A cultural political economy of crisis recovery: (trans-)national imaginaries of ‘BRIC’ and subaltern groups in China

Abstract

This paper explores crisis recovery from a cultural political economy (CPE) perspective. It examines the role of (trans-)national forces in constructing BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) as drivers for recovery. First, it comments on some ‘cultural economy’ studies and indicates the value of a CPE approach. Second, it examines the ‘BRIC’ as a symbolic condensation of ‘hope’ knowledge and shows how this signifier evolved in three overlapping moments referring to its role as investor, consumer and lender. Third, it considers the material basis of the appeal of BRIC discourses, especially the credibility acquired through BRIC stimulus packages in the global financial crisis. Fourth, it indicates how China's ‘gold standard’ stimulus package has intensified some deep-rooted political tensions and harmed subaltern groups. Finally, it reflects on how CPE can contribute to studies of crisis and recovery.     

Intersemiotic Texture: analyzing cohesive devices between language and images

Recent research on multimodal discourse has explored the nature of semantic relations between different semiotic resources. Drawing on the interpretation of language as a social semiotic resource, this article proposes Intersemiotic Texture as the crucial property of coherent multimodal texts and presents a preliminary framework for cohesive devices between language and images. The framework is illustrated through examination of print media to demonstrate how the image–text relations are meta-functionally orchestrated across experiential, textual and logical meanings at the discourse stratum. A discourse-based model is suggested to analyze image–text logical relations complementary to existing grammar-based approaches. This research also develops a meta-language to describe Intersemiotic Cohesive Devices from two complementary perspectives: Intersemiotic Cohesion not only functions to integrate different modes together when multimodal discourse is conceptualized as a finished product, it also constitutes essential text-forming resources for semantic expansions across language and images during the ongoing contextualization of meanings in real time.     

The age of apology: evidence from the Israeli public discourse

At the time of its presentation, Derrida's 'Force of law' represented deconstruction's perhaps most direct statement on the possibility of justice and its most explicit engagement with law. The ensuing responses to that paper have typically focused on deconstruction's position regarding the force and authority of law, and especially on what is taken as Derrida's theory of justice. As such, 'Force of law' is often discussed in isolation to mainstream legal philosophy or is otherwise understood to represent a radical counter to that tradition. It is possible to take a different direction, however, by considering the event of that paper's presentation and reception in relation not only to the existing disciplines of legal studies, but also to the problematic of discipline itself. Re-reading some of the work of contemporary legal philosophy in the light of that problematic may thus enable a certain questioning of the disciplinary divisions whose very institution underscores the 'radical' nature of deconstruction's 'critique' of traditional understandings of law. Such a re-reading may even allow a speculation upon a certain (trans)disciplinarity of deconstruction, reconsidering the latter's relation to traditions.     

Visualization of “people” in Soviet Estonian public photographs of the Stalinist era

The main purpose of this article is to elaborate some conceptual tools for clearer analysis of social reality, power relations and their visual representations. One of these instruments through which power relations are established in society is photography. The paper focuses on different strategies by which, in photography, the “people” are constructed as a homogeneous whole of specific historical self-reflection of culture. The first part of the paper discusses the relationship between the theory of hegemony as elaborated by Ernesto Laclau and the semiotics of culture of Yuri Lotman. The ground for believing this incorporation of the two thinkers to be successful is the very apparent theoretical congeniality between them. They both belong to the Saussurean ontological terrain. The second part of the paper tries to develop a bridge between the given theoretical framework, especially Laclau's concept of empty signifier and Barthes's concepts of studium/punctum, and “iconic photograph” from visual rhetoric. I will distinguish four hegemonical strategies of signification: visual naming, dominant text, code text, and dominant language. The analysed material is taken from Stalin-era soviet Estonia's newspaper and magazine photographs.     

