Cressida J. Heyes
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195310535
- eISBN:
- 9780199871445
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195310535.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This book argues that we live in an age of somatic subjects, whose authentic identity must be represented through the body. When a perceived mismatch between inner self and outer form occurs, ...
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This book argues that we live in an age of somatic subjects, whose authentic identity must be represented through the body. When a perceived mismatch between inner self and outer form occurs, technologies can step in to change the flesh. Drawing on Wittgenstein's objections to the idea of a private language, and on Foucault's critical account of normalization, this book shows how we have been led to think of ourselves in this way, and suggests that breaking the hold of this picture of the self will be central to our freedom. How should we work on ourselves when so often the kind of self we are urged to be is itself a product of normalization? This question is answered through three case studies that analyze feminist interpretations of transgender politics, the allure of weight-loss dieting, and representations of cosmetic surgery patients. Mixing philosophical argument with personal narrative and analysis of popular culture, the book moves from engagement with Leslie Feinberg on trans liberation, to an auto-ethnography of Weight Watchers meetings, to a reading of Extreme Makeover, to the author's own practice of yoga. The book draws on philosophy, sociology, medicine, cultural studies, and psychology to suggest that these examples, in different ways, are connected to the picture of the somatic subject. Working on the self can both generate new skills and make us more docile; enhance our pleasures and narrow our possibilities; encourage us to take care of ourselves while increasing our dependence on experts. Self transformation through the body can limit us and liberate us at the same time. To move beyond this paradox, the book concludes by arguing that Foucault's last work on ethics provides untapped resources for understanding how we might use our embodied agency to change ourselves for the better.Less
This book argues that we live in an age of somatic subjects, whose authentic identity must be represented through the body. When a perceived mismatch between inner self and outer form occurs, technologies can step in to change the flesh. Drawing on Wittgenstein's objections to the idea of a private language, and on Foucault's critical account of normalization, this book shows how we have been led to think of ourselves in this way, and suggests that breaking the hold of this picture of the self will be central to our freedom. How should we work on ourselves when so often the kind of self we are urged to be is itself a product of normalization? This question is answered through three case studies that analyze feminist interpretations of transgender politics, the allure of weight-loss dieting, and representations of cosmetic surgery patients. Mixing philosophical argument with personal narrative and analysis of popular culture, the book moves from engagement with Leslie Feinberg on trans liberation, to an auto-ethnography of Weight Watchers meetings, to a reading of Extreme Makeover, to the author's own practice of yoga. The book draws on philosophy, sociology, medicine, cultural studies, and psychology to suggest that these examples, in different ways, are connected to the picture of the somatic subject. Working on the self can both generate new skills and make us more docile; enhance our pleasures and narrow our possibilities; encourage us to take care of ourselves while increasing our dependence on experts. Self transformation through the body can limit us and liberate us at the same time. To move beyond this paradox, the book concludes by arguing that Foucault's last work on ethics provides untapped resources for understanding how we might use our embodied agency to change ourselves for the better.
Cressida J. Heyes
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195310535
- eISBN:
- 9780199871445
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195310535.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
Scholars influenced by Michel Foucault need to say more about how care of the self emerges intersubjectively, and how it can be a set of practices that includes an understanding of responsibility and ...
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Scholars influenced by Michel Foucault need to say more about how care of the self emerges intersubjectively, and how it can be a set of practices that includes an understanding of responsibility and ethical commitment to embodied others. Furthermore, Foucault's work is devoid of programmatic political theory for a number of reasons, but there is a need for careful articulation of political projects that challenge docility and make creative, joyful living more possible. Not without reservations, we might follow a philosophical tradition that labels this undertaking “style”. If feminist commentators are sometimes too pessimistic about women's agency in the face of normalization, the heroic discourse of style risks being too self-satisfied to notice that many of the strategies it implies are out of reach for ordinary mortals, and may lead enthusiastic converts into novel forms of conformity. The challenge that remains is to articulate a somaesthetics within which abject bodies can articulate their own style without falling back on the voluntarism that is so often complicit with their very abjection.Less
Scholars influenced by Michel Foucault need to say more about how care of the self emerges intersubjectively, and how it can be a set of practices that includes an understanding of responsibility and ethical commitment to embodied others. Furthermore, Foucault's work is devoid of programmatic political theory for a number of reasons, but there is a need for careful articulation of political projects that challenge docility and make creative, joyful living more possible. Not without reservations, we might follow a philosophical tradition that labels this undertaking “style”. If feminist commentators are sometimes too pessimistic about women's agency in the face of normalization, the heroic discourse of style risks being too self-satisfied to notice that many of the strategies it implies are out of reach for ordinary mortals, and may lead enthusiastic converts into novel forms of conformity. The challenge that remains is to articulate a somaesthetics within which abject bodies can articulate their own style without falling back on the voluntarism that is so often complicit with their very abjection.
