Wench Tactics? Openings in Conditions of Closure

Picking up the question of what FLaK might be, this editorial considers the relationship between openness and closure in feminist legal studies. How do we draw on feminist struggles for openness in common resources, from security to knowledge, as we inhabit a compromised space in commercial publishing? We think about this first in relation to the content of this issue: on image-based abuse continuums, asylum struggles, trials of protestors, customary justice, and not-so-timely reparations. Our thoughts take us through the different ways that openness and closure work in struggles against violence, cruel welcomes, and re-arrangements of code and custom. Secondly, we share some reflections on methodological openness and closure as the roundtable conversation on asylum, and the interview with Riles, remind us of #FLaK2016 and its method of scattering sources as we think about how best to mix knowledges. Thirdly, prompted by the FLaK kitchen table conversations on openness, publishing and ‘getting the word out’, we respond to Kember’s call to ‘open up open access’. We explain the different current arrangements for opening up FLS content and how green open access, the sharedit initiative, author request and publisher discretion present alternatives to gold open access. Finally drawing on Franklin and Spade, we show how there are a range of ‘wench tactics’—adapting gifts, stalling and resting—which we deploy as academic editors who are trying to have an impact on the access, use and circulation of our journal, even though we do not own the journal we edit. These wench tactics are alternatives to the more obvious or reported tactic of resignation, or withdrawing academic labour from editing and reviewing altogether. They help us think about brewing editorial time, what ambivalence over our 25th birthday might mean, and how to inhabit painful places. In this, we respond in our own impure, compromised way to da Silva’s call not to forget the native and slave as we do FLaK, and repurpose shrapnel, in our common commitments.     

Managing transience: Bolsa Família and its subjects in an MST landless settlement

Bolsa Família, the world's largest conditional cash transfer, provides welfare payments to 13 million Brazilian households – and creates dilemmas for Brazil's rural landless movement, the MST. Through ethnographic analysis in two villages, this paper explores the daily practices and political conceptions of the program's beneficiaries. Bolsa Família does not, as is often believed, create a de-radicalizing sense of contentment. Instead, the program generates a temporality that makes the benefit feel unreliable to beneficiaries. These beneficiaries must mediate the tension between ‘citizen’ and ‘manager’ identities, the latter being a salient subject-position produced by Bolsa Família. The precarity of this position helps explain why Bolsa Família has not inspired significant mobilization by social movements.     

Seeking Safety,Finding Abuse: Stories from Foster Youth on Maltreatment and Its Impact on Academic Achievement

The safety of foster children and youth is the primary concern of the U.S. Department of Human Services. Yet, not all certified foster care homes offer the safety children need. This article reports the findings of a phenomenological study of foster youth reporting maltreatment occurring at the hands of foster parents. With a scarcity of studies on the abuse occurring at the hands of foster care providers, this study offers an important glimpse into the realities of life in care. Through in-depth interviews, this study reveals the harm perpetrated by foster care providers and the probable connection between maltreatment in care and barriers to academic achievement.     

The Effect of the Charter of Rights on Canadian Federalism

Canadian experience under the 1982 Charter of Rights contradictsthe orthodox understanding of judicial review as a decentralizinginstitution that performs a checking or blocking function. Charterpolitics in Canada suggest that in a federal system, judicialreview can also enhance values and policies favored by the nationalgovernment at the expense of the constituent units. Rather thanweakening the policy capabilities of the federal government,the Canadian Charter has enhanced its influence. The Charterhas undermined the policy autonomy of the provinces by givinga policy veto to the Supreme Court, an institution that is morereceptive to the policy preferences of national elites, especiallyin the area of language policy. This has aggravated French-Englishrelations, because of the high incidence of judicial nullificationsof Quebec's restrictive language policies. Elite attempts tocompensate Quebec by way of new constitutional amendments (e.g.,the Meech Lake Accord) have been thwarted by the emergence ofan influential coalition of postmaterialist social interests,which use Charter litigation to promote their nonterritorialpolicy objectives. These "Charter Canadians"have opposed constitutionalamendments that would "weaken" the Charter or the Court. Thiscoalition has broken Canadian governments' historical monopolyon the constitutional amending process. By stimulating the democratizationof constitutional politics, the Charter has weakened the institutionsof consociational democracy and elite accommodation. This hasdiminished the influence of all the provinces, but especiallyQuebec, thereby contributing to the recent rise in secessionisttendencies within Quebec.     

