Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution
Abstract
Undoing democracy : neoliberalism's remaking of state and subject -- Foucault's birth of biopolitics lectures : the distinctiveness of neoliberal rationality -- Revising Foucault : homo politicus and homo oeconomicus -- Disseminating neoliberal rationality I : governance, benchmarks and best practices -- Disseminating neoliberal rationality II : law and legal reason -- Disseminating neoliberal rationality III : higher education and the abandonment of citizenship -- Losing bare democracy and the inversion of freedom into sacrifice.
... The second school of thought defines neoliberalism as more than simply a defence of free markets and a conventional anti-statism. It is an attempt to remake the individual agent (Brown, 2005(Brown, , 2015Dardot & Laval, 2013). I argue Hayek's intent in closer to this latter definition. ...
... With the depoliticisation of the self at the forefront of his mind, the 'social character of reasonableness' becomes a tool to conceive of human beings as quantifiable, malleable 'units of competition' shaped by an evolving and changing market (Dardot & Laval, 2013, p. 106), a move to 'assign what is most human about human beingsour minds and our volitionto algorithms and markets, leaving us to mimic, zombie-like, the shrunken idealisations of economic models' (Metcalf, 2017). In the words of Wendy Brown, it is the transformation of the individual into 'an intensely constructed and governed bit of human capital' (Brown, 2015, Kindle location 53), whereby his/her own interests are subordinated to the 'supervening goal of macroeconomic growth' (Brown, 2015, Kindle Location 1151. ...
... With the depoliticisation of the self at the forefront of his mind, the 'social character of reasonableness' becomes a tool to conceive of human beings as quantifiable, malleable 'units of competition' shaped by an evolving and changing market (Dardot & Laval, 2013, p. 106), a move to 'assign what is most human about human beingsour minds and our volitionto algorithms and markets, leaving us to mimic, zombie-like, the shrunken idealisations of economic models' (Metcalf, 2017). In the words of Wendy Brown, it is the transformation of the individual into 'an intensely constructed and governed bit of human capital' (Brown, 2015, Kindle location 53), whereby his/her own interests are subordinated to the 'supervening goal of macroeconomic growth' (Brown, 2015, Kindle Location 1151. ...
This article explores how Axel Honneth's critical theory, when adapted to a materialist depth realism, can be utilised as a critique of Fredrick Hayek's 'neoliberalism', an antipolitics influenced by Karl Popper's neo-positivism. In response to the neoliberal challenge, it is proposed that Axel Honneth's theories of recognition, when grounded in anthropological ('critical') materialism, provides a robust defence of an irreducible social agency. When interpreted through this lens, recognition is one aspect of the system of human needs based on subject-subject interactions, the other being a subject-object interaction of humans with non-human objects. By contrast, Honneth's more recent theory of social freedom relies on a Hegelian process of historical reconstruction and so remains vulnerable to the same epistemic errors that inform neoliberal attempts to universalise homo economicus, that is, of reducing reality to various ways in which it is conceptualised. In this regard, anthropological materialism must presuppose depth realism. The importance of this can be seen when the implications for Honneth's move towards a more orthodox Hegelianism in his more recent works are considered. K E Y W O R D S depth (critical) realism, Honneth, neoliberalism, recognition, social freedom This article explores how Axel Honneth's theory of recognition, when adapted to a depth realist materialism, can be utilised as a powerful critique of Fredrick Hayek's 'neoliberalism'. More than simply a defence of free markets and a noninterventionist state, Hayek presents an economistic anthropology, which reduces social and political dimensions of existence to the arena of market participation. The social agent becomes a malleable entity, transformed into homo economicus. I argue that this draws upon (but goes beyond) Karl Popper's 'Open Society'. Hayek applies Popper's concept of society as a spontaneous order to the task of constructing the neoliberal subject. The result is the universalisation of markets, the dissolution of public dimensions of existence, (including public democratic will formation by an informed,
... John Guillory (1993) notes that English departments now emphasize teaching composition over teaching literary study, on the theory that the ability to write clearly ("linguistic competence") is of greater help on the job market than an understanding of Ulysses. Wendy Brown (2015) notes that while the liberal arts have traditionally been justified for offering an education for citizenship, they now try to attract majors by promising to impart marketable skills, or what economists call "human capital." Martha Nussbaum (2010) worries that "education for democracy" is taking a back seat to "education for profit." ...
... This interpretation squares with David Harvey's (2005) approach to neoliberalism (in which neoliberalism is a political response to an economic problem) as well as Wendy Brown's (2015) approach (in which neoliberal reforms are justified by pervasive cultural values). But this threatens to reduce the changes in academic disciplines and sources of knowledge to echoes of some other transformation; it implies the university is a lateand perhaps ultimatecasualty of an unrelenting neoliberal revolution. ...
... But this threatens to reduce the changes in academic disciplines and sources of knowledge to echoes of some other transformation; it implies the university is a lateand perhaps ultimatecasualty of an unrelenting neoliberal revolution. But if neoliberalism is, as Philip Mirowski (2013) argues, characterized by a particular relationship to knowledge, or if neoliberalism is, as Brown (2015) puts it, a particular "mode of reason," we might need to consider where knowledge is created, and how modes of reason become hegemonic. We might need to consider, in other words, whether the university is actually the source, rather than the victim, of what is known as neoliberalism. ...
The paper examines the concerns about the enduring value of liberal education in the broader context of a shift from a liberal to a neoliberal society. While so much literature on "the neoliberal university" tends to characterize neoliberalism as a hostile force invading the sacred space of the university, the knowledge comprising neoliberalism is in large part the product of research coming out of universities. Using the concept of symbolic capital to explore the role of university researchers in developing and consecrating neoliberal ideas, the paper argues that even in this era of heightened skepticism toward experts and expertise, university researchers play a key role in shaping both formal policy and popular common sense. The paper ultimately characterizes the university as a key site of struggle over what gets to be considered knowledge, and academic workers as central to this ongoing and urgent political struggle.
... Nossa hipótese é a de que, para uma compreensão crítica do futebol global, se faz necessário conectar as relações micro e macro que perpassam o esporte. Inicialmente, debatemos como o conceito de racionalidade neoliberal (Foucault, 2008;Brown, 2015;Dardot;Laval, 2016), oferece um caminho para a construção dessa mediação, justamente por estabelecer sua crítica na produção de subjetividades singulares ao tempo histórico do presente. Fundamentamos nosso argumento com a análise de dois casos: o do futebolista belga Jean-Marc Bosman e o do crescimento de expressão de clubes europeus através da prática de sportswashing. ...
... Ao revisitar Foucault, Wendy Brown (2015) detalha a definição de neoliberalismo como a promoção de mercados livres, comércio livre e racionalidade empresarial como normas realizadas e normativas, implementadas através de leis, políticas sociais e econômicas, organizando as esferas política e social sob a lógica do mercado (Brown, 2015;Flew, 2014). Ao se edificar como uma forma distinta de razão normativa, a qual remonta os princípios econômicos do mercado e se constitui em uma arte geral de governo, seu objetivo unívoco é "facilitar a competição econômica e o crescimento e para economizar o social, ou, como diz Foucault, para 'regular a sociedade através do mercado'" (Brown, 2015, p. 62), restringindo as liberdades individuais ao mesmo tempo que clama pela realização destas através dos desígnios do mercado. ...
