Poststructuralism against poststructuralism: Actor-network theory, organizations and economic markets

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2012 The Author.In recent years, actor-network theory (ANT) has become an increasingly influential theoretical framework through which to analyse economic markets and organizations. Indeed, with its emphasis on the power of social and natural concrete ‘things’ to become contingently enrolled in different networks, many argue that ANT successfully draws attention to the complex intermeshing of new technologies and social actors in organizations and markets across spatial divides from the local to the global. This article argues, however, that within its own method of abstraction and research methodology, ANT separates ‘concrete’ and ‘contingent’ economic markets and organizations from their abstract, necessary and virtual capitalist form. This means that ANT will tend to over-identify with how concrete-contingent actor-networks are performed in empirical economic markets and organizations at the expense of analysing how such empirical contexts are also internally mediated through abstract capitalist processes such as that of surplus value extraction. This, in turn, creates a number of difficulties in how ANT investigates economic markets and organizations. These critical points are made by recourse to the Marxist poststructuralism of Deleuze and Guattari as well as through conventional Marxist ideas

Collaborative learning: a connected community approach

Collaborative Learning in group settings currently occurs across a substantial portion of the UK Higher Education curriculum. This style of learning has many roots including: Enterprise in Higher Education, Action Learning and Action Research, Problem Based Learning, and Practice Based Learning. As such our focus on Collaborative Learning development can be viewed as an evolutionary. This collaborative and active group learning provides the foundation for what can be collectively called connectivist ‘Learning Communities’. In this setting a primary feature of a ‘Learning Community’ is one that carries a responsibility to promote one another’s learning. This paper will outline a developmental collaborative learning approach and describe a supporting software environment, known as the Salford Personal Development Environment (SPDE), that has been developed and implemented to assist in delivering collaborative learning for post graduate and other provision. This is done against a background of much research evidence that group based activity can enhance learning. These findings cover many approaches to group based learning and over a significant period of time. This paper reports on work-in-progress and the features of the environment that are designed to help promote individual and group or community learning that have been influenced by the broad base of research findings in this area

Lenin’s Lens: The Occupy Movement, an Infantile Disorder?

This paper offers a theoretical critique of the Occupy movement by drawing on V.I. Lenin’s work, Left-wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder (LWC). This work emphasizes the importance of recognizing political power within institutionalized political systems, for example, trade unions and parliamentary democracy. We bring the ideas contained in this work to bear on the Occupy movement by drawing on 20 activist accounts from two UK Occupy camps to argue that the Occupy movement was an earlier phase of a developing political challenge to neoliberalism. In this respect, Occupy was an immature politics unlikely to lead to social change. However, recent research suggests that the creation of a new wave of ‘movement parties’ (della Porta et al., 2017) are a more organized and politically mature response to neoliberal austerity, which to some extent grew out of the mass movement assemblies like the Occupy movement. By applying Lenin’s ideas to analyse the main political practices of Occupy, this paper argues that a Leninist viewpoint could offer some practical improvements towards the political strategy of new movements by being part of a coalition of activists and trade unionists, with the ultimate aim of working within parliamentary democracy

Flexural fatigue performance of CFRP prestressed concrete poles

Carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) prestressed concrete poles offer a durable, light-weight alternative to conventional steel-reinforced or prestressed concrete poles. In particular, the corrosion resistance of the CFRP tendons can result in lower maintenance costs and a reduction in the required concrete cover. For lighting poles used in pedestrian or low-trafficked areas, wind loading represents a dominant load case. The wind acts as a transient force and can blow from any direction. It is therefore of interest to investigate how CFRP prestressed lighting poles perform under repeated cyclic loads and/or load reversals. Experiments were carried out on pole sections tested horizontally. These included a static control test and a conventional fatigue test where a cyclic load was applied in a downwards direction for 2 million cycles. Three further fatigue tests where the load direction changed, either after a defined number of cycles or within a load cycle, were also conducted. It was found that all the poles performed adequately for 1–2 million cycles of loading and that the majority of any deflection increases occurred within the first 50,000 cycles. It is believed that repeated cyclic loading may have increased the tendon debonding at the crack locations. Localised debonding potentially relieves the stress in the outermost tendon layer which delays the onset of failure and allows the inner tendon layers to take up further stress thus leading to a higher load carrying capacity. Loading orientation reversal from a downwards to an upwards direction within a loading cycle did not result in a greater stiffness degradation when compared to the other fatigue tests. The initial findings suggest that in-service cyclic loading and load reversals will not be detrimental to the performance of CFRP prestressed concrete poles. This is the accepted version of an original publication available here: http://multi-science.metapress.com/content/w842084116q73104/?genre=article&id=doi%3a10.1260%2f1369-4332.15.4.57

