do lugar do espectador em práticascênicas infantis, a partir do jogo, da performatividade e da teatralidade,bem como aborda as razões do poder da representação no teatro entre as crianças e os adultos.

The Rousseff impeachment and the crisis of democracy in Brazil

ABSTRACTThis is an article about the impeachment in Brazil. I argue that it was the result of the political crisis that takes place in the country since 2013. T his political crisis has at least two major components: (1) the first one is the collapse of the coalition presidential system associated with the ascension of a conservative group within the National Congress led by Eduardo Cunha ; (2) the second is a crisis of representation expressed by the increase of illegal campaign financing and the influence of money in Congress. Together, the opposition and the conservative block of the PMDB blocked every move of Dilma Rousseff’s administration and proposed moral and economic conservative legislations. After impeaching the president, this group is proposing legislations that pose under threat the democratic system built in the country after 1988.

“We, the People!” Community, Populism and the Crisis of Political Representation

“We, the People!” Community, Populism and the Crisis of Political Representation

Interpreting Machiavelli's Tribunes of the Plebs

Abstract In the last thirty years, the “aristocratic” current of the republican tradition of thought has seen a revival largely based on a reinterpretation of Niccolò Machiavelli's contribution. Quite recently, this reinterpretation was challenged by emphasizing the fundamentaly “anti-aristocratic” and radically “democratic” nature of Machiavelli's thinking. After John McCormick's Machiavellian Democracy (2011), Lawrence Hamilton's Freedom Is Power (2014) is the latest attempt to engage critically with both interpretive currents and to offer institutional solutions for the ongoing crisis of representation in liberal democracies, most notably by proposing to update the ancient institution of the tribunes of the plebs. In this article I discuss McCormick and Hamilton's interpretation of Machiavelli's tribunician function, and bring into the debate an examination of Florentine institutions and of Machiavelli's constitutional draft of 1522 (not yet published in English).

Presidencialismo y Revocatoria de mandato presidencial en América Latina

La revocatoria de mandato es un mecanismo de participación y control ciudadano enmarcado principalmente en la tercera ola de la democratización y las reformas políticas y constitucionales de los ´90 en Latinoamérica. Forma parte de las innovaciones incorporadas por los gobernantes como respuesta a la crisis de representación. Su adopción abre interrogantes más profundos sobre: la metamorfosis de la representación moderna (un cierto acercamiento al “mandato imperativo”), las transformaciones del régimen presidencial (flexibilización, cuasi-parlamentarización), las nuevas formas de caídas presidenciales y de resolución de crisis, y la democratización del gobierno (al habilitarse otra instancia de votación orientada a la destitución de funcionarios electos). En tal sentido, el trabajo tiene dos objetivos: analizar conceptualmente la revocatoria de mandato y, específicamente, la revocatoria presidencial (existente sólo en Venezuela, Bolivia y Ecuador); y vincular a este mecanismo con el debate sobre el presidencialismo latinoamericano (pues se considera que produce modificaciones potenciales en el sistema presidencial), con la teoría de los tipos de sucesión constitucional y con la teoría de las interrupciones presidenciales (ya que la revocatoria constituye otro de los dispositivos de destitución disponibles en casos de crisis institucionales). Se trata, por tanto, de un estudio teórico que pretende conceptualizar un tipo determinado de revocatoria de mandato y enlazarlo con otros desarrollos teóricos de los cuales ha estado ausente. Ésas y otras implicancias, teóricas y de ingeniería institucional, motivan este artículo, para dilucidar las potencialidades y los efectos directos e indirectos que la incorporación de este mecanismo plantea para las democracias presidenciales latinoamericanas.

Complicit Positioning: Anthropological Knowledge and Problems of ‘Studying Up’ for Ethnographer-Employees of Corporations

Contemporary work by ‘corporate ethnographers’, as employees of businesses, offers a refreshing perspective on Anthropology’s ‘crisis of representation’ and its extensions—from neo-colonial concerns and reflexivity, to para-ethnographic and recursive approaches—that are increasingly characterized by complicit relations between ethnographers and their informants/‘collaborators’. This article focusses on the history and politics of ethnographers’ positionality in field research and the analytic products of, and audiences for, their work. It contrasts the often confounded labor of ‘anthropologists of business’ with that of ‘corporate ethnographers’, who work for businesses, while highlighting that, for both, the ‘studying up’ (Nader 1974 [1969]) methodology required for research at business sites disrupts assumptions surrounding the politics of traditional ethnographic fieldwork. Tracing shifts in core interests across general Anthropology, it is argued that close attention to new sitings and circumstances of fieldwork—including studying up in businesses—could productively drive reconsiderations of methodology, ethics and, therefore, epistemology in Anthropology.In this context, corporate ethnographers, who are often formally trained in Anthropology, are specifically encouraged to analytically engage with the problematics of their perhaps-awkward complicities with their employers. It is suggested that, alongside the work of anthropologists of business, corporate ethnographers—should they choose to do so—are well-positioned to assist in exposing the black box of the culture(s) of secrecy through which the work of corporations intimately penetrates modern life.