O artigo investiga a relação entre a globalização, o neoliberalismo e o futebol contemporâneo, analisando como essas forças transformaram o esporte em um fenômeno transnacional que reflete e reproduz as desigualdades e contradições do capitalismo moderno. Baseando-se em uma abordagem teórica que considera a racionalidade neoliberal como uma lógica abrangente que permeia diversas esferas da vida social, o estudo explora os impactos econômicos, políticos e culturais dessa racionalidade no futebol global. Para tanto, são analisados dois casos emblemáticos: a Lei Bosman e a prática de sportswashing por clubes europeus, como Manchester City, Newcastle United e Paris Saint-Germain. Através desses casos, o artigo demonstra como o neoliberalismo reconfigura as dinâmicas de poder, subjetivação e governamentalidade no esporte, transformando jogadores em mercadorias e instrumentalizando o futebol para fins geopolíticos. Conclui-se que a racionalidade neoliberal, ao penetrar no futebol, não só redefine práticas sociais e culturais, mas também propõe desafios para a resistência e a manutenção dos vínculos locais e comunitários. Submissão: 15 ago. 2024 ⊶ Aceite: 09 nov. 2024
... The current marketized version of higher education creates a workforce that is stratified along disciplinary lines, which creates an economized hierarchy of worth within the contemporary university (Brown, 2015;Sims, 2020). Here, pockets of privilege manifest and discipline areas that reflect colonial ideals, such as positivism and rationalism. ...
... Many higher education contexts, globally, are marketized and governed via neoliberal and managerial techniques (see Collini, 2012;Sims, 2020). According to Brown (2015), given the current business models enacted by institutions of higher education, knowledge, thought and training are 'valued almost exclusively for their contribution to capital enhancement' (p. 177). ...
This paper offers analysis of the first phase of a research project, Understanding and Addressing Everyday Sexisms in Australian Universities. This phase involved a critical content analysis of all 39 of Australia's public university websites, focusing on how they represent gender, absences in relation to gender and the navigability of the web-sites in relation to gender equity policy. Drawing on Maria Lugones's colonialities of gender, this paper demonstrates how university websites have the potential to reproduce or renegotiate inherited institutional everyday sexisms and broader gender inequities. Themes of reconfiguring acceptable gendering, conspicuous absences, and in-built obscurity that emerged from this process are discussed. The paper invites the reader to conduct their own content analysis as an intervention to increase their awareness of the imaginaries their university website offers. Throughout the paper, examples of better practices-everyday feminisms-are highlighted , inviting universities and other public institutions to rethink their online architectures.
... David Harvey shows his readers the massive structural changes of global capitalism and their links to the 'Washington consensus' on domestic and foreign policy that produced a striking rise in inequality, one which Harvey was happy to call 'the restoration of class power' (Harvey, 2005). Wendy Brown outlines the historical rationality, the 'order of reason', which comes to dominate within a period in which the logic of homo economicus becomes the logic of politics, the logic of existence (Brown, 2015). ...
... However, in formal terms, this is obviously a deeply conservative argument because it easily turns critiques of neoliberalism into implicit (or explicit) calls to return to a past that was better. Neoliberalism's critics want to re-embed market logic and forces, to push them back to their previously contained fieldslike redrawing the maps to the earlier borders; they want to fight off homo economicus with a hypostatized politico economicus that supposedly traces its routes not just to the 1950s but to the early liberals, or precursors to liberalism (Locke), or even to the so-called first political scientist (Aristotle) (Brown, 2015;cf. Chambers, 2018). ...
What has actually happened to the political economy of the United States over the last half-century? For too long now, ‘neoliberalism’ has been the standard answer given, yet today, the term seems to have lost both its analytic and critical capacities. Melinda Cooper’s Counterrevolution offers readers a fresh and productive response to this fundamental question of contemporary political economy. Cooper comes neither to praise nor bury neoliberalism but to shift from the level of generalizing accounts or polemics to the level of concrete ideas and the policies they have engendered. She directs attention away from the Chicago school and toward both the Virginia School of public choice theory and a long line of supply-side thinkers. On strictly economic grounds, these two strands ought to be in tension, but Cooper illuminates their political convergence: agreeing to constrain ‘certain kinds of public spending’, they implemented a politics committed to inflating asset values for the wealthy while holding workers’ wage growth in check. This balance-sheet insurrection, which directs the flow of capitalist value upward, stopped and reversed the potential Keynesian revolution that had been underway in the 1950s and 1960s.
... Neoliberalism can be defined in different ways, but this literature (e.g. [34][35][36]) has followed Foucault [32;p.118] in defining it as a rationality that elevates competition to a guiding principle not only for the market, but for all of society. Competition is not only fair according to this rationality, but also the most efficient way of allocating resources. ...
... This suggests the need for a research agenda focused on how neoliberalism affects energy politics and transitions. Scholars from other fields than energy have shown that neoliberalism have become widespread since the 1990's [36,37], and it is therefore of limited interest to simply identify its presence within energy governance. But questions remain about how neoliberalism affects energy politics specifically. ...
Can advocates of fossil energy technologies in decline invoke energy security to influence energy politics? This article investigates how supporters of Finland's declining peat industry failed to do so, despite a window of opportunity presented by an energy crisis, Finland's dependency on imported Russian energy, and the abrupt end of these imports following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. By focusing on a case where invoking energy security has failed, it sheds light on the conditions that limit the political effects of energy security discourse, which has remained undertheorized in the literature. Using discursive policy analysis, the article analyses 22 expert interviews and 33 policy documents. It shows that neoliberal ideas about how to organize state-market relations can limit the political effects of energy security discourse, even when incumbent interests advocate for a domestic source of energy in times of war and energy crisis. In this case, neoliberalism made the peat decline and the fuel shortage appear as a "market problem" that did not warrant state intervention. The article uses insights from the Finnish case to theorize about the wider implications of how neoliberalism, energy security discourse, and energy crises interact, and how this affects the political influence of established energy interests. It suggests a research agenda on how neoliberalism affect energy transitions and energy politics, and argues that while neoliberalism can work against fossil industries in decline, it also risks impeding transitions to truly sustainable alternatives.
... It might not be merely old and new residents who risk evanescing, but the democratic horizon itself. While media and other commentators routinely include Italian right-wing leaders among the co-protagonists of a transnational catalogue of illiberal political horrors, 7 a more encompassing scope indicates that "democracy" more generally is on the brink of becoming an empty signifier, hollowed-out (also) by neoliberal capitalism (Brown 2015) and its local enticements and coercions (Herzfeld 2009). National elections may become "occasions for subverting democratic institutions," and inadequate governments sometimes "prefer to claim impotence rather than power" (Krastev 2014: 40, 69). ...