The Right to the City, Public Space, and Free Speech

In January 2022, Salford Council in Greater Manchester granted permission to the property and investment business, Legal and General Investment Management, to build a new hotel and offices at Ralli Quays in Salford. Controversially, the plans include closing a 300-year-old riverside public footpath. Pedestrians would instead be diverted through a new walkway through the hotel site, but which would also be shut to the public between dawn and dusk (Richardson 2022). Campaigners soon mobilised to oppose the plans and to argue that people had a ‘fundamental right’ to walk along the river, which ‘should not be sacrificed for private gain’ (Pidd 2022). Their tactics included successfully canvassing for a public inquiry into the potential removal of Public Rights of Way along this section of the river by Ralli Quays

Digital Technology, Work, Finance and Crises: Do We Now Live in Lash and Urry’s Capitalism of Mobilities or in Ernest Mandel’s Late Capitalism?

The single and combined work of Scott Lash and John Urry have become extremely significant in the social sciences in the UK and beyond. In particular, one of their principal ideas that dominant capitalist countries have made a transition to a «disorganized» and «mobile» era founded on digital networks, global flows of people, objects, images and texts, decentralized and flexible work practices, declining industrialized social classes, and a loss of power for the nation-state to regulate flows of finance, has influenced many researchers. Their work has even helped to establish of a new «mobilities» paradigm in the social sciences. Ernest Mandel has also explored the impact of digital technology on capitalist restructuring. Indeed, he claims that from 1945 onwards, a «late capitalist» wave emerged predicated on the rise of factors like automation, the service sector, and new class identities. Unlike Lash and Urry, however, Mandel applies Marxist theory to investigate these changes. The aim of this paper is to draw on Mandel’s ideas to examine critically the account put forward by Lash and Urry. Five areas in particular will be discussed: theoretical differences between Lash and Urry and Mandel; the transition between different phases in capitalism; the changing composition of social class; whether the workplace is now dominated by decentralized and flexible networks; and the relationship between finance, the state and digital technology.Resumen: Los trabajos individuales y combinados de Scott Lash y John Urry han adquirido una gran relevancia en las ciencias sociales del Reino Unido y de otros países. En particular, una de sus ideas principals y más influyente se fundamente en que los países capitalistas dominantes han realizado una transición hacia una era "desorganizada" y "móvil" basada en las redes digitales, flujos globales de personas, objetos, imágenes y textos, prácticas laborales descentralizadas y flexibles, declive de las clases sociales industrializadas y pérdida de poder del Estado-nación para regular los flujos financieros. Su trabajo, sin duda, ha contribuido a establecer un nuevo paradigma de "movilidades" en las ciencias sociales. También Ernest Mandel ha estudiado el impacto de la tecnología digital en la reestructuración capitalista. En efecto, afirma que a partir de 1945 surgió una oleada de "capitalismo tardío" basada en el auge de factores como la automatización, el sector servicios y las nuevas identidades de clase. Sin embargo, a diferencia de Lash y Urry, Mandel aplica la teoría marxista para investigar estos cambios. El objetivo de este artículo es basarse en las ideas de Mandel para examinar críticamente el relato presentado por Lash y Urry. Se discutirán cinco áreas en particular: las diferencias teóricas entre Lash y Urry y Mandel; la transición entre las diferentes fases del capitalismo; la composición cambiante de la clase social; si el lugar de trabajo está ahora dominado por redes descentralizadas y flexibles; y la relación entre las finanzas, el Estado y la tecnología digital

