The Veiled Muslim, the Anorexic and the Transsexual

The Muslim woman wearing the veil, the female anorexic and the from-male-to-female transsexual constitute three different figures that, despite their striking differences, have a common symbolic ground. By focusing on the similarity between the veiled woman and the other two figures, the article sheds a different light on the debate about the Muslim veil in western societies. It is argued that the western notion of woman is based on a structural ambivalence of transcendence and immanence. On the one hand, woman is expected to be liberated, in control and active in public life and in all ways just as free as the man, on the other she represents a deficiency compared to the man; it is expected of her that she takes up a complementary, subordinate position in relation to the man. The subordinate position, however, is seldom pronounced. Officially, the gender hierarchy is not a part of egalitarian societies, that is, the modern configuration that formally rejects a hierarchical worldview. Is this the reason why the three figures are regarded as pathological? Does their way of demonstrating extraordinary transcendence combined with extraordinary immanence make them monstrous

Interseksjonalitet og ignoranse: Fra synliggjøring til avkolonialisering

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Noble Polish sexuality and the corrupted European body

This article attends to the instrumentalization of gender and sexuality in recent Polish political campaigns. Locating current political debates in a cultural-historical context of long-established hierarchical divides, it conceives of gender and sexuality as ‘empty signifiers’ deployed in political struggles (for hegemony) over notions of civic responsibility, good citizenship and articulations of Europeanness. Similarly, it takes ‘Europeanness’ as an empty signifier, without any essential meaning, arguing that these signifiers are key to understanding recent mobilizations around moral frontiers in Polish politics. Illustrative examples serve to elaborate how LGBT rights and sex education are instrumentalized among self-proclaimed liberals as well as rightwing nationalists, seeking to guarantee the moral integrity of the nation according to an antagonistic logic. On both sides of the political divide, we witness a self-orientalizing positioning towards the European ‘core’, whether phrased in terms of sexual modernity or Christian civilization.publishedVersio

Citoyens intolérables : tolérance, islam et homosexualité

Cet article s’intéresse à la question de la citoyenneté sexuelle dans l’Europe d’aujourd’hui en examinant la façon dont la tolérance est présentée dans les débats sur l’Islam et l’homosexualité en Norvège. En s’appuyant sur Regulating Aversion. Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire de Wendy Brown, l’article soutient que le discours de tolérance est essentiel pour produire le type de citoyens souhaité par les démocraties libérales. La tolérance envers l’homosexualité pourrait être considérée comme un instrument politique susceptible, d’un côté, de légiférer sur la citoyenneté de l’État-nation et, de l’autre, de justifier une mission civilisatrice internationale.The paper addresses the issue of sexual citizenship in Europe today by looking at how tolerance is configured in debates about Islam and homosexuality in Norway. Drawing on Wendy Brown’s Regulating Aversion. Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire, the paper argues that tolerance discourse is central to the production of the kind of citizens that contemporary liberal democracies require. Tolerance to homosexuality could be seen as a political instrument to legitimate nation-state citizenship on the one hand, and justify an international civilizing mission on the other

Spenninger i klasserommet: Mikroaggresjon som pedagogisk utfordring

Når spenninger eller konflikter oppstår i klasserommet, oppleves det gjerne som et hinder for læring. Mange undervisere betrakter konfliktsituasjoner som et problem som må håndteres for å reetablere ro og orden. Vi vil imidlertid hevde at ønsket om kontroll over situasjonen kan forsterke mekanismene som utløste konflikten. En del klasseromskonflikter er ikke situasjonsbetinget i snever forstand, men er resultat av maktmekanismer som knytter seg til den akademiske institusjonen og samfunnsformasjonen generelt. Trangen til å begrense problemet til situasjonen og gjenopprette harmoni kan stenge for muligheten til å problematisere mekanismer som markerer et sosialt hierarki. Vi bruker begrepet mikroaggresjon til å belyse slike uformelle maktmekanismer. For å illustrere hvordan mikroaggresjon kan komme til uttrykk i klasserommet, presenterer vi to caser fra egen undervisning. Vi avrunder med en diskusjon av hva som skjer med læringsbetingelsene når en tar hensyn til såkalte utenomfaglige faktorer i læringssituasjonen

Politisk korrekthet, identitetspolitikk og ytringsfrihet

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