“Ziffern im Schein der Wunderlampe”: Neo-Liberal and Neo-Colonial Fictions in Dieter Kühn’s Und der Sultan von Oman

This article examines economic and narrative crises through the lens of Dieter Kühn’s 1979 novel Und der Sultan von Oman. It argues that the oil crisis of 1973 set in motion an exploration of neo-liberal capitalism together with its inherent neo-colonial traits. More specifically, this essay contends that this moment of economic, epistemological, and representational crisis discloses both the fictionalization and mediatization of economics and post-colonial depictions of Other worlds in the West German novel. In this way, literature not only becomes complicit in the narrative structures of the neo-liberal economy but is also capable of making economic crises representable and understandable because of this very culpability.

Coping with the dual crises of legitimation and representation in research

The dual crises of representation and legitimation pose significant dilemmas for researchers, as they cast doubt over the value of the research process. However, critical examination of these crises can encourage researchers to reflect on questions of philosophical and pragmatic importance, such as: What does truth mean? and What makes for good research? The crises are therefore worthy of investigation. In this paper I introduce and critically examine the dual crises by asking: If these crises are 'real', how, as interpretive researchers should we cope with them?

Framing and Exposing Community Issues through Video Participatory Research

Video participatory research (VPR) is an emergent methodology that bridges visual methods with the epistemology of participatory research. This approach is motivated by the “crisis of representation” or “reflective turn” (Gubrium & Harper, 2013) that promotes research conducted with or by participants, conceptualizing research as praxis (Lather, 1991). In this manuscript, the authors argue that VPR can be used to explore issues directly impacting individuals involved with adult education and vocational training. Primary investigators work with community co-researchers to document issues in the community, analyze this audio-visual material, and produce and distribute video projects, exposing policy makers and key stakeholders to a community's concerns. When implementing the VPR process research teams account for intentionality of form and content, apply a multi-perspective analysis to the complex layers of data produced by video, and plan for distribution of work on the personal and local level as well as in the public sphere (i.e., at the micro and macro level).

Ways of Machine Seeing

Algorithms do not act alone or with magical (totalising) power but exist as part of larger infrastructures and ideologies. Some well-publicised recent cases have come to public attention that exemplify a contemporary politics (and crisis) of representation in this way. The problem is one of learning in its widest sense, and “machine learning” techniques are employed on data to produce forms of knowledge that are inextricably bound to hegemonic systems of power and prejudice.

Introduction to the Dossier: Shifting Frontiers of Citizenship in Latin America

In recent years, Latin American countries have been at the global forefront of remarkable confrontations, debates, and shifts in the understanding of citizenship. The region has undergone profound transformations in the conceptualization of citizenship and of migration and residency. The frontiers of citizenship have ebbed and flowed with crises of political representation and mounting protest; of multiculturalism and demands of recognition; of labor migration and transnationalism; of struggles around gender, ethnic, and racial issues; and new international articulations and public insecurity. This dossier addresses some of these shifting frontiers of citizenship.

Beyond the Ethnographic Turn: Refiguring the Archive in Selected Works by Zanele Muholi

ABSTRACTTwenty-one years after Hal Foster identified what he terms the “ethnographic turn in contemporary art”, it may be argued that art which has similarities with ethnography in its focus on representation of cultural difference and issues of sociopolitical change has become accepted practice in the global art arena. Looking at artists who work within the framework of institutional critique, and considering their practice exclusively within museum spaces, Foster's notion of the “artist-as-ethnographer” centres on representation of the Other and the practice of Othering. According to Foster, the artist-as-ethnographer grapples with the image, the imaginary, and the representation of the cultural and ethnic Other in relation to the white, European “Self”. Combining the crisis of representation—the ethics of representing, speaking for, of, to, and with the other—with analysis of institutionally critical artistic practices, Foster questions whether artists can deploy ethnographic methods such as representing cultures and cultural practices other than their own. In this article, Foster's critique of the ethnographic turn in contemporary art is presented by briefly assessing its relevance to discourses on relations between art and ethnography from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. It is then shown how contemporary artists whose practices are located in the intersecting modes of art and ethnography, or what can be termed “ethnographic-aesthetics”, work in ways that trouble the Self/Other binary upon which the colonial photographic archive is premised. Specifically, it is examined how, in selected works, South African-based artist Zanele Muholi critically engages with and “refigures” the ethnographic archive in ways that disrupt the well-worn tropes of self and other. Working from the position of “insider” within her own community, Muholi simultaneously replays and resists the ethnographic archive's pictorial tropes, disrupting the authority of the objectified colonial gaze by affirming the agency of those imaged and their positionalities as empowered individuals.