The article addresses the tension between the internalization of a violent border regime intent on preempting migrant arrivals and the everyday democratic struggle against that regime. It builds on ethnographic fieldwork in Rome to illuminate conflicting political imaginations and existing practices of the already plural, albeit unequal, Italian polity. On the one hand, we see a bordered democracy. This democracy keeps investing in nationalizing itself, by fortifying the Mediterranean as a lethal border and by shoring up social, economic, and racialized boundaries. On the other hand, there is also an emerging migrant democracy. This migrant democracy actively works on two interrelated fronts: to build a more democratic, pluralistic, and egalitarian polity, and to reform how legal and physical access to the polity is governed in the first place. The article argues that, on both fronts, the anti-Fascist Constitution of Italy offers a viable political and ideological framework. More generally, the article proposes that if democratic politics and constitutional arguments are to produce more than a rhetorical edifice for democracy, they need to attend to the social, economic, and racialized inequalities of life in common.
... La racionalidad neoliberal es una maquinaria obligatoria de expansión impulsada por el lucro y la mercantilización que gradualmente desvalora la vida humana (Brown, 2015). En las economías neoliberales del sur, el sistema de justicia penal es un mecanismo, un instrumento, a través del cual la sociedad monitorea y somete a sus infractores, sus enemigos sociales. ...
La racionalidad neoliberal, caracterizada por la expansión impulsada por el lucro y la mercantilización, devalúa la vida humana. En las economías neoliberales del sur, el sistema de justicia penal sirve como un mecanismo de control social, arraigado en las desigualdades raciales y manifestado a través de la segregación social, la discriminación y la separación espacial. Este artículo examina los dictados de la actual crisis carcelaria en Brasil, explorando sus fundamentos históricos, sociales, económicos y raciales. Nuestro análisis de los procesos históricos que condujeron a este escenario, desde la colonización hasta el período imperial, el período de la República y las dos dictaduras que marcaron el país, concluyó que la construcción del pensamiento punitivo es un proceso continuo que permea toda la formación del estado-nación. Al alinearse con varias teorías criminológicas, el estudio tiene como objetivo proponer nuevas perspectivas sobre el tema. Ver la selectividad racial en el sistema penitenciario de Brasil a través de una lente poscolonial revela desigualdades e injusticias perdurables. Este estudio busca profundizar la comprensión de las dinámicas estructurales que perpetúan la crisis carcelaria en Brasil.
... To mitigate this reality, the public university has since been compelled to adopt neoliberal policies, especially in its operational and epistemic logics, in order to stay afloat. However, this was done despite the serious implications that this move might have on the academic project itself, the physical and mental well-being of faculty and their students (Brock-Utne 2003;Peet 2002), as well as on the notion of the public university and its education as a public good (Akala 2021;Brown 2015;Shore 2010). ...
The public university in South Africa continues to propagate capitalist, competitive and neoliberal agendas that are inconsistent with agendas that could be considered to be of public good. These market-orientated logics and discourses have compromised teaching in the university because of increased casualisation of faculty as a result of cost cutting and commodification of education meant to realise artificial efficiency. This has meant that faculty are now confronted with larger class sizes to teach and less support in the process. This approach to teaching has framed the academic project as an individual pursuit rather than a collective one. Thus, the academic project has been reduced to a project that only generates unequal and impossible expectations. In this article, aided by coloniality and decoloniality as my preferred philosophical orientations, I propose decolonial love as one transformative pedagogical approach that university teachers can employ in the implementation of their mandate, which is to teach and educate students for the epistemic, human, social and public good. I argue that such an approach to teaching would and can contribute to the promotion of transgression of knowledge boundaries for knowledge co-construction and thus enable a way of teaching that promotes pluriversal (situated) knowledges.Contribution: I also assert that by employing decolonial love as a pedagogical approach, university teachers can come to value what their students bring to their lecture rooms and thus use cultural heritage of their students to develop innovative pedagogies that are culturally relevant and also underpinned by a pedagogy rooted in love.
... Modellen kan ses som ett uttryck för den ökade tilltron till att vetenskapliga och standardiserade lösningar ska bidra till att bygga "rationell" politik. Statsvetaren Wendy Brown (2015) menar att denna tilltro kan kopplas samman med hur nyliberalismen utvecklats från ideologi till "rationalitet", det vill säga till en naturaliserande logik för hur hela samhället ska organiseras. I ett samhälle där den nyliberala rationaliteten dominerar konstrueras alltfler modeller och "best practices" som kan erbjuda de mest vetenskapliga och "rätta" lösningarna på politiska problem. ...
During the last decade, the concept of assemblage has become increasingly popular in the social sciences. Originating in the philosophical works of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, the concept aims to describe the world as a collection of unstable wholes-consisting of discourses, practices and material elements-that lack a universal organizing principle. The purpose of this article is to introduce the concept of assemblage in a Swedish political science context and to demonstrate its analytical potential. To fulfil this purpose, the historical background of the concept is described, as well as how it is translated into analytical strategies in current social science research. The article argues that the concept is fruitful for studying the work of stabilization that is required to put together policies, projects and reforms in concrete contexts. To illustrate the concept's analytical potential, the construction and reorganization of the university hospital "nya Karolinska" in accordance with the model of "value-based healthcare" is used as an empirical example. It is argued that the implementation of the model was dependent on various practices of stabilization, such as translation practices of consultants, inscription in physical objects and organizational structures, and knowledge production. The article concludes with a discussion of the possibilities that the concept of assemblage offers to the development of power-critical analysis in political science. Here, it is emphasized that the concept can be used to capture the complexity of contemporary systems of governing and organization, as well as the power relations that are stabilized and destabilized as these systems are assembled.
... 34 Vgl. Brown (2015) und (2019). turelemente wie zum Beispiel Wettbewerb, Rankings und Evaluationen. ...
While in the early days of the social sciences it was taken for granted that their subject matter had to be described as “economy and society”, economics has often been neglected in the further development. This was necessary to avoid reductionism and to differentiate and pluralize the subject area, but has often led to the economy being overlooked as a force that shapes society as a whole rather than just a sectoral one. In the meantime, a rethink has begun and interest in economic theory as an essential part of social theory has increased significantly. The articles in this volume aim to give an idea of what this means. With contributions by Thomas Biebricher | Alex Demirovic | Maria Funder | Friederike Habermann | Bastian Ronge | Christian Schmidt | Joseph Vogl
... From a critical social policy approach, particularly the focus on responsabilisation, has been largely studied from different fields, such as education (De Lissovoy 2018;Fougère and Solitander 2023), health (GC 2009;de Ortuzar 2016), playing an important role within what has been understood as neoliberal accountability, which is characterized by the mercantilisation of social policy, and particularly its lack of interest in the emphasis on social contexts and protection states, focusing instead on individual responsibility (Barry, Osborne, and Rose 2013;Brown 2015;Goldson and Muncie 2006;Miller and Rose 1990;Rose 1996). Muncie (2008), following Wacquant's observations, problematizes the concept of responsabilisation linking it to discourses of neoliberal penalty. ...
Drawing from the logics approach to discourse analysis, and supplementing with the nodal framework, this paper seeks to contribute to the critical analysis of the punitive turn in the youth justice system. Taking the case of Chile, we suggest that current interventions framed around the signifier of ‘responsibilisation’ can sustain discourses of both punishment and right protection simultaneously, whilst preventing their radical contestation by providing a term that ‘covers over’ or conceals the contradictory elements of both.
