Etienne Balibar in Conversation: Revisiting European Marxism

In this interview, Balibar provides a number of reflections on the articulation of different Marxist traditions, including Italian Marxism and the Neue Marx Lektüre to his own Althusserian position. Similarly, he comments on his relationship to the readings of French theory upon Marx’s oeuvre. He further develops an analysis of the contemporary challenges posed by capitalism – and its different crises – to critical theory, social sciences and social movements. Then, he argues that financialization and the Anthropocene are central issues. He concludes with thoughts on internationalism and citizenship, which he believes to be indispensable political elements in order to conceptualize resistance in this crisis context

Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf? How corporations maintain hegemony by using counterinsurgency tactics to undermine activism

We contribute to critical theory building in relation to political corporate social responsibility (PCSR) by conceptualizing the underlying processes and practices through which corporations seek to counter threats posed by activist groups. We argue that the problematic nature of PCSR is entangled not only in its state-like aims, but also in its covert deployment of military tactics towards the maintenance of corporate hegemony. We illuminate how corporations use counterinsurgency tactics to undermine the ability of activists to hold them accountable for their wrongdoing. Building on the work of Gramsci, we propose that counterinsurgency tactics combine elements of force and persuasion that enable corporations to maintain hegemony (i.e., secure consent over time). We ask: How are counterinsurgency tactics used by corporations to neutralize activist pressures and maintain corporate hegemony? We draw upon historical sources regarding the Nestlé infant milk boycott case to undertake a genealogical analysis that exposes counterinsurgency tactics enabling corporations to counter activists and sustain their hegemony. We find that Nestlé deployed four key counterinsurgency tactics to nullify activist pressures (suppressing external support, isolating the activist(s), capturing the dialogue, and covert intelligence gathering). From our analysis, we propose the term corporate counterinsurgency and theorize the historic use of corporate counterinsurgency tactics as an example of a hegemonic strategy that enables corporations to covertly undermine activist pressures. We conclude by calling for further reflexivity in organizational studies research on the military origins of PCSR, and by outlining how activist organizations might mobilize against corporate counterinsurgency tactics

Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf? How corporations maintain hegemony by using counterinsurgency tactics to undermine activism

We contribute to critical theory building in relation to political corporate social responsibility (PCSR) by conceptualizing the underlying processes and practices through which corporations seek to counter threats posed by activist groups. We argue that the problematic nature of PCSR is entangled not only in its state-like aims, but also in its covert deployment of military tactics towards the maintenance of corporate hegemony. We illuminate how corporations use counterinsurgency tactics to undermine the ability of activists to hold them accountable for their wrongdoing. Building on the work of Gramsci, we propose that counterinsurgency tactics combine elements of force and persuasion that enable corporations to maintain hegemony (i.e., secure consent over time). We ask: How are counterinsurgency tactics used by corporations to neutralize activist pressures and maintain corporate hegemony? We draw upon historical sources regarding the Nestlé infant milk boycott case to undertake a genealogical analysis that exposes counterinsurgency tactics enabling corporations to counter activists and sustain their hegemony. We find that Nestlé deployed four key counterinsurgency tactics to nullify activist pressures (suppressing external support, isolating the activist(s), capturing the dialogue, and covert intelligence gathering). From our analysis, we propose the term corporate counterinsurgency and theorize the historic use of corporate counterinsurgency tactics as an example of a hegemonic strategy that enables corporations to covertly undermine activist pressures. We conclude by calling for further reflexivity in organizational studies research on the military origins of PCSR, and by outlining how activist organizations might mobilize against corporate counterinsurgency tactics

The affordance of compassion for animals: a filmic exploration of industrial linear rhythms

Compassion is an emotion that could be useful for improving the lives of animals within the intensive and factory farming system (IFFS). Rhythms that exist within this system play a role in making compassion difficult to realize, which formulates the research question: How do the rhythms of the IFFS shape the affordance of compassion for animals? Drawing on a cultural mode of analysis informed by Henri Lefebvre’s work on rhythms, this paper explored the rhythms of three films that focus on the treatment of animals in this system: Meat; Our Daily Bread and Never Let Me Go. Industrial linear rhythms seem to compromise the compassion offered to animals in the IFFS by manipulating the cyclical rhythms of animals and animalized bodies from birth, through life and at death. Compassion for animals and animalized bodies in the IFFS, this paper concludes, is often provided in a piecemeal and localized manner

