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Book Shifting Imaginaries of  good Citizens

Download or read book Shifting Imaginaries of good Citizens written by Judy Meltzer and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Imaginary Citizens

Download or read book Imaginary Citizens written by Courtney Weikle-Mills and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2013-01-15 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did Ichabod Crane and other characters from children’s literature shape the ideal of American citizenship? 2015 Honor Book Award, Children's Literature Association From the colonial period to the end of the Civil War, children’s books taught young Americans how to be good citizens and gave them the freedom, autonomy, and possibility to imagine themselves as such, despite the actual limitations of the law concerning child citizenship. Imaginary Citizens argues that the origin and evolution of the concept of citizenship in the United States centrally involved struggles over the meaning and boundaries of childhood. Children were thought of as more than witnesses to American history and governance—they were representatives of “the people” in general. Early on, the parent-child relationship was used as an analogy for the relationship between England and America, and later, the president was equated to a father and the people to his children. There was a backlash, however. In order to contest the patriarchal idea that all individuals owed childlike submission to their rulers, Americans looked to new theories of human development that limited political responsibility to those with a mature ability to reason. Yet Americans also based their concept of citizenship on the idea that all people are free and accountable at every age. Courtney Weikle-Mills discusses such characters as Goody Two-Shoes, Ichabod Crane, and Tom Sawyer in terms of how they reflect these conflicting ideals.

Book Shifting Social Imaginaries in the Hellenistic Period

Download or read book Shifting Social Imaginaries in the Hellenistic Period written by Eftychia Stavrianopoulou and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-09-12 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a long tradition in classical scholarship of reducing the Hellenistic period to the spreading of Greek language and culture far beyond the borders of the Mediterranean. More than anything else this perception has hindered an appreciation of the manifold consequences triggered by the creation of new spaces of connectivity linking different cultures and societies in parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. In adopting a new approach this volume explores the effects of the continuous adaptations of ideas and practices to new contexts of meaning on the social imaginaries of the parties participating in these intercultural encounters. The essays show that the seemingly static end-products of the interaction between Greek and non-Greek groups, such as texts, images, and objects, were embedded in long-term discourses, and thus subject to continuously shifting processes.

Book Unruly Domestication

Download or read book Unruly Domestication written by Kristin Skrabut and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2024-05-21 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the first decade of the 21st century, Peru reduced its official poverty rate from 50% of the population to 20%. In the "extreme poverty zones" of Lima, though, most residents still consider themselves poor. This book argues that poverty is not an objective condition, but a context-specific "assemblage" and subjective experience that is critically connected to particular life stages and family forms. Despite Peru's efforts to deploy the accepted "best practices" for fighting poverty, the formalization of things like business licenses, property deeds, and household census categories actually perpetuate urban sprawl, deepen discrimination against single mothers, and undermine Peruvians' faith in public officials as well as one another. The introduction stakes out the geographical and theoretical territory of the book. Subsequent chapters are more ethnographic, getting into why residents of the shantytown where the author's research takes place believe poverty is everywhere--but also believe looks can be deceiving. She explores questions like, Is that woman really a single mother or is she living with another man who provides, making her less-deserving of aid even as she endures the stigma of being a single mother? There's a chapter about Mother's Clubs, and how they seek official recognition as social aid groups, despite the irony that the laborious bureaucracy of official recognition takes club members away from their families. A similar bureaucracy tries to identify poor children through their parents, further marginalizing single mothers. These mothers are usually seen as the most deserving of assistance, even as they are castigated for leaving their kids at home all day in order to work. A late chapter shows how shantytowns play a role in the poverty equation. Although these communities do not necessarily have official recognition, they can still provide a kind of safety net. As the author writes, "Plans change, relationships fall apart, and shantytown homes play an important role in Peruvians' efforts to pull things back together." A conclusion reflects on the long-term possibilities raised by the book's findings, which leads to an epilogue that reports on the people and programs featured in the book since the conclusion of the author's fieldwork"--