... Scheppele (2010) traced the roots of neoliberalism to the end of the Cold War ideological "competition" between the United States and Soviet Union, and Urciouli (2010) observed the effects of this shift in education, where students are now taught to approach learning as preparation for the workplace more than an exercise in critical thought or intellectual dexterity. The latter is consonant with the writings of Giroux (2014) and Newfield (2016) and has its starkest implications for Wendy Brown's (2015) thesis that preparation for democratic citizenship is now largely a preparation for "market-based" citizenship. ...
Law & Society scholars often dismiss Law & Economics (L&E) as insoluble with our core beliefs about distributive justice, culture, and social solidarity. This reaction has yielded missed opportunities for new theory emergent between the fields. One such opportunity came in 1978, when Guido Calabresi and Philip Bobbitt argued that societies make “tragic choices” about scarce resource allocations so as to reconcile such choices with core culture, ethics, and values. In Calabresi’s later words, their book was a “more or less explicit appeal to anthropology for help.” ¹ Today, sociolegal studies remain well-poised to answer this appeal. Taking theory about moral costs from Calabresi in L&E and adding anthropological thought on the meaning of “value,” this essay presents situated valuation – a contextualized notion of value that accounts for the moral costs of inequalities while supporting principled scrutiny of redistributive policies meant to reduce inequality but sometimes worsening it. This discussion highlights the importance of interpretive social science in the study of distributive inequality, while showcasing a neglected but generative link between mutually imbricated interdisciplinary communities.
... The entanglement of the two entities is evident in their mutual reinforcement of a system that prioritises economic gain over human rights and social justice. Thus, this evolving carceral culture not only reflects a significant shift from physical to psychological modes of discipline but also highlights the prevailing ideology in which everything is economised -human beings become market actors and nothing but, every field of activity is seen as a market and every entity is governed as a firm (Brown, 2015). This analysis further illuminates the intricate interconnections between state power, economic objectives and social control within modern capitalist societies. ...
This article examines how prison work functions as a site where neoliberal and carceral capitalist logics are reproduced across individual, organisational and societal levels. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in a private UK prison, we argue that confinement exacerbates prisoners’ obsession with money and predatory entrepreneurialism, reflecting and reinforcing the broader dynamics of carceral capitalism at each level. By analysing these interconnected dynamics, we demonstrate how incarceration perpetuates these logics. Furthermore, we illustrate how prison work perpetuates neoliberal exploitation, surveillance and control, hindering rehabilitation and societal reintegration. Our analysis underscores the need for a comprehensive reassessment of the Prison Industrial Complex. We conclude that rather than viewing prisoners as a captive audience for reproducing carceral capitalism, prisons should be reimagined to prioritise the humanity of those impacted by the criminal justice system and to create alternative models of accountability and social transformation.
... Engulfed in this pervasive and determinant social vision, the direct and often dire repercussions for human development and interaction, for social and environmental sustainability, are rarely articulated. Beyond the political and economic consequences of neoliberalism are profound implications for what it means to survive, to live and to learn as fully engaged and evolving people; to participate in governance, civic life and mass state-supported education (Apple, Kenway & Singh, 2005;Brown, 2015;Comaroff & Comaroff, 2001;Olssen, 2010). ...
In times of deep crisis, the most powerful critical contemplative pedagogy available to us is that of supporting all children and youth in learning to teach and teaching to learn as a primary path toward self-realization, social inquiry and civic contribution. This vital opportunity should be made accessible to all students, regardless of perceived academic ability, especially to those whose access to voice and to power is limited. In this essay integrating critical, progressive, contemplative and holistic perspectives across time and cultures, I trace the development of a transformative educational philosophy that I will refer to as politically engaged holism. Consistent with this guiding vision, the spiritual dimension of learning and life is acknowledged and fully engaged with careful attention to equity and inclusion. Higher order learning skills promoted via established curricular mandates are expanded to promote development of clarity, communion, creativity and compassion. A corresponding learning process, culminating in empathetic sharing, is engaged alongside traditional learning paths for the purpose of moving beyond contemporary processes emphasizing competitive, standardized individual academic achievement. I advocate requiring (e.g., once/academic year) that all school-age youth be given the opportunity to select a specific concept or skill to teach to others in need (e.g., peers, younger students, family, community members, civic leaders); supported by the level of skilled facilitation necessary to guide young teacher/learners in developing emancipatory learning goals, mastering content, understanding learner characteristics, exploring social pedagogies, receiving feedback, reflecting on implementation and refining practice.
... As state institutions have embraced neoliberal governance policies of financialization and personal responsibility, the costs associated with punishment and welfare systems have transferred from the state to the "consumer" (Brown 2017;Friedman and Pattillo 2019). These practices of "financial extraction" take a variety of forms, including fines from police contact, bail systems, "pay-to-stay" incarceration, civil asset forfeiture, and similar policies (Friedman et al. 2021;Lara-Millan 2021). ...
People simultaneously entangled in multiple state systems are often subject to contradictory legal mandates that can foster distrust and incentivize system avoidance. This study focuses on those indebted to both the child support system and the criminal legal system, a situation we describe as dual debt. We ask whether and how the imposition of legal debts with punitive surveillance and collections mechanisms fosters alienation in the form of legal cynicism and estrangement, which we refer to jointly as legal anomie. Drawing from interview data in Minnesota, we find that legal anomie and system avoidance are mutually reinforcing processes, as debts in these systems triggered consequences that pushed people out of the formal labor market and heightened their distrust of legal institutions. The case of dual debt demonstrates how alienating and contradictory policy systems can foster both legal anomie and system avoidance, particularly in the context of economic and social precarity.
... The data pharmacy has the potential to transform each of these insights. Where biopolitics governs individual freedom without touching the subject (Brown, 2015), and dataveillance diagrams the collective psyche without communing with the mind, the data pharmacy additionally automates individual dispositions without-literally or rhetorically-touching the body. Third generation wearables and other techniques of data pharmacy stand to automate biopolitics by syncing the friction of governance to networks of remote sensing and stimulation where the management of the self, the household, and the soul can be choreographed prescriptively and seamlessly. ...
Taking up the therapeutic discourse of contemporary neuro wearables, this essay explores how models of the quantified self are increasingly supplemented by pharmacological mediations. We argue that contemporary neuro wearables are more than instruments for self-tracking; they are increasingly devices of therapeutic transmission. Pharmacological media rely on digital wellness ideologies and offer datafied solutions to the toxicity of both big tech and big pharma. Beyond questions of efficacy—that is, the question of whether neuro devices do what they say—this essay focuses on matters of cultural framing and aspiration that underpin the wellness industry. Our interest is to supplement current understandings of bio-technical management by tracing the emergence of what we term the data pharmacy—where data and pharma industries and cultural imaginaries are increasingly fused within an emergent paradigm of computational wellness. This pivot in big tech’s wellness portfolio translates existing biodata and health analytics into pharmacological techniques that aim to automate ways of thinking, feeling, and being.
... Emerging ideationally between the world wars, becoming fully embodied in policies in the West during the 1980s, it today also reaches not just globally but also into the micro-meshes of everyday life (see Peck, 2010;Harvey, 2007, for insightful histories). The marketization of most values and practices has profound bearing on all facets of the social world, from democracy (Brown, 2015), and cultural policy (McGuigan, 2016) to not least the media themselves (Phelan, 2014). Neoliberalism, as the contemporary historical phase of capitalism, is processual -like media engagement itself (Dawes and Lenormand, 2020). ...