John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- August 2004
- ISBN:
- 9780199266579
- eISBN:
- 9780191601446
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199266573.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
The chapter is highly critical of the Wilson cabinet's failure to defend Northern Ireland's first consociational experiment, the Sunningdale Agreement, although it concedes that this agreement may ...
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The chapter is highly critical of the Wilson cabinet's failure to defend Northern Ireland's first consociational experiment, the Sunningdale Agreement, although it concedes that this agreement may have had an inevitable encounter with a coroner. It analyses the government's reaction to the 1974 strike by the Ulster Workers Council, which led to the demise of Sunningdale. The chapter also illustrates the limits of the Callaghan government's policies in Northern Ireland, including its flawed experiments in ‘Ulsterization’, ‘normalization’, and ‘criminalization’.Less
The chapter is highly critical of the Wilson cabinet's failure to defend Northern Ireland's first consociational experiment, the Sunningdale Agreement, although it concedes that this agreement may have had an inevitable encounter with a coroner. It analyses the government's reaction to the 1974 strike by the Ulster Workers Council, which led to the demise of Sunningdale. The chapter also illustrates the limits of the Callaghan government's policies in Northern Ireland, including its flawed experiments in ‘Ulsterization’, ‘normalization’, and ‘criminalization’.
Cressida J. Heyes
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195310535
- eISBN:
- 9780199871445
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195310535.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This chapter argues that the contemporary Western understanding of the relationship between the body and self is subject to a number of “pictures” that mark significant constraints on our ability to ...
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This chapter argues that the contemporary Western understanding of the relationship between the body and self is subject to a number of “pictures” that mark significant constraints on our ability to imagine alternative ways of caring for ourselves and others, hence on our self-government, and ultimately on our freedom. Two related pictures are used to explain how the somatic individual has come to dominate ways of understanding the self. The first is a picture in which we have an inner depth and authenticity that the outer (in this case, the flesh) must represent. This is a model of the self in general (selves as objects with an inner essence) and also of each self in particular. In their different ways, both Ludwig Wittgenstein and Michel Foucault challenge this picture, the former primarily through his private language argument, and the latter through his genealogical method. The second picture is one of power, and is characterized by the view that power is a substance, power is held and exercised by a sovereign who rules over us, and power is a force external to the self, whose primary purpose is repressive.Less
This chapter argues that the contemporary Western understanding of the relationship between the body and self is subject to a number of “pictures” that mark significant constraints on our ability to imagine alternative ways of caring for ourselves and others, hence on our self-government, and ultimately on our freedom. Two related pictures are used to explain how the somatic individual has come to dominate ways of understanding the self. The first is a picture in which we have an inner depth and authenticity that the outer (in this case, the flesh) must represent. This is a model of the self in general (selves as objects with an inner essence) and also of each self in particular. In their different ways, both Ludwig Wittgenstein and Michel Foucault challenge this picture, the former primarily through his private language argument, and the latter through his genealogical method. The second picture is one of power, and is characterized by the view that power is a substance, power is held and exercised by a sovereign who rules over us, and power is a force external to the self, whose primary purpose is repressive.
Cressida J. Heyes
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195310535
- eISBN:
- 9780199871445
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195310535.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This chapter shows how cosmetic surgery has evolved to becoming regarded as part of the “normal” process in the quest for identity transformation, arguing that an inner self is externalized so that ...
