Subversive Behavior Research Articles

Who travels where: Behavior of pedestrians and micromobility users on transportation infrastructure

Cities are investing in active transportation networks, yet little is known about travel behavior of different non-vehicle modes in the presence of multiple types of transportation infrastructure. At two sites in Austin, Texas, USA, with a cycle track, sidewalk, and street in parallel, we determined where different modes traveled and the likelihood of crossing from one infrastructure to another and of using “recommended” infrastructure—defined as sidewalk for walkers, dog walkers, and runners and bike lane with traffic for cyclists, e-scooter riders, and other wheeled micromobility users. We created the Mobility Behavior Tool to conduct observations of travelers on 50-m-long, straight segments of the parallel infrastructure at sites for one-hour sampling periods (n = 16 periods) in April–May 2021. In our sample (n = 2245 individuals), we observed that 20% of travelers crossed into other infrastructure and 35.8% used not recommended infrastructure. Using binomial logistic regression, we found statistically significant odds ratios for dog walkers (3.17), cyclists (0.56), e-scooter riders (1.85), and other micromobility users (3.06) crossing into other infrastructure compared to walkers (p < 0.001), and no significant differences between runners (0.50) and walkers (p > 0.05). A second model predicted statistically significant odds ratios for dog walkers (1.74), runners (3.88), e-scooter riders (1.38), and other micromobility users (2.74) using not recommended infrastructure compared to walkers (p < 0.001), and no significant differences between cyclists (0.86) and walkers (p > 0.05). Potential reasons for differences in travel behavior by mode include levels of understanding of local regulations and situational awareness, infrastructure preferences, frequency of passing, and propensity for weaving, swerving, and subversive behavior. Municipalities should consider how infrastructure design influences travel behavior and the travel efficiency, comfort, and safety of all modes.

Violence and violation: A Palestinian reading of rape and revenge in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus

ABSTRACT This paper employs the methodologies of feminism, new historicism and presentism to argue that Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus is a conflict between patriarchal and matriarchal voices. From a feminist standpoint, the verbal and physical violence the play enacts emanates from male figures’ deafness to the female voice. Shakespeare dismantles the virgin-whore dichotomy in the figures of Lavinia and Tamora, who mimic patriarchal prescriptions on female speech and silence and, in the latter case, the patriarchal speech of authority. Reading Titus alongside its historical context, I argue that this tragedy endorses the conventional association of woman’s speech with wantonness possibly in connection with cultural anxieties about Elizabeth’s public, often spectacular role. Titus Andronicus prefigures the new historicist ideology of containing opposing voices. The dominant male powers deliberately foster the subversive behaviour of others (Tamora, Lavinia, and Aaron) in order to crush them publicly and so assert their dominance. In addition to these methodologies, I deploy the critical thread of presentism to reveal trans-cultural and trans-historical continuities between the fictional world of Titus Andronicus and contemporary Palestine. For Palestinian scholars of English, this tragedy speaks of the gendering of nationalism as female in Palestinian national narratives, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, honour killing, and the construction of nation as narration.

Imperial Political Economy and Its Discontents in Colonial New York City, 1664-1763

Based on the apparent incongruity between the ideology of liberty within the British Empire and the extensive trade regulations that governed its economic life, this article explores efforts to circumvent the Navigation Acts undertaken in New York or by its citizens between the English conquest and the end of the Seven Years War. It argues that a remarkably wide range of evasive measures were employed, forcing us to re-examine both what it meant to be “loyal” and the functioning of imperial political economy, one influential model of which even provided intellectual justification for extremely subversive behavior. The article demonstrates that licit activities aimed against the Navigation Acts could be highly damaging, while their illicit counterparts might support the spirit, if not the letter, of British imperial policy.

‘I got rejected’: investigating the status of ‘low-attaining’ children in primary-schooling

ABSTRACT By portraying the views and perspectives of children labelled as ‘low-attaining’, this text makes a significant contribution to the debate on within-class attainment grouping in primary schools. Extensive, active individual interviews plus observations over three terms facilitated rich insights into whether, and if so, how 23 ‘low-attaining’ primary-school children assimilated cultural values designating them as having the subordinate status to other children. We consider the implications of our findings for social justice, employing an innovative analytic framework based on Nancy Fraser’s conceptualisation of justice as ‘parity-of-participation’. Our research illustrates that these children had absorbed values about ‘success’ that posed considerable obstacles to them and led to feelings of isolation, and a lack of social participation. In particular, the children found some aspects of attainment grouping obstructive to social interaction. Reactions to these discomforts sometimes led them towards subtly subversive behaviour or alternatively to flat-out denials of difficulty.