Engagement is a tricky term to pin down, shifting meaning in the media industries, across political communication and within popular culture. But the definition of engagement matters, as new currencies circulate in academic and industry discourses. The argument put forward here is that media engagement is a term that has been used in a strategic way within the media industries to capture social media analytics and ratings performance, thus instrumentally using a reductive meaning of engagement as a measurement of interest. We argue for a new definition of the term as an energising internal force; engagement is a subjective experience, protean in character, driven by affect yet always retaining some elements of rationality. We theorize media engagement as linking the personal, the socio-cultural, and the political, and these elements serve as a horizon in the parameters of media engagement. A matrix of five parameters offers a model for analysing engagement in relation to media contexts, motivations, modalities, intensities, and consequences. The parameters of media engagement highlight the trajectories of engagement, including the build up to engagement, the moment and place of engagement itself, and also what happens beyond engagement, such as participation and social activism, or fan production and user generated content. This way of conceptualising and contextualising media engagement offers analytic purchase for empirical research and reflexive theorisation that is attentive to the nexus of relations at the heart of engagement. We illustrate the empirical utility of this theoretical trajectory with an example from professional wrestling and populism. In such a way, media engagement can be a useful analytic term to map and understand how and why engagement matters to people in the context of political and cultural spheres.
... These crises have revealed enormous inequalities in power and wealth, and the full extent of environmental degradation as well as deepening political and social polarizations. The apparent lack of effective democratic responses to these challenges is perhaps the most serious issue in the contemporary world and has undermined the sense of common purpose (Brown, 2015). At the same time, technological and scientific developments have radically changed the volume and speed of the production and exchange of information (Burke, 2012). ...
In this chapter we want to offer a counterposing perspective on civic education based on critical adult education theory, which focuses on democratic citizenship as a collective practice
(Biesta & Lawy, 2006). This is of necessity ongoing, life-wide, and lifelong. Underpinning this is a particular conception of democracy as a system that ideally deepens reflexive cooperation and citizens’ participation in decision-making processes (Honneth & Farrell, 1998). Reflexive democracy involves intensifying democratic interactions that enable citizens to make their lives and conditions better through a process of discursive will formation (Honneth, 2014). This
suggests that learning (and teaching) for the development of the “we” of democratic discourse is a vital task for education. Further, we see this as a necessarily contentious process, and we are mindful that democracy has only widened and deepened through the efforts of progressive social movements asserting their right to be treated as citizens even though these rights have not yet been legally or socially recognized (Eley, 2002).
... O neoliberalismo tem sido referido como um conceito significante solto e mutável (Brown, 2015), que é frequentemente invocado, mas mal definido (Mudge, 2008). Suas taxonomias mostram que as amplas definições do neoliberalismo estão frequentemente em contradição umas com as outras e que o termo frequentemente funciona como um tropo retórico: uma categoria denunciatória para todos os fins que é onipresente, empregada em críticas tão difusas quanto a televisão de realidade e a gestão universitária contemporânea (Flew, 2014). ...
Na visão neoliberal, a educação é uma mercadoria pessoal e sugere-se que as escolas sejam administradas como empresas. Nas últimas décadas, a educação pública em diversos países passou por profundas transformações, remodelada por políticas neoliberais de cima para baixo, segundo as quais o sucesso de escolas, professores e alunos é medido por resultados de testes quantitativos e padronizados. Nessa visão, a educação enquanto mercadoria pessoal tem como função exclusiva a transmissão e transferência de conhecimento aos alunos para que eles possam ter sucesso em exames e provas. A evidência de transmissão bem-sucedida é fornecida pelos resultados dos testes nacionais e internacionais. Escolas e sistemas são ranqueados a partir da avaliação de resultados da suposta aprendizagem dos alunos. Aumentar as pontuações dos testes torna-se, assim, o foco principal e, dessa forma, os professores são relegados ao papel de transmitir um currículo preparado externamente, “à prova de professor”, com o objetivo de preparar os alunos para testes padronizados. Os alunos são enquadrados como consumidores passivos de conhecimento e, dessa forma, há pouca necessidade de diálogo, participação ativa, colaboração ou investigação orientada para novas possibilidades. Dessa forma, o objetivo deste artigo é revisar a literatura relativa a três domínios principais relevantes para este artigo: neoliberalismo, teorias da educação crítica e alfabetização financeira crítica, uma vez que está situada no corpo mais amplo da literatura sobre educação financeira. Primeiro, será analisado o neoliberalismo pelas lentes da Teoria Crítica. Em seguida, será fornecido um relato conciso do neoliberalismo e seu poder hegemônico, concentrando-se em suas implicações educacionais para a alfabetização financeira crítica do ensino fundamental e na conexão entre educação e democracia. Será examinada a natureza evolutiva da Teoria Crítica e os princípios da Pedagogia Crítica, para que se construa uma estrutura teórica para o estudo, elaborado a partir das ideias complementares de Habermas e Freire e apresentada a lacuna teórica, a partir da qual construiremos uma proposta curricular à alfabetização financeira crítica.
... Within the realm of government, this logic has produced the dismantling of the welfare state, the postwar capital-labor accord, rabid anti-communism, and the fortification of the institutions of social control amidst heightened racial inequality and class polarization (Gonzales, 2016). In the social and cultural sphere, this doctrine has promoted an increasingly individualistic, consumerist, heteronormative, and authoritarian philosophical conception of society (Brown, 2006(Brown, , 2015Cooper, 2017;Plant, 2010). Among the areas where this is most visible in the United States is in anti-communitarian, anti-labor, and anti-socialist politics, the fetishization of idealized frontier masculinity, rugged individualism, and anti-egalitarianism discourses of extreme personal responsibility, discipline, self-reliance, self-defense, and toxic positivity. ...
This article examines far-right, authoritarian politics among middle-class White communities of the Inland Empire region of Southern California. Grounded in a materialist theoretical framework and an analysis of 30 semi-structured interviews and the recent political-economic history of the region, I interrogate the political and social attitudes of study participants in relation to their experiences and perceptions of changing political-economic and sociocultural conditions in Southern California in the twenty-first century. Drawing upon Gramsci and the critical theoretical literature on authoritarian populism and neoliberalism, I consider how study participants’ authoritarian politics and ideologies reflect a reactionary political response to processes associated with the reorganization of racialized capital accumulation under neoliberalism. I argue that the appeal of these movements is, in part, how they provide commonsense (hegemonic) explanations for economic precarity, demographic shifts, and immigration, among other issues, while at the same time normalizing this increasingly exploitative and brutal regime of capital accumulation.
... Such economic framing treats water merely as a resource to be managed efficiently, with technological solutions proposed for water issues without addressing underlying value conflicts (Goeminne, 2010(Goeminne, , 2012Swyngedouw, 2011;Kenis and Mathijs, 2014;Methmann and Rothe, 2012). The focus on individual responsibility and private, technocratic management limits collective goals such as water justice (McCarthy and Prudham, 2004;Wilson, 2007;Jessop, 2014; and constrains democratic governments' ability to provide public goods or implement redistributive policies (Brown, 2015;Bartels, 2016;Whyte, 2019). Overall, neoliberal water governance seems to prioritize "accumulation" over equity, favoring private capital over public goods (Roberts, 2008). ...
