Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the "Postsocialist" Condition
... For Fraser, the starting point for her nuanced criticism of justice was elaborated to produce a working schema critical apparatus. Applied subsequently to the analysis of the events of 1989, which she argued, invoked the delegitimation of socialism (Fraser, 1997), analytically conceived as the removal of viable grand political alternatives (Gilbert, & Williams, 2022). This seminal event initiated a pivotal political moment by means of socio-cultural reverberations, which this paper seeks to argue continues to inform the structuring logics of our contemporary moment. ...
... The events of the period are not just representative of a denotative collapse in institutions, further, the dissolution was coupled to the connotative belief in the idea of socialism, permeating across geographies to encompass attendant spheres of pan-wide Left politics (Khan, 1991;Gordon, 1993;Hill, 2005). Fostering a crisis in the West of the 'utopian vision' of such politics, eschewing a systemic crisis for any viable alternative to the prevailing order of economic arrangements (Fraser, 1997). There are several standpoints that could be taken and further explored when reading and retrospectively examining what is now a historical moment in world affairs. ...
... In her work, Fraser (1997) advocates a less rigidly empiricist position, thereby drawing attention to the ancillary implications of the changes that the collapse of 1989 brought about. Deftly applying a reframing technique to extend the vocabulary of this event. ...
In her accomplished work Justice Interruptus (1997), feminist theorist Nancy Fraser identified a critically significant change in the grammar of what she termed 'political claims making'. Representative of a paradigmatic shift, which, fast forward to the contemporary, now epitomises the arguably superlative triumph of the cultural. Indeed, viewed from our present-day perception of events, the cultural call for recognition has far surpassed the social demand for material justice. The discernibly recognised politics of hyper-visibility has dialogically resulted in the suppression of the social dimension of egalitarian redistribution. Accordingly, the acute insight and farsighted appraisal of both the cultural and social realms-appreciated in the context of her time of writing-were protean developments in these crucial organising domains. The paradigmatic emphasis of the cultural has resulted in the structuring of culturally-defined effects that have reverberated throughout society, acting as determinants impacting the realisation of egalitarian material social justice. Substantive for the lives of selected societal groups in particular, notwithstanding the visible relocating of these groups from the plural margins to the centre. In this paper, I return to reconsider the arguments of Fraser and investigate to what extent her brilliance in capturing a transformative moment still affords relevance and applicability. This paper provides explicit foreground of how-absent of Fraser being in possession of an omniscient crystal ball-her work foresaw the current climate so vividly and presciently, from an altogether differing perspective of the pre-Millennium period. This paper provides a close reading and retrospective of the central concerns elaborated and mounted in her 1997 publication, reconsidered against what we now recognise as economic maldistribution. Consideration is then given to ongoing concerns about digital-representational politics and the mobilisation of selected 'skin types' to resonate meaning. Resonant as part of a systemic meaning-making commodification practice, demanded by late-stage capitalism. In so doing, this paper illustrates the importance of re-engaging the work of Fraser to provide sufficient progression to critically explore where we are currently, in dialogue with increasingly pressing questions of social justice.
... In education, redistribution demands equal access to educational resources for all genders. Fraser (2014) emphasises that economic inequality can be a significant obstacle to full participation in education. Unterhalter (2005) also highlights that equal access to education is key to achieving broader development goals, including women's empowerment and gender equality. ...
Achieving gender equity in education is essential for national development, yet history education often reinforces gender bias. This study examines gender mainstreaming in the curriculum of Indonesian history, comparing the 2013 Curriculum and the Merdeka Curriculum through Nancy Fraser’s social justice framework on redistribution, recognition, and representation. This study aims to: (1) analyse the paradigm of history education in both curricula, (2) evaluate how gender discourse is integrated, and (3) assess the shift in historical narrative towards gender inclusivity. This study examines curriculum documents and history textbooks using a qualitative content analysis approach. The findings reveal that although both curricula emphasise national identity, the Merdeka Curriculum adopts a more progressive attitude towards gender equality by integrating feminist historiography and multidimensional narratives. This marks a shift towards redistributive justice and recognition, ensuring increased visibility of women’s contributions in history education. However, the extent of curriculum implementation remains untested, raising concerns about teacher readiness and classroom implementation. The study highlights the need for ongoing curriculum reform to better integrate gender perspectives across subjects. In addition, teacher training is essential to prevent unintentional reinforcement of gender bias. Future research should explore how gender-inclusive history education affects student perceptions and how educators interpret and implement these curriculum changes. Although the Merdeka Curriculum reflects progress, achieving gender justice in education requires systemic reforms in pedagogy, teacher training, and policy.