Book The Inclusionary Turn in Latin American Democracies

Download or read book The Inclusionary Turn in Latin American Democracies written by Diana Kapiszewski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-04 with total page 587 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Latin American states took dramatic steps toward greater inclusion during the late twentieth and early twenty-first Centuries. Bringing together an accomplished group of scholars, this volume examines this shift by introducing three dimensions of inclusion: official recognition of historically excluded groups, access to policymaking, and resource redistribution. Tracing the movement along these dimensions since the 1990s, the editors argue that the endurance of democratic politics, combined with longstanding social inequalities, create the impetus for inclusionary reforms. Diverse chapters explore how factors such as the role of partisanship and electoral clientelism, constitutional design, state capacity, social protest, populism, commodity rents, international diffusion, and historical legacies encouraged or inhibited inclusionary reform during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Featuring original empirical evidence and a strong theoretical framework, the book considers cross-national variation, delves into the surprising paradoxes of inclusion, and identifies the obstacles hindering further fundamental change.

Book Toward an Imperfect Education

Download or read book Toward an Imperfect Education written by Sharon Todd and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-11-17 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The theory of cosmopolitanism is built on a paradoxical commitment to a universal idea of humanity and to a respect for human pluralism. Toward an Imperfect Education critiques the assumed "goodness" of humans that underwrites the idea of humanity and explores how antagonistic human interactions such as conflict, violence, and suffering are a fundamental aspect of life in a pluralistic world. This book proposes that the inescapable difference between humans compels our ethical and political observations in education. Todd persuasively argues that facing humanity in all its complexity and imperfection ought to be a central element of the cosmopolitan project to create a more just and humane education. Informed primarily by poststructural philosophy and feminist theory, she focuses on how sexual, cultural, and religious difference intersect with universal claims made in the name of humanity. Individual chapters develop a novel framework for dealing with antagonism in relation to human rights, democracy, citizenship, and cross-cultural understanding.

Book Growing Democracy in Africa

Download or read book Growing Democracy in Africa written by Mamoudou Gazibo and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2016-02-08 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the state of governance in sub-Saharan Africa? Is it possible to identify the best practices and approaches to establishing political systems that promote accountability, transparency, peace, and civic space for all? These are the questions addressed in this book. While the concept of governance is considered to be central to political science, our understanding of it is still imprecise, with extant studies focused primarily either on think-tank indicators, economic management, or political studies of democratization. This book critically examines the record on democratization in Africa thus far, and seeks a new, integrated, focused approach to the study of governance. Such an approach requires revisiting the concept of governance itself, with emphasis on certain decisive components and critical issues. Considered in a democratic framework, the concept of governance can be employed to cast light on accountability issues in several arenas, four of which are considered in detail in this volume: institutions and the rule of law; constitution-making, elections, and political conflict settlement; distribution of power and citizenship; and political economy and corruption. Each contribution offers particular insights in one of these arenas. With a huge and varied continent in rapid flux to study, the sheer amount and variety of interesting new research is enormous. It is expected that the discussions contained herein and the various challenges, achievements, and lessons outlined will contribute to research, inform teaching, and lead to a greater understanding of the issues of democratic consolidation and economic development in Africa.

Book Aesthetic Citizenship

Download or read book Aesthetic Citizenship written by Emine Fisek and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-15 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aesthetic Citizenship is an ethnographic study of the role of theatrical performance in questions regarding immigration, citizenship, and the formation of national identity. Focusing on Paris in the twenty-first century, Emine Fisek analyzes the use of theater by immigrant-rights organizations there and examines the relationship between aesthetic practices and the political personhoods they negotiate. From neighborhood associations and humanitarian alliances to arts organizations both large and small, Fisek traces how theater has emerged as a practice with the perceived capacity to address questions regarding immigrant rights, integration, and experience. In Aesthetic Citizenship, she explores how the stage, one of France’s most evocative cultural spaces, has come to play a role in contemporary questions about immigration, citizenship and national identity. Yet Fişek’s insightful research also illuminates Paris’s broader historical, political, and cultural through-lines that continue to shape the relationship between theater and migration in France. By focusing on how French public discourses on immigration are not only rendered meaningful but also inhabited and modified in the context of activist and arts practice, Aesthetic Citizenship seeks to answer the fundamental question: is theater a representational act or can it also be a transformative one?

