From the voice of a ‘socratic gadfly’: a call for more academic activism in the researching of disability in postsecondary education

Abstract

In this article, I use the lens of voices and silences to frame my review of research in the field of disability and postsecondary education. I argue that we need to view research in this field as a necessarily political act that seeks to turn voices of silence into voices of change. Researchers therefore need to rethink their role in order to understand how they can use and direct their political voices. In order to persuade researchers to heed my call for more academic activism, adopt the role of a ‘socratic gadfly’ to identify six political areas of research where I argue that voices and silences need more critical examination. In discussing these six areas, I hope to illuminate the implications for ‘genuinely investigative’ research in the future.     

# tellPearson: the activist ‘public education’ network

This paper investigates the contemporary nature of education activism in the context of the Global Education Industry (GEI). Theorising around contentious politics, the activist teaching profession, and notions of ‘connective’ action, suggests that educational activists are now using social media to oppose the increasing commercialisation of education. This paper focuses on the ‘#tellPearson’ campaign to explore how Twitter was leveraged as a social space to promote a campaign against the activities of Pearson plc. Analysis of this Twitter network shows how new social structures are being used to frame issues, mobilise resources and promote stakeholder action. While it is difficult to offer definitive conclusions about the success of this campaign, it is possible to reflect on the strategies now being used to hold those in positions of power and influence in the GEI to account.     

能动司法视阈下司法建议机制创新考量——以新形式建议创设为切入点

司法建议工作是当前各级法院坚持能动司法＼推进社会矛盾化解和社会管理创新工作的重要手段。诸多新形式建议不断创设过程中不具备必要形式要件的新形式建议书的出现表征出司法建议机制的创新过度与泛化现象。司法建议机制创新应当回归考量的四个限定原则,即立足审判原则、合法有效原则、及时必要原则、规范合理原则,并应从优化规范体系设置、强化沟通联动机制、完善内部程序以及建立人大备案评查机制等方面予以具体落实。     

United in Protest: From ‘Living and Dying with Our Colours’ to ‘Let All the Colours of the World Unite’

Istanbul's ‘Big Three’ football clubs, Be?ikta?, Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray, dominate the Turkish Super League. The matches between these fiercely rival teams, also known as ‘derbies’, are often intense and culminate in the eruption of violence, which has even been fatal on occasion. To many people's surprise, the anti-government protests which were sparked by outrage over police action against environmental protestors in May 2013 brought these eternal rivals together. Thousands of Be?ikta?, Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray supporters marched arm-in-arm to Taksim Square and demanded justice and freedom. Out of this solidarity is born Istanbul United, a seemingly new fan group with a new logo that combines the three rival logos. Çar??, the legendary fan group of Be?ikta?, also played an important role in the protests and received the support of all football fans as well. This paper will focus on the politicisation of football in Turkey during the second half of 2013. By looking at both the political role of football fans of the ‘Big Three’ during and after the Gezi protests, and the ways in which mutual respect and solidarity is born among diverse protesters, this paper discusses the possibilities of translating this positive genre to a peaceful spectatorship in Turkish football.     

Apple,Foxconn, and Chinese workers’ struggles from a global labor perspective

To enrich the discussion of global labor, between 2010 and 2016, we studied Apple’s value chain, Foxconn’s mode of labor control, and Chinese workers’ struggles. Through our fieldwork in China we also examined Apple’s and Foxconn’s responses to the spate of worker suicides, workers’ resistance, the activism of scholar and student groups, and transnational justice campaigns. We conclude with reflection on global labor studies in light of the debates between Karl Polanyi’s counter movement and Karl Marx’s class-based struggle.     

Twenty-five years of democracy,twenty-five years of social protest: The role of the carnivalesque in Bulgaria’s 2013 antigovernment protests

This essay examines the role of the carnivalesque in three performances of protest during the antigovernment street protests in Bulgaria in 2013. They represent a form of protest that symbolically inverts the established rituals of a political regime unwilling to recognize the voice of the people in an allegedly democratic nation-state. My analysis intersects scholarship on the rhetoric of social movements, carnivalesque performances of protest, and the rhetorical force of iconic images of protest. Through my analysis I reveal how the carnivalesque allowed activists to move beyond the norms of democratic dissent in their protests against governmental oppression.     

Finding feminism,finding voice? Mobilising community education to build women's participation in Myanmar's political transition

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the role played by women activists and educators in mobilising community education to support new opportunities for women's activism in the context of Myanmar's political transition. Recent political reorientations in Myanmar which have resulted in a civilian-led democracy emerging from a repressive military regime, have facilitated increased international contact. Myanmar women activist-educators are rejecting hierarchical relationships and the sterile reproductions of idealised female citizenship evident in some training practices and are promoting a conceptualisation of feminist education. I reflect on the dynamics of this feminist activism, including the adaptation of feminist concepts and terminology, as articulated by activists, and I explore responses to the new avenues for women's engagement which are opening up in the first inter-election cycle.     

Career quandaries of activist environmental engineering graduates in Indonesia

Abstract

This article reports on a study that aimed to investigate how young Indonesians might become environmentalists, and what happens when they do. It uses a Bourdieusian framework to analyse interviews with six Indonesian environmental engineering students who took an active role in environmental conservation campaigns while studying at the prestigious University of Technology Bandung (ITB) in Indonesia. In 2014, they were pondering the challenge of negotiating an environmentally defensible career after graduation from their degree. Four years later, in 2018 follow-up contact, it was evident that while they still operated a moral responsibility of conservation and care for the natural world, not all of them had found the dream jobs they imagined as earnest undergraduates keen to protect the natural environment. Yet most had maintained their ‘ecological habitus’ even as they sought to make good on the institutionalised cultural capital invested in their undergraduate degree in environmental engineering. This article examines that journey.     

养老金积极主义与公司治理

公司治理命题产生于公司所有杈和控制权分离所形成的委托代理问题.20世纪90年代,美国兴起了以养老基金为主导的股东积极主义运动,倡导养老金积极主义运动的养老基金等机构投资者参与公司治理,能在一定程度上解决委托代理问题.但是,公共养老基金和私人养老基金参与公司治理还存在一定差异性.此外,养老金积极主义发展过程中表现出了一些新的特征也值得关注,这显示现代公司治理模式发展到了一个新阶段.