... On the one hand, the redistribution of roles and the valuing of women's work are also necessary advances for social justice [108]; on the other hand, from the capabilities approach, the transformation of social norms observed in the case of rural women is an example of how individuals can influence structural change [109]. ...
This study addresses gender inequality in rural areas, focusing on the structural and socio-cultural constraints faced by women, despite the increasing feminisation of agriculture. The research question posed is: what are the leadership experiences of rural women in the cocoa production chain in Tibú, Norte de Santander, Colombia? The objective is to unveil the leadership experiences of rural women in the cocoa production chain in Tibú, Norte de Santander, Colombia. Using a qualitative and interpretative approach and a case study design, the experiences of ten women cocoa producers were analysed. The coding technique was based on theoretical material, generating two subcategories and the respective theoretical codes. The subcategories are associativity and time use. The findings reveal barriers such as shyness or fear of rejection, low participation in community groups, limited education, decision-making restrictions, unpaid work overload, lack of leisure time, and gender-based violence, factors that perpetuate poverty and hinder their community leadership. However, it highlights how women’s leadership and associativity positively impact sustainable agriculture and community cohesion. Although public policies recognise their key role, their implementation remains insufficient. This study highlights the need for comprehensive strategies that overcome inequalities and promote inclusive rural development.
... 2001, 2013a, 2013b). For Fraser (1998), the long-argued distinction between distributive and recognitive functions of justice was a false antithesis -setting the scene for a deontological approach that ensures the right of all to participate in society, as long as their claim is warranted. Fraser's three-dimensional model for understanding matters of educational justice pursues fairness as a key principle of equal opportunity, without a pre-emptive awareness of its consequences, therefore eschewing deliberations about moral superiority (Fraser, 2001). ...
Contemporary discourses of educational philanthropy highlight the increasing role that benefactors play in shaping schools' policy and practice. In Australia, there have been growing ethical concerns about the model of school funding and the attention it attracts from billionaire edu-philanthropists to support faith-based private schools as highly exclusionary forms of schooling. Utilising 'small d' discourse analysis and Nancy Fraser's theory of justice, we draw on focus group and interviews conducted with leading Australian edu-philanthropists, alongside observations of social media platforms, to identify the ethical discourses surrounding edu-philanthropic justice in such schools. Discourses revealed paradoxes of (i) fairness extending access to exclusionary forms of schooling; (ii) identity-preventing disadvantaged students from experiencing identity-based rejection in schools supposedly designed to meet their needs; and (iii) welfare-fulfilling this right in a quasi-education market, though, consequently, diminishing the welfare state's responsibilities. This new knowledge advances discussions on edu-philanthropy, educational ethics, and school choice.
... Por superficial se entienden las medidas cosméticas como el aumento numérico de mujeres en ciertos roles, pero no implica un cambio sustancial en la cultura organizacional o en las estructuras de poder. Fraser (1997) sostiene que este tipo de equidad está anclada en el reconocimiento simbólico sin una redistribución real de los recursos o las responsabilidades, lo que limita su efectividad en términos de justicia social. ...
La equidad de género ha ganado relevancia en las últimas décadas, particularmente en políticas públicas y en el ámbito empresarial. Sin embargo, con el aumento de la visibilidad del tema también surge la falsa equidad de género, cuando las acciones parecen igualitarias en la superficie pero no abordan las barreras sistémicas que mantienen la desigualdad. Este estudio se centra en identificar las diferencias entre la equidad de género auténtica y las prácticas organizacionales superficiales que aparentan ser equitativas. Utilizando un diseño cualitativo basado en el análisis documental y la técnica de análisis en progreso se observó que, a pesar de los avances en la representación femenina y las reformas estructurales, muchas organizaciones persisten en prácticas superficiales que simulan equidad de género sin implementar cambios culturales reales. Se concluye que, para una verdadera equidad de género, no bastan las políticas inclusivas y las reformas estructurales, sino un cambio cultural que desafíe las normas patriarcales y promueva nuevas masculinidades en el entorno laboral.