In times of climate change, water resources are shrinking at an alarming speed worldwide, making water a focal point of social and political contestation. Essential for environmental and human wellbeing, and economic prosperity, competing demands on water’s finite resources amidst the global water crisis raise critical justice questions regarding allocation, accessibility, legitimate recipients, or prioritized uses. Access to water is deeply intertwined with political decisions, as it heavily depends on infrastructure and governance. Depoliticization, however, renders water issues to technical or economic terms, aligning with neoliberal practices that commodify and privatize water resources. This approach often neglects the inherent political and social dimensions of water, privileging corporate interests while restricting access for the poor and powerless. This article examines how (de)politicization shapes such water realities by applying theoretical perspectives on (de)politicization and environmental justice. Through a systematic literature review and interpretative content analysis, we explore how (de)politicization is conceptualized in scholarly discussions, identifying common themes in the water context, the scales and regions addressed, and the roles of various actors and actions involved. Our research reveals a persistent tension between depoliticization and repoliticization. While depoliticization, though conceptually rather imprecise, obscures accountability and perpetuates neoliberal practices leading to exclusion, repoliticization, driven by activism, addresses policy deficiencies and amplifies marginalized voices. By illuminating these dynamics, this study enhances the understanding of (de)politicization in the water realm and its implications for justice.
... When other paths for structural change become mired in inertia or gridlock, amnesia may appear to be the only available pathway to reform. Neoliberal capitalism, for instance, limits meaningful access to democratic oversight (Brown, 2015); bureaucratic corruption can seem to hinder both democratic interventions and market entrepreneurship (Gupta, 1995). Technological innovation offers a path for achieving change, especially if that innovation can summon amnesia about existing social structures. ...
This paper outlines a theory of amnesia in the face of innovation: when apparent technological innovations occasion the disregard of preexisting cultural, legal, and infrastructural norms. Innovation amnesia depends on cultural patterns that appear to be increasingly widespread: the valorization of technological innovation and the sensation of limited political space for reforming social arrangements. The resulting amnesia is by default an extension of existing structural inequalities. If innovations arise through deploying concentrated private wealth, the amnesia will likely target institutions that facilitate collective power among less powerful people. Up and down social hierarchies, however, achieving amnesia through innovation can bear irresistible allure. When other paths for structural change become mired in inertia or gridlock, amnesia may appear to be the only available pathway to reform. The purpose of a theory of amnesia is to assist affected communities in noticing it when it occurs and wielding it to their advantage, particularly through mobilizing self-governance around moments of innovation.
As South Africa’s governing party between 1994 and 2024, the African National Congress (ANC) was in poll position to use the powers of state to effect the imaginary of the 1996 Constitution. This imaginary provides for the overturning of colonial and apartheid legacies to actualise the human potential of those previously excluded on the basis of race, gender, class, and sexuality. Due to a failure of political imagination, merely the top echelons of economic relations of power were deracialised. Most of the population, and therefore most black people, remain mired in poverty. This failure opened the door to a discourse of anti-constitutionalism aimed at securing impunity for a predatory power elite. Instead of constitutional failure, as anti-constitutionalist detractors would have it, the lack of substantive change should be ascribed to the ANC’s policy decision to embrace a neoliberal form of capitalism, while paradoxically continuing with post-socialist adherences. These are identified as the ‘two-stage theory’ of historical change, which is unpacked along with the related ‘national democratic revolution’ and ‘colonialism of a special type’. How the post-socialist imaginary gave succour to clashing ANC factions is shown–and how it created a political culture at best ambivalent to substantive democracy as envisaged in the 1996 Constitution, and at worst authoritarian. Lubricated by an ethno-racial populism akin to that seen elsewhere on the globe, anti-constitutionalism found policy expression in the new uMkhonto weSizwe Party, founded by former president of the ANC and of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, the main accused in South Africa’s grand corruption known as state capture.
The chapter argues that within capitalist systems, universities are corporations and act as such. They are comprised of a creative cadre and a techno-administrative one, the latter having grown so large as to overshadow the more creative one. Students must try to negotiate the university’s labyrinthine systems, structures, policies and practices. The capitalist and entrepreneurial university assiduously develops, promotes and guards its brand. The brand is an iconic representation of the university and the image it wishes to instill in the minds of the student and potential student (positioned as ‘consumers’ in neoliberalist terms), the general public, and governing bodies. Universities are of varied types. Some are public, not-for-profit. Others are for-profit and rapacious, going so far as to essentially defraud students (for whom they ought to have fiduciary responsibilities) and the government. Larger, more ‘prestigious’ universities have incredibly robust foundations built on the largesse of wealthy alumni donors. Many of these hide their monies in off-shore accounts so as to avoid paying taxes, like so many corporations, celebrities, sports stars, tyrannical despots and their families. A clear-eyed and fair critique of the (neoliberal) university ought to allow for its potential and promise. The chapter concludes that higher education still permits for social mobility, and mobility of other sorts. Universities still offer haven for dissidents and intellectual refugees, for those who are different and for those who seek knowledge, wisdom, and fulfilment, within or despite the maelstrom of neoliberal ideologies buttressing them.
Despite the widespread claim that populism and pluralism are incompatible, the latter is rarely defined clearly in the existing literature. This is significant as such purported incompatibility is used to argue that populist politics cannot sit comfortably within liberal democracy. I begin this article by examining the theoretical foundations of research on populism and pluralism, particularly from scholars who adopt the ideational approach. I highlight how this conception of pluralism is limited to protecting minority rights through liberal-democratic institutions, without considering how such institutions are often exclusionary. I then turn to the contributions of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe on populism, pluralism, and hegemony. I suggest that while Mouffe sacrifices the counter-hegemonic potential of populism in pursuit of pluralism, Laclau sacrifices pluralism for counter-hegemony through his insistence that the universal can only be articulated through the particular. Moving beyond Laclau’s part-as-whole formulation, I develop an understanding of pluralism rooted in non-belonging, which grounds plurality in shared constitutive lack. This allows for the advancement of an indeterminate concept of ‘the people’ without the imposition of a universalised particular. Thinking of pluralism in these terms provides critical scholars of populism with a conceptualisation which does not depend solely on a liberal vocabulary.
A experiência de jovens estudantes de periferias distintas de Campinas/SP foi analisada neste artigo a partir de duas tensões resultantes do Novo Ensino Médio: a divisão do currículo geral e técnico no IFTP e o significado da retórica da escolha. Trata-se de uma pesquisa que articula procedimentos metodológicos documentais e etnográficos. Aponta-se que a divisão do Currículo resulta em uma produção de sentido fetichizada em relação aos saberes mobilizados, enquanto a retórica da escolha conduz, precocemente, à formação de um sujeito capaz de racionalizar suas preferências escolares, como mercadorias vendáveis no mercado de trabalho futuro.