The Lumps and Bumps of Aesthetic Labor: Rethinking Fat Talk in Plus-Size Retail

ABSTRACTFat scholar’s studying the lives of fat individuals are often perceived as biased further excluding fat people’s experiences from the production of knowledge. However, it is our social standpoint and social location as fat researchers that make it possible for us to offer a more critical perspective regarding presupposed “facts,” giving voice to a marginalized population. In this paper, I use autoethnography and standpoint theory to reflect on my own social location and experiences as a young, fat woman finding my voice in fat activism while working in the plus-size retail store, Equally Plus. I, like many of my fat coworkers, was disappointed in the extensive diet talk and fat talk used by customers and fellow coworkers at Equally Plus. We found ourselves taking on emotion work to manage our own nagging commitments to fat talk, in addition to aesthetic and emotional labor. To combat internalized fat phobia, I show how emotional and aesthetic labor can be used as an act of resistance by “flipping the script” on fat talk by acknowledging and accepting fat in a way that challenges diet talk and fat-shaming in a more concrete and personally meaningful way. My insider and outsider positionality and social location enabled me to place fat individuals at the center of my activism by engaging in subversive behavior that raised awareness, yet still benefited the corporation.

Fair Use As Resistance

Making fair use of copyrighted material can, itself, be a form of resistance, upending traditional hierarchies and disrupting the creator/consumer dichotomy that copyright law otherwise presumes. Using the theoretical framework of Mikhail Bakhtin, one may frame the doctrine of fair use as enabling the “carnivalesque,” in which free expression facilitates interaction among disparate groups, eccentric behavior is permitted, participants are considered equal in a way that defies socioeconomic and political expectations, and transgressive or subversive behavior can occur without punishment. Fair use is a right, permitting all to resist the dominance of exclusive rights-holders, and marginalized groups often employ fair use practices to “talk back” to dominant culture and to establish communities of belonging that strengthen their identities and senses of self. However, framing fair use practices as carnivalesque also reveals underlying hierarchies implicit in copyright law. Indeed, discourse surrounding fair use often relies on hierarchical notions of authenticity and power, and fair use jurisprudence often reflects hierarchical assumptions regarding the corporate/personal divide and regarding race, class, and gender. This Article explores the theoretical and discursive implications of framing fair use as a mechanism for resistance.

Testing Transitions: Extremist Prisoners Re-Entering Indonesian Society

Readjusting to society after a prolonged period of detention is fraught with emotional and practical challenges. When recently released prisoners convicted of terrorism offenses focus on rebuilding their lives, supporting their families, and engaging with community members they may be less likely to resume the subversive behavior that put them behind bars. With this in mind, the Indonesian government attempts to facilitate the reintegration of former extremist inmates, primarily through entrepreneurial development initiatives. The government’s general approach holds promise but suffers from insufficient planning and human resource constraints. Greater involvement from local authorities and civil society would provide opportunities for more consistent engagement and a stronger chance of successful reintegration outcomes.

The spark, the spread and ethics: Towards an object-orientated view of subversive creativity

This paper articulates the subversive and political potential of an object-orientated view of urban creativity. Drawing upon object-orientated philosophies, it further develops the political and subversive potential of the creativity rhetoric to argue that nonhuman material agency is an important factor in propelling subversive behaviour into sustained political change. By focusing on the agency of objects and their ability to challenge our own behaviour in the city, the paper posits a three-stage articulation of subversive creativity; the spark, the spread and ethics. From this, the paper argues that creativity can be posited less as a mechanism of change that is all too often co-opted and reappropriated by normalising forces, but as a subversive force that has a potential to create alternative and sustained political subjectivities.

Subverting organizational IS policy with feral systems: a case in China

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how selected employees in China deliberately subvert organizational information systems (IS) policy by developing feral working practices in order to gain access to the applications that they believe essential to work.Design/methodology/approachInterpretive case study.FindingsEmployees cannot accept the limited IT policy/environment imposed by corporate management and develop their own workarounds that subvert the organizational IT policy so as to ensure that they can get work done.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors draw on elements of punctuated equilibrium theory to conceptualize the findings into four theoretical propositions. The authors encourage researchers to probe these organizational practices and solutions in depth.Practical implicationsOrganizations cannot expect their digital native employees to leave their social media culture at home when they come to work. Social media penetrates all aspects of their lives and in all locations. Therefore, organizations must find a way to permit its use at work.Originality/valueSubversion is a topic rarely studied in IS research, or in business/management more generally. The focus on the subversive behavior of organizational employees is original and important. The authors suggest that subversive behavior may be more common than the limited literature suggests.