... Boran rice is one of traditional foods in Lamongan, East Java, Indonesia. Boran rice consists of many components in one portion, namely rice, rempeyek (crackers made from rice flour), urap-urap (consisting of chili sauce made from grated coconut and vegetables (usually cassava leaves) that have been steamed), as well as the typical sambal boran and various side dishes such as chicken, milkfish, tuna, sili fish, chicken offal (liver, intestines, eggs), omelet, salted eggs, otak-otak, tofu, and tempeh (Farrinabhan, 2016). The sale of boran rice has spread to various areas in the city of Lamongan, making this food quite popular within the city of Lamongan. ...
Women's empowerment and equality in the economic sector have become widespread due to the successful implementation of the feminist movement. In socialist feminism, the oppression of women in the world of work was rampant, and this has slowly diminished with the empowerment of women in the social and economic sectors. The selling of boran rice by women only in Lamongan, East Java, Indonesia, has a uniqueness because it is one of Lamongan's traditional foods. This research aims to discuss women's empowerment and gender equality in the production and selling practice of boran rice in Lamongan. This research uses descriptive qualitative methods and a phenomenological approach. The data taken in this study is from interviews with boran rice sellers in Lamongan. The results of this research suggest that boran rice sellers do not mind being supporters of the family economy. The women empowerment act is found in the association that houses boran rice sellers in the west of the Lamongan plaza. The gender equality found in the opportunity for women to have a job. This reflects that women and men have their own roles, and their skills are equally useful.
... This framework allowed us to see the subject of justice as a wider socio-political and cultural structure comprising multiple processes and relations rather than individuals or separate institutions and bodies (Rawls 1971, Young 2011. We approach experiences of injustice and inequality through integrated theories of justice developed by the feminist political philosophers Nancy Fraser (Fraser 1997(Fraser , 2010Fraser, Honneth 2003) and Iris Marion Young (Young 1990(Young , 2000(Young , 2011, which -besides social inequality and redistribution -also include the problems of recognition (Honneth 1992), i.e. the cultural, symbolic, and identity-related injustice and inequality faced by the interviewed members of the LGBTQ+ community. ...
This paper explores the affective landscapes of systemic injustice faced by the lesbian, gay and bisexual persons in North Macedonia. The analyzed data stems from our qualitative research conducted in 2021 among 20 lesbian, gay, and bisexual people living in Skopje using a phenomenological, critical, and feminist approach. Our research applies a broader multidimensional and systemic method towards equality so as to overcome individualizing and reductive judicial-procedural perspectives on experiences of discrimination and (in)equality. A central concept for this analysis is Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of the habitus/bodily hexis, which helps bring to light embodiment of social structures. Affects are explored as not only subjective experience but a force for shaping relations, representing a key component of social dynamics and the (re)production of social structures. Furthermore, as part of the affective landscape of marginalization and experience of systemic injustice, phenomenology of vulnerability, shame, and belonging is discussed. To conclude, we look at collective actions of resistance and protest as integral experiences in building resilience and resistance in a state of constant systemic trauma, and at the role of critical art and cultural practices in North Macedonia as tools in alternative forms of struggles against affective injustice that move beyond identarian logics.
... The scholars who emphasize justice as recognition, such as Nancy Fraser, assert that distribution issues are essential but incomplete to understand justice (Young, 1990). She contends that justice entails not only determining fair distribution but also examining the factors that contribute to unfair distributions (Fraser, 1997). Although distributional justice answers 'who gets what,' recognition justice answers 'why does one get what one gets.' ...
... In the US, however, there is no clear indication of what may happen. It may very well be that, given the salience of racial and native but also religious issues, and salient conflicts between redistributive and recognitive forms of solidarity (Fraser 1997;Lamont 2019), empathic solidarity frames, related to recognition, are already on the frontline, making a conflict between compassionate and empathic frames more likely. We do not expect conflicts to be related to this issue in Sweden, as social investment policies have been a crucial part of the Swedish welfare state since its conception. ...
