30115 research outputs found
Sort by
From Cold War Repression to Think Tank Communication: The Evolution of Neoliberal Authoritarianism and the Criminalization of Climate Activism
Full text linkThis paper examines the ideological and strategic links between Cold War-era authoritarian neoliberalism and contemporary climate obstructionism, arguing that the criminalization of dissent has shifted from anti-communism to anti-environmentalism. Through a genealogical and contextual analysis of think tank networks – particularly the Mont Pèlerin Society (MPS) and the Atlas Network (AN) – grounded in key texts and proceedings published by them or their affiliated institutions, I show how neoliberal thought has long been entangled with fossil capital, militarized epistemologies, and reactionary politics. The study reveals how neoliberal politics, despite its rhetoric of freedom, relies on illiberal measures to enforce market fundamentalism, from Pinochet’s Chile to the rise of figures like Milei and Bolsonaro. By tracing the theological, military, and epistemic dimensions of this dispositif, I analyze neoliberalism’s authoritarian dimensions, showing how climate change denial and the repression of environmental activism serve as modern iterations of Cold War-era ideological hunts. The Southern Cone emerges as a critical site where this continuum is tested, showing the alliance between neoliberalism and authoritarian governance
"for what has not yet been heard": Sonic Resistance in Women’s Experimental Film Culture
No full textThis chapter explores how experimental women filmmakers mobilise sound as a site of resistance within moving-image culture, focusing on practices that destabilise conventional audiovisual synchrony. Through the lens of Abigail Child’s Mutiny (1982–3), it develops the concept of “sonic elongation”: the process by which sound stretches away from its visual anchor to become unfamiliar, ambiguous, and interpretive. Sonic elongation unsettles cinematic expectation by dislocating sound from image, creating moments of rupture that expose film’s materiality and demand new, active forms of listening. Tracing its genealogy through musique concrète, feminist film theory, and interdisciplinary histories of art and music, the chapter situates this technique as a crucial aesthetic and political strategy for women artists. In challenging synchronicity, filmmakers contest the patriarchal structures embedded in cinematic traditions, foregrounding labour, embodiment, and marginalised voices. Sonic elongation provides a connective tissue between experimental film, the sonic arts, and feminist practice: it is both a compositional technique and a feminist gesture that resists the normalisation of sound, image, and gendered representation. By privileging noise, rupture, and dissonance, women’s experimental film cultures cultivate an oppositional audiovisuality that renders audible what Child describes as “what has not yet been heard.
Glocal intimacies as non-West and global South theory-building for mobile media and communication
Full text linkUsing the theory of glocal intimacies as an illustrative case, this article argues for the value of non-West and global South theorizing for mobile media and communication scholarship. It focuses on the two key ways glocal intimacies draws on postcolonial scholarship to enact such theorizing. One is foregrounding the context of the genesis and development of its key assumptions in order to conceptualize mobile technology's development, adoption, and use in ways that are not universalist but instead markedly contextual. The second is building into its theorizing a consideration of diverse contexts, so that it foregrounds the entanglements of mobile technologies with the colonial histories and complex rationalities of contemporary globalization that bind together different societies across the globe. In doing so, this article hopes to show that the future of mobile media and communication research would benefit from practices that enable more nuanced and inclusive ways of theorizing
Girlspeak
No full textThis piece stages an interspecies (bird-human) conversation between a charm of winged female creatures. The conversation is composed of fragments blending speculative fiction, quotes and birdsong; mimicking adolescent girls’ prattle, and foregrounding this ‘girlspeak’ as a radical strategy to help us question patriarchal rules, like grammar, and fixed ideas on how children, particularly girls, should be brought up. I suggest we urgently listen to how our girls talk to engage with their deteriorating mental health and growing rates of suicide. I hope to also propose girlspeak as a radical strategy to harness alternative approaches to the patriarchal system’s impasse that is failing to act in the face of the current ecological crisis. The punctuation in this piece performs through the semicolon. It is put to work as a writing device that enables this conversation on the page. Though each of the ideas and voices that take part in this conversation could be written about in isolation, they are complete (as complete as ideas ever are) in their own right. By bringing them together the thinking multiplies, becomes entangled and folds outwards
Digital Nomads in Conversation: Reddit-based Analysis and the Future of Nomadic versus Migrant Career Journeys
