Power

"A partire dalle analisi di Michel Foucault sul rapporto tra i dispositivi di potere e il corpo, la tesi cerca di indagare il nesso teoretico che stringe disciplina ed eccezione, evidenziando
nell’eccezione la prestazione specifica della norma disciplinare e il marchio della sua rigorosa efficienza. Il primo capitolo della ricerca si concentra dunque su una descrizione delle tecnologie del potere, affrontando le loro specifiche articolazioni e mettendo in luce lo scarto che segna la crisi moderna del principio sovrano a favore dei dispositivi bio-politici di gestione dei corpi. Particolare attenzione è dedicata alle tecnologie disciplinari e alle modalità
in cui queste intrecciano sistemi di strutturazione e ripartizione dello spazio, procedure di normalizzazione dei corpi, produzione di saperi e processi di costituzione della soggettività. Il secondo capitolo concentra il fuoco analitico sulla questione del rapporto tra l’eccezione e la disciplina, oltrepassando, senza abbandonarla, la lettera della lezione foucaultiana, e intercettando le traiettorie teoriche di Agamben, Benjamin e Schmitt. Servendosi di questo
equipaggiamento teorico, questo capitolo cerca di approfondire la riflessione foucaultiana sulla disciplina e di individuarne le figure moderne e post-moderne, mediante una riflessione sul rapporto tra diritto, eccezione e violenza. L’incapacità della legge, troppo generalista e astratta, nella gestione delle grandi collettività sul palcoscenico delle società moderne, determina la formazione di una teoria della ragion di stato e la costituzione di uno spazio
eccezionale in cui la forma giuridica possa essere sospesa per far circolare modalità più dettagliate ed efficienti di costrizione dell’esistente. Eccezione e violenza non si caratterizzano come manifestazioni antagoniste all’interdizione giuridica, quanto come
strumenti in grado di ribadirne e affinarne la forza coattiva, pur nell’atto della sua sospensione. Nella polizia, nelle sue articolazioni moderne e contemporanee, è possibile dunque rintracciare lo stadio evolutivo finale dei dispositivi disciplinari, in cui norma ed eccezione si legano compiutamente in uno strumento efficace di controllo capillare e senza residui."

The global ascension of disability human rights has emerged with the onset of global fiscal austerity. Across nearly all Western Liberal Democracies, governments have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, whilst simultaneously, undertaking broad base disability welfare retrenchment that target disability social security regimes. Australia, the UK and Canada, in particular, have progressively implemented more restrictive disability social security eligibility criteria and in turn, many people with disabilities who previously qualified for disability social security no longer qualify. Thus, despite the normalisation of disability rights at the global scale, within the national scale, many people with disabilities are no longer defined as ‘disabled’ and are being shifted onto more precarious social security payments with fewer entitlements. This paper seeks to explore this growing global contradiction drawing upon disability social policy examples from the UK and Australia. It will discuss the tension that exists between the frames of ‘citizenship rights’ and ‘disability human rights’ and how these competing political frames, between the scale of the global and the national, undermine the realisation of ‘rights’ within national disability welfare regimes.

This article links Foucaultian power forms with its corresponding resistance. If resistance is a reaction to power, then the characteristics of the power strategy/ relation affect the kinds of resistance that subsequently prevail. Accordingly, it becomes interesting to discuss what kinds of resistance emanate from what kinds of power. We discuss this relationship between power and resistance by drawing on Foucault’s ‘triangle’: (I) sovereign power; (II) disciplinary power; and (III) biopower. Thus, deviating from Foucaultian studies’ preoccupation with ‘power’, we utilise Foucault in order to focus on ‘resistance’. And by con- necting to empirical examples from within the emerging field of resistance stud- ies we argue that the peculiarities of power decide how resistance can be conducted.