Party political conflict plays an essential role in shaping welfare policies, while they are simultaneously also shaped by these policies. As political parties grapple with the wicked challenges of our times, new forms of solidarity and solidarity conflicts arise across welfare regimes. Despite their significance, these dynamics have not received much recent attention. Our article aims to fill this gap. Through content analysis of party manifestos, we compare the solidarity frames of political parties within and between three distinct welfare regimes—Flanders (Belgium), Sweden, and the United States. Our results confirm our expectations drawn from political feedback literature: while party ideology influences parties' solidarity frame preferences and solidarity conflicts between parties, these preferences and conflicts are also influenced by a welfare regime's societal solidarity norms. Our article highlights the value of analyzing solidarity frames and political solidarity conflicts within welfare‐state regimes to better understand welfare politics and policies.
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Mioni, Michele, 2021. “The ‘Good Citizen’ as a ‘Respectable Worker:’ State, Unemployment, and Social Policy in the United Kingdom and Italy, 1930 to 1950.” Politics & Policy 49(4): 913–39. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12425.
Wagle, Udaya R. 2014. “The Heterogeneity Politics of the Welfare State: Changing Population Heterogeneity and Welfare State Policies in High‐Income OECD Countries, 1980‐2005.” Politics & Policy 41(6): 947–84. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12053.
... Feminists have been accused of denying or ignoring the differences between the sexes, liberals are unable to advocate true sexual equality-which, in virtue of these differences, may not be best served or attained by identical treatment. Although many sexual differences may be a product of patriarchy, the androgynous ideal seems to disadvantage women if they do not adopt it as their own, (Fraser 1998). ...
The role of micro and small-scale enterprises sector in the development process has been at the Centre of Women's Entrepreneurship in Kenya. Women's access to credit has been of concern but studies have not been conclusive creating a need for a study to be done. The purpose of study was to investigate the socioeconomic factors influencing women’s entrepreneurship development in Turkana Central Sub-County. The objectives of the study were to examine how access to credit influences women’s entrepreneurship development. The study was anchored on Liberal Feminist Theories. The study used a descriptive survey research design. The study employed simple random and purposive sampling techniques. The target population was 39,427. Krejcie and Morgan's table of 1970 was utilized to determine a sample size of 380 respondents. A questionnaire and Interview guide were used to collect data. Supervisors and peers from the Department of Social Work and Development studies ascertained validity of the instruments. 10% of the target population was used for the purpose of pilot study to ascertain the reliability of research instruments, by use of Cronbach Alpha, which was r=> 0.7. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics, while qualitative data was analysed using content analysis whereby qualitative data was grouped together, organized into emerging themes and reported. Findings were presented using frequency distribution tables. The findings of this study indicate that 80% of the respondents agreed that women entrepreneurs were facing challenges in accessing credit. The study concluded that access to credit, has an influence on women entrepreneurship development. The study recommends that the government should enhance women entrepreneurs access credit. The findings are useful to the national government, county government, financial institutions and the community in terms of policy formulation in promoting women’s entrepreneurship development
... It is a philosophy of liberation, which is sentient of the pitfalls of the internationalization dynamics within the curriculum &eld. !e itinerant posture provides a powerful space in which to engage in a global conversation that is attentive to the 'globalisms' ; profoundly aware of the multiplicities of public spheres and subaltern counter-publics (Fraser, 1997); genuinely attentive to the production of localities (Hardt and Negri, 2000) and militant particularism (Harvey, 1998) and to the (de)construction of new, insurgent cosmopolitanism Popkewitz, 2007); conscious of the wrangle between the globalized few and the localized rest (Bauman, 1998); and yet profoundly alert to the dangerous hegemony of the English language. Such conversation needs to occur in languages other than English (Darder, 1991;Wa !iongo, 2012). ...
This book advances new ways of thinking about emergence and impact of Itinerant Curriculum Theory (ICT).Written by authors based in Algeria, Brazil, Chile, China, Estonia, South Korea, Spain and the USA, the chapters examine the opportunities and challenges paved by ICT in the struggle to open up and decolonize curriculum policies. The contributors show how ICT can help us to pave a new way to think about and to do curriculum theory and announce ICT as a declaration of epistemological liberation, one that helps to resist Eurocentric dominance. The chapters cover topics including, ecologies of the Global South, education discourse in South Korea, China’s Curriculum Reform, and the history of colonialism in the Middle East.
Building on the work of Antonia Darder, Boaventura de Sousa Santos and others, this book posits that the future of the field is the struggle against curriculum epistemicides and this is ultimately a struggle for social justice. The book includes a Foreword by the leading curriculum historian William Schubert, Professor Emeritus of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois at Chicago, USA.