Full text linkWe examine digital nomadism through the lens of the Intelligent Careers framework and compare this emerging career form with more traditional migrant careers. We show how digital nomads navigate their career paths by leveraging online platforms for casual storytelling and knowledge sharing. Our analysis uses probabilistic topic modeling to analyze 66,601 Reddit posts from the DigitalNomad subreddit to uncover insights into digital nomads’ career management strategies. We categorize discussions under the three competencies of the Intelligent Careers framework: knowing-why (motivations and aspirations), knowing-how (skills and adaptability), and knowing-whom (networks and social capital). Most of the conversations concerned practical aspects of nomadic life (knowing-how), differentiating their narrative from the more permanent and often structural hurdles that migrants typically face. Discussions on the knowing-why on the other hand highlight the integration of work and leisure as a significant motivator, while at the same time debating the loss of “home.” The knowing-whom conversations reveal digital nomads’ reliance on online and offline networks for support and work opportunities, showcasing the role of digital platforms in fostering community and collaboration among nomads and revealing strategies for maintaining personal relationships and friendships across boundaries. Digital nomads in some ways resemble migrant actors (e.g., through cost-benefit calculations), but are also significantly different because of temporary nature of their movement and completely portable work lives. We contribute to the broader discourse on contemporary careers and the future of work in the digital era, emphasizing the importance of adaptability, network building, and aligning personal values with career aspirations
Preserving Citizenry: Derry Film and Video Collective and the quest(ion) for institutions
No full textThis chapter proposes the Derry Film and Video Workshop (est. 1984), a historically important Northern Irish feminist, socialist, activist group of filmmakers who first assembled for the Channel 4 Workshop scheme, as an example of citizen-up (rather than state-down) institution building. This chapter outlines DFVW's genesis, their work, activism and peer affiliations, methods of collectivised payment, screening endeavours and community training activities as interconnected actions schematised to overcome various political, media and institutional biases of the period. It identifies how a citizenry of individuals, including curator Sara Greavu, have more recently sought to safeguard, archive and preserve DFVC’s work in the absence of any appropriate public (national or regional) institutional infrastructure, archive or collection.
Here, taking Ariella Azoulay's notion and formulation of the ‘citizenry of photography’ (2008), as ‘anyone who addresses others through photographs or takes the position of a photograph’s addressee, even if she is a stateless person who has lost her “right to have rights,”’ the essay asks how the DFVW self-constituted through the capture of moving images of their everyday – the social, the sororal, the communal, and the quotidian – encouraging in anyone who encountered them what Azoulay describes as the ‘contemplative gaze’. The chapter asks how DFVC, and those who currently work to preserve their by-now distributed body of material (including correspondences, dossiers and original tapes), present a model for active instituting that is driven and maintained by invested citizens rather than supported by and serving the historically inconsistent and often conflicting interests and agendas of the nation-states between which Northern Ireland is set. The claim here is that DFVC thus presents a model for re-imagining what we currently perceive to be the foundation, remit or ambition of the public or national institution
Dwelling in the Present: Confinement and the Temporalities of Gendered Property Work in Kolkata’s Marginal Neighbourhoods
No full textIn this paper I will relate the institution of marriage and its gendered implications to the state-led politics of urban restructuring that have marked classed and gendered effects of being ‘stuck’ in a neighbourhood and /because of marriage, which is equally enforced by the state. After a brief outline of the ongoing history of displacement of the urban ‘poor’ in Kolkata, I turn towards the women’s experience of infrastructural labour of homemaking whilst ‘stuck’ in marriages, homes, and neighbourhoods. By linking the displacement into legal and spatio-political grey zones, shows women as doubly trapped: in marriage through specific regimes of migration and the effects of property regimes, and in neighbourhoods that are sites patriarchal control. The carcerality of marriage is shown to be directly related to the gendered violence of the street/neighbourhood as a site of surveillance and vigilantism, whilst gendered experiences of legal, spatial and political regimes are marked by the constant affirmation of informality of differing degrees and scales
Development and validation of the rapport-pro for investigative information-gathering contexts
Full text linkPurpose
This paper aims to present the development and validation of a new measure of rapport designed specifically for measuring attempts to build rapport in professional information-gathering contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
Guided by best practice recommendations and informed by a systematic review, the development of the “Rapport-Pro” followed three initial phases: (i) construct identification and item generation, (ii) pretesting and face validity assessment and (iii) expert evaluation and content validity. Following established scale development standards, two online studies examined the psychometric properties of the Rapport-Pro, considering its accuracy and appropriateness in measuring rapport in professional contexts.
Findings
Study 1 (n = 172) included the three initial development phases and a confirmatory factor analysis, which supported a second-order model where five rapport components loaded onto a higher-order rapport factor. Item response theory analysis further confirmed item discriminability and the reliability of the Rapport-Pro. Study 2 (n = 399) sought to replicate the findings from Study 1, suggesting good factorial and concurrent validity, while also examining construct validity by assessing the Rapport-Pro’s alignment with related constructs such as “active listening,” “trust” and “expertise” through convergent and discriminant validity checks. The successful replication of evidence supporting factorial and concurrent validity from Study 1 attests to the stability and effectiveness of the Rapport-Pro in detecting variations in rapport.
Originality/value
With evidence of factorial, construct, face, content and concurrent validity, the Rapport-Pro addresses theoretical gaps and practical needs, emerging as a robust instrument for assessing professional rapport and enhancing official guidelines, training and practice of rapport-building strategies