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The Hero, the White Savior, and the Smuggler: Criminalized Figures in the Landscape of Solidarity Toward Migrants
No full textOne recent shift in the ever-expanding crackdown on migration and implementation of a hostile environment for migrants in the EU has been the criminalization of migrant solidarity. Using various legal tools, EU governments have been trying to hinder solidarity actions from civil society. In particular, a narrative depicting civilians helping migrants as criminals has been elaborated by European organizations and strengthened by far-right groups and dominant press outlets. In reaction, a counter-narrative has been constructed and spread by pro-migrant groups and liberal media, which presents criminalized activists as criminalized heroes and their actions as humanitarian. Based on a critical discourse analysis of academic texts, press articles, and empirical research with pro-migrant activists, this article examines two criminal figures from the civilian search and rescue field: the “activist associated with smugglers” and its counterpart, the “criminalized hero.” Through the lens of figuration of crime and social justice, the article brings a new understanding of the de- and repoliticization processes that occur in the field of humanitarian help and migration. By analyzing these two figures, the paper also contributes to a better understanding of the competing moral orders underpinning criminal and social justice claims in the field of solidarity toward migrants. On the one hand, the figure of the activist associated with smuggler is part of a criminal justice narrative depicting migration as a threat to political, social, and economic stability. On the other hand, the criminalized hero figure includes a counter-narrative to this moral order based on the defense of a social justice frame of solidarity and the protection of human rights. Within the pro-migrant activist’s scene, the criminalized hero and its social justice frame are criticized for reproducing racist and post-colonial practices of humanitarianism
Against Care: Abolition and the Progressive Jail Assemblage
No full textThis article uses the concept of a progressive jail assemblage to think about the focus on jails as both a target of social justice organizing and a tool for advancing social justice goals. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted among formerly incarcerated organizers and their allies in Western Massachusetts (New England), I explore how the sheriffs who operate jails in this region, along with their collaborators, have increasingly sought to redefine the figure of the criminal as not just a danger to others but also a danger to themselves, someone in need of rehabilitative treatment and even care. In doing so, these sheriffs have attempted to reinvent their role, from the quintessentially American crime fighting figure, to one who is also a provider of care. Social justice activism has helped to expand the “caring” role of the jail, through increased addiction treatment, re-entry support, and community outreach – even to the extent of incarcerating individuals dealing with addiction who have not been charged with a crime. As progressive jails have been reconfigured as providers of care, abolitionists are confronted with the ongoing dilemma of how to remain a figure opposed to the use of prisons and jails without being seen as against care
Possibilities of Care within Institutional Constraints: A Case Study in Black Creative Knowledge Production
No full textArt school curriculums in institutional settings are often irrelevant to the lived experiences, pathways, and histories of Black students. In this context, in Summer 2021 and 2022, Artspace gallery manager Joshua Vettivelu stewarded a series of projects centring Black students, creating space for open exploration through residencies and research supported by peer mentorship. These projects mobilized a durational approach, pairing small groups of students with slightly more experienced peer mentors over an extended period, in an environment underscored with care and self-direction.