"Community informatics (CI) is a form of activism that involves the application of information and communication technologies in pursuit of community development within localities. This article draws on discourse theory (DT) to re-evaluate activists’ self-interpretations that rely on community, and to make sense of the political struggles at the heart of CI. It is argued that activists’ community discourse constructs, through articulation, locally “resistant” collective identities and an associated collective agency capable of appropriating technology in pursuit of unfulfilled social demands. However DT also suggests that the socially progressive nature of CI is not guaranteed by recourse to the social ideal of community."

"Purpose – In this paper the authors seek to argue that doctoral supervision is one type of human resource development relationship in higher education (HE), and that this relationship may be close or distanced, and involve technical and social support. The paper aims to highlight the seldom-discussed aspects of power and emotion within doctoral supervision, with specific focus on the feedback process, suggesting that students and supervisors may not be adequately developed for their roles. Design/methdolology/approach – The authors conducted two small cumulative studies in the UK, involving a small focus group and a national survey of students and supervisors. The focus of the first study is to elucidate potentially influential variables in the supervisory relationship. The second study builds on emergent themes relating to forms of supervision (dimensions, structure and support) with specific focus on manifestations of power and emotion.
Findings – The focus group findings exemplify the power and emotion that pervades doctoral research. Key survey findings relating to power within the doctoral relationship suggest that students perceived their supervisors as having less power than themselves. With respect to emotion, the findings suggest a low level of emotion management on the part of students, who are unaware of displaying or even experiencing their emotions. As the most frequent reason for meeting, students and supervisors need to see feedback as being positive for self-development, but also need to be aware of the power and emotion dimensions of this sensitive aspect of doctoral supervision.
Research limitations/implications – Although both studies were small, the authors’ findings do contribute to developing a more sophisticated understanding of the forms, power and emotion of doctoral supervision. However, further research is required to identify whether these issues are pertinent to UK students and supervisors alone, or whether they transcend national cultures and higher education systems.
Practical implications – The research finds that supervisors appear to learn about supervision through reflecting upon how they were supervised as students. This raises important issues for HRD in higher education for staff development. It also brings into focus how both students and supervisors are developed in recognising and dealing with their emotions, identifying and controlling shifting power dynamics, giving and receiving feedback and managing their evolving relationship. Originality/value – Few studies have explored the power and emotion of doctoral supervision, yet dealing with these requires academic staff and student development."

"During their entire disciplinary lives, psychology and
social psychology have treated work as a naturalized
fact and an inevitable part of human existence. Whilst
themes such as working conditions, decent work, work
and subjectivity, work and vocation, guidance and
careers may be discussed in a critical manner, the
overall centrality of the work discourse is left untouched.
In this essay it is argued that the multiple forms,
possibilities, contradictions and restrictions present in
contemporary economic relations are pointing to the
weakening, or even fragmentation, of the articulating
role of work and in third world countries like Brazil,
where the western model of salaried wage employment
was never extensive to more than a part of the
population, this process becomes doubly complicated.
In these circumstances it is important to seek a different
starting point for the social psychological discussion of
economic activity, which can give greater visibility to the
multiple ways in which people “get by” in order to keep
their homes together, sustain households and develop
family collectives."

Canada’s contemporary immigration policy privileges “economic class” immigrants over a growing class of migrant and ‘illegal’ workers: in this paper, I argue that this is an attempt to resolve the crisis of the post-WWII social structure of capital accumulation triggered by globalization. Under current multicultural policy, discrimination on the basis of national origin is prohibited, but immigration policy continues to 'differentially incorporate' certain populations on the margins of labour markets I will examine this using the lenses of economic & human capital (Canada’s “points system” of immigration, as well as 21st century immigration policies), globalization, and segmented labour markets. Programs such as the Canadian Seasonal Migrant Workers Program and the Live-in-Caregiver Program (together part of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program) reveal unequal citizenship relations underlying the integration of migrant labour into the social institutions of capitalism, as well as a gap between official policy and the labour market treatment of immigrants.