Bringing Wreck

This paper critically examines non-adversarial feminist argumentation model specifically within the scope of politeness norms and cultural communicative practices. Asserting women typically have a particular mode of arguing which is often seen as ‘weak’ or docile within male dominated fields, the model argues that the feminine mode of arguing is actually more affiliative and community orientated, which should become the standard within argumentation as opposed to the Adversary Method. I argue that the nonadversarial feminist argumentation model primarily focuses on one demographic of women’s communicative styles – white women. Taking an intersectional approach, I examine practices within African American women’s speech communities to illustrate the ways in which the virtues and vices purported by the NAFAM fails to capture other ways of productive argumentation

For feminist consciousness in the academy

I was recently invited to reflect on the conditions of women in British universities with a group of students and colleagues exploring the politics of the corporate academy. INTRODUCTION: Rather than trying to speak in some hackneyed way for ‘women’, I decided to reflect on the anti-feminist nature of the neoliberal rationalities now dictating academic life within universities, and on the subversions of critical feminist ethics, methodologies and pedagogies in higher education today..

An Outlaw Ethics for the Study of Religions: Maternality and the Dialogic Subject in Julia Kristeva’s 'Stabat Mater'

In this essay I examine Julia Kristeva’s transgressive body of work as a strategic embodiment of, and argument for, an ethical orientation towards otherness predicated on the image of divided subjectivity identified by Jacques Lacan but powerfully re-theorised as dialogic by Kristeva. I focus on what is, for Kristeva, a stylistically unique essay – 'Stabat Mater' – which examines a number of institutional discourses about motherhood from the western philosophical, religious, and psychoanalytical traditions, and simultaneously subverts them with a parallel discourse (and enactment) ostensibly by an actual mother. The text itself, I argue, can be read as a performance of dialogic subjectivity and of Kristeva’s conception of maternality, which implies a radical ethical imperative – termed 'herethics' – towards alterity. I propose that this herethical model might heuristically inform current debates regarding the ethical orientations of the study of religions as an academic field

Dissent, Diversity, and Democracy: Heather Gerken and the Contingent Imperative of Minority Rule

This paper was presented at the 2012 Legal Scholarship Symposium. The full video is available here

Post-1995 French cinema: return of the social, return of the political?

A key trend in post-1995 French cinema has been the return of the social. Analysing this trend, this article seeks to evaluate its politic impact. Using Hervé Le Roux’s Reprise (1997) and Agnès Varda’s Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (2000) as key meta-texts, it suggests that the current wave of politically engaged cinema needs to be approached in new ways that recognise how films trace the impact of a politically unmediated, ‘raw’ real on groups or individuals. It further suggests that the withdrawal of political mediation gives the films an essential ambiguity and a melodramatic quality that, rather than mere cliché, may be a privileged way to engage with the violence of the real. Film is now not so much in the van but dans le bain of a diverse socio-political stirring

Us and us: agonism, non-violence and the relational spaces of civic activism

This paper is a brief reflection on our involvement with the Civic Geographies exhibition and session at the 2012 RGS-IBG conference, and what this has to say to conceiving ‘civic geographies’. Our contribution to the exhibition comprised a ‘PEACE CAMP THOUGHT TREE’, specifically linked to an ‘academic seminar blockade’ (ASB) we were convening the following day at Faslane Peace Camp (see http://www.faslane365.org/faslane_peace_camp), in northwest Scotland

The “frozen conflict” that turned hot: conflicting state building attempts in South Ossetia

The recent conflict in South Ossetia reminded everyone that things are far from settled in the South Caucasus region. Generally dubbed “frozen conflicts”, the separatist conflicts in the Caucasus have been considered by many authors as political and military stalemates. This approach, however, tended to brush aside sociological dynamics at work inside what could have been more accurately described as “zones of conflict”. The main argument is to demonstrate how the oppositional logic of the autocratic de facto government in power and outside interference in the region, from Russia and Georgia mainly, are affecting the state building process of South Ossetia by marginalizing the local population and its needs. In fact, no real state building will take place in South Ossetia, either as a component of a Georgian Federation or as an entity in the Russian Federation, without addressing more carefully the needs of the local population. This statement is more topical than ever, in the context of the ongoing struggle between Georgia and Russia for the future of the region

Morocco and the Mirages of Democracy and Good Governance

El creciente contraste y la contradicción entre los procesos de radicalización y democratización en la era de las reformas del mercado global y la “Guerra contra el Terror” no se limitan a la escena política interna de Marruecos. Los movimientos políticos, las ONG, el gobierno, las instituciones internacionales y los gobiernos de otros países están todos implicados en un creciente número de redes internacionales, que hacen de la formulación de políticas una empresa global. En este artículo pretendemos examinar el impacto de la política estadounidense en el proceso de reformas marroquí. El antecedente de este análisis es la Iniciativa del Gran Oriente Medio de George W. Bush. La iniciativa estadounidense es ambiciosa, ya que intenta crear políticas que ataquen lo que se percibe como causas de la inestabilidad, violencia y/o islamismo en Oriente Medio. Marruecos es visto como uno de los aliados estratégicos de EE.UU. en la región, y se le ha pedido que se una a la “Guerra contra el Terror”. Marruecos es un caso interesante para estudiar simultáneamente el impacto de la “Guerra contra el Terror”, la implementación de un Acuerdo de Libre Cambio y las medidas de buen gobierno como instrumentos políticos para combatir el terrorismo por medio de la lucha contra la pobreza, y finalmente, la “cuestión islamista” particularmente presente en Marruecos

An identity perspective on coopetition in the craft beer industry

Research Summary: To further our understanding of how and why organizations engage in coopetition, we explore cooperative and competitive actions in the craft beer industry. Through an inductive field study, including interviews with craft brewery owners, we propose collective identity and collective norms play a critical role in the persistence of coopetition over time. Our process model suggests that (a) an oppositional collective identity, (b) the shared belief that a rising tide lifts all boats, and (c) the shared belief that advice and assistance should be paid forward, can lead to the persistence of coopetition beyond market category emergence. Managerial Summary: This paper develops a theory of how smaller, craft-based organizations (i.e., “Davids”) encourage cohesion and cooperation amongst themselves when operating against an incumbent market of mass-producers (i.e., “Goliaths”). An ideological opposition to existing players can lead to a shared belief that helping organizations like your own benefits everyone—the rising tide lifts all boats mentality. Similarly, when organizations first enter a market and receive help from established members, they can feel compelled to help others who enter the market after—the pay-it-forward mentality. Together, these mechanisms offer an explanation as to how and why coopetition might persist in a market category over time