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This chapter shows how cosmetic surgery has evolved to becoming regarded as part of the “normal” process in the quest for identity transformation, arguing that an inner self is externalized so that the aesthetic body can better represent the person within. It also believes that feminist ethical engagement will need to respond to this talk of self-transformation in kind, providing a way of responding to the suffering cosmetic surgery claims to alleviate, and recognizing the necessity and potential of working on the self as a feminist strategy. Feminists need a richer ethical grammar and vocabulary for talking about our own desires and suffering in this context. This demand for a feminist ethical language arises in part from nearly a century of cultural manufacture of a psychology for potential cosmetic surgery recipients. Cosmetic surgery bears a peculiar burden of justification unlike other medical subspecialties. In some cases the rubric of “reconstructive” procedures can be employed — repairing a cleft palate, rebuilding a face after tumor removal, or grafting skin to burns are all seen as legitimate medical measures that have necessary functional and social effects.Less
This chapter shows how cosmetic surgery has evolved to becoming regarded as part of the “normal” process in the quest for identity transformation, arguing that an inner self is externalized so that the aesthetic body can better represent the person within. It also believes that feminist ethical engagement will need to respond to this talk of self-transformation in kind, providing a way of responding to the suffering cosmetic surgery claims to alleviate, and recognizing the necessity and potential of working on the self as a feminist strategy. Feminists need a richer ethical grammar and vocabulary for talking about our own desires and suffering in this context. This demand for a feminist ethical language arises in part from nearly a century of cultural manufacture of a psychology for potential cosmetic surgery recipients. Cosmetic surgery bears a peculiar burden of justification unlike other medical subspecialties. In some cases the rubric of “reconstructive” procedures can be employed — repairing a cleft palate, rebuilding a face after tumor removal, or grafting skin to burns are all seen as legitimate medical measures that have necessary functional and social effects.
Cressida J. Heyes
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195310535
- eISBN:
- 9780199871445
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195310535.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This chapter spells out how we might work on our embodied selves in ways that advance our freedom. To make this work, it is necessary to return to Michel Foucault's later writing, and reconstruct in ...
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This chapter spells out how we might work on our embodied selves in ways that advance our freedom. To make this work, it is necessary to return to Michel Foucault's later writing, and reconstruct in its most useful form the kind of ethics he endorses as well as the underdeveloped possibilities for a normatively inflected politics of the body to which it might inspire. Specifically, this chapter argues for what Richard Shusterman has termed “somaesthetics” as strategies of resistance to normalization. Examples of dieting or cosmetic surgeries demonstrate how asketic language is superficially deployed against normalization when in fact it often reinforces it. Finally, this chapter articulates some practices of working on oneself as an embodied subject that refuse the habituated trajectories of normalization and gesture toward an art of living which greater embodies freedom.Less
This chapter spells out how we might work on our embodied selves in ways that advance our freedom. To make this work, it is necessary to return to Michel Foucault's later writing, and reconstruct in its most useful form the kind of ethics he endorses as well as the underdeveloped possibilities for a normatively inflected politics of the body to which it might inspire. Specifically, this chapter argues for what Richard Shusterman has termed “somaesthetics” as strategies of resistance to normalization. Examples of dieting or cosmetic surgeries demonstrate how asketic language is superficially deployed against normalization when in fact it often reinforces it. Finally, this chapter articulates some practices of working on oneself as an embodied subject that refuse the habituated trajectories of normalization and gesture toward an art of living which greater embodies freedom.
János Kollár
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780198570615
- eISBN:
- 9780191717703
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198570615.003.0008
- Subject:
- Mathematics, Geometry / Topology
If (X,B) is a log canonical pair, it is natural to study the locus nklt(X,B) of points where the pair is not klt. In particular, this chapter proves Kawamata's adjunction formula: if W is an ...