Cet article s’intéresse aux possibilités qu’ont les Gitans et Voyageurs d’accéder à la terre et au statut d’agriculteur. Il s’appuie sur des enquêtes auprès de familles gitanes d’Occitanie et auprès d’agriculteurs et de représentants d’institutions contrôlant l’accès à la terre agricole ou aux droits à bâtir. Nos résultats rendent compte des représentations institutionnelles relatives à des modes différents d’habiter et de produire, considérés comme déviants. Ils témoignent de discriminations dans l’accès à la terre et de formes d’exclusion sociale ressenties par les Gitans et Voyageurs comme des injustices. L’invisibilisation de leurs activités agricoles freine leur accès au statut d’exploitant agricole, tandis que la stigmatisation de leur mode d’habiter entrave la pérennisation de leur activité. La portée de ces résultats est discutée au regard des enjeux actuels autour de l’habitabilité, dans un contexte d’urgence écologique et climatique.
Urban infrastructure, often lauded for its transformative potential, is a frequent component of government solutions to sustainability challenges. While urban infrastructure scholarship has long examined government strategies to advance radical change, research on inequity has largely been confined to distributive, procedural and recognition justice. In this empirical case-study analysis, I draw insights from critical urbanism and trace nearly two decades of energy infrastructure interventions in Chicago, IL. I propose a multidimensional conception of justice that goes beyond the three-tenet framework to examine the innovation-supporting strategies and justice-related outcomes that followed a catastrophic heatwave in 1995, which left 700 dead and prompted then-mayor Richard M. Daley’s promise to transform Chicago into the ‘greenest city in America’. Evidencing the reproductive power within infrastructure transformations, the Chicago case demonstrates how failure to explicitly and comprehensively address socio-environmental injustices risks reproducing, or worse strengthening, inequities.
This chapter explores the intersections between political ecology, climate change, and environmental justice, focusing on how power dynamics, economic policies, and social inequalities exacerbate environmental degradation. It highlights how marginalized communities, particularly in the Global South, are disproportionately affected by climate change despite contributing minimally to its causes. The study delves into the historical roots of environmental and climate injustices, exploring theories of distributive, procedural, recognition, and restorative justice. The intersectionality of climate justice and political ecology is examined, emphasizing the need for inclusive, equitable policies that prioritize vulnerable populations. Finally, the chapter discusses the roles of global policy frameworks, such as the Paris Agreement, and the critical importance of addressing systemic power imbalances to create sustainable and just climate solutions.
This paper traces annual commemorations of two anti-Muslim massacres in recent Canadian history: the 2017 shooting at a mosque in Québec City and the 2021 vehicle-ramming attack against a Muslim family in London, Ontario. Both attacks have prompted numerous commemorative efforts and emerged at the forefront of public debates around Islamophobia, far-right terrorism and hate crimes, as well as inclusion and national belonging. I examine these public contests and memory projects by combining sociological research on memory and commemoration with critical scholarship on the politics of grief. Empirically, I build a corpus of annual commemorative efforts and their associated media coverage (2017–2022), analyzing how practices and discourses of commemoration articulate grief and political grievances. Drawing on this corpus of public texts, I conceptualize commemoration as recognition and commemoration as repair as two overarching political grammars of commemoration in the aftermath of racially and religiously targeted massacres. By attending to these grammars and the barriers they encounter, this paper offers insights into public responses to white nationalist and anti-Muslim violence, and contributes to the growing focus, within memory studies, on the transformative potential of commemoration. Implications for theories of recognition and repair in cultural and political sociology are discussed.
This chapter delves into the evolution of feminist movements in Poland from 2010 to 2021, focusing on the profound impact of political shifts, particularly the rise of right-wing conservatism, on feminist activism. The chapter traces the roots of Polish feminism, historically intertwined with broader social and democratic struggles, and highlights the significant resurgence of feminist activism in response to attempts to further restrict abortion rights, particularly the Black Protests of 2016 and the mass demonstrations following the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling in 2020. The analysis explores the strategic diversity within the movement, from traditional protests to digital activism, and the increasing emphasis on intersectionality and inclusivity. The chapter also examines the challenges posed by conservative ideologies and the critical role of transnational solidarity in bolstering the movement. Through interviews, discourse analysis, and case studies, the chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the strategies, organizational structures, and framing of feminist activism in Poland during a period of intense socio-political upheaval.
