Search results

Whistleblowing plays a crucial role in revealing organizational misconduct and systemic corruption in industry and government. This paper investigates changing practices of whistleblower activism, with particular reference to the role of solidarity and the increased role of support networks. Many modern whistleblower disclosures have revealed gaping flaws in the system of global governance related to a range of important social and economic issues, such as tax evasion, global mass surveillance, the use of torture and illegal wars of aggression. All these forms of systemic corruption are reliant on the use of secrecy havens to conceal the abuse from public scrutiny and democratic oversight. Counter-hegemonic social movements that oppose forms of systemic corruption can find important allies in those whistleblowers, who leak vital information about misconduct and corruption to the public. In this paper, we argue that there is a clear relationship of mutual support between whistleblowing and activist social movements, both in the process of whistleblowing and in furthering the campaigns of the social movements themselves. We theorize this, unpacking the processes and dynamics underlying the relationship, and offering a framework for analysis. The paper concludes with a discussion of the changing role of whistleblower activism and support networks in undertaking social reform and counter-hegemonic practice.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the contribution of counter‐hegemonic communications towards the origins of anti‐colonialism in French India during the years 1935‐1937 and thereby to illuminate the relationship between press, economics and ideology in a colonial context.

The paper presents a qualitative study of local archives in Tamil and French, including indigenous print communications such as the workers' paper Swandanthiram. These are used as a prism for analysis of the development of a workers' public voice during major textile strikes, and assessed in the light of John Downing's definitions of advocacy journalism.

Communications were directly connected to disempowerment and lack of civil, political and economic rights. The formation of legal worker organisations for the first time and a new political party provided the context in which activist leaders adopted a twofold vertical and lateral strategy in their publications, to promote their formative anti‐colonial ideas.

This research illuminates the relationship between press, economics and ideology in a colonial context, demonstrating the importance of economic factors in rise of nationalist movements and the way press usage is connected to basic civil, political and economic rights.

The paper traces a forgotten episode in the history of a neglected corner of French empire, significant for the emergence of the indigenous population – including peasant women – for the first time from the private to the public sphere as an organised force – a factor that has previously been ignored by historians.

This chapter provides a critical analysis of a case study of a self-managed informal collective and leftist house project in Germany, the Political Cultural Centre (PCC), drawing on observations, group discussions and biographical interviews conducted between June and December 2016. Formed in 2015 by a group of art students and left-wing activists as an alternative space housed in an old building, the PCC consisted of about 30 young people, ranging in age from 18 to 40 years of age, with the majority between 20 and 25 years at the time of our research. This chapter analyses the group’s experiences of alternative-space life through the lens of (counter)politics, focusing on how these young people dealt with the challenges of self-performative contradictions through practices of coping. In so doing, this chapter reflects on the complexities that arise from the (counter-)hegemonic idea of the centre as a political project and reconstructs the power relations and the temporality of doing counter-hegemonic politics within a capitalist society. Based on this analysis, the chapter compares the PCC experience with case studies of other social movements, specifically the Manchester-based young feminists and socialists (Chapters 5 and 6, respectively).

The purpose of this paper is to advocate and contribute to a more nuanced and discerning argument when ascribing a democratic role to libraries and activities related to information literacy.

The connections between democracy and libraries as well as between citizenship and information literacy are analysed by using Mouffe’s agonistic pluralism. One example is provided by a recent legislative change (the new Swedish Library Act) and the documents preceding it. A second, more detailed example concerns how information literacy may be conceptualised when related to young women’s sexual and reproductive health. Crucial in both examples are the suggestions of routes to travel that support equality and inclusion for all.

Within an agonistic approach, democracy concerns equality and interest in making efforts to include the less privileged. The inclusion of a democratic aim, directed towards everyone, for libraries in the new Library Act can be argued to emphasise the political role of libraries. A liberal and a radical understanding of information literacy is elaborated, the latter is advocated. Information literacy is also analysed in a non-essentialist manner, as a description of a learning activity, therefore always value-laden.

The agonistic reading of two central concepts in library and information studies, namely, libraries and information literacy is fruitful and shows how the discipline may contribute to strengthen democracy in society both within institutions as libraries and in other settings.

The purpose of this paper is to point to the significance of temporally charged imaginaries of neglected places and their residents in the context of slum tourism research. It examines the way in which tour guides draw on specific temporalities to recast the poverty and stigma of the Mexico City barrio of Tepito and thus design narratives to alter long-held imaginaries of this neighbourhood.

Two tours are analysed through an anthropological lens using ethnographic methods. Authors took part in the tours, registering the guides’ discourse and interventions, as well as the places and situations observed. The insights of this paper stem from the empirical evidence and reveal how diverse imaginaries are enacted through tour guiding.

Without necessarily following a single, coherent narrative, tour guides link different moments in time to simultaneously generate and contest slum tour imaginaries. The guides in this case study not only challenge existing stereotypes, but also critically engage political neglect while showcasing Tepito’s potentiality. Even so, the analysed tours seek to recast the barrio as integral to Mexico City’s history and future.

