LIBERAL GOVERNMENT AND THE CORPORATE PERSON

This article focuses on corporate personhood, the controversial argument, advanced particularly in the United States, that corporations are persons within the scope of the law and are therefore endowed with rights. Though often examined as a causal factor in the development of modern corporate power, in this article I argue that corporate personhood is more useful as a tool for understanding the problematic of liberalism and the transformations associated with the definition of persons under the liberal rule of law. To explain why, I focus on debates about corporate personhood in prominent legal and philosophical texts from the turn of the twentieth century. Highlighting the contingent production of ideas about corporate personhood, I show the ways that writers within the U.S. context rethought corporate personhood, which was traditionally a discourse about sovereign power, in terms of liberal rights as a way of promoting economic forms of government. By focusing on the problematic, we see the ways that corporate capitalism was never simply a set of economic relations, but also a way of organizing, ordering and intervening in life.     

On the Symbolic Production of Digital Markets for Cultural Goods

This paper proposes and mobilizes a cultural economic framework to study the dynamic formation of digital markets for cultural goods. Adapting Hayek's theory of price to recent developments in the field of cultural sociology, it proposes the idea that an effective price system condenses information dispersed in society, and then enters into a performative process of symbolic communication that is perceived as ‘authentic’ by the consumers. After analyzing ‘artificial’ and ‘authentic’ current strategies aimed at producing digital markets for cultural goods, which are especially sensitive to the symbolic dimension of price, the article suggests the hypothesis that the digital market has been constructed as a zero- or quasi-zero-price economic space, and that it is the offline and material market of cultural products the one that collects the higher revenues derived from the ‘authentic’ generation of value taking place in the digital marketplace.     

The neurotic academic: anxiety,casualisation, and governance in the neoliberalising university

Based on empirical research conducted with academic staff working on fixed-term contracts, the article explores the subjective experience of anxiety in the UK’s ‘neoliberalising’ higher education (HE) sector. As HE undergoes a process of marketisation, and the teaching and research activities of academics are increasingly measured and scrutinised, the contemporary academy appears to be suffused with anxiety. Coupled with pressures facing all staff, 34% of academic employees are currently working on a fixed-term contract and so must contend with the multiple forms of uncertainty associated with their so-called ‘casualised’ positions. While anxiety is often perceived as an individualised affliction for which employees are encouraged to take personal responsibility, the article argues that it should be conceptualised in two ways: firstly, as a symptom of wider processes at work in the neoliberalising sector; and secondly, as a ‘tactic’ of what Isin [(2004). The neurotic citizen. Citizenship Studies, 8 (3), 217–235] refers to as ‘neuroliberal’ governance. The article concludes by proposing that the figure of the ‘neurotic academic’ is emblematic of the contradictions facing the contemporary academy.     

“Oh my god! You have become so Americanized”: Paradoxes of adaptation and strategic ambiguity among female immigrant faculty

Guided by De La Garza and Ono’s differential adaptation theory, we examine discourses from immigrant women faculty in the U.S. academy. We utilize thematic analysis to analyze interviews with 26 self-identified immigrant faculty members. Our analysis reveals three interrelating themes: negotiating foreign-female body politics, navigating paradoxes of adaptation, and deploying strategic ambiguity. We theorize the notion of “micro/macro-adaptation” describing mundane and cumulative adaptations that cultural “strangers” make, negotiate, and/or are expected to enact, which paradoxically can function to further disorient, alienate, or marginalize them.     

Intersectional agencies: Navigating predominantly White institutions as an administrator of color

Administrators of color in predominantly White institutions (PWI) navigate from dual positions of privilege and marginalization. Within PWIs, administrators of color experience marginalization in terms of their racial/ethnic makeup. Specifically focusing on the administrative level, 95.8% of executive provosts and 86.2% of deans of academic colleges are White. At the faculty level, nearly 10% of full professors are people of color. However, even with such exclusionary practices, 87.7% of chief diversity officers are racial minorities. The current study seeks to understand how highly educated administrators of color work for diversity, inclusion, and equity initiatives while navigating from their dual positions of marginalization and privilege. Using the theoretical lenses of co-cultural theory, dominant group theory, and intersectionality, the study seeks to understand how privilege and marginalization ebbs and flows depending on particular contexts. Findings indicate that optimizing privilege through co-cultural praxis and impeding through mentoring are two common strategies used by administrators of color.     

中国城市管理工作方针的演变与发展趋势

中华人民共和国成立以来,党和政府十分重视城市管理工作,伴随着城市建设和发展的需要,根据不同历史时期城市管理工作的形势和任务的不同,采取了不同的城市管理体制,确定了相应的城市管理方针政策.城市管理体制是建立在经济体制基础上的,与经济体制和政府职能相适应.有什么样的经济体制,就有什么样的城市管理体制.根据1949年以来不同...     

“Participation” in the internationalized higher education classroom: An academic staff perspective

For universities seeking to promote internationalization, the development of an understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity among staff and students is a priority. Cultural and linguistic diversification of the student body can, however, present academic staff with challenges in the areas of curriculum, teaching methods and assessment. In this study, we take up the culturally variable notion of “participation” as a constituent of learning and draw on data derived from focus group interviews to probe the participation-related challenges reported by academic staff in a UK university. Finally, we consider the implications of our findings for strategic interventions aimed at academic staff.