Feminism,Art, Deleuze,and Darwin: An Interview with Elizabeth Grosz

Abstract

This discussion stresses that looking at countries on the margins of European colonial rule can be useful when considering the wider dynamics of the present, reflecting the persistence of colonial discourses and how racism “endures”. Iceland’s colonial experience was characterized by duality, in which the country was an object of colonialism, while actively participating in the racist discourses predominant in Europe at that time. This paper demonstrates how Iceland’s long association with the exotic and its gendered manifestations is currently being perpetuated by the tourist and state industries, under the influence of neo-liberal ideas about nation branding. When contextualized within the larger geopolitical environment, Iceland as an “exotic” destination unravels the racist and colonized narratives still at play within a wider geopolitical context.     

Silence and Articulation—Whiteness,Racialization and Feminist Memory Work

Racialization is a constant process of “doing race”. Critical whiteness studies make efforts to address the silencing of whiteness in mainstream white feminism. In this article memory work is explored as a possible method for studies of whiteness as an unmarked majority position. The focus is on methodological practices or “how‐to‐do” questions. Starting from feminist epistemology the author investigates ways of practising the epistemological standpoint of situated knowledges. Feminist epistemology, despite its disagreements, has pointed to the importance of positioning work for scientific knowledge production. The relationship between racialization as an analytical concept and whiteness as dominant majority position is complicated. Usually memory work is employed to address gender or more specifically femininity, but, as argued here, it is well suited to investigations of racialization, too. The analysis shows that silent avoidance of matters associated with whiteness helps keep the majority position in place; whiteness is co‐produced with silence through avoidance in concrete everyday situations. Despite a number of problematic aspects, memory work proved productive in bridging the gap between an epistemological standpoint and the nitty‐gritty work of doing empirical research. It helped clarify racialization as a relational phenomenon and shows how lack of attention to or awareness of race has implications for scientific knowledge production.     

"Transcending gynocentric space”: Spatial metaphorics in feminist theory and criticism

Many studies assert that there are new gender constructions among young Scandinavian girls, who seem to be more individualized than earlier generations. In this article questions are raised as to what effect these girls’ newly won status as subjects might have on their construction of bodily gender, especially the part referred to as generative femininity. A “loss” of the generative body is argued to be a general tendency in postmodern discourse, as well as a dilemma in the individual girl's striving for being both individual and gender. This dilemma and its tentative solution is illustrated through the analysis of an 18‐year‐old Norwegian girl, who was the subject of an in‐depth interview in a three‐generational study of gender in change.     

working-class whiteness from within and without: an auto-ethnographic response to Avtar Brah's ‘the scent of memory’

Inspired by and responding to Avtar Brah's ‘The Scent of Memory’, this piece attempts to reinscribe race into an auto-ethnographic narrative where previously whiteness was unmarked. It explores the dynamics of gender, race and class through the author's personal history as a white English woman and class migrant, and through discussion of the broader political and historical context of that trajectory. The discussion includes analysis of the impact of British Conservative politician Enoch Powell's infamous ‘rivers of blood’ speech in 1968 on the author's white English working-class culture of origin in Wolverhampton, where Powell was a Member of Parliament. The article considers the speech's continuing ramifications in the twenty-first century and in more middle-class contexts, as evidenced by the recent evocation of the speech by historian David Starkey in discussion of the ‘riots’ of August 2011 in British cities. The personal history is reconstructed through a series of memory scenes that trace and retrace the author's experience and understanding of race and its intersections with class and gender; this is attempted in full cognisance of the constructed nature of memory, and of the performance of identity that autobiography entails. The piece draws on the work of the class migrant white French writer Annie Ernaux, with whom the author has been in dialogue since 1997.     

Is Educational Achievement a Turning Point for Incarcerated Delinquents Across Race and Sex?

