Social Sciences

28.1 Call for Papers_6 days left_Archaeological Review from Cambridge: Archaeology and Cultural Mixing

by Paul van Pelt

A Quick Guide to this Book (coded) "The Psychedelic Future of the Mind"

by Thomas Roberts

draft only

A short introduction to the forthcoming book "The Psychedelic Future of the Mind," due fall 2012. The <... more A short introduction to the forthcoming book "The Psychedelic Future of the Mind," due fall 2012. The < > marks are tags for typsetters.

Proposal to include Bethany Home within the remit of Senator Martin McAleese’s investigation of state interactions with Magdalene institutions

by Niall Meehan

Submission to Minister of State, Justice, Equality & Law Reform Kathleen Lynch (14Jul11) by Niall Meehan and Joe Costello TD

Since 1917, according to Mary Raftery (writing in the Irish Times, 4 Nov 2004), ‘Protestant children in need of care’... more Since 1917, according to Mary Raftery (writing in the Irish Times, 4 Nov 2004), ‘Protestant children in need of care’ were ‘essentially dealt with by private institutions’. She suggested that the state’s attitude was one of ‘hands-off’. Indeed, in the 1937 Cussen report on the ‘Reformatory and Industrial School System’ and the 1970 Kennedy report on the same subject and again in the 2009 Ryan Commission report on institutional child abuse, it is stated that problematic Protestants were dispersed by the Courts among Protestant clergy who were expected to deal with matters privately.

Hence, there is a large gap in official knowledge as a result of implementing a sectarian welfare and detention system, albeit one in which the dominant confessional community was regulated more so than its smaller Christian counterpart. This practice had no statutory basis but statute law was used to enforce it, often against the stated intent of the law. Research into Bethany Home indicates that this is one reason for neglect and death in the Bethany Home.

Official records explain why officials decided not to interfere when confronted with evidence of unusually high child mortality and medical neglect in the Bethany Home. We mainly summarise them here.

Direct State involvement

Bethany was a place of detention for women convicted of crimes from the trivial to the most serious. There appears to be no statutory basis for the directing of offending Protestant females into the Bethany home until 1945, but then only in the case of female Protestant children and teenagers. Incarceration of women generally in the Bethany Home was, however, an official practice.

------------------
See also,
Church & State and the Bethany Home
http://gcd.academia.edu/NiallMeehan/Papers/277737/

The Irish State & the Bethany Home - submission to Minister for Education, Ruairi Quinn (24 May 2011)

by Niall Meehan

Submitted to Ruairi Quinn TD, Minister for Education, at Leinster House meeting, 24 May 2011, by delegation consisting of Derek Leinster, Noleen Belton, Patrick Anderson McQuoid, Niall Meehan, Joe Costello TD, Robert Dowds TD.

‘The institution is kept very well is clean & comfortable… It is well recognised that a large number of... more ‘The institution is kept very well is clean & comfortable… It is well recognised that a large number of illegitimate children are delicate… from their birth’

Winslow Sterling Berry, Deputy Chief Medical Adviser, Department of Local Government and Public Health, Ireland, after visiting Bethany Home, Orwell Road, Rathgar, Dublin, 25 January, 6 October 1939 (see p. 8).

‘A beautiful institution…, seemed to be well-run and spotlessly clean… I closed the place down and sacked the matron, a nun, and also got rid of the medical officer. The deaths had been going on for years. They had done nothing about it.’

JamesDeeny, Chief Medical Adviser, Department of Health, Ireland, after visiting Bessborough Mother and Babies Home, Cork, in the mid to late 1940s (see p.11).

-----------------------
See also,
Church & State and the Bethany Home
http://gcd.academia.edu/NiallMeehan/Papers/277737/

Papadopoulos Review

by Robbie Duschinsky

Draft Only; forthcoming Journal of Social Policy

This paper offers a discursive policy analysis of the 2010 UK Home Office ‘Sexualisation of Young People’ Review,... more This paper offers a discursive policy analysis of the 2010 UK Home Office ‘Sexualisation of Young People’ Review, authored by Linda Papadopoulos. It will scrutinise the narrative presented by the text of the danger posed by cultural representations to healthy development, and trace the way that the text links this danger to catastrophic outcomes: child sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking. Examining this narrative, the article will propose that that the UK Review deploys spatial metaphors to naturalise a gendered account of childhood, sexuality and danger, evoking the creeping influence of a corrupting culture on a girl’s most private self. The article will also demonstrate that this spatial narrative underpins the epistemological structure of the text – its separation of the primary from the secondary, the real from the artificial.