Vanity Fair, Whitman, and the counter jumper

The comic journal Vanity Fair (1859–63) derived much of its early success from the work of a small but talented group of artists and writers with active ties to New York’s Bohemian community. One of the journal’s earliest and most sustained targets was the much maligned figure of the counter jumper, a male sales clerk in a dry goods establishment and a new urban type. In the first six months of its existence, Vanity Fair produced nearly two dozen essays, poems, drawings, and cartoons satirizing the social, sexual, and economic vulnerabilities of the counter jumper. Within the complex web of associations that clustered around the stereotype of the counter jumper, Vanity Fair took particular aim at issues of identity, effeminacy, and social injustice. The journal’s verbal and visual thrusts knowingly targeted a figure whose marginalized position mirrored, in a surprising number of ways, the marginalized existence and often subversive behavior of members of their own Bohemian community. Through an artful combination of humor, condescension, and self-mockery, Vanity Fair marshaled a vigorous and wide-ranging campaign that ensnared in its web the writer Fitz-James O’Brien, author of several of the satires, and Walt Whitman, a comrade in arms within the city’s Bohemian community.

The Dialectics of Speech and Silence in Shakespeare’s King Lear

This article deploys the critical lines of new historicism, feminism and performance studies to argue that Shakespeare’s King Lear is a critique of King James I’s absolute authority and the destructive ideology of gender difference via the binary opposites of speech and silence. A new historicist reading would argue that the dominant male powers in King Lear eliberately foster the subversive behaviour of others (Cordelia, Regan, Goneril, Edmund) in order to crush it publicly and so assert their dominance. However, in this paper, I argue that King Lear is a trial of language, ending with the renunciation of patriarchal speech and the subordination of male figures to Cordelia’s silence. Following materialist feminist criticism, I argue that Regan and Goneril are reproducers of the masculine ideology of power, property and linguistic domination. While Shakespeare criticises male figures’ absolute voices that are ventriloquised by Regan, Goneril and Edmund, he represents silence as a subjective space of truth and honesty and a site of rebellion against unjust speech as illuminated in the figure of Cordelia whose silence undermines Lear’s game of words.

‘This Way of Treating Friendly Aliens Seems Strange to Me’: Australian Security Services, Allied Governments-in-Exile, and the Surveillance and Internment of ‘Friendly Aliens’ from Occupied Europe, 1939–45

This article explores the surveillance and internment in Australia of ‘friendly aliens’ from occupied Europe during the Second World War. Employing official correspondence of the period housed principally in the National Archives of Australia, it focuses upon the relationship between various Australian security services and consular representatives of Allied governments-in-exile, exploring how this relationship impacted upon ‘friendly aliens’ suspected of subversive, anti-British, or pro-Nazi behaviour. It is argued that while Australian security policy in this area was influenced by domestic factors such as xenophobic conceptions of the country as an exclusively British nation, there is also evidence that such concerns were manipulated by Allied consuls. In key cases, these consuls were willing to use internment and control of their own nationals as an instrument of discipline, or in pursuit of grander political objectives such as demonstrating the military worth and strategic utility of their émigré forces to the British Empire.

'Lock up your valuables': Perceptions of sailors and sea-merchants in port cities of late antiquity and early Byzantium

The ongoing presence of sailors and sea-merchants in the major port cities of the late antique and early Byzantine periods made them an important and influential subculture. This paper looks at the range of perceptions of the maritime community that exist in late Roman and early Byzantine sources. Various secular and ecclesiastical attitudes are discussed and compared with relevant sections of the civil and maritime law codes. When sailors, sea-merchants, and other mariners are mentioned by their contemporaries, they are more often than not portrayed in an unfavourable light. The legislation suggests that the negative perception of these men does have some basis in reality, yet the traditional view of these men as unsavoury and dishonest characters needs to be questioned. This paper asks why the ancient sources perceived sailors and sea-merchants in the way that they did. It discusses the social stigma attached to these men, the potential moral threat that they posed, their superstitious nature, and their socially disruptive and subversive behaviour. This paper highlights the reasons why modern scholars have tended to overlook the presence of the maritime community and their sociological importance in major port cities of this period. It argues that the maritime crowd had an integral role in the shaping of the economy, society, and even the church during this period.

PATRIARCHY AND JUSTICE FOR WOMEN IN AFRICA - RUTH, TAMAR

The story of Tamar and Judah in Gen 38 is a well-told drama that is a rich source of . ancient near-eastern cultural practices. Many related ideas are found in the story of Naomi, Ruth and Boaz as told in the book of Ruth. These two stories are subversive of the Bible's patriarchal system as it defines the social position of widows without children. The status of widows is highlighted as a status defined for them by their culture, and which may be challenged. The result of the widows' subversive behaviour is. of course, offspring. Moreover, these male (1) children find themselves in the ancestral list of David and eventually of Jesus in Matthew 1. Notable too is that Matthew mentions both Ruth and Tamar by name on a list normally reservedfor males, so their subversion has a long-term effect. Much of the cultural material in the two Bible stories are very similar to traditional African culture and the status of women in these cultures. This makes the stories an excellent teaching resource in an African context. In this article I will summarise the response I have had from male and female African students who have interacted with these stories. Initially, therefore, I will not be giving my own viewpoint, but the views of African readers and writers. From this information I want to make a few comments about where we are as regards patriarchy and feminism. Also I wish to stimulate some discussion about feminism and the Bible within the African context. Some welcome feminism as a liberating perspective. but others perceive it as another ideological notion imposed on African church and culture by non-African interpreters of the Bible.