Justice is one of the central concepts of both traditional and contemporary political philosophy, always aiming to articulate the best political order/s, those devoted to the common good, the well-being of the community, and a fair share of the community’s goods among citizens. Within the mainstream theoretical tradition, discourse on justice is linked to the public sphere of law and politics, with the public/private dichotomy in the background. Feminist critical reconsideration of justice points to the crucial importance of introducing family and gender justice into the justice discourse. This chapter aims to demonstrate how family justice and gender justice are essential for a proper conception of justice within an inclusive understanding of equality in constitutional democracies and the context of global justice.
The chapter also demonstrates how contestable the mainstream division between the public and private spheres is, as well as the consequential reduction of justice to the public sphere. The chapter begins by problematizing the figure of justice as a woman, which is further developed in the first section. The second section considers the meaning and genesis of the concept of justice, with particular stress on family justice and gender justice. The third section explores the position of gender justice in contemporary theories of justice, with a particular focus on John Rawls’s conception of justice. We also consider two other mainstream theories of justice, Michael Walzer’s communitarian and Philip Green’s social-democratic theories, both of which contain elements of family and gender justice. Relevant examples of liberal feminist thought on justice of Susan Moller Okin, the feminist socialist thought on justice of Nancy Fraser, and the social justice conception of Iris Marion Young are considered in the final section.
This article explores the practices and discourses of environmental justice in Iranian Kurdistan/Rojhelat. In the face of unprecedented destruction of the natural environment, Kurdish people, including a significant number of women, organise themselves to defend ecosystems, lakes, rivers, and forests, making them part of the global environmental justice movement. Local communities face growing challenges such as water scarcity, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, exploitation of natural resources, and pollution, which directly affect their lives and health. Drawing on decolonial and critical perspectives of environmental justice studies, we ask how Kurdish activists understand the concepts of “justice” and “environment” in the context of discriminatory practices of the capitalist, patriarchal, and authoritarian Iranian state. Based on interviews and fieldwork in the region, this article argues that the global environmental justice movement should pay closer attention to the contextual realities of the subaltern, their aims and ideas related to nature, justice, and women empowerment.
Independence is important for every individual, especially women, to express themselves freely and do whatever they want without depending on others. Independence does not only occur due to the influence of others, but can occur as a result of encouragement from oneself who is already aware of one's identity. This research aims to describe the value of independence contained in the novel Sabiya by Mellyana Dhian. This study uses qualitative research with a descriptive analysis method. The subject of the study uses the novel Sabiya by Mellayana Dhian and the object of the research is the value of independence. The data collection technique used in this study uses the technique of reading, recording and summarizing. The results of the study showed data the value of independence contained in the novel Sabiya by Mellyana Dhian including behavioral autonomy and emotional autonomy. The results of the analysis are then used as recommendations for teaching materials for novel texts in SMK.
Open access link:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1070289X.2024.2424700
ABSTRACT
Ayatollah Khomeini’s concept of ‘Islamic government’, and the 1979 Iranian revolution, sought to exclude women from the public sphere and introduced a new hegemony of the Islamic public sphere. For a variety of cultural and political reasons, many Kurds in Iran refused to accept the religious government’s policies. Using the concepts of public and counter-public, the article discusses Kurdish women’s activism and investigates what motivated them to challenge their marginalization. We argue that in confronting centralist-religious power and traditional Kurdish society, Kurdish women have created new counter-publics that could promote democracy and improve gender equality in both Kurdistan and Iran.
Salvador, the capital of Bahia State in Brazil, has long struggled with pronounced economic and social inequality. This stratification has resulted in spatial segregation, leading to the expansion of favelas, typically near the city center, where segregation in various dimensions of social engagement intensifies tensions of inequities. The municipal government has made several attempts to address favela-related issues through urban planning policies. Notwithstanding the progress made in lowering violent crime and extreme poverty, these issues still exist. This paper explores the interaction between government-led practices and corresponding self-organized actions toward planning strategies, invoking a social justice framework and critical urban theories. It identifies mismatches between institutional objectives and residents’ expectations, highlighting that structural contradictions in the region’s social development remain unresolved. The analysis suggests that planning policies should consider key factors, such as resource redistribution, recognition of sociocultural identity, and political representation. On the basis of these findings, this paper offers insights into urban planning for favelas as examples of complex governance challenges. It also aims to contribute to the global discourse on similar urban planning issues.
