The “Will to Empower”: Managing the Complexity of the Others

Intersectionality is a concept that aims at handling the complexity of social life. It is often presented as a sensitive, and thus accountable, approach to the complexity of life lived in an age of globalization, migration, and displacements of identities, individuals, and groups. This notion of intersectionality presupposes that approaching complexity requires more than the mere adding up of categories like race, class, and gender; it requires an approach presupposing that these categories intersect in mutually constitutive ways in and through socio‐cultural hierarchies and power dimensions that produce complex relations of inclusion, exclusion, domination, and subordination. For feminists, this constructivist approach to identity categories seems promising; on the one hand, intersectionality rejects essentialism and reductionism, on the other hand, the complexity sensitivity of intersectionality maintains the possibility of feminist politics in a complex world, because politics no longer amounts to essentialist identity politics. In this article we want to ask, however, if the complexity sensitivity of intersectionality really is the solution to the problem of potential essentialism and reductionism in feminism. Or does intersectionality rather reproduce the problem of reductionism and the logic of identity in new, more sophisticated forms? Can feminism at all avoid essentialism and processes of othering? Is it possible to come to terms with the “will to power” inherent in all research by demonstrating a “will to empower”? The purpose of this article is not to evaluate whether different intersectionality studies are capable of accounting for complexity and thereby making it possible to avoid essentialism, reductionism, and othering. The purpose is, rather, to highlight and discuss some implications of the constructionism of intersectionality. As we will try to show, the constructionism that is claimed to form the basis of intersectionality, in opposition to additive approaches to social differences, is sometimes compromised for the sake of accountability.     

The “Crisis” of Gender Equality: The Norwegian Newspaper Debate on Female Genital Cutting

This article examines how tensions between feminism and multiculturalism conflate in a media debate on female genital cutting. The following questions are addressed: how is gender equality problematized, in what ways is the gender equality approach challenged, and what are the main solutions to prevent female genital cutting. The empirical analysis is based on the newspaper debate that followed the Norwegian Broadcasting Company's (NRK) documentary on female genital cutting in June 2007. The findings of our study do not support a claim that gender equality would be challenged by accommodations to multiculturalism. Our conclusion is that it is difficult to disconnect policy-making aimed at combating female genital cutting from the processes of stigmatization. Rather, by advocating the type of measure that is the most contested by the actors of ethnic minority organizations, the proponents for adopting routines of genital examination ultimately contribute to a problematic pattern, where the political debate about the situation within ethnic minority groups is run and dominated by the majority.     

‘Western Balkans’ as the New Balkans: Regional Names as Tools for Stigmatisation and Exclusion

The word ‘Balkans’ often functions as a stigma. Several authors have discussed the bloodbath during the wars in the former Yugoslavia with references to an alleged Balkan culture. Towards the end of the 1990s the term ‘Balkans’ entered the official vocabulary of the European Union, now with the prefix ‘Western’. ‘The Western Balkans’ became a common denominator for non-member states in south eastern Europe. A survey in 2011 in the ‘Western Balkans’ showed that those who live there to a large extent share this view: membership in Western organisations like the EU determines whether a country is ‘European’ or ‘Balkan’.     

Politics of responsibility: governing distant populations through civil society in Mozambique,Rwanda and South Africa

This article presents and analyses the findings of a research project on power relations in the context of development partnerships with civil society on HIV/AIDS in Mozambique, Rwanda and South Africa, and engages in a critical dialogue with governmentality analysis. It argues that contemporary neoliberal government needs to be understood as context-specific articulations of three forms of power discussed by Foucault – sovereignty, discipline and biopower – and, in the global domain, a fourth form of power – (new) imperialism. Further, the analysis demonstrates how the introduction of a ‘package of (de-)responsibilisation’ shapes CSOs’ activities so that they become competitive service providers, use evidence-based methods and produce measurable results. Addressing the issue of resistance, it shows how the transfer of responsibilities may involve tension and struggle – a politics of responsibility.     

Girls' slang and boys' slang: Two towns in Finland visited

In this study the vocabulary of girls' slang and boys' slang in two different towns in Finland was compared and it was found that there are both similarities and differences. The similarities can be found in typical slang topics. As part of the study, boys and girls in both towns wrote down slang words in the same semantic domains. The differences are traditional. Whereas boys' slang shows more local traits, girls' slang is typically more mainstream. The language that is used for new slang words varies more between the two towns than between the gender groups. It seems that Swedish-speaking youths in Finland have several different traits within their slang to draw upon when signalling and decoding identity. Both geographical and gender identity can be conveyed through the choice of slang words in any given situation.     

Comparing deep-end confinement in England & Wales and Norway

Extreme forms of custody represent the boundary points of state power. The configuration of the most restrictive corners of prison systems, and what goes on within them, is highly instructive in exposing the objectives, limits, and implications of state coercion at its most severe. Based on data collected in England & Wales and Norway, this article has two main aims. The first is to explore the degree to which “deep-end” confinement differs between jurisdictions with different penal philosophies. The second is to understand how the most extreme form of confinement in each jurisdiction differs from the more typical carceral experiences within each system and its overall penal ethos. Empirically, then, the article seeks to shine light into the deepest dominions of both prison systems, illuminating the experiential texture of extreme forms of imprisonment. It concludes by asking what can be inferred about Nordic exceptionalism, and about deep-end confinement more generally, by analyzing these domains.