Democracy, emancipation and widening participation in the UK: changing the ‘distribution of the sensible’

The broad concern of this paper is how the relationship between education, democracy and emancipation might be conceived. This theme is explored through examining the contribution of a Rancierian conception of emancipation and democracy to rethinking widening participation in higher education. Following Ranciere, it is argued that taking equality as a starting point in higher education, rather than as a goal to be achieved through education, disrupts a prevailing logic of education as necessarily providing a pathway to emancipation. From this view the pedagogic practices of explication and mastery, which Ranciere argues work to separate academic reason and practical reason, need no longer be understood as the only way to be academic. It is proposed that this ‘redistribution of the sensible’ enables higher education to be conceived in ways other than available in ongoing educational debates and enables a move beyond an assimilation/recognition binary. Instead, widening participation can be understood as a space for opening up to experience, transformation and change for both academics and students. From this view, democracy is enacted in the here and now, rather than a goal for the future, and practice can be understood as a site for change

Gay men at work: (re)constructing the self as professional

This article is a study of professional identity work, using in-depth interview material from research conducted into the work lives of 10 gay men employed in a UK National Health Service Trust. Using the men's portraits of professional life, we examine the different ways they understand what it means to be a `professional'. The article suggests that while gay men appear to be empowered by forms of agency to self-identify as professionals in `gay-friendly' work contexts, they are by no means unaffected by dominant professional norms and discourses of heteronormativity that treat sexuality and professionalism as polar opposites. Thus how straightforward it might be for the interviewees to self-identify as `professional' and openly gay within an organization that is perceived to be `gay-friendly' is scrutinized in terms of the professional identity dilemmas experienced by the study participants. We conclude that, even within `gay friendly' organizational settings, fashioning a professional identity is a process marked by negotiation and struggle

Violence and Desire in Beijing

In Mainland China, there is a lack of public awareness of and systematic research on dating violence and incest. This article fills a gap in the research in this area by examining a woman's lived experience of father-daughter incest and dating violence. The article adopts the standpoint of third-wave feminists and highlights women's agency and resistance to abuse. Meng Xi, the subject of the case study in this article, is regarded as a "survivor" rather than a "victim," and her various strategies of resistance-in particular, how she talks about her body and linghun (intelligence soul), and uses the two as sites of resistance-are examined. The article sheds light on the desire and sexuality of women in contemporary China, and especially the struggle between spiritual and material pursuits. © 2007 Sage Publications.link_to_subscribed_fulltex