Digitale Selbstvermessungstechnologien gelten als Sinnbild rationaler, effizienter und optimierter Lebensführung. Mit den neuen popularisierten Alltagspraxen sind neben vielen Potenzialen jedoch auch zahlreiche Pathologien verbunden. Der Beitrag zeigt, warum Lifelogging, das heißt digitalisierte Lebensprotokollierung verstanden als numerische Erfassungsfähigkeit von Körperzuständen und technisierter Selbstsorge ideal zur herrschenden Präventionslogik passt und welche schleichenden Entgrenzungen von Gesellschaft und Kultur typischerweise damit langfristig verbunden sind.
This chapter aims to guide the reader into the practice of critical legal research in international law. After describing some of the main ideas and concerns of critical international legal thinking, the chapter delves into the basic working methods of critical international law: legal deconstruction and the critical rhetorical analysis of law. It ends by proposing a few activities that can help the reader to reflect upon the ideas learned in this chapter and transfer them into their own research.
Literature has experienced two great medium shifts, each with profound implications for its forms, genres, and cultures: that from orality to writing, and that from writing to printing. Today we are experiencing a third shift, from printed to digital forms. As with the previous shifts, this transformation is reconfiguring literature and literary culture. The Cambridge Companion to Literature in the Digital Age is organized around the question of what is at stake for literary studies in this latest transition. Rather than dividing its chapters by methodology or approach, this volume proceeds by exploring the major categories of literary investigation that are coming under pressure in the digital age: concepts such as the canon, periodization, authorship, and narrative. With chapters written by leading experts in all facets of literary studies, this book shows why all those who read, study, and teach literature today ought to attend to the digital.
This chapter sets the stage for the rest of the book by examining the rising economic inequalities in many Western liberal democracies. It traces these inequalities back to the economic reforms of the 1980s, which promoted economic globalisation and deregulation. The chapter then defines neoliberal ideology as involving not only an economic doctrine but also through its constitutive socio-cultural politics. While the former is concerned with economic relations, the latter primarily involves the question of subjecthood and the types of subjectivity most conducive to sustaining social relations within hyper-capitalist societies. The discussions in this chapter draw on existing reports on economic inequalities, historical analyses of inequality regimes, and post-structural sociological theories of subjectification.
This chapter lays the groundwork for understanding some of the challenges that lie ahead in fostering a more equitable and inclusive educational system that prioritises the needs of all students. Drawing on the data collected through an ethnographic case study of school disengagement among a group of marginalised students in a government secondary school in Victoria, Australia, I introduce the book’s focus on the notion of care within the evolving landscape of neoliberal reforms that have impacted the experiences of students, teachers, and school leaders in many parts of the world. Against this backdrop, the chapter highlights the close nexus of care, education, and exclusion. This establishes a critical lens through which to explore the challenges faced by marginalised students in the current educational frameworks that prioritise performativity and measurable learning outcomes.
This article develops a post-Hegelian social and political theory of human rights. To do this, it moves past two legacies that can be traced back to Hegel’s philosophy: his theory of recognition and his views about the embeddedness of rights within states. IR often misinterprets Hegel’s recognition theory as applying within a public world of state action. However, Hegel argues that recognition occurs before rather than within a social world. Instead, I show how and why Hegel’s analysis of Sophocles’ play Antigone is a more fruitful starting point for theorising contemporary international practices. I mobilise a Hegelian social ontology of ‘ethical life’ and a post-Hegelian critique of statism and Eurocentrism to argue that human rights should be understood as an independent field of action in which agency is embedded, rather than as a practice that is tied to sovereignty and states. Several conclusions about the ontology and epistemology of human rights stem from this analysis. Human rights practice brings forms of action and obligation into being. It enables collective (not only individual) action. It requires the exercise of humility rather than hubris. Finally, it invites a discussion of how agents can bridge external and internal perspectives to evaluate the actions that seem to be required by their practices. This critical exploration and re-interpretation of Hegel’s early work corrects IR’s tendency to use his later and more statist writings to locate and concretise the grounds for ethics.
In recent years, “queer joy” has become a prominent topic in queer circles in the West. It refers to a defiant sense of joy felt by LGBTQ + people in the face of an increasingly hostile environment. However, the political use of queer joy has a troubling history. In Iceland, the LGBTQ + movement has worked under the banner of joy since the turn of the century. This is encapsulated in the Reykjavík pride parade, which has, since its inception in 2000, been referred to as “The March of Joy.” This March has been a massive success. Recent parades have seen up to a hundred thousand people participate, a fourth of the Icelandic population. During the same period, the legal and social status of some Icelandic LGBTQ + people has improved vastly. Employing a queer‐historical and affect‐theoretical stance, this article analyzes the problematic side of this development. It traces how the national celebration of LGBTQ + people's joy has shifted the Icelandic national imaginary, strengthened Icelandic (homo)nationalism, and contributed to a forgetting and erasing of the past. While drawing some LGBTQ + people into the national imaginary, joy has excluded others, both critical, non‐homonormative queers and immigrants stereotyped as at once backwards, joyless, and homophobic. This shows both the potential power of queer joy and the dangers inherent in its political use. Queer joy, if it is to have its intended effect, must be radical, intersectional, and defiantly queer from the start. Inspiration for such queer joy may, we suggest, be drawn from the figure of the queer killjoy.
O presente artigo delineia o contexto de conquistas em direitos humanos e políticos para as mulheres bolivianas a partir da transição para o novo constitucionalismo latino-americano em contraposição aos constantes episódios públicos de violências de gênero e política contra esses mesmos corpos. Trata-se de um estudo desenvolvido a partir de pesquisa bibliográfica e de bases teóricas advindas das teorias críticas e descoloniais do direito, bem como dos estudos de gênero. A partir dessa reflexão, questiona-se o campo da conquista formal de direitos para as mulheres em uma análise conceitual e empírica, fazendo-se um recorte de violência de gênero de cunho político ocorrida em meio aos protestos de 2019 na Bolívia. Esse episódio demonstra resquícios históricos da violência dos períodos de autoritarismo da região e revela estruturas coloniais e patriarcais em plena vigência no Estado Plurinacional.
Recent exponential growth in immersive God Pod units operating in US prisons has engendered many new but still unexamined practices. Loosely-modeled off a Christian seminary planted inside Louisiana State Penitentiary, newer programs deploy privately-funded religious educators for the credentialing and training of “inmate field ministers” assigned religious work duties in public prisons. Funded by private foundations and unregulated by government oversight, Christian educators operating inside public prisons today directly influence the material conditions of incarceration for thousands of inmates. While previous God Pod programs were declared unconstitutional for use of government funding in proselytizing Christianity, newer programs use private resources for conduct of Christian ministry inside public prisons. Drawing from on-site and archival research, this article documents a shift in focus within immersive God Pod units from providing religious education at one institution to credentialing prisoners for “Inmate Field Ministry” systemwide. The article traces the ad hoc beginnings of privately-funded religious education inside US prisons, to today's emphasis on establishing Christian ministry as correctional rehabilitation. The article argues newer God Pod units engender a novel form of religious neoliberalism, abandoning previous commitments to religious neutrality while highlighting “moral rehabilitation” and deemphasizing secular rehabilitation. Directions for future research are discussed.