Public health interventions often involve explicit tradeoffs in which the health of the many must be weighed against burdens imposed on individuals. We describe development of public health guidelines for respiratory isolation in community settings for persons with tuberculosis. While stopping the spread of disease is a core moral imperative in public health, the duty to prevent disease transmission does not supersede all other considerations. Community wellbeing must be balanced with individual wellbeing, liberty, and social justice.
In response to these challenges, the National TB Coalition of America’s (NTCA) 2024 Guidelines for persons with tuberculosis in community settings were developed using a modified GRADE approach supported by a complementary, comprehensive, and context-specific ethical framework. By addressing the distinct roles that evidence (subject to uncertainty), values, justificatory conditions, and procedural legitimacy all play in ethical guideline development, we promote rigor and transparency in the integration of ethics in public health guidelines.
In this article, we continue Martin Thrupp’s critical work in education policy in Aotearoa New Zealand by examining the policies of the Sixth Labour-led Government (2017–2023) and the Sixth National-led Government (2023-present). We consider their attempts to mitigate social injustice via education policy and the social imaginaries that underpin such efforts. Our conceptual framework draws on Nancy Fraser’s tripartite analysis (redistribution, recognition, participation), the contributions of education policy scholars who have built upon her work, and others who offer alternative framings of social justice. To contextualise our analysis, we provide a historical account of the discursive shift from equality to equity in New Zealand education policy and the recent transition by the Left from the ‘Third Way’ (Giddens, The third way: The renewal of social democracy, Polity Press, 1999) to ‘progressive neoliberalism’ (Fraser, American Affairs 1:46–64, 2017, Fraser, The old is dying and the new cannot be born: From progressive neoliberalism to Trump and beyond, Verso, 2019). Examination of selected education policies by the most recent Labour and National governments reveals that, despite equity infusing the rhetoric of both governments, their actual policies have consistently adopted affirmative responses aimed only at ameliorating inequality’s most visible effects. We conclude with a call for more intentionally transformative efforts in education based on holistic conceptions of social justice.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 700,000 people take their own life every year globally. WHO also estimates that for every suicide, there are at least 10–20 acts of self-harm and about a hundred people have suicidal thoughts. Every suicide affects a large number of people in the victims immediate and extended circle of family, friends and work colleagues. Suicide is aetiologically heterogeneous and occurs due to convergence of a broad spectrum of individual and non-individual risk factors, with significant differences in its patterns across gender, age, culture, geographical location, and personal history. Society and culture have a significant impact on how people view and relate to mental illness and suicide. Culture, in particular, influences the psychopathology of suicidal behaviour and its impact on suicide rates across the world is well established. This is of high relevance to the understanding and assessment of people in a suicidal crisis, as they are influenced by deep-rooted traditions of suicidal behaviour in their culture of origin. Although there has been significant progress in our understanding on the underlying mechanisms that contribute to suicidal behaviours, there is much that we do not know. In particular, we need better understanding of how culture shapes the perception and experience of suicidal behaviours in different societies around the world.
This paper investigates the construction of the concepts of empowerment and transformation as they manifest through the discourse of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) in South Africa. Using critical discourse analysis, the paper argues that key BEE documents such as the BEE Commission Report, the DTI BEE Strategy and the BBBEE Acts reduce the discourses of empowerment and transformation to the ahistorical and apolitical concepts of economic inclusion and participation. Previous studies have ignored the analysis of these fundamental discourses while framing BEE as a radically transformative policy that has only failed. Drawing upon Nancy Fraser and Marion Young’s concepts of justice, the paper finds that BEE policy documents appropriate and compound anti-colonial and anti-apartheid discourses to construct BEE as radically transformative without being transformative in conception and discourse. Thus, these policy documents are ideologically oriented towards the allocation of surplus resources among Black people rather than addressing the more central question of radically transforming social rules and unequal power relations of racial capitalism that determine economic relations. The outcome of these discursive practices directly contributes to the maintenance of these relations that continue to underpin the oppression of black people while giving the impression that something radically has been done about this oppression.