Book Gender and Citizenship in Historical and Transnational Perspective

Download or read book Gender and Citizenship in Historical and Transnational Perspective written by Anne Epstein and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-09-16 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With gender as its central focus, this book offers a transnational, multi-faceted understanding of citizenship as legislated, imagined, and exercised since the late eighteenth century. Framed around three crosscutting themes - agency, space and borders - leading scholars demonstrate what historians can bring to the study of citizenship and its evolving relationship with the theory and practice of democracy, and how we can make the concept of citizenship operational for studying past societies and cultures. The essays examine the past interactions of women and men with public authorities, their participation in civic life within various kinds of polities and the meanings they attached to their actions. In analyzing the way gender operated both to promote and to inhibit civic consciousness, action, and practice, this book advances our knowledge about the history of citizenship and the evolution of the modern state.

Book Rethinking Youth Citizenship After the Age of Entitlement

Download or read book Rethinking Youth Citizenship After the Age of Entitlement written by Lucas Walsh and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-03-22 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rethinking Youth Citizenship After the Age of Entitlement provides a primer for exploring hard questions about how young people understand, experience and enact their citizenship in uncertain times and about their senses of membership and belonging. It examines how familiar modes of exclusion are compounded by punitive youth policies in ways that are concealed by neoliberal discourses. It considers the role of key institutions in constructing young people's citizenship and looks at the ways in which some young people are opting out of established enactments of citizenship while creating new ones. Critically reflecting on recent scholarly interest in the geographical, relational, affective and temporal dimensions of young people's experiences of citizenship, it also reinvigorates the discussion about citizenship rights and entitlements, and what these might mean for young people. The book draws on global research and theories of citizenship but has a particular focus on Australia, which provides a unique example of a country that has fared well economically yet is mimicking the austerity measures of the United Kingdom and Europe. It concludes with an argument for a rethinking of citizenship which recognises young people's rights as citizens and the ways in which these interact with their lived experience at a time that has been characterised as 'the end of the age of entitlement'.