Culture of violence or violent Orientalism? Neoliberalisation and imagining the 'savage other' in post-transitional Cambodia

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2009. Culture of violence or violent Orientalism? Neoliberalisation and imagining the "savage other" in post-transitional Cambodia. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 34 (3), 305-319.

Violence and authoritarianism continue to resonate in Cambodia’s post-transitional landscape, leading many scholars,... more Violence and authoritarianism continue to resonate in Cambodia’s post-transitional landscape, leading many scholars, journalists, international donors and non-governmental organisations alike to posit a ‘culture of violence’ as responsible for the country’s democratic deficit and enduring violence. In contrast, this paper interprets the culture of violence thesis as a sweeping caricature shot through with Orientalist imaginaries, and a problematic discourse that underwrites the process of neoliberalisation. The culture of violence argument is considered to invoke particular imaginative geographies that problematically erase the contingency, fluidity and interconnectedness of the places in which violence occurs. While violence is certainly mediated through both culture and place, following Doreen Massey’s re-conceptualisation of space and place, this paper understands place not as a confined and isolated unit, but as a relational constellation within the wider experiences of space. This reflection allows us to recognise that any seemingly local, direct or cultural expression of violence is necessarily imbricated in the wider, structural patterns of violence, which in the current moment of political economic orthodoxy increasingly suggests a relationship to neoliberalism. Through the adoption of the culture of violence discourse, neoliberalisation is argued to proceed in the Cambodian context as a ‘civilising’ enterprise, where Cambodians are subsequently imagined as ‘savage others’.

Renewed authoritarianism in Southeast Asia: undermining democracy through neoliberal reform

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2009. Renewed authoritarianism in Southeast Asia: undermining democracy through neoliberal reform. Asia Pacific Viewpoint. 50 (3), 271-276.

In the wake of the Asian Crisis, cases studies from Southeast Asia often reinforced the perception that neoliberalism... more In the wake of the Asian Crisis, cases studies from Southeast Asia often reinforced the perception that neoliberalism is thriving in authoritarian states. Processes of intensive neoliberalisation in the region have now been ongoing for over a decade, yet attempts at democratic consolidation have been tenuous, fragile and incomplete at best, calling into question the supposed nexus between democracy and neoliberal reform. Accordingly, there is need for a moment of pause, to take stock of the neoliberalising process in the region, and importantly, to reframe the question and reflect on how and why authoritarianism is continuing to thrive in the neoliberalising Southeast Asian state.

Violence, democracy, and the neoliberal ''order'': the contestation of public space in posttransitional Cambodia

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2009. Violence, democracy, and the neoliberal "order": the contestation of public space in posttransitional Cambodia. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 99 (1), 138-162.

Neoliberal policies explain why authoritarianism and violence remain the principal modes of governance among many... more Neoliberal policies explain why authoritarianism and violence remain the principal modes of governance among many ruling elites in posttransitional settings. Using Cambodia as an empirical case to illustrate the neoliberalizing process, the promotion of intense marketization is revealed as a foremost causal factor in a country's inability to consolidate democracy following political transition. Neoliberalization effectively acts to suffocate an indigenous burgeoning of democratic politics. Such asphyxiation is brought to bear under the neoliberal rhetoric of order and stability, which can be read through the (re)production of public space. The preoccupation with order and stability serves the interests of capital at the global level and political elites at the level of the nation-state. Citizens themselves may fiercely contest these particular interests in a quest for a more radical democracy, as evidenced by the burgeoning geographies of protest that have emerged in Cambodian public spaces in the posttransition era.

The neoliberalization of security and violence in Cambodia’s transition

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2009. The neoliberalization of security and violence in Cambodia's transition. Human Security in East Asia: Challenges for Collaborative Action. Ed. Sorpong Peou. New York: Routledge, pp. 125-141.