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If (X,B) is a log canonical pair, it is natural to study the locus nklt(X,B) of points where the pair is not klt. In particular, this chapter proves Kawamata's adjunction formula: if W is an irreducible subvariety of nklt(X,B), then the restriction of K+B to W is expressed naturally in terms of the canonical class of W. This topic provides a simultaneous generalization of the classical adjunction formula, the formula for the canonical class of a smooth blow up, and Kodaira's formula for the canonical class of a relatively minimal elliptic surface. The ideas have many applications in higher dimensional algebraic geometry.Less
If (X,B) is a log canonical pair, it is natural to study the locus nklt(X,B) of points where the pair is not klt. In particular, this chapter proves Kawamata's adjunction formula: if W is an irreducible subvariety of nklt(X,B), then the restriction of K+B to W is expressed naturally in terms of the canonical class of W. This topic provides a simultaneous generalization of the classical adjunction formula, the formula for the canonical class of a smooth blow up, and Kodaira's formula for the canonical class of a relatively minimal elliptic surface. The ideas have many applications in higher dimensional algebraic geometry.
Duana Fullwiley
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691123165
- eISBN:
- 9781400840410
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691123165.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This chapter focuses on how “sicklers” with varied economic situations and philosophical stances have succeeded in transforming their disease states into “health” statuses through a range of ...
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This chapter focuses on how “sicklers” with varied economic situations and philosophical stances have succeeded in transforming their disease states into “health” statuses through a range of normalization techniques. As discussed in the previous chapter, clinicians and geneticists in Francophone sickle cell circles have adopted an optic of seeing African sicklers in terms of population groups that exhibit differences in disease expression. However, a key slippage occurs when scientists observe biological “outcomes” and assume, as a first response, that these should be attributed to distinct genetic sequences, which those same populations possess at different frequencies. This chapter thus examines how such scientific methods and assumptions may miss complex congeries of behaviors and relationships that influence people's disease experiences and biological expressions of sickle cell anemia.Less
This chapter focuses on how “sicklers” with varied economic situations and philosophical stances have succeeded in transforming their disease states into “health” statuses through a range of normalization techniques. As discussed in the previous chapter, clinicians and geneticists in Francophone sickle cell circles have adopted an optic of seeing African sicklers in terms of population groups that exhibit differences in disease expression. However, a key slippage occurs when scientists observe biological “outcomes” and assume, as a first response, that these should be attributed to distinct genetic sequences, which those same populations possess at different frequencies. This chapter thus examines how such scientific methods and assumptions may miss complex congeries of behaviors and relationships that influence people's disease experiences and biological expressions of sickle cell anemia.
B. S. Rosner and J. B. Pickering
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780198521389
- eISBN:
- 9780191706622
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198521389.001.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience
Vowels are an important feature of the world's languages. Languages, however, differ in the number and the acoustic properties of their vowels. The two main problems of vowel perception needing ...
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Vowels are an important feature of the world's languages. Languages, however, differ in the number and the acoustic properties of their vowels. The two main problems of vowel perception needing explanation are vowel categorization (identification) and vowel constancy. Categorization concerns how listeners know which of the different vowels of their language has been spoken. Constancy concerns how listeners do this despite wide variations in the realization of any particular vowel. This book opens with a brief consideration of the articulation and acoustics of vowels. It shows how differences in vowels arise across languages. Succeeding chapters cover auditory processing of vowels, concentrating on perceptual determination of formant peaks. Auditory processing includes identification and discrimination, normalization across speakers, and compensating perceptually for coarticulation and effects of rate and stress. The extensive literature on these topics is reviewed and integrated. A theory of vowel perception is proposed, based on fundamental psychoacoustic results and covering a wide variety of experimental findings on vowel identification and discrimination. The theory includes a pitch transform, spectral integration and suppression effects, specification of peaks in a phonetic loudness density function, and a nearest neighbour decision procedure. The theory tries to explain both vowel categorization and vowel constancy. The book ends with a general consideration of modern theories of vowel perception.Less
Vowels are an important feature of the world's languages. Languages, however, differ in the number and the acoustic properties of their vowels. The two main problems of vowel perception needing explanation are vowel categorization (identification) and vowel constancy. Categorization concerns how listeners know which of the different vowels of their language has been spoken. Constancy concerns how listeners do this despite wide variations in the realization of any particular vowel. This book opens with a brief consideration of the articulation and acoustics of vowels. It shows how differences in vowels arise across languages. Succeeding chapters cover auditory processing of vowels, concentrating on perceptual determination of formant peaks. Auditory processing includes identification and discrimination, normalization across speakers, and compensating perceptually for coarticulation and effects of rate and stress. The extensive literature on these topics is reviewed and integrated. A theory of vowel perception is proposed, based on fundamental psychoacoustic results and covering a wide variety of experimental findings on vowel identification and discrimination. The theory includes a pitch transform, spectral integration and suppression effects, specification of peaks in a phonetic loudness density function, and a nearest neighbour decision procedure. The theory tries to explain both vowel categorization and vowel constancy. The book ends with a general consideration of modern theories of vowel perception.