Landscapes of Desire: Parks, Colonialism, and Identity in Victorian and Edwardian Ireland

Ireland’s Victorian and Edwardian public parks were landscapes in which normative models of class, gender, and colonial identities were constructed. This paper will explore how the materiality of these landscapes—their drinking fountains, railings, bandstands, and benches—facilitated forms of social practice that underpinned an ideology of improvement, creating regulated spaces of display and consumption in which the natural world and the urban populace could be objectified, domesticated and their moral worth evaluated. Yet, parks have always been sites of transgression so that from their earliest years, vandalism and other forms of subversive behavior created alternative narratives of identity.

Os confrontos de Quaderna

This paper deals with the issue of the confrontation experienced by the character Quaderna in the novel Romance da Pedra do Reino by Ariano Suassuna. Quaderna introduced himself as the rightful heir of the throne once destroyed. He avoids physical fights by arming himself with astuteness. He shall be required, however, to face the consequences of his subversive behavior. In such an environment, he is faced with other characters, who confront him, forcing him to see the truth about the pursued goal. We highlight the confrontation with the character Pedro Beato, who attempts to persuade him to follow the path of forgiveness. The most violent encounter is the one with O Corregedor (the magistrate), who represents the cruel law that attempts to condemn Quaderna as a criminal. Artful and eloquent, Quaderna tries to get away through words and laughter

Significados das hierarquias no trabalho em hospitais públicos brasileiros a partir de estudos empíricos

OBJETIVO: Compreender como as estruturas hierárquicas presentes na cultura organizacional de hospitais públicos brasileiros significam no trabalho hospitalar. MÉTODOS: O corpus da pesquisa originou-se em quatro teses e seis dissertações e foi organizado, analisado e interpretado sob a perspectiva da antropologia simbólica-interpretativa. RESULTADOS: Hospitais estão calcados na burocracia profissional e mecanicista, e as hierarquias, decorrentes dessas estruturas, produzem significados que interpretados indicam fragmentação das relações, disputas profissionais e distanciamentos, bem como conflitos e comportamentos subversivos no trabalho, respectivamente. CONCLUSÃO: As hierarquias em cada uma das burocracias encaminham diferentes enfrentamentos que desestabilizam os trabalhadores e seus processos de trabalho. Estratégias de reorientação e conscientização dos limites hierárquicos devem ser equacionadas, para que o trabalho seja otimizado.

Hearts and minds and votes: the role of democratic participation in countering terrorism

There has been a growth in the level and variety of political activism within Muslim communities in the UK in recent years. It takes a variety of forms, from formal political organization and activism, to volunteering, civic entrepreneurialism and the assertion of politics through personal acts and behaviour. Some of this political activism has been met with fear and trepidation as observers worry it is a sign of subversive behaviour or a desire for separatism. However, in most cases this mobilization is a welcome development, not just because it enhances the democratic health of the nation, but because it is a necessary component of attempts to counter the threat from violent extremism. As the introduction to this special issue outlines, democracy should render violence unnecessary because it allows all groups and individuals to express their views and interests through a process of rational deliberation. This article explores this point through the lens of the experience of British Muslims and argues that heightened political activism is a positive sign and can, ultimately, contribute to the elimination of terrorism.

“Jack the Ripper” Strikes Again

This paper identifies the dominant cultural narrative that grew up around the “Jack the Ripper” murder case of 1888, and examines the representational treatment of the female murder victims within that narrative. It observes that this cultural narrative of the Ripper's crimes developed as a warning for women: if they transgressed the margins of traditional, domestic femininity, they risked incurring the ferocious punishment meted out by the Ripper. Thus the Ripper narrative is one means of controlling potentially subversive female behavior. Drawing on the work of feminist scholars such as Walkowitz and Caputi, this article argues that this cultural narrative persists in contemporary accounts of violent crimes against women. By comparing the original “Ripper” newspaper reports with media coverage of the 2006 “Ipswich Ripper” crimes, this paper demonstrates the ongoing cultural power of the original “Ripper” narrative. The paper concludes that we must interrogate the way we tell stories of violent sexual crimes against women. “Ripper” stories may retain their original function as cautionary tales—but feminist intervention can transform the nature of that caution into a reminder for both men and women about the enduring cultural power, and danger, of representation.

Hit Me Harder: The Transversality of Becoming-Adolescent1

When people are happy together, it becomes subversive behaviour (Guattari 1984:238).