This chapter seeks to deconstruct the implications of shifting security’s frame of reference from the state to the... more This chapter seeks to deconstruct the implications of shifting security’s frame of reference from the state to the individual, and the potential for this scalar adjustment to be colonized by the purely economic goal of market preservation. These concerns are placed in the empirical context of Cambodia’s UN sponsored transition in the early 1990s, which effectively served as the pilot programme of the emerging human security agenda. The UN’s orchestration of the Cambodian ‘peace process’ is argued to have allowed the organization to formalize the newly minted human security doctrine during a self-congratulatory fervor that followed in the wake of what was presumed to be a successful transition to peace. However, the violence that swelled both during and after the transition reveals the human security discourse as deceptive, having very little to do with the prevention of violence other than in a rhetorical sense. Rather, the (in)actions of the international community in response to extrajudicial murders, threats of secession, electoral fraud, and coup d'état suggest that human security can be read as a pretext that effectively translates into the acceptance and promotion of the political status quo, as secured hegemony for the reigning political party means a secured marketplace open to foreign interests.

The nonillusory effects of neoliberalisation: linking geographies of poverty, inequality, and violence

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2008. The nonillusory effects of neoliberalisation: linking geographies of poverty, inequality, and violence. Geoforum. 39 (4), 1520-1525.

This paper steps into recent debates concerning the (f)utility of neoliberalism as an ‘actually existing’ concept by... more This paper steps into recent debates concerning the (f)utility of neoliberalism as an ‘actually existing’ concept by reminding the reader that without a Marxian political economy approach, one that specifically includes neoliberalisation as part of its theoretical edifice, we run the risk of obfuscating the reality of capitalism’s festering poverty, rising inequality, and ongoing geographies of violence as something unknowable and ‘out there’. By failing to acknowledge such nonillusory effects of neoliberalisation and refusing the explanatory power neoliberalism holds in relating similar constellations of experiences across space as a potential basis for emancipation, we precipitously ensure the prospect of a violent future.

'Degrees of Possiblity': Igniting Social Knowledge around Climate Change Workshop Report

by Brendan Doody

The 'Degrees of Possibility: Igniting Social Knowledge around Climate Change Workshop Report' was completed in June... more The 'Degrees of Possibility: Igniting Social Knowledge around Climate Change Workshop Report' was completed in June 2011. Authored by Karen Cronin, Brendan Doody and Alison Greenaway it also includes key contributions from Richard Le Heron, Janet Bornman, Matthew Henry, Amanda Wolf and Nick Lewis. The report presents a unique New Zealand take on the current state of social knowledge around climate change, highlights key questions that need to be addressed and potential processes for future engagement and interdisciplinary collaboration.

The report provides a background to the workshop, summaries of the keynote presentations and a record of the ideas developed in the discussion groups and observations of the day. It also includes a summary of ideas for social research and suggests an approach for integrating social science into the wider research agenda on climate change.

Ethnographic Discourse Analysis and Social Science

by Tom Van Hout

Co-authored with Felicitas Macgilchrist

Drawing on the perspectives of ethnography and discourse analysis, this paper first gives an overview of the emerging... more Drawing on the perspectives of ethnography and discourse analysis, this paper first gives an overview of the emerging body of research bringing together the epistemologies and the methods of these two perspectives. It then presents a novel analytical framework for computer-assisted ethnographic discourse analysis. The paper outlines how close analysis of discursive practices – in this case journalistic writing practices – can provide insights into struggles over meaning and hegemony in contemporary knowledge work. The case study explores the production of a financial news story about the supply of gas to French consumers, and the way the practices in question subtly write Russia as a threat.

Audio stream interview with me, talking about my second book 'The Global Football League' (Palgrave, 2011)

by Peter Millward

In the 'New Books in Sport' series

Public Space as emancipation: meditations on anarchism, radical democracy, neoliberalism and violence

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2011. Public Space as emancipation: meditations on anarchism, radical democracy, neoliberalism and violence. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography. 43 (2), 525-562.