NOMI MAYA STOLZENBERG
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195391572
- eISBN:
- 9780199775804
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195391572.003.005
- Subject:
- Law, Environmental and Energy Law
The phrase “creating facts on the ground” is commonly used to refer to Israeli settlement policy in the occupied territories. In addition to the myriad empirical effects it produces, the practice ...
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The phrase “creating facts on the ground” is commonly used to refer to Israeli settlement policy in the occupied territories. In addition to the myriad empirical effects it produces, the practice generates normative consequences: the “first-order” normative effect consisting in the pressure that the status quo ground exerts on dispute-resolution; the “second-order” normative effect consisting in the various moral and political judgments made about the achievement of such first-order effects. This chapter provides a deeper understanding of how the practice achieves such normative effects, and teases out the kinds of first-order normative effects achieved. Drawing insights from the law of adverse possession, it proposes that the practice of creating facts on the ground serves to (a) respond to (and/or instigate) an abnormal situation or “state of emergency”, in which the conceptual distinctions on which the ordinary rules of justice depend collapse, and then (b) to “normalize” that abnormal situation.Less
The phrase “creating facts on the ground” is commonly used to refer to Israeli settlement policy in the occupied territories. In addition to the myriad empirical effects it produces, the practice generates normative consequences: the “first-order” normative effect consisting in the pressure that the status quo ground exerts on dispute-resolution; the “second-order” normative effect consisting in the various moral and political judgments made about the achievement of such first-order effects. This chapter provides a deeper understanding of how the practice achieves such normative effects, and teases out the kinds of first-order normative effects achieved. Drawing insights from the law of adverse possession, it proposes that the practice of creating facts on the ground serves to (a) respond to (and/or instigate) an abnormal situation or “state of emergency”, in which the conceptual distinctions on which the ordinary rules of justice depend collapse, and then (b) to “normalize” that abnormal situation.
B. S. Rosner and J. B. Pickering
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780198521389
- eISBN:
- 9780191706622
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198521389.003.0002
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience
Physical features of the vocal tract produce resonances or formants. Formants underlie the acoustics and auditory properties of vowels. Vowel quality is proposed to rest largely on the centre ...
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Physical features of the vocal tract produce resonances or formants. Formants underlie the acoustics and auditory properties of vowels. Vowel quality is proposed to rest largely on the centre frequencies of first two formants. The ERB auditory transform on frequency carries acoustics into the realm of perception. Coarticulation and differences between speakers affect formant frequencies.Less
Physical features of the vocal tract produce resonances or formants. Formants underlie the acoustics and auditory properties of vowels. Vowel quality is proposed to rest largely on the centre frequencies of first two formants. The ERB auditory transform on frequency carries acoustics into the realm of perception. Coarticulation and differences between speakers affect formant frequencies.
B. S. Rosner and J. B. Pickering
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780198521389
- eISBN:
- 9780191706622
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198521389.003.0005
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience
Variations in vocal tract size and shape cause spectral differences in the same vowel produced by different speakers. The ERB transform partly supplies the speaker normalization needed for vowel ...