Drawing on interviews with 32 menstrual activists, this chapter analyses the discursive tactics that are used by the menstrual movement in Great Britain. It explores how this movement seeks to transform the mediation of menstruation as well as how menstrual activists advocate for social change via traditional and social media. The chapter explores various discursive strategies used by the 32 participants to alter the mediation of menstruation and, as a result, improve the lives of women and other people who menstruate. Tactics include using non-stigmatising language, speaking openly about menstruation, highlighting the intersectional nature of menstrual experience and promoting the inclusion of menstruating people of all genders and ethnicities. The chapter argues that, for menstrual activists, transforming the mediation of menstruation both on social media and in news media is a vital step towards destigmatising menstruation and reducing social inequalities in Great Britain. Furthermore, the chapter explores the influence of neoliberalism on menstrual activism as well as various points of disagreement and tension within the menstrual movement. This includes a lack of consensus about which discourses are the most effective for engendering social change.
Ali Smith’s Companion Piece (2022) expands on the exploration of apathy and anomie undertaken in the Seasonal Quartet, further connecting these experiences to a pervasive sense of despair in contemporary society. Once again, Smith reflects on the role of the arts, seeing in them a vehicle for hope and change. In an interesting twist, Companion Piece focuses specifically on the effects of close reading, pointing to the way it opens opportunities for unexpected connections that can escape the divisive competitiveness of contemporary neoliberalism. I suggest that the novel’s preoccupation with close reading responds to the intense debates in literary studies about post-critical methods of reading, while entering a dialogue with I. A. Richards’s notion of practical criticism. Yet Companion Piece revises Richards's framework, extending the target of close reading to include a variety of artworks, material objects and natural phenomena. It also widens the focus from individuals to the relationships between them, depicting close reading as a catalyst for intersubjective bonding. The transposition of Richards’s argument to a contemporary neoliberal context broadens the role of close reading, granting it greater relevance and urgency. For Smith, the aimless attentiveness of close reading becomes an act of rebellion against the market imperatives of speed and efficiency. As it highlights the anomaly of close reading in the neoliberal milieu, Companion Piece implies that it can unsettle the neoliberal profit-maximizing paradigm, boost the imagination, and enable new ways of connecting with people, animals, and even the environment.
During the lockdowns enforced to meet the COVID-19 pandemic, homes were tasked with sustaining life in a time of emergency, taking on multiple new functions and inviting reflection on modes of their inhabitation. Asking ‘what have our homes become?’, the article explores the metaphorical life of ‘home’ as the locus of a set of powerfully normalizing and normative functions as well as potentials for transformation. The article weighs the meanings to be found in the exceptional time we were ‘at home’ during lockdowns, in company with Bruno Latour’s sense of the metamorphosis lockdowns brought, Giorgio Agamben’s analysis of this as a time of emergency, heightening executive powers, and Bonnie Honig’s counter-story of emergency politics as requiring democratic attention to the time and terms of emergence from a period of difficult choices and narrowed capacities.
The framing of the ethics of justice as opposed to the ethics of care has nurtured a three-fold misunderstanding. On one hand, a certain interpretation of Carol Gilligan’s In A Different Voice emphasized this opposition, even if Gilligan’s later writings and other scholars’ work have opened up the possibility of delineating a dynamic and potentially harmonious relationship between the “moral voices” of justice and care. On the other hand, the ethics of justice has been identified primarily with John Rawls’ neocontractualism. Finally, this ethics of justice and the language of rights have often been confused. The second school of the ethics of care, i.e. the “political theory of care”, has reevaluated the importance of the ethics of justice, law, and rights. These scholars have enriched the debate on the relationship between care and justice. The views of some European scholars, particularly Italian ones, further refined this perspective. However, I argue that it is possible to take a further step, starting from interpreting law as a social practice whose reasons for existence and content depend on the attitudes of the interpreters, attitudes which are forged in historical contingencies. In today’s constitutional democracies and within international and regional bodies committed to protecting human rights, this practice is oriented by the belief system developed in (inter)national constitutionalism since the second half of the twentieth century. This is a political and legal project based on the principle of equality and recognition of the dignity of every human being. (Inter)national constitutionalism has enriched the liberal legal tradition by theorizing the subject of law as embodied and by recognizing its ontological vulnerability and situated needs. Care, too, is a social practice, and I argue that it is oriented by similar beliefs. The “political theory of care” is thus a valuable ally for (inter)national constitutionalism, as it contributes to innovating and defending it by making visible subjects and needs that have been neglected until now and developing a set of social practices and molecular forms of resistance. In turn, (inter)national constitutionalism represents an inalienable legacy to draw on for achieving a “caring democracy”, since it has prepared the institutions and guarantees that care can now strengthen and re-signify. Together, they can fight off the neoliberal and conservative attacks that aim to subvert the “political project of equality”.
This entry elaborates the changes in the structure and ideology of capitalism from postwar Keynesian capitalism, through the neoliberal era, to the current legitimacy crisis of the latter or the interregnum after the Great Recession, the ascendance of ethnoracial nationalism, the failed Trump coup, and the COVID‐19 crisis. The focus is primarily on the USA, the now threatened hegemon of the Keynesian and neoliberal regimes, with due attention to global convergences and divergences.
This chapter will examine the claim that early childhood pedagogy is structured by neoliberal political and social normativity, where the processes of creative exploration are secondary to an ultimately arbitrary and pre-determined “outcome”. An “outcomes-focussed” approach to early childhood arts pedagogy is incompatible with the engagement necessary for early childhood teachers to meaningfully co-create with children. However, despite neoliberalism’s hegemony—which today is being contested by often alarming reactionary tendencies—we can find instances of play-based and process-focussed approaches that inform our early childhood education courses. Neoliberalism as a theoretical framework is inimical to transformative teaching approaches, and a tension emerges between early childhood arts pedagogy and teacher preparation within the neoliberal university. Early childhood arts pedagogy, therefore, can potentially produce sites of resistance to neoliberal social and political structures. The challenges of teaching processual creativity to preservice teachers within a university setting that is itself structured by neoliberal norms will be considered, in conjunction with a discussion of the epistemic possibilities that emerge when neoliberalism’s “economization of heretofore non-economic domains” (Brown, Undoing the demos: Neoliberalism’s stealth revolution, Zone Books, 2015, p. 31) can be undone. Ultimately, we will argue that early childhood arts pedagogies can open spaces and places that are sites of resistance to neoliberal norms, despite early childhood education’s imbrication with institutions structured by neoliberalism.
O presente trabalho consiste em uma resenha crítica do livro “Gênero e desigualdades: limites da democracia no Brasil”, de autoria de Flávia Biroli. Publicado em 2018, a obra é uma contribuição de relevância no campo da teoria política, feminismos e estudos sobre democracia, trazendo reflexões importantes para se pensar o Brasil da atualidade. Dentre as questões que o livro enseja, e desenvolvidos na presente exposição, estão as consequências do neoconservadorismo e do neoliberalismo para a democracia, a exemplo da crescente despolitização da sociedade, ao lado de reações desproporcionais a pautas como igualdade de gênero, classe, raça e etnia em Estados que se reivindicam como democráticos. Tal quadro sinaliza para retrocessos no âmbito de direitos fundamentais, impactando diretamente na vida das mulheres e no exercício de suacidadania.
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