The local news media impeding solutions to the Cyprus conflict: competing discourses of nationalism in Turkish Cypriot radio news

This paper, drawing on data from a news production study, carries out a critical discourse analysis of two stories produced by the Turkish Cypriot national news agency (TAK) and the stories produced by three local radio stations based on these texts. Both TAK and the three stations are partisan and used by owners and the elite for political self-promotion that supports what are broadly two different kinds of economic interests. One seeks to benefit from economic links with mainland Turkey and the other through relative independence yet continued isolation and separation from the Greek Cypriot-controlled Republic of Cyprus. Neither position favours unification with the Republic of Cyprus now highly popular with the majority of the population. To this end, stations recontextualise events to promote two different discourses of national identity, one that is Turkish and one that is based on an independent Turkish Cyprus. While listeners tend to accept that news broadcasts will reflect the viewpoints of owners and controllers, what is less understood is the way that even the most mundane and banal news stories are recontextualised to support these. It is this that is explored in this paper.     

Reforming the Spanish Senate: Mission Impossible?

Attempts in recent years to reform the Spanish Senate have proven futile. Using an institutionalist approach, this article highlights some of the weaknesses of the Spanish Senate in terms of its constitutional design and institutional development. The article explains how attempts at reforming political institutions are influenced by the historical context in which the institution was originally designed and the political context in which it has subsequently developed. The debate over Senate reform is analysed by examining the Senate's institutional setting and its relationships to broader political settings such as the legacy of the transition to democracy, political party discourse, and a competitive culture in Spain's system of intergovernmental relations.     

民间法话语在中国的命运与知识引进运动

民间法话语在中国的命运与西方知识引进运动是紧密地勾连在一起的。虽然“圜道”秩序生成模式和政治主导型秩序生成模式构成原理不同,但都不存在国家法与民间法对立问题,民间法话语被构建、衰落和兴趣都与西方知识／理论在中国、中国开展的民族国家构建和现代化建设紧密地联系在一起。对民间法话语在中国命运的研究,反映出来的是中国现代化建设、社会变迁与话语力量的发展的内在逻辑和规律。     

语言实施的性别围困——权力话语下的"第三性"

"第三性"是当今社会对女博士的代称。它是对追求独立,实现自我价值的高学历女性的一种排斥和异化现象在语言上的反映。女人往往被称作"第二性"或"他者,"女博士从女人这个群体中被排挤了出来,成为"他者中的他者"。这个二度他者化的过程体现了社会心理和文化通过大众话语来掌控社会的事实。福柯关于话语和权力的关系理论表明话语(语言)是众多的大众维护、重组社会秩序的有效机制,权力通过话语发挥作用,话语的流通又进一步加强了权力。"第三性"一词的出现和流传是男性强权统治受到挑战时的话语应对机制运作的结果。此外,语言本体论的观点表明语言不但反映世界,而且语言就是社会现实。所以,"第三性"这一语言形式直指女博士困窘的现状,它表明我们有赖于语言维护、打破、重建社会秩序,人类和语言共存。     

The lore of sexual difference in social and legal discourse on ‘date rape’

Using a framework informed by Foucauldian discourse theory and feminist accounts of sexual difference, this paper investigates the process of attrition in cases initially recorded as rape and in which complainant and suspect are known to each other. Having particular regard to police and prosecutor decision-making in the processing of such cases, the authors consider discourses that utilise conceptions of sexual difference, which work to normalise and privilege cultural assumptions about male desires and conduct in sexual relations. In illuminating the manner in which the traditional binary categories of sexual difference is put to work, the authors argue that socio-legal debates over the phenomenon commonly described as ‘date rape’ have over-simplistically inverted these categories. The authors further argue that this inversion operates to women's detriment and fails to advance a sufficiently nuanced understanding of complex issues implicated in rapes committed against women by men they know. This revised version was published online in November 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

“If it doesn't make sense it's not true”: how Judge Judy creates coherent stories through “common-sense” reasoning according to the neoliberal agenda

This study examines the American court show Judge Judy. Drawing on both conversation analysis and critical discourse analysis, this paper aims to show how ideological assumptions about how to be a “good citizen” manifest themselves at a turn-by-turn level in the interactions on Judge Judy and how they contribute to the co-construction of a new version of events. The microanalyses reveal how Sheindlin's strategic use of “common-sense reasoning” sets up a context and characterization of the opposing litigants. Sheindlin reframes complex issues as simple black-and-white stories. These new stories have a plain narrative line without the contingencies of everyday life and with clearly moral and immoral characters allowing her to pass a judgment that only seems fair.