Outline of a Critical Sociology of Free Speech in Everyday Life: Beyond Liberal Approaches

Critical sociologists have been conspicuous by their absence in theoretical debates about free speech in everyday life. The aim of this article is to address this missing gap in critical sociology by making some tentative suggestions about how such a theory might advance. Drawing mainly from the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu and Judith Butler, the article suggests that free speech occurs when coalitions come together in venues to discuss the possession and dispossession of certain resources; resources that coalitional members enjoy or are denied from enjoying in social fields. If a coalition engages in dialogue and other types of expression that pushes for an equal distribution of different resources so as to make lives more liveable, then the coalition will most likely also be constructing subversive ‘heretical discourse’. Furthermore, the coalition will also most likely be challenging dominant and hegemonic symbolic constructions of ‘linguistic competence’ in a social field. The article develops these points by analysing two prominent liberal schools of thought on free speech: the marketplace of ideas school and the deliberative school. The article argues that these liberal schools cannot satisfactorily account for power relations and complexity of identity formation in relation to free speech.Leverhulme Trust for a Research Fellowship (RF-2020-387)

A road scheme, the state, and the détournement of urban space: Henri Lefebvre and competing publics in postwar Hyde Park, London

Data availability: The primary data that support the findings of this study are publicly available in UK archives. Specific references for historical documents used in the paper are given in the bibliography.Henri Lefebvre develops the term, détournement, to help analyse how certain events can make urban spaces more ‘plastic’ and uncertain and thus more readily malleable for appropriation by groups and organisations. In the literature, however, there has less been discussion about how events of détournement can lead to often intense dialogue and internal divisions within and between state departments, and between the state and groups in civil society about how these uncertain spaces can be moulded strategically to suit certain agendas and projects. This paper starts to fill this scholarly gap by applying Lefebvre's insights to examine the Park Lane Road Improvement Scheme in London, 1955–1962. This road scheme built a dual carriageway system between Hyde Park Corner and Marble Arch and unintentionally generated a moment of détournement in the surrounding spaces. The paper explores how four distinct publics emerged around the road scheme to discuss and elicit support for their respective agendas on how these uncertain spaces might be ‘stabilised’ once more. The four publics were: a ‘civic public’ assembled by the London County Council; a ‘local amenities public’ created by the Royal Fine Arts Commission; a ‘national heritage public’ assembled by the Ministry of Works; and a ‘free speech public’ constructed by defenders of Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. The paper demonstrates how a road scheme can generate competing claims to publicness, which not only incorporate the state, but also open up strategic opportunities for progressive movements to extend and develop their rights to the city.Leverhulme Trust Fellowship grant (RF-2020-387)

Multiaccentual coalitions, dialogic grief and carnivalesque assemblies: Judith Butler and Mikhail Bakhtin meet in the world of ethics

Copyright © The Author 2023. This article for the first time seeks to bring together theoretical insights from Judith Butler and Mikhail Bakhtin in order to strengthen their respective understanding of ethics. First, the article suggests that Bakhtin’s theory of dialogic events and the ‘multiaccentuality’ and thematic nature of everyday utterances can help Butler address criticisms that suggest her work concentrates too heavily on invariant meanings in utterances. Second, Butler’s theory of coalitions can usefully politicise Bakhtin’s ideas on utterances, while her ethics of grief is a crucial way to think about how we forge bonds with the ‘Other’. Correspondingly, Bakhtin’s theory of the ethical ‘I’ adds an important moment of ‘empathy’ to Butler’s account of grief and the ‘Other’. Third, Butler’s theory of state hegemony and counter-hegemonic assemblies can provide an important addition to Bakhtin’s theory, while Bakhtin’s theory of carnivalesque democracy strengthens Butler’s insights on equality in assemblies and occupying a liveable life.Leverhulme Trust Fellowship grant (RF-2020-387)