Early and Late Pathogenic Events of Newborn Mice Encephalitis Experimentally Induced by Itacaiunas and Curionópolis Bracorhabdoviruses Infection

In previous reports we proposed a new genus for Rhabdoviridae and described neurotropic preference and gross neuropathology in newborn albino Swiss mice after Curionopolis and Itacaiunas infections. In the present report a time-course study of experimental encephalitis induced by Itacaiunas and Curionopolis virus was conducted both in vivo and in vitro to investigate cellular targets and the sequence of neuroinvasion. We also investigate, after intranasal inoculation, clinical signs, histopathology and apoptosis in correlation with viral immunolabeling at different time points. Curionopolis and Itacaiunas viral antigens were first detected in the parenchyma of olfactory pathways at 2 and 3 days post-inoculation (dpi) and the first clinical signs were observed at 4 and 8 dpi, respectively. After Curionopolis infection, the mortality rate was 100% between 5 and 6 dpi, and 35% between 8 and 15 dpi after Itacaiunas infection. We identified CNS mice cell types both in vivo and in vitro and the temporal sequence of neuroanatomical olfactory areas infected by Itacaiunas and Curionopolis virus. Distinct virulences were reflected in the neuropathological changes including TUNEL immunolabeling and cytopathic effects, more intense and precocious after intracerebral or in vitro inoculations of Curionopolis than after Itacaiunas virus. In vitro studies revealed neuronal but not astrocyte or microglial cytopathic effects at 2 dpi, with monolayer destruction occurring at 5 and 7 dpi with Curionopolis and Itacaiunas virus, respectively. Ultrastructural changes included virus budding associated with interstitial and perivascular edema, endothelial hypertrophy, a reduced and/or collapsed small vessel luminal area, thickening of the capillary basement membrane, and presence of phagocytosed apoptotic bodies. Glial cells with viral budding similar to oligodendrocytes were infected with Itacaiunas virus but not with Curionopolis virus. Thus, Curionopolis and Itacaiunas viruses share many pathological and clinical features present in other rhabdoviruses but distinct virulence and glial targets in newborn albino Swiss mice brain

Resisting Financialization with Deleuze and Guattari

Resisting Financialization with Deleuze and Guattari aims to provide a contribution in relation to three main areas: the understanding of contemporary capitalism and financialization from a critical perspective; the analysis of resistance to financialization; and the better understanding of the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. Using a critical perspective, this book is informed by a Marxian literature in political economy and the poststructuralist works of Deleuze and Guattari, and Foucault. Through this, the author argues that it is relevant to combine Marxism and poststructuralism so as to better understand financialization. The analysis of resistance to financialization also provides a reflection on social democracy and Occupy Wall Street as contrasting ways to resist capitalism. Finally, this book will contribute to the analysis of Deleuze and Guattari through an analysis of their reception within political philosophy. This book provides the intellectual tools needed by academics in order to articulate a critical and revolutionary interpretation of Deleuze and Guattari, as well as analyse their reception by political philosophy. It also offers these tools to a more general audience interested in political economy and capitalism

<i>For the women</i> - In Memoriam Simone Veil (1927-2017)

This In Memoriam presents the life of Simone Veil, an influential French politician, remembered for a law that made abortion legal in 1974. Simone Veil's contribution to the rights of women is featured as an instance of parrhesia (Foucault, 2011) that was able to establish a new regime of truth about the body, sexuality, and reproductive capacities of French women

Resisting financialisation with Deleuze and Guattari: the case of Occupy Wall Street

We draw on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and the example of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) in order to indicate how contemporary processes of financialisation might continue to be resisted. After framing our argument, we trace the emergence of financialisation in the post-war period, from the ‘financial repression’ associated with the Bretton Woods regime to the emancipation of finance associated with neoliberalism. Financialisation did not emerge uncontested and so we also present five of the barriers which it overcame. We employ Deleuze's (1992) concept of ‘societies of control’ as a lens to examine finance and financialisation, before examining contemporary resistance to financialisation, taking OWS as our case study. The concepts of ‘itinerant politics’ and ‘relay’ provide us with further insights into the nature of OWS, particularly with respect to its model of ‘distributed leadership’ and, through this, its generation of a situated resistance to financialisation. OWS, finally, qualifies as an ‘event’ in the Deleuzian sense in that it ruptured the logic of the present state of things