Book Social Imaginaries  Volume 2  issue 1  Spring 2016

Download or read book Social Imaginaries Volume 2 issue 1 Spring 2016 written by Suzi Adams and published by Zeta Books. This book was released on 2016-05-13 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Table of Contents Suzi Adams, Paul Blokker, Natalie J. Doyle & John W. M. Krummel: Editorial John W. M. Krummel: Introduction to Miki Kiyoshi and his ‘Logic of the Imagination’ Miki Kiyoshi: Myth (translated by John W. M. Krummel) Abstract: “Myth” comprises the first chapter of the book, The Logic of the Imagination, by Miki Kiyoshi. In this chapter Miki analyzes the significance of myth (shinwa) as possessing a certain reality despite being “fictions.” He begins by broadening the meaning of the imagination to argue for a logic of the imagination that involves expressive action or poiesis (production) in general, of which myth is one important product. The imagination gathers in myth material from the environing world lived by the social collectivity. Its formation of images (Bilder) expresses the pathos of a people vis-à-vis their environment, but myth also contains elements of logos in the form of intellectual representations and figures. And their combination becomes expressed externally by stimulating and guiding action. In this way Miki argues that myths contain both emotive and kinetic elements, which by moving people to action, are capable of making history. Thus rooted in the symbiosis between individual and social and between society and environment, myth possesses a “historical creativity.” And he also argues that myths can be present with a sense of reality at any epoch in history, even today, wherever and whenever their primeval power is felt to function, “drawing out” a new reality, a new world, out of the natural world. Guanjun Wu: The Lacanian Imaginary and Modern Chinese Intellectuality Abstract: Jacques Lacan’s theorization of the imaginary has been regarded generally as an organic part of the crucial development of psychoanalytic theory in its post-Freudian stage. This article situates the Lacanian imaginary in the context of contemporary discussions of ‘theory after poststructuralism’, arguing that it moves radically beyond the poststructuralist terrains of deconstruction and discourse-analysis, and is able to offer new insights on various studies. Especially, it can help (re)examine some aporias in the field of Sinology. This article devotes its main body to demonstrating that the Lacanian account of the imaginary is powerful in exploring the assumptions and expectations of modern Sinophone intellectual discourse. Deconstructive discourse-analysis alone is insufficient for understanding the underlying forces that have been fundamentally shaping the contours of modern Chinese intellectuality, and attention needs to be paid to the psychological dimension of Chinese thought. With the aim of tracing and interrogating these underlying forces, this article seeks to show how the fervor for discussing the ‘problem of China’ reveals a hidden psychical mechanism. Craig Browne: Critiques of Identity and the Permutations of the Capitalist Imaginary Abstract: In their elucidations of the capitalist imaginary, Castoriadis and Adorno emphasize the significance of identity thinking to this social-historical constellation. Adorno contends that the principle of identity constitutes the nucleus of the capitalist imaginary, because it underpins commodity exchange and the formal rationality of bureaucratic administration. Castoriadis associates the logic of identity with the same tendencies, but accentuates the horizon of meaning that animates the deployment of this logic. However, Castoriadis and Adorno recognise that the critique of identity logic confronts a genuine antinomy. Although it is integral to the capitalist imaginary, the logic of identity is present in every institution of society. I show how these critiques of identity pose questions about the ontological underpinnings of capitalism’s value system. After explicating variants of identity logic and its critique, I explore different interpretations of the permutations of the capitalist imaginary. These accounts of conflict, innovation and individualism diverge from Adorno and Castoriadis’s assessments of organised capitalism. Similarly, Arnason’s civilizational perspective situates the capitalist imaginary’s permutations in a longer-term historical perspective and suggests a revised core signification of unlimited accumulation. Finally, my analysis outlines some highly significant, though arguably often neglected, current capitalist instantiations of identity logic. Werner Binder: Shifting Imaginaries in the War on Terror: The Rise and Fall of the Ticking Bomb Torturer Abstract: This analysis employs the concept of social imaginary to account for recent shifts in the imagination, discourse and practice of torture. It is motivated by a broader ambition to highlight the importance of the imaginary vis-à-vis the symbolic, which still dominates theoretical debates in cultural sociology. Culture does not only consist of codes and symbols, but also encompasses collectively shared imaginary significations. Only by paying tribute to the imaginary dimension of culture, we are able to understand how codes and symbols work. The importance of the social imaginary will be demonstrated through an analysis of the impact of 9/11 and the Abu Ghraib scandal on the American torture discourse. The terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers did not bring up new arguments in favor of torture, but changed the social imaginary by turning the so-called ‘ticking bomb scenario’ from a mere thought experiment into a real possibility. The publicized abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison had an opposite effect: The infamous photographs changed the imagination of torture which in turn strengthened its critics. Suzi Adams and Johann P. Arnason: Sociology, Philosophy, History: A Dialogue Abstract: The dialogue focuses on the sources, contexts, and configuration of Johann P. Arnason’s intellectual trajectory. It is broadly framed around the interplay of philosophy, sociology, and history in his thought. Its scope is wide ranging, spanning critical and normative theory, phenomenology and hermeneutics, and contemporary and classical sociology. It explores the importance of Castoriadis, Merleau-Ponty and Patočka for Arnason’s understanding of the human condition from a comparative civilizational perspective; his engagement with Habermas and Eisenstadt for the development of his hermeneutic of modernity and multiple modernities; his ongoing, albeit subterranean, dialogue with Charles Taylor; and concludes with a discussion of his recent focus on the religio-political nexus.