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Variations in vocal tract size and shape cause spectral differences in the same vowel produced by different speakers. The ERB transform partly supplies the speaker normalization needed for vowel constancy. The timbre of a voice, fundamental frequency (F0), and experience with a given speaker facilitate the normalization process.Less
Variations in vocal tract size and shape cause spectral differences in the same vowel produced by different speakers. The ERB transform partly supplies the speaker normalization needed for vowel constancy. The timbre of a voice, fundamental frequency (F0), and experience with a given speaker facilitate the normalization process.
Thomas H. Stanton
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199915996
- eISBN:
- 9780199950324
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199915996.003.0008
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Financial Economics
Chapter 8 asks whether the financial crisis will happen again. Economist Hyman Minsky observed a cyclical pattern. Stability in financial markets breeds instability as lenders and borrowers keep ...
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Chapter 8 asks whether the financial crisis will happen again. Economist Hyman Minsky observed a cyclical pattern. Stability in financial markets breeds instability as lenders and borrowers keep pushing the limits. The years 2005–2007 saw a remarkable expansion of risk-taking at major firms just before the market collapsed in 2008, providing a demonstration of the Minsky cycles at work in the financial crisis. Minsky saw in the financial system the dynamic of “normalization of deviance” that sociologist Diane Vaughan saw in the Challenger space shuttle disaster. If that seems to result in success, then they lower their standards yet further. Minsky saw the cycle emerge regularly in credit standards, when lenders would respond to the lure of profits by taking increasing risks, while Vaughan studied a production-driven government agency, NASA, whose leaders yielded to pressure from the political process to perform without interrupting a flight to take account of growing risks.Less
Chapter 8 asks whether the financial crisis will happen again. Economist Hyman Minsky observed a cyclical pattern. Stability in financial markets breeds instability as lenders and borrowers keep pushing the limits. The years 2005–2007 saw a remarkable expansion of risk-taking at major firms just before the market collapsed in 2008, providing a demonstration of the Minsky cycles at work in the financial crisis. Minsky saw in the financial system the dynamic of “normalization of deviance” that sociologist Diane Vaughan saw in the Challenger space shuttle disaster. If that seems to result in success, then they lower their standards yet further. Minsky saw the cycle emerge regularly in credit standards, when lenders would respond to the lure of profits by taking increasing risks, while Vaughan studied a production-driven government agency, NASA, whose leaders yielded to pressure from the political process to perform without interrupting a flight to take account of growing risks.
Thomas H. Stanton
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199915996
- eISBN:
- 9780199950324
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199915996.003.0010
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Financial Economics
Chapter 10 expands the lessons of this book from financial firms to other types of company and their nominal regulators. Case studies include the BP Gulf Oil Spill, the Massey Mining disaster, PG&E’s ...
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Chapter 10 expands the lessons of this book from financial firms to other types of company and their nominal regulators. Case studies include the BP Gulf Oil Spill, the Massey Mining disaster, PG&E’s San Bruno gas pipeline explosion, hospital medical errors, and other examples. These firms too show the need for constructive dialogue, the harmful effects of sociologist Diane Vaughan’s “normalization of deviance,” and sometimes disastrous problems caused by impeded flow of information between front-line employees of an organization and top leaders. The chapter concludes that this book is not only about the financial crisis: it provides lessons about organization, governance and management of private and public organizations more generally and the need to strengthen the institutions upon which all of us depend for our safety and economic well being.Less
Chapter 10 expands the lessons of this book from financial firms to other types of company and their nominal regulators. Case studies include the BP Gulf Oil Spill, the Massey Mining disaster, PG&E’s San Bruno gas pipeline explosion, hospital medical errors, and other examples. These firms too show the need for constructive dialogue, the harmful effects of sociologist Diane Vaughan’s “normalization of deviance,” and sometimes disastrous problems caused by impeded flow of information between front-line employees of an organization and top leaders. The chapter concludes that this book is not only about the financial crisis: it provides lessons about organization, governance and management of private and public organizations more generally and the need to strengthen the institutions upon which all of us depend for our safety and economic well being.