Until now, the importance of temporalities in the generation of imaginaries in slum tourism research has gained only little attention. The case study presented here show how alternative forms of tourism are offering unconventional readings of urban neighbourhoods. These processes, the authors argue, help not only re-imagine disadvantaged districts, such as Tepito, but also to re-think the city as a whole in terms of its past, present and future.

In the British social formation, especially after 1960, there has been a tendency towards an external mode of control of industrial relations which is based upon the internal regulation of labour collectivities. The article argues that corporatism and hegemony are both inextricably linked facets of the same process — the ideological control of the IR system, embodying both corporate agencies and hegemonic relations, by a state which has various forms.

Takes as its departure point the criticism of Guthrie and Parker by Arnold and the Tinker et al. critique of Gray et al. Following an extensive review of the corporate social reporting literature, its major theoretical preoccupations and empirical conclusions, attempts to re‐examine the theoretical tensions that exist between “classical” political economy interpretations of social disclosure and those from more “bourgeois” perspectives. Argues that political economy, legitimacy theory and stakeholder theory need not be competitor theories but may, if analysed appropriately, be seen as alternative and mutually enriching theories from alternative levels of resolution. Offers evidence from 13 years of social disclosure by UK companies and attempts to interpret this from different levels of resolution. There is little doubt that social disclosure practice has changed dramatically in the period. The theoretical perspectives prove to offer different, but mutually enhancing, interpretations of these phenomena.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on doctoral education. Pandemics throughout history have generated new educational theories and practices, accelerated some trends and signalled the abrupt end of others. The unpredictable effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have particularly impacted upon First Nations and transcultural communities and People of Colour throughout the globe. A second significant recent global trend that occurred at the height of the pandemic was the reignited #BlackLivesMatter (#BLM) protest campaign. This campaign drew attention to the vast inequities faced by black, transcultural (migrant, refugee, culturally diverse and international) and Indigenous peoples and triggered rapid action in higher education institutions against racism and unconscious bias.

This conceptual paper draws upon postcolonial/decolonial theory to demonstrate how the COVID pandemic and #BLM movement prompts us to revitalise doctoral education.

These two issues have created renewed urgency around the need to decolonise higher education and a desire to transform the “business-as-usual” geopolitical power dynamics that continue to privilege Northern knowledge over culturally diverse knowledge systems from First Nations and transcultural contexts. A key site where special opportunities exist to effect this transformation lies in doctoral education. Doctoral education is a significant location of new knowledge creation and the development of the world’s future researchers.

Applying post/decolonial theory enables one to rethink how doctoral education should be changed to work towards greater decolonisation.

This study applies Santos’ ideas about “the sociologies of emergence” in the global South to think about how doctoral education should be reconstructed as a liberated zone of decolonisation and epistemic justice.

Purpose – To discuss the history and relevance of audience research as it pertains to sport and physical culture and to demonstrate an approach to doing audience research.

Design/methodology/approach – A step-by-step overview of a study conducted by the authors is provided. The study examined ways that groups of young males in a Vancouver, Canada, high school interpreted images of masculinity in popular media, and ways these same youth performed masculinity in physical education classes. We reflect on how studying interpretations (using focus groups) and lived experiences (using participant observation and in-depth interviews) in an integrated fashion was helpful for understanding the role of media in the everyday lives of these youth. We also describe how the hegemony concept guided our data interpretation.

Findings – We highlight how, on the one hand, the young males were critical of media portrayals of hegemonic forms of masculinity and, on the other hand, how these same males attempted to conform to norms associated with hegemonic masculinity in physical education classes. We emphasise that our multi-method approach was essential in allowing us to detect the incongruity between youth ‘interpretations’ and ‘performances’.

Research limitations/implications – Limitations of audience research are discussed, and the epistemological underpinnings of our study are highlighted.

Originality/value – The need for audience research in physical cultural studies is emphasised. We suggest that researchers too often make claims about media impacts without actually talking to audiences, or looking at what audiences ‘do’ with information they glean from media.

The aim of this paper is to understand how, in tough economic times, British‐owned, English language newspapers such as The Pioneer received and filtered news, especially gender‐related and nationalist‐related events and thinking.

Using qualitative and quantitative methods to assess communications by and about pro‐nationalist women, coverage of female activities was categorised into two groups: first, educational, social and peaceful campaigns and second, direct action such as strikes, burning of British cloth and business/land rent boycotts.

Direct action provided “bad news” coverage, but it simultaneously gave a small window for publicity. Less threatening peaceful campaigns provided a bigger window – enhanced by the novelty value of female activism.

Historians need to look specifically at Indian newspapers during the struggle for independence for a counter‐hegemonic discourse that reached a wide public. When evidence of women's activism is paired with financial news, it becomes clear that women had a negative impact on British business. Furthermore, The Pioneer's own business dilemmas made the paper part of the economic and ideological maelstrom that it reported on.

This is the first time that the colonial press in India itself has been scrutinised in detail on the subject of the rising nationalist movement and women. Findings underline female influence on both economics and ideology – a neglected aspect of Indian gender scholarship and economic history.