Book Citizen Media and Practice

Download or read book Citizen Media and Practice written by Hilde Stephansen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-28 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking collection advances understanding of the concept of media practices by critically interrogating its relevance for the study of citizen and activist media. Media as practice has emerged as a powerful approach to understanding the media’s significance in contemporary society. Bringing together contributions from leading scholars in sociology, media and communication, social movement and critical data studies, this book stimulates dialogue across previously separate traditions of research on citizen and activist media practices and stakes out future directions for research in this burgeoning interdisciplinary field. Framed by a foreword by Nick Couldry and a substantial introductory chapter by the editors, contributions to the volume trace the roots and appropriations of the concept of media practice in Latin American communication theory; reflect on the relationship between activist agency and technological affordances; explore the relevance of the media practice approach for the study of media activism, including activism that takes media as its central object of struggle; and demonstrate the significance of the media practice approach for understanding processes of mediatization and datafication. Offering both a comprehensive introduction to scholarship on citizen media and practice and a cutting-edge exploration of a novel theoretical framework, the book is ideal for students and experienced scholars alike.

Book Constructing the Nation

Download or read book Constructing the Nation written by Mariana Ortega and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2009-10-23 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophers and social theorists of color examine how racism can creep into defensive forms of nationalism.

Book Righting the American Dream

    Book Details:
  • Author : Diane Winston
  • Publisher : University of Chicago Press
  • Release : 2023-07-28
  • ISBN : 0226824527
  • Pages : 267 pages

Download or read book Righting the American Dream written by Diane Winston and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2023-07-28 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative new history of how the news media facilitated the Reagan Revolution and the rise of the religious Right. After two years in the White House, an aging and increasingly unpopular Ronald Reagan looked like a one-term president, but in 1983 something changed. Reagan spoke of his embattled agenda as a spiritual rather than a political project and cast his vision for limited government and market economics as the natural outworking of religious conviction. The news media broadcast this message with enthusiasm, and white evangelicals rallied to the president’s cause. With their support, Reagan won reelection and continued to dismantle the welfare state, unraveling a political consensus that stood for half a century. In Righting the American Dream, Diane Winston reveals how support for Reagan emerged from a new religious vision of American identity circulating in the popular press. Through four key events—the “evil empire” speech, AIDS outbreak, invasion of Grenada, and rise in American poverty rates—Winston shows that many journalists uncritically adopted Reagan’s religious rhetoric and ultimately mainstreamed otherwise unpopular evangelical ideas about individual responsibility. The result is a provocative new account of how Reagan together with the press turned America to the right and initiated a social revolution that continues today.

Book Autobiography of a Democratic Nation at Risk

Download or read book Autobiography of a Democratic Nation at Risk written by JoVictoria Nicholson-Goodman and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2009 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Expanding William F. Pinar's notion of autobiography from an individual to a national scale, this book takes the reader on an inner journey to explore the fragmented condition of the post-9/11 American national psyche. It excavates the many layers of the emerging social context within which multiple, conflicting national narratives of identity compete, and uses notions of democracy, nation, and citizen as signposts of contested terrain inside a troubled nation. While reminding us that the old, enduring questions remain unresolved, the book identifies and grapples with new questions that are central to emergent visions of 'educating for democracy' in contemporary America, situated now within a frenetic post-9/11 world.

Book Imagined Democracies

    Book Details:
  • Author : Yaron Ezrahi
  • Publisher : Cambridge University Press
  • Release : 2012-10-15
  • ISBN : 1107025753
  • Pages : 341 pages

Download or read book Imagined Democracies written by Yaron Ezrahi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-15 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In our era of mass electronic communications, political realities are produced by believable fictions that echo popular desires.

Book Human Rights as Political Imaginary

Download or read book Human Rights as Political Imaginary written by José Julián López and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-04-13 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, López proposes the ‘political imaginary’ model as a tool to better understand what human rights are in practice, and what they might, or might not, be able to achieve. Human rights are conceptualised as assemblages of relatively stable, but not unchanging, historically situated, and socially embedded practices. Drawing on an emerging iconoclastic historiography of human rights, the author provides a sympathetic yet critical overview of the field of the sociology of human rights. The book addresses debates regarding sociology’s relationships to human rights, the strengths and limits of the notion of practice, human rights’ affinity to postnational citizenship and cosmopolitism, and human rights’ curious, yet fateful, entanglement with the law. Human Rights as Political Imaginary will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, politics, international relations and criminology.