Risto Rinne, Heikki Silvennoinen, Tero Järvinen, and Jenni Tikkanen
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781447350361
- eISBN:
- 9781447350699
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447350361.003.0006
- Subject:
- Education, Educational Policy and Politics
Policies are based on – explicit and implicit – assumptions of well-functioning institutions, a prosperous economy, a good citizen, and so forth. In short, they have a vision of a desired society ...
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Policies are based on – explicit and implicit – assumptions of well-functioning institutions, a prosperous economy, a good citizen, and so forth. In short, they have a vision of a desired society with reasonably behaving individuals. Against this background the chapter scrutinizes the taken-for-granted logic behind lifelong learning policy measures targeted at so called ‘vulnerable youth’. The term ‘vulnerable’ itself bears within it connotations that influence policy makers’ and policy actors’ perception of the individuals categorized under the label ‘vulnerable’. The chapter is interested in the ways by which lifelong learning policies with their variety of policy measures, projects, regulations and practices, incentive structures and sanctions, aim to govern (regulate, steer, mould) the ‘vulnerable’ young adults to govern themselves – their reasoning and conduct – according to the desired direction. The aim of this chapter is to make visible the underlying assumptions and tacit implications beneath the ‘normal’ life course, how ‘vulnerability’ is produced in policy texts, and how the normalization of ‘vulnerable’ youth is governed. Besides theoretical analysis the article uses policy documents, descriptions of policy measures and projects, and international, national and regional statistics to make sense of practices of governing the normalisation in empirical contexts.Less
Policies are based on – explicit and implicit – assumptions of well-functioning institutions, a prosperous economy, a good citizen, and so forth. In short, they have a vision of a desired society with reasonably behaving individuals. Against this background the chapter scrutinizes the taken-for-granted logic behind lifelong learning policy measures targeted at so called ‘vulnerable youth’. The term ‘vulnerable’ itself bears within it connotations that influence policy makers’ and policy actors’ perception of the individuals categorized under the label ‘vulnerable’. The chapter is interested in the ways by which lifelong learning policies with their variety of policy measures, projects, regulations and practices, incentive structures and sanctions, aim to govern (regulate, steer, mould) the ‘vulnerable’ young adults to govern themselves – their reasoning and conduct – according to the desired direction. The aim of this chapter is to make visible the underlying assumptions and tacit implications beneath the ‘normal’ life course, how ‘vulnerability’ is produced in policy texts, and how the normalization of ‘vulnerable’ youth is governed. Besides theoretical analysis the article uses policy documents, descriptions of policy measures and projects, and international, national and regional statistics to make sense of practices of governing the normalisation in empirical contexts.
Peter Ramsay
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199581061
- eISBN:
- 9780191741005
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199581061.003.0011
- Subject:
- Law, Criminal Law and Criminology
This chapter argues that the substantive law that protects the right to security has the character of emergency power that takes a normalized form. It critiques the theory of the normalization of the ...
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This chapter argues that the substantive law that protects the right to security has the character of emergency power that takes a normalized form. It critiques the theory of the normalization of the state of exception, arguing that this experience offers compelling evidence that the sovereignty of the state has decayed significantly in the UK, so that the criminal law's threats are premised on their own inadequacy. It also identifies the historical precondition of this paradoxical state of affairs in the decay of representative politics — a decay that is an aspect of the political experience already discussed in Chapter 5. This theory is contrasted with Garland's apparently similar ‘myth of the sovereign state’ thesis, arguing that the problem of the expansion of penal control is the result of the actual decline of sovereign authority rather than of the political pursuit of its myth, as proposed by Garland.Less
This chapter argues that the substantive law that protects the right to security has the character of emergency power that takes a normalized form. It critiques the theory of the normalization of the state of exception, arguing that this experience offers compelling evidence that the sovereignty of the state has decayed significantly in the UK, so that the criminal law's threats are premised on their own inadequacy. It also identifies the historical precondition of this paradoxical state of affairs in the decay of representative politics — a decay that is an aspect of the political experience already discussed in Chapter 5. This theory is contrasted with Garland's apparently similar ‘myth of the sovereign state’ thesis, arguing that the problem of the expansion of penal control is the result of the actual decline of sovereign authority rather than of the political pursuit of its myth, as proposed by Garland.
