Jacopo Martire
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474411929
- eISBN:
- 9781474435215
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474411929.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Philosophy of Law
Although Foucault is certainly one of most influential scholars of our age, law is for Foucauldian scholarship akin to an “undigestable meal”. This is due to a seemingly unresolvable dilemma: how is ...
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Although Foucault is certainly one of most influential scholars of our age, law is for Foucauldian scholarship akin to an “undigestable meal”. This is due to a seemingly unresolvable dilemma: how is it possible to analyse law through Foucauldian lenses if Foucault himself claimed (albeit cursorily) that law, in modernity, has been colonised by other disciplines and ousted from the locus of power? Building on Foucault’s ideas about power, freedom, and subjectivity, the present book tackles this problem through a critical genealogy of the philosophico-political ideas at the basis of modern law, delineating the historical emergence of the implicit regulative conditions of our legal present. The book proposes that modern law and modern forms of power – which Foucault termed biopolitical because they sort, train, and tame persons and populations with the aim of normalizing society – developed symbiotically and that, to the extent that modern law establishes the existence of a universal legal subject, law’s functioning is made possible by the homogenization of society through normalising practices. We are however fast moving towards the absolute limit of this normalizing complex. As normalising strategies are progressively unable to homogenise a social body which is increasingly composed by “fluid” subjects, modern law faces two interconnected challenges – a normative one (how can normalizing laws properly reflect the wills of a mass of differentiated fluid individuals?) and a functional one (how can normalizing laws effectively regulate such new protean social body?) – which put into question the very foundations of our legal discourse.Less
Although Foucault is certainly one of most influential scholars of our age, law is for Foucauldian scholarship akin to an “undigestable meal”. This is due to a seemingly unresolvable dilemma: how is it possible to analyse law through Foucauldian lenses if Foucault himself claimed (albeit cursorily) that law, in modernity, has been colonised by other disciplines and ousted from the locus of power? Building on Foucault’s ideas about power, freedom, and subjectivity, the present book tackles this problem through a critical genealogy of the philosophico-political ideas at the basis of modern law, delineating the historical emergence of the implicit regulative conditions of our legal present. The book proposes that modern law and modern forms of power – which Foucault termed biopolitical because they sort, train, and tame persons and populations with the aim of normalizing society – developed symbiotically and that, to the extent that modern law establishes the existence of a universal legal subject, law’s functioning is made possible by the homogenization of society through normalising practices. We are however fast moving towards the absolute limit of this normalizing complex. As normalising strategies are progressively unable to homogenise a social body which is increasingly composed by “fluid” subjects, modern law faces two interconnected challenges – a normative one (how can normalizing laws properly reflect the wills of a mass of differentiated fluid individuals?) and a functional one (how can normalizing laws effectively regulate such new protean social body?) – which put into question the very foundations of our legal discourse.
Anna Lora-Wainwright
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780262036320
- eISBN:
- 9780262341097
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262036320.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Environmental Politics
Pollution is one of the most pressing issues facing contemporary China and among the most prominent causes for unrest. Much of industry and mining takes place in rural areas, yet we know little about ...
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Pollution is one of the most pressing issues facing contemporary China and among the most prominent causes for unrest. Much of industry and mining takes place in rural areas, yet we know little about how rural communities affected by severe pollution make sense of it and the diverse form of activism they embrace. This book describes some of these engagements with pollution through three in-depth case studies based on the author’s fieldwork and an analysis of “cancer villages” examined in existing social science accounts. It challenges assumptions that villagers are ignorant about pollution or fully complicit with it and it looks beyond high-profile cases and beyond single strategies. It examines how villagers’ concerns and practices evolve over time and how pollution may become normalised. Through the concept of “resigned activism”, it advocates rethinking conventional approaches to activism to encompass less visible forms of engagement. It offers insights into the complex dynamics of popular contention, environmental movements and their situatedness within local and national political economies. Describing a likely widespread scenario across much of industrialised rural China, this book provides a window onto the staggering human costs of development and the deeply uneven distribution of costs and benefits. It portrays rural environmentalism and its limitations as prisms through which to study key issues surrounding contemporary Chinese culture and society, such as state responsibility, social justice, ambivalence towards development and modernisation and some of the new fault lines of inequality and social conflict which they generate.Less
Pollution is one of the most pressing issues facing contemporary China and among the most prominent causes for unrest. Much of industry and mining takes place in rural areas, yet we know little about how rural communities affected by severe pollution make sense of it and the diverse form of activism they embrace. This book describes some of these engagements with pollution through three in-depth case studies based on the author’s fieldwork and an analysis of “cancer villages” examined in existing social science accounts. It challenges assumptions that villagers are ignorant about pollution or fully complicit with it and it looks beyond high-profile cases and beyond single strategies. It examines how villagers’ concerns and practices evolve over time and how pollution may become normalised. Through the concept of “resigned activism”, it advocates rethinking conventional approaches to activism to encompass less visible forms of engagement. It offers insights into the complex dynamics of popular contention, environmental movements and their situatedness within local and national political economies. Describing a likely widespread scenario across much of industrialised rural China, this book provides a window onto the staggering human costs of development and the deeply uneven distribution of costs and benefits. It portrays rural environmentalism and its limitations as prisms through which to study key issues surrounding contemporary Chinese culture and society, such as state responsibility, social justice, ambivalence towards development and modernisation and some of the new fault lines of inequality and social conflict which they generate.