Contemporary Canadian federal information policy

Abstract: In this overview of the status of Canadian federal information policy current initiatives are examined against a background of historical context. The politics of access (the Privacy and Access to Information acts), policy development, and policy implementation provide the main points of focus for discussion. Relationships between the Canadian private sector information industry and the government are considered, particularly in respect to policy implementation. The Canadian information environment is such that the government views the information that it produces as a corporate resource. As such, government information is seen as too valuable to be left unmanaged. The question facing government policy-makers is how to manage the people's information without precluding the people's access to it. There is discussion as well of the undercurrent of frustration among policy-makers outside the Treasury Board who perceive that an inordinate amount of time is spent studying problems rather than making progress towards practical solutions. The question is raised and examined as to whether such intense and protracted interest in government information issues reflects their importance or government impotence. Finally, some matters are offered for future consideration as Canada moves towards the policy implementation and evolution phases in its quest for an effective and well-rounded national information and communications policy. Sommaire: Dans cet aperçu général de I'état de la politiyue canadienne fédérale d'in-formation, les auteurs présentent les initiatives actiielles siir line toile de fond histori-que. Leur analyse a pour objet principal les politiques d'accès à I'information (lois sur la vie privée et I'accès h I'information), ainsi clue P élaboration et I'instauration de ces politiyues. Les auteurs s'intéresseiit aux relations entre I'industrie de I'informatioii du secteur privé canadien et le gouvernement. tout particulièrement au niveau de la mise à exécution des politiyues. Le monde canadieii de I'information est tel yiie le gouvernemeiit considère I'information yu'il produit coinme tine ressoiirce goiiverneineiitale. À ce titre, l'information goiiveriiemeiitale s'avère bien trop précieuse pour lie pas être gérée. La question qui se pose aux responsables des politiyues gouvernenientales est alors la suivante: comment gérer I'information sans empêcher ceux et celles qu'elle concerne d'y avoir accês. Les auteurs se penchent également sur les frustrations qui apparaissent chez les responsables des politiques, à I'extérieur du Conseil du Trésor, du fait qu'à leur avis I'on passe beaucoup trop de temps àétudier les probèmes au lieu de progresser vers des solutions concrètes. Un intérêt aussi intense et prolongé pour les questions soulevées par I'information gouvernementale traduit-il I'importance de ces questions, ou reflète-t-il I'impuissance du gouvernement? Les auteurs examinent cette question. Enfin, ils proposent plusieurs thèmes qui mériteront réflexion à I'avenir, alors que le Canada entre dans les phases de I'application et de I'évolution de ses politiques, dans sa quête plus large d'une politique nationale judicieuse en matière d'information et de communication. Bruce Morton is associate professor and assistant dean of lihraries at Montana State University, Bozeman. mt Steven D. Zink is professor and assistant university lilmrian at the University of Nevada. Reno, nv . The authors are associate editor and editor-in-chief respectively of the journal Government Publications Review (Pergamon Press). Research for this study was funded by a 1989 faculty research grant from the Canadian emhassy, Washington. DC. We would like to express our special gratitude to nuinerous Canadian government officials, only some of whom are cited in this paper. who took time from busy sclietlules to speak openly and at length with us about information policy issues. Our thanks also to Canadians Ken Rubin. Rolwrt Gibson, and Gordon Grahame.     

A Framework for Thinking About Oppression and Its Change

This paper provides a framework for thinking about oppression and how to overcome it. It considers the value premise underlying the use of the term “oppression.” It then discusses the nature of oppression, the forms it takes, and what keeps it in place. In its final two sections, it focuses on awakening the sense of injustice and the strategies and tactics for overcoming injustice. An earlier version of this paper, entitled “Oppression and Conflict,” was presented as a plenary address at the Annual meeting of the International Society of Justice Research in Skovde, Sweden on June 17, 2002. This paper was the starting point of an ongoing, informal seminar on social justice held at Teachers College, Columbia University. The other participants in the seminar included Peter Coleman, Michelle Fine, Beth Fisher-Yoshida, Janet Gerson, Eric Marcus, Susan Opotow, Ellen Raider, Esther Salomon, Janice Steil, and Melissa Sweeney. From the discussions of theory, research, and practice during the meetings of the seminar, emerged plans for a Conference on Interrupting Oppression and Sustaining Justice. Its aim was to stimulate interaction about overcoming oppression among scholars from different academic fields, social and political activists, and graduate students in different disciplines. The Conference took place on February 27 and 28, 2004 at Teachers College. This issue of Social Justice Research presents some papers that were prepared before the Conference (and revised afterwards) and some that emerged from the Conference. Other papers from the Conference can be found under the heading of IO&SJ at the website of the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution of Teachers College: http://www.tc.edu/icccr/.