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.
Rosemary Foot
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198292920
- eISBN:
- 9780191599286
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198292929.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This is the second of four chapters focusing on America’s perceptions of China’s capabilities, and dwelling on the correspondence between those perceptions and the projected consequences. It looks at ...
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This is the second of four chapters focusing on America’s perceptions of China’s capabilities, and dwelling on the correspondence between those perceptions and the projected consequences. It looks at American perceptions of China’s capabilities as a military power, discussing them in relation to the successive conflicts in which China was involved: the Korean war, the two Taiwan Straits crises, the Sino-Indian and Sino-Soviet border conflicts, the Vietnam war and the Sino-Vietnamese fighting in 1979. The discussion marks the transition from the Truman and Eisenhower administration appraisals of China’s conventional strength as a ‘candidate great power’ (in military terms), to the perceptions in the 1960s and throughout the 1970s, that China had not developed advanced conventional forces, and had been sufficiently weakened through its domestic and foreign policies eventually to require it to embark on a domestic modernization programme that led to the reduction and then ending of its support for the national liberation struggles it had previously championed. Moreover, it needed American military protection to help it deal with Soviet encirclement. This evolution in the understanding of China’s needs and capacities helped ease the path to the rapprochement and then normalization of relations between these two former military opponents, much as America’s own defeat in Vietnam made it easier for Mao to turn to Washington.Less
This is the second of four chapters focusing on America’s perceptions of China’s capabilities, and dwelling on the correspondence between those perceptions and the projected consequences. It looks at American perceptions of China’s capabilities as a military power, discussing them in relation to the successive conflicts in which China was involved: the Korean war, the two Taiwan Straits crises, the Sino-Indian and Sino-Soviet border conflicts, the Vietnam war and the Sino-Vietnamese fighting in 1979. The discussion marks the transition from the Truman and Eisenhower administration appraisals of China’s conventional strength as a ‘candidate great power’ (in military terms), to the perceptions in the 1960s and throughout the 1970s, that China had not developed advanced conventional forces, and had been sufficiently weakened through its domestic and foreign policies eventually to require it to embark on a domestic modernization programme that led to the reduction and then ending of its support for the national liberation struggles it had previously championed. Moreover, it needed American military protection to help it deal with Soviet encirclement. This evolution in the understanding of China’s needs and capacities helped ease the path to the rapprochement and then normalization of relations between these two former military opponents, much as America’s own defeat in Vietnam made it easier for Mao to turn to Washington.
Rosemary Foot
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198292920
- eISBN:
- 9780191599286
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198292929.003.0009
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter charts aspects of the relationship between China and the United States from the normalization of relations in 1979, up to 1994. The emphasis is on China’s closer involvement with the ...
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This chapter charts aspects of the relationship between China and the United States from the normalization of relations in 1979, up to 1994. The emphasis is on China’s closer involvement with the international community, the exercise of US structural power designed to facilitate or retard the pace of that involvement, and China’s responses to the norms and rules of behaviour in an international order that many have seen as having been promoted largely by the United States. The chapter also examines the US attempt to consolidate bilateral ties with China after normalization in pursuit of the particular objectives of its foreign policy, but more especially to encourage China's contribution to international order. The different sections look at normalization and adjustment in 1979–84, the deepening of ties in 1985–89, and reassessments made in the period 1989–94.Less
This chapter charts aspects of the relationship between China and the United States from the normalization of relations in 1979, up to 1994. The emphasis is on China’s closer involvement with the international community, the exercise of US structural power designed to facilitate or retard the pace of that involvement, and China’s responses to the norms and rules of behaviour in an international order that many have seen as having been promoted largely by the United States. The chapter also examines the US attempt to consolidate bilateral ties with China after normalization in pursuit of the particular objectives of its foreign policy, but more especially to encourage China's contribution to international order. The different sections look at normalization and adjustment in 1979–84, the deepening of ties in 1985–89, and reassessments made in the period 1989–94.
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.