Irena Carpentier Reifová
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780719082399
- eISBN:
- 9781781707302
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719082399.003.0006
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
Using the 1976 serial Muž na radnici (Man at City Hall) as a case study, this chapter investigates the Czechoslovak ‘seriál’ as emblematic of the ‘normalisation’ era of Czechoslovak television. The ...
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Using the 1976 serial Muž na radnici (Man at City Hall) as a case study, this chapter investigates the Czechoslovak ‘seriál’ as emblematic of the ‘normalisation’ era of Czechoslovak television. The authors argue that the Czechoslovak ‘seriál’ combines two types of storyline – ideological and melodramatic – with the former dominant but reliant on the latter to legitimise it. They trace the sophisticated relationship between ideological and melodramatic storylines in Man at City Hall and argue that the popular acceptance of the serial arose largely from viewers’ ability to identify with the emotional elements within the melodramatic line. However, the ideological content of the serial, which supported the aims of the Czechoslovak communist party, was necessary for its production to be approved. Finally, the authors argue that the co-presence of ideological and melodramatic storylines is a factor in explaining the popularity of the serial genre among Czechoslovak audiences of the time.Less
Using the 1976 serial Muž na radnici (Man at City Hall) as a case study, this chapter investigates the Czechoslovak ‘seriál’ as emblematic of the ‘normalisation’ era of Czechoslovak television. The authors argue that the Czechoslovak ‘seriál’ combines two types of storyline – ideological and melodramatic – with the former dominant but reliant on the latter to legitimise it. They trace the sophisticated relationship between ideological and melodramatic storylines in Man at City Hall and argue that the popular acceptance of the serial arose largely from viewers’ ability to identify with the emotional elements within the melodramatic line. However, the ideological content of the serial, which supported the aims of the Czechoslovak communist party, was necessary for its production to be approved. Finally, the authors argue that the co-presence of ideological and melodramatic storylines is a factor in explaining the popularity of the serial genre among Czechoslovak audiences of the time.
David Clapham
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781447306344
- eISBN:
- 9781447311591
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447306344.003.0009
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
This chapter is concerned with supported housing options for people with disabilities. A broad scope of issues is covered by the heading of disability, including both mental and physical health and ...
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This chapter is concerned with supported housing options for people with disabilities. A broad scope of issues is covered by the heading of disability, including both mental and physical health and illness, learning disability, physical impairment and disability. The chapter follows a similar structure to the previous two with a focus on policy discourses such as the social model of disability, independent living and normalization, followed by a description of policy in each of Britain and Sweden. There follows an evaluation of the forms of supported housing most used for disabled people.Less
This chapter is concerned with supported housing options for people with disabilities. A broad scope of issues is covered by the heading of disability, including both mental and physical health and illness, learning disability, physical impairment and disability. The chapter follows a similar structure to the previous two with a focus on policy discourses such as the social model of disability, independent living and normalization, followed by a description of policy in each of Britain and Sweden. There follows an evaluation of the forms of supported housing most used for disabled people.
Gill Plain
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748627448
- eISBN:
- 9780748695164
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748627448.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
In contrast to the texts of the previous chapter, ‘Adjusting’ examines the postwar imperative of normalisation and the business of imaginatively reconstructing society. Opening with a comparison of ...
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In contrast to the texts of the previous chapter, ‘Adjusting’ examines the postwar imperative of normalisation and the business of imaginatively reconstructing society. Opening with a comparison of J. B. Priestley’s social realism and Charles Williams’ mysticism, the chapter explores fictions of demobilisation and attitudes towards the postwar world. Taking as a keynote the questions posed by the filmmaker Humphrey Jennings, consideration is given to issues of class, social justice and the figure of the child. How, ask writers such as Marghanita Laski, can a better world be built for the next generation? This mode of reconstructive writing debates the impetus behind the Labour election victory of 1945, and these preoccupations can also be traced in very different modes of theatrical practice in the postwar years. Dramatists, from Priestley, to Christopher Fry, to Terence Rattigan use history as a space through which to debate contemporary politics and the hopes and expectations of postwar society. The chapter ends with a return to crime fiction, which attempts a return to normality through social comedy and the restoration of the individual body to cultural centrality.Less
In contrast to the texts of the previous chapter, ‘Adjusting’ examines the postwar imperative of normalisation and the business of imaginatively reconstructing society. Opening with a comparison of J. B. Priestley’s social realism and Charles Williams’ mysticism, the chapter explores fictions of demobilisation and attitudes towards the postwar world. Taking as a keynote the questions posed by the filmmaker Humphrey Jennings, consideration is given to issues of class, social justice and the figure of the child. How, ask writers such as Marghanita Laski, can a better world be built for the next generation? This mode of reconstructive writing debates the impetus behind the Labour election victory of 1945, and these preoccupations can also be traced in very different modes of theatrical practice in the postwar years. Dramatists, from Priestley, to Christopher Fry, to Terence Rattigan use history as a space through which to debate contemporary politics and the hopes and expectations of postwar society. The chapter ends with a return to crime fiction, which attempts a return to normality through social comedy and the restoration of the individual body to cultural centrality.