This paper puts forth a critical perspective on remedy for business-related human rights abuses. It reflects on the purpose of remedy in Business and Human Rights and argues that effective remedy should address the multiple root causes of abuses to prevent reoccurrences rather than focus on surface issues and isolated cases. To develop a theoretical framework to conceptualize preventative remedy that addresses multiple root causes, this research draws on Fraser’s radical democratic conception of justice and participatory parity. According to the principle, justice is achieved through social arrangements that enable all actors to engage with one another as peers. To conceptualize effective remedy as participatory parity, the paper examines three dimensions—cultural, economic, and political—where injustices or root causes of abuses must be addressed to realize participatory parity. The paper analyzes the illustrative case of the Fair Food Program through the lens of Fraser’s framework. Analysis reveals effective enforcement as necessary to realize participatory parity and address the three dimensions of justice in the context of severe power asymmetries. In the theorized framework, remedy aims to address the multiple root causes of business-related human rights abuses toward prevention and empower rightsholders to engage meaningfully in remedial processes.
School choice policy in China aims to achieve educational equity by limiting school choice. Synchronous Admission Reform (SAR hereafter) is a recent school choice reform in China, which continues to limit parents’ autonomy and strengthen the equal distribution of school resources. This study explores Chinese middle-class parents’ (n = 21) justice claims in SAR. The findings suggest parents’ three distributive justice claims, including situational principles of distribution, institutional partiality in distribution, and entrepreneurship representative of distribution. Each claim contains contradictory interpretations of education equity. While parents admire SAR’s egalitarian promise, they recognize the present unbalanced school development and engage in a meritocratic way of hoarding opportunities. Despite their complaints over SAR’s institutional partiality, they acknowledge SAR’s political representation. Instead of participating in policy networks, parents adopt an entrepreneurial way of non-compliance. Parents’ contradictory discourse is shaped by an interplay of policy discourse, school gaps, and parents’ agency in a competitive and high-stakes education environment. Our analysis offers a micro-psychosocial lens for policymakers and practitioners to understand educational equity in everyday discourses.
PTSD is commonly diagnosed in refugees, and since 2015 refugee mental health programmes in Germany have increased (BPtK in Bericht zur Mentalen Gesundheit Geflüchteter, 2019). Despite the vast literature on refugee trauma (Silove et al. in World Psychiatry, 16(2), 130–139, 2017), there has been little engagement with the role of therapists therein. This article addresses this lacuna by drawing on 23 semi-structured interviews conducted in 2020 and 2021 with therapists in psychosocial centres for refugees in 14 German federal states. From these interviews, it emerged that therapists occupy an ambivalent position which is characterised by a simultaneous depoliticization and repoliticization of refugee trauma. Believing that it is “so bad it is impossible to do nothing”, therapists started to engage in public political resistance, through therapeutic interactions and lobbying for change. Most therapists sought to engage in political action through a prism of detached professional neutrality. This comprises a particular conundrum since the premise of neutrality directly contravenes the practice of political action as such but also reverts to a mode of individualised medicalisation that cannot fully recognise the political nature of their client’s trauma. We propose to solve this tension through a novel German critical theoretical understanding of trauma as a form of status subordination, wherein the taken for granted presupposition of intersubjective equality is so violently breeched it results in existential disorientation and speechlessness (Matthies-Boon in Breaking intersubjectivity: A critical theory of counter-revolutionary trauma in Egypt, Rowman and Littlefield, 2022). Casting trauma in such intersubjective socio-normative terms means that therapists have the analytical tools to fully embrace their political aspirations whilst simultaneously improving the efficacy of their therapeutic interventions on an individual level.
The discourse on environmental challenges has evolved significantly in recent years, with climate change emerging as a central global concern. This transformation has been heavily influenced by the last wave of youth-led social movements, notably the Fridays for Future movement, who have mobilized young people at a global scale contributing at a shift in public discourse on the topic of climate action. However, despite the impact of the newly emerged youth-led movements it is still rather unclear if and where has youth gained recognition as a group with special interests within environmental policy and governance. In this study we report on a research were we investigated the positioning of youth in contemporary environmental governance, and propose a theoretical perspective to understand how the subject category of “youth” is constructed in public discourse and its implications for political recognition. We study the progressive emergence of Greta Thunberg as a voice for a generation of youth climate activists and undertake a document analysis of selected material generated in relation to selected international political events. By addressing questions of recognition, discourse structure, and legitimacy, this research aims to shed light on the nuanced dynamics shaping the role of youth in environmental policy and governance.
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