Duality and fallibility in practices of the self: The 'inclusive subject’ in diversity training

The concept of ‘inclusion’ has been gaining ground in a field known as equality and diversity work. Scholars have begun to both theorise what this concept means as a normative goal and to critically examine how it is mobilised in organisational practice. This paper contributes to the latter conversation by asking what comes to count as ‘doing inclusion’ at the level of the individual. I examine the practices of diversity training in United Kingdom organisations, in which diversity practitioners seek to transform their trainees into people who will act inclusively toward others, asking: Who is the ‘inclusive subject’ that is being constructed – imagined, sought and legitimised – through diversity training? What are the conditions of possibility that shape the emergence of this subject? And what are the possibilities that this subject affords to marginalised groups struggling for recognition within organisations? The analysis mobilises Foucault’s notions of power/knowledge, discipline, and practices of the self to describe and discuss the performance of inclusive subjectivity in the context of diversity training in the UK. The practices described are found to be facilitated by two key forms of knowledge about how the subject is characterised: duality and fallibility. The discussion of these two forms of knowledge leads us to consider the relations of both discipline and freedom that take place in diversity training.</p

Defending the Empire: Rational Empires

The article of record as published may be found at https://doi.org/10.1080/23269995.2013.80561

The LSST camera corner raft conceptual design: a front-end for guiding and wavefront sensing

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is a proposed ground based telescope that will perform a comprehensive astronomical survey by imaging the entire visible sky in a continuous series of short exposures. Four special purpose rafts, mounted at the corners of the LSST science camera, contain wavefront sensors and guide sensors. Wavefront measurements are accomplished using curvature sensing, in which the spatial intensity distribution of stars is measured at equal distances on either side of focus by CCD detectors. The four Corner Rafts also each hold two guide sensors. The guide sensors monitor the locations of bright stars to provide feedback that controls and maintains the tracking of the telescope during an exposure. The baseline sensor for the guider is a Hybrid Visible Silicon hybrid-CMOS detector. We present here a conceptual mechanical and electrical design for the LSST Corner Rafts that meets the requirements imposed by the camera structure, and the precision of both the wavefront reconstruction and the tracking. We find that a single design can accommodate two guide sensors and one split-plane wavefront sensor integrated into the four corner locations in the camera

Sport mega-events: can legacies and development be equitable and sustainable?

Sport mega-events (SMEs) involve struggles to determine the definition of legacy and the outcome priorities that guide legacy planning, funding, and implementation processes. History shows that legacies reflect the interests of capital, and legacy benefits are enjoyed primarily, if not exclusively, by powerful business interests, a few political leaders, and organizations that govern high performance sports. This paper addresses challenges faced by cities and countries that host SMEs, and shows that fair and equitable legacies and developmental outcomes are achieved only when the voices and interests of the general population are taken into account and given priority during the process of planning, funding and implementation. It also explains how full representation in the process of defining and achieving legacies and developmental outcomes may be undermined by populist beliefs about the power of sport

Public imaginaries of development and complex subjectivities: the challenge for development studies

This paper argues that Development Studies has offered limited critical engagement with the complex ways in which development shapes the subjectivities of citizens in the Global North. Campaigns and experiences such as Make Poverty History, the “gap year” and the mainstreaming of fair trade all shape the ways in which Northern publics understand and respond to development issues. This is significant as established ideas of rich and poor are challenged and reinforced through austerity in the Global North, discourses around the “rising powers” and the closing of spaces for critical public debate on development. Research with the NGO CAFOD (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development) illustrates the ways social relations and identities interweave with development imaginaries in the Global North. A drawing together of postcolonial and cosmopolitan perspectives provides a starting point for rethinking scholarship and curricula in this area

Becoming global (un)civil society : counter-hegemonic struggle and the indymedia network

In this article we ask how ‘civil society’ actors and organizations can become constructed and treated as ‘uncivil society’. We contest the notion that ‘uncivil’ necessarily equates with the dark qualities of violence and organized criminality. Instead, we take a Gramscian perspective in suggesting that what becomes ‘uncivil’ is any practice and organization that substantially contests the structuring enclosures of hegemonic order, of which civil society is a necessary part. To trace this, we consider ways in which a global grass-roots media network called Indymedia has established and maintained itself as a counter-hegemonic media-producing organization. In this case, a conscious positioning and self-identification as counter-hegemonic has been accompanied by the framing and sometimes violent policing of nodes and practices of this network as ‘uncivil’ by cooperating state authorities. This is in the absence of association of this network with organized violence or crime. We intend our reflections to contribute to a deepening theorization of the terms ‘civil’ and ‘uncivil’ as they are becoming used in social movement and globalization studies