In establishing an anarchic framework for understanding public space as a vision for radical democracy, this article... more In establishing an anarchic framework for understanding public space as a vision for radical democracy, this article proceeds as a theoretical inquiry into how an agonistic public space might become the basis of emancipation. Public space is presented as an opportunity to move beyond the technocratic elitism that often characterizes both civil societies and the neoliberal approach to development, and is further recognized as the battlefield on which the conflicting interests of the world's rich and poor are set. Contributing to the growing recognition that geographies of resistance are relational, where the “global” and the “local” are understood as co-constitutive, a radical democratic ideal grounded in material public space is presented as paramount to repealing archic power in general, and neoliberalism’s exclusionary logic in particular.

Neoliberalism and geography: expansions, variegations, formations

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2010. Neoliberalism and geography: expansions, variegations, formations. Geography Compass. 4 (8), 1025-1038.

The pervasiveness of neoliberalism within the field of human geography is remarkable, especially when we consider its... more The pervasiveness of neoliberalism within the field of human geography is remarkable, especially when we consider its virtual absence from the literature less than a decade ago. While the growing attention afforded to neoliberalism among geographers is new, the phenomenon of neoliberalism is not. This paper traces the intellectual history of neoliberalism and its expansions across various institutional frameworks and geographical settings. I review the primary contributions geographers have made to the literature, and specifically their recognition for neoliberalism’s variegations within existing political economic matrixes and institutional frameworks. Contra the prevailing view of neoliberalism as a pure and static end-state, geographical inquiry illuminates neoliberalism as a dynamic and unfolding process. The concept of ‘neoliberalization’ is thus seen as more appropriate to geographical theorizations insofar as it recognizes neoliberalism’s hybridized and mutated forms as it travels around our world. I also consider some of the most salient ways that neoliberalism has been theorized among human geographers. In particular, I highlight understandings of neoliberalism as a hegemonic ideology, as a policy-based approach to state reform, and as a particular logic of governmentality, arguing that while there are significant differences between these various formations, it may also be important to work beyond methodological, epistemological, and ontological divides in the larger interest of social justice.

Violent accumulation: a postanarchist critique of property, dispossession, and the state of exception in neoliberalizing Cambodia

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Violent accumulation: a postanarchist critique of property, dispossession, and the state of exception in neoliberalizing Cambodia. Annals of the Association of American Geographers.

Employing a poststructuralist-meets-anarchist stance that advances conceptual insight into the nature of sovereign... more Employing a poststructuralist-meets-anarchist stance that advances conceptual insight into the nature of sovereign power, this article examines the dialectics of capitalism/primitive accumulation, civilization/savagery, and law/violence, which are argued to exist in a mutually reinforcing 'trilateral of logics'. In deciphering this triadic system, this article offers a radical (re)appraisal of capitalism, its legal process, and its civilizing effects, which together serve to mask the originary and ongoing violences of primitive accumulation and the property system. Such obfuscation suggests that wherever the trilateral of logics is enacted, so too is the state of exception called into being, exposing us all as potential homo sacer (life that does not count). Proceeding as a diagnostic assessment of sovereign power, where although signposted by Cambodia's contemporary experiences of violent land conflict, this article is not intended as a fine-grained empirical analysis. Instead, it forwards a theoretical dialogue where Cambodia's neoliberalizing processes offer a window on how sovereign power configures itself around the three discursive-institutional constellations (i.e., capitalism, civilization, and law) that form the trilateral of logics. Rather than formulating prescriptive solutions, the intention here is critique, where in particular it is argued that the preoccupation with strengthening Cambodia's legal system should not be read as a panacea for contemporary social ills, but as an imposition that serves to legitimize the violences of property.

Technology-Mediated Contributions: Editing Behaviors Among New Wikipedians

by Coye Cheshire

Who'We'are and How We Perceive'Others': Influence of History Textbooks During the Construction Process of'Self'and the 'Other'in Cyprus

by Tutku Akter

Migrants as Activist Citizens in the Crisis of Neoliberalism: Understanding the New Cycle of Struggles in Italy

by Federico Oliveri

draft under review

METRIS, Emerging Trends in Research in Social Sciences and Humanities

by Poul Holm

Report for the European Commission General Directorate for Research, 2009

This report offers an overview of emerging trends in research in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in Europe.... more This report offers an overview of emerging trends in research in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in Europe. It is based on the contributions of 14 senior researchers who were asked to review emerging trends in research in the five priorities of theme 8 (Social Sciences and Humanities) of the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) as well as cross-cutting trends, and to formulate recommendations for further action.