Research has linked the role of education to delinquency, but much of the focus has been on general population samples and with little attention to demographic differences. Employing a cumulative disadvantage framework that integrates elements of informal social control and labeling theories, this article examines whether academic achievement serves as a positive turning point and re-directs juvenile delinquents away from subsequent offending. Attention is also given to race/sex contingencies. Using a sample of 4,147 delinquents released from Florida correctional institutions (86% male, 57% non-White, average age at release = 16.8 years), propensity score analysis yielded two findings: youth with above average academic achievement while incarcerated were significantly more likely to return to school post-release, and youth with above average attendance in public school were significantly less likely to be re-arrested in the 1-year post-release period. While the academic gains were pronounced among African-American males, the preventive effects of school attendance are similar across race and sex, suggesting that education can be a part of a larger prevention effort that assists juvenile delinquents in successful community re-entry.     

Global feminisms,c. 1870–1930: vocabularies and concepts—a comparative approach

This ‘Viewpoint’ assesses some recent approaches to the study of feminisms across the globe during the c. 1870–1930 period. At a moment when historians are working towards the commemoration of women's partial enfranchisement in Britain in 1918, we consider the intellectual frameworks that most effectively celebrate this achievement whilst also situating the Act within its complex, global context. Reflecting on discussions held at a recent workshop at the University of Oxford, we advocate the effectiveness of a global and comparative methodological approach to question what ‘feminism’ meant to contemporary campaigners. The scrutiny of localised and national issues within comparative and global contexts illuminates the plurality of definitions, vocabularies, and categories relating to feminism that were being used (and rejected) during this era and raises broader questions for the study and practice of feminist history.     

ONLY GOOD FENCES KEEP GOOD NEIGHBOURS! THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF MINISTRY–AGENCY RELATIONSHIPS AT THE SCIENCE–POLICY NEXUS IN GERMAN FOOD SAFETY POLICY

This article makes a further contribution to opening the ‘black box’ of micropractices in ministry–agency relationships. We argue that the mechanisms that come into play in the course of institutionalizing agencification reforms – such as renegotiating mutual roles and rules in ministry–agency interactions – are only poorly covered in the existing literature. To adequately address the negotiated and contingent nature of de facto agency autonomy and political control, we develop an interpretive approach based on the concept of ‘boundary work’. The empirical focus is on ministry–agency interactions at the science–policy nexus in the contested policy field of food safety. By studying actors' stories about the institutionalization processes following the fundamental reorganization of the German food safety administration in the wake of the BSE crisis from a longitudinal perspective, we show how actors manage boundary conflicts via increasingly differentiated backstage coordination.     

TRANSPARENCY IN PUBLIC–PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS: NOT SO BAD AFTER ALL?

Scholars' criticism of transparency in public–private partnerships (PPPs) often focuses on ‘external’ transparency, that is, the extent to which internal information is visible to the outside world. However, to achieve external transparency, internal transparency – the availability and inferability of information for the public procurer and the private party – is crucial. In this article we analyse input, process, and output transparency from three different perspectives (institutional, cognitive, and strategic) in four PPPs in the Netherlands. We conclude that input transparency is high, but process and output transparency less so. Moreover, output transparency has gained importance in PPPs. Whether this is problematic depends on the PPPs' institutional environment. In some partnerships the desired output is uncontested and predetermined by clear standards in the institutional environment, whereas other PPPs deal with contested output norms, decreasing the partnerships' transparency. These results nuance the current debate on the lack of transparency in PPPs.     

Military twists and turns in world politics: downsides or dividends for UN peace operations?

Russia’s challenge to the post-cold war order, and the rise of Islamic State have resulted in a call for increased military spending among NATO members. Despite the increased demand for UN peace operations, any expansion is unlikely to benefit the world organisation. Instead we see an increasing reliance upon regional organisations like the African Union, European Union and NATO, in particular, for robust peace operations. An analysis of Western states (France, Germany and the USA) suggests that future investments in weaponry, technology and staff will primarily benefit NATO and the EU, but not the United Nations.