Biography and the search for women's subjectivity

This paper considers women's biography as an important connecting link between the study of microinteractions of social history and macropolitical structures and transformations. As the search for women's subjectivity requires the fullest possible historical contextualization for the subject of women's biography, identifying the sex-class conditions of women is essential. In studying the structuring of sex classes, it is found that both sexism and racism produce domination by essentializing physical or biological differences. But the dyadic character of gender domination differentiates sexism from all other conditions of exploitation. Because gender power is basically dyadic, interpretative interaction is offered as an appropriate methodological approach to women's biography. Further, when meaning and situation are extended to consciousness and praxis, interpretive interaction can encompass the full range of historical structure which shape sex-class. This theoretical-methodological approach forms the basis for a critique of deconstruction which depoliticized gender research by decentering the subject and dismissing binary oppositions such as gender dyads.     

Gendered political subjectivity in post-soviet latvia

Political texts such as parties' pre-election programs, manifestos, slogans, or TV ads can be analyzed as narratives using multidisciplinary methods. Such an analysis can be especially beneficial in the political context of Latvia where the prevalent political rhetoric contains post-Soviet legacies, the impact of international integration and nationalist projects of ethnic isolationism. This article is based on a study of political documents of parties in Latvia and their story of what characterizes an empowered political subjectivity. It consists of three main themes—the family, the borders and the order. In all of them, the political subjectivity is masculinized and concentrated on developing various levels of social and political differentiation, especially ethnic and gender stratification. Such a political rhetoric leads to the exclusion from decision-making of women and other groups that do not fit prevalent characterizations of the political subjectivity.     

beyond emancipation: subjectivities and ethics among women in Europe's Islamic revival communities

This article addresses the complex reflections regarding gender relations expressed by women active in the contemporary Islamic revival movements in Europe (especially France and Germany). Much recent research conducted among these groups aims to counter the rather negative accounts prevailing in public discourses on gender and Islam. This literature notably argues that women's conscious turn to Islam is not necessarily a reaffirmation of male domination, but that it constitutes a possibility for agency and empowerment. However, when faced with certain ‘traditionalist’ positions defended by these women, even this well-meaning literature seems precarious, left in a state of uncertainty. Taking this puzzlement as a point of departure, this contribution aims to think about the dilemmas involved in articulating a language for women's dignity and self-realization, which competes with dominant languages of equality, individual rights and autonomy. This project is rendered even more intricate by the fact that these pious Muslim women socialized in Europe have also been partly fashioned by the liberal discourses against which they want to position themselves.     

Violence against women: A Palestinian women's perspective : Personal is political

Through the true story of Fatma, the author reveals and examines the underlying cause and effect of violence against women in Palestinian society in Israel. By following a path of abuse and violence that lasted for 10 years and several desperate attempts to seek help, we get a clearer view of the true problems and obstacles facing these women today. The women has to face: Social norms that legitimize violence; religious beliefs; internalized attitudes; self-blame — feelings of guilt; blaming the victim; economic, emotional, and social dependency; unfriendly police system; unfriendly courts (religious courts).     

The rhetoric of positioning in women's studies

The article examines the requirement of positioning (or localization) often presented in the recent epistemological discussions of women's studies. The paper argues that these discussions include two different epistemological conceptions. First, there is the moderate idea according to which researchers should explicate their personal and political positions, not only their theoretical starting points. The paper demonstrates that this requirement is not feasible, if imposed on individual researchers. Secondly, there is the more radical view according to which adequate positioning is impossible in principle. Against this relativist notion the paper argues that theories about radical differences are self‐defeating.     

The revival and decline of rank and file movements in Britain during the 1930s

The economic and political crisis of 1931 provoked the reappearance of rank and file movements in Britain. This article examines the unofficial organisations that developed in building, engineering, passenger transport and the railways – as well as more ephemeral bodies. It critically synthesises the existing historiography and replenishes it with new material from the Russian archives. The progress of rank and filism to 1939 is surveyed and the largely forgotten project of a new Communist-led rank and file organisation, a Trade Union Militant League, which would supersede the National Minority Movement, is recuperated. The article stresses the role of Comintern policy in harnessing and moulding grass-roots rebellion. It validates that strand in the literature which argues that Moscow’s subsequent turn to the popular front and aspirations to alliances with labour movement leaders predominated over, and legitimated, indigenous influences, enhanced existing adaptation to trade unionism, and encouraged subordination of oppositional movements to activity in official structures. By 1939, the Communists had abandoned the idea of a national rank and file movement they had pursued since 1923. Little survived of the revolutionary enterprise launched in 1931. Rank and filism endured only as a handful of sectional, party-sponsored, trade union ginger groups.     

The women's project: A profile

This paper offers an analysis of the Oprah Winfrey talk show's success as emanating from an ideal typical form of branding that we term “dynamic branding”, in which the gap between production and consumption is almost entirely bridged. Oprah has managed to maintain a dynamic relationship with her viewers based on multiple feedback and feed-forward processes in which consumers' concerns are immediately translated into Oprah's performed identity in her talk show. Such an ongoing exchange of information with her viewers was the basis for Oprah's performance of her own self as a “failed self” embattled with the problems of everyday life, thus creating an equalitarian relationship with her audience. The success of Oprah's brand identity thus derives from its content as much as from the mode of its construction, a mode which involves an intimate and adaptive relationship with consumers that enables Oprah to immediately respond to and incorporate viewers' concerns, values and norms. This paper analyzes in detail Oprah's performed identity with analytical tools informed by linguistic anthropology and brings it into conversation with contemporary branding theories.