In 2021, the it’s real because it happened residency and exhibit allowed participants to explore questions of self-portraiture and perception in collaboration. In 2022, The Black Creative Research Residency (BCRR) project paired a working artist, Shaya Ishaq, with three students to explore questions of optical allyship and Black resistance, culminating in the Knowable Archives, Unknowable Vessels exhibit. This exploration of optical allyship raised questions about allyship communicated through (sometimes shallow) visual signifiers, and in particular explored the works of David Drake – an enslaved potter working in the Antebellum South known for engraving his pots with poetry and his signature – and Josiah Wedgwood – a British potter who made abolitionist pendants for The Society for Effecting the Abolition of Slave Trade. This paper highlights the best practices that emerged from these residencies, such as providing both material resources and immaterial – that is to say, intellectual and relational – support through caring mentorship and relationship building. Furthermore, we explore the tension between both possibilities and limitations of radical care and Black creative practices within institutional constraints
An Intervention in Educational Inquiry: Re-membering, Honoring and Practicing a River’s Ways of Knowing and Being
No full textAnswering this special issue’s call to reckon, repair and reworld, and following an ethical imperative to re-think social and educational structures, I turn to the wisdom of rivers. In the current settler colonial climate of near inertia that we live in, there is an urgent need to reckon with ways of being and knowing that go beyond the mainstream taken-for-granted habits of conventional educational research. Thinking with Indigenous perspectives, I problematize the Eurocentric worldview I was raised in and consider, in my capacity as a non-Indigenous educator and inquirer, some principles rivers can teach about educational inquiry. A series of photographs of the Chehalis River and personal vignettes allow me to trace and articulate a feminist and decolonial approach to my own inquiry. I consider how reciprocity, language and movement – three teachings gifted by the river – invite me to be, think, and act as an educator and an inquirer engaged in reconciliation. As many rich and diverse Indigenous perspectives have always reminded us, we have a responsibility to listen to and care for all our relatives, human and more-than-human. This is one important way we can work to transform our collective thinking, actions and future in education
American Terrorism in Vietnam: No Fortunate Sons
No full textThis paper explores the tactics and outcomes of the United States’ intervention in Vietnam from the Second World War into the Cold War era of the mid-1970s. American military and political strategies have historically employed acts of terror as strategies to achieve desired political or ideological motives through the guise of warfare. Psychological and herbicidal warfare were inflicted upon the people of Vietnam and unknowing American soldiers under the pretense that it would ultimately save their lives. This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing discussions in Critical Terrorism Studies to address the ambiguity between terrorism and counterterrorism (insurgency vs counterinsurgency). Furthermore, the evidence presented reaffirms that the United States\u27 tactics and strategies in Vietnam extended beyond the theatre of war as acts of terror to bring a conclusion to the Vietnam War
The Garb of Old Gaul: The Changing Roles of Tartan and the Kilt in Defining a British Scotland, 1745-1855
No full textTartan, and the article it is most associated with, the kilt, is synonymous with Scottish culture today. Yet it receives little attention as a legitimate focus for historical academic study due to ideas around the pattern as typifying a kind of ‘biscuit tin kitsch’ appearing on souvenirs and shortbread tins. This paper positions itself amongst other scholars to provide a material history of tartan and assert that tartan is not only a topic deserving of historical study but that it is intrinsically tied with the changing idea of ‘Britishness’ in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. During this time, tartan shifted from a symbol of northern barbarity to a symbol of southern civility, refined masculinity, and fierce loyalty to the British crown amid conflicts and debates on what it meant to be Scottish
“God Gives the Poor Herbs and Fungi to Mend the Ailments”: Traditional Medicine, Indigenous Care, and the Fungal Novel
No full textIn this article I establish that there is a nascent interest in Latin American writers to represent the versatility of fungi. I conduct an in-depth analysis of the Mexican novel Brujas [Witches] (2020) by Brenda Lozano from a feminist political ecology viewpoint (Arriagada Oyarzún and Zambra Álvarez, 2019), focusing on the representation of the role of fungi in Indigenous medicine and care within Mexico. My theoretical framework is informed by feminist theorizations on care (Tronto 1993; Puig de la Bellcasa 2017; The Care Collective 2020), decolonial perspectives of climate degradation (Svampa and Viale 2014; Gudynas 2011, 2015, 2016), and Indigenous systems of knowledge and medicine. After introducing the history of Indigenous biomedical history in Latin America, I examine the crucial role of fungi in the novel as agents of gender, race, socio-political resistance, and resilience. I conclude by proposing the categories of mycophilic (fungus-loving) and mycophobic (fungus-fearing) fungal novels
The New Normal: Embracing Remote Work in Intercollegiate Athletic Departments Post-Pandemic
No full textOver the past two years, sport organizations worldwide have had to adapt traditional operating procedures regarding employee health and well-being as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Among these has been the implementation of remote work as an integral part of organizational structure. Through a review of the general literature regarding remote work, this paper presents an argument for the adoption of remote work as part of the standard operating practices of intercollegiate athletic departments. Specifically, organizational control theory provides a lens through which college athletic organizations can implement remote work and maintain a level of organizational effectiveness by utilizing the management of communication and trust. By extending scholarship on organizational control theory within sport management, the utilization of the organizational controls will allow athletic department leadership to modernize their departments while gaining competitive advantage