This paper explores how an ideal relational ethic based on Zygmunt Bauman’s (1995) notion of forms of togetherness is needed to underpin university-community engagement processes and practices. We focus on the notion of being-for, and suggest that it can be used as an ‘engagement bridge’ between higher education institutions, the creation of human capital and communities, and can be a means to achieve ethical outcomes to local concerns. Much of Bauman’s (1995; 2001; 2007) theoretical development has focussed on the liquidity (...) of modernity, to give the impression that community - in the spatially, physically located and fixed sense of the term - no longer exists. This paper proposes that spatial dimensions, particularly in the context of developing relational ethics, are important. This is particularly so for paying adequate attention to context-specific values, principles and issues in communities, for developing enterprising human capital via engagement, and for addressing matters of socio-political importance such as the environment. Contemporary neo-liberal times require ethical and moral leadership from universities. This paper suggests that such leadership can be developed from focussing attention on the forms of togetherness fostered by university-community engagement. (shrink)

The reemergence of the question of suicide in the medical context of physician-assisted suicide seems to me one of the most interesting and fertile facets of late modernity. Aside from the disruption which this issue may cause in the traditional juridical relationship between individuals and the state, it may also help to transform the dominant conception of subjectivity that has been erected upon modernity's medicalized order of death. To enhance this disruptive potential, I am going to examine the perspectives on (...) death offered by two contemporary writers: Zygmunt Bauman and Jean Baudrillard. Each of these writers recognizes the centrality of death to modern culture, as Heidegger did, but they also go beyond him in specifying the ways in which death maintains a presence in late modernity, despite efforts to conceal it. In particular, both of these writers recognize the important role that medicine has played in ordering the modern conception of death. After situating these two perspectives in relation to each other, and in relation to Heidegger, who will serve here as a sort of benchmark, I will return to the issue of suicide. Given the differences in their readings of the role that death and medicine play in modern culture, these post-Heideggerians take strikingly different positions on this issue. By engaging these perspectives, I intend not only to point out the tremendous potential which this issue holds for a fundamental rethinking of modern subjectivity, but also reveal some of the dangers that may beset any naive optimism about the right to die. (shrink)

The poor might always be with us but neither in ways that we imagine them nor in circumstances of their own choosing. Poverty (and its subject class, the poor) has been a persistent presence in the modern social sciences - both as ethical shadow and methodological stimulus. Throughout his self-described career as `professional storyteller of the contemporary human condition', Bauman's hermeneutical, dialectical and anthropological foci and modus operandi are impressively consistent, none more so than in his reflections on the problem (...) of poverty. An important stimulant to Bauman's ruminations on the new poor has been the work of Jeremy Seabrook and not only because Seabrook's primary foci have been the symbiotic and dialectical relationships in the production of poverty and wealth in his chronicles of the poor in contemporary capitalism, in Europe and Asia. Indeed, it is arguable that Seabrook's own vocation as freelance journalist is emblematic of the kind of sociology Bauman exhorts the salaried members of the academy to embrace for now. This article traces the lineaments of the biographical parallels, intellectual resonances and methodological (or at least epistemological) affinities shared between Seabrook and Bauman so as to tease out what a sociology of the new poor looks like in the hands of Bauman after Seabrook. (shrink)

The concepts of good governance and also good administration have increased in popularity over recent years. They have found a convincing conceptual niche on a European and global level. This is also visible in scholarly activity; from the early 1990s on, there has been a wave of good governance talk and consequently, research and criticism. In this article the concepts of good governance and good administration are discussed from a discursive standpoint. The main claim is that the concepts are over-inclusive (...) and can signify a plethora of meanings. Consequently, the mechanisms of this indeterminacy are studied; the criteria according to which good governance and administration are defined vary. This is exemplified in the contexts of the EU and the Council of Europe. Accordingly, different “good-nesses” can contradict each other. It is suggested that the different discourses or vocabularies of good governance and good administration form closed systems of meaning which identify only claims which adhere to their own rationality. Furthermore, these different meanings enable different forms of exercising societal power. The approach is inspired by systems theoretical reading of discourses. (shrink)

This article explores how our understanding of ambivalence would shift if we saw it as an inherent and essential part of the ordinary work of education. Following Bauman's sociology of the stranger and Derrida's deconstructions of hospitality, the article unfolds in three parts. In the first part we discuss the preconditions of modern education which since the Enlightenment has been guided by the postulate that there is and ought to be a rational order in the social world. In the second (...) part we consider the intolerance of strangers the modern will-to-order has caused. Since the stranger appears as a liminal category that falls between the boundaries of already established social categories, she can only be viewed as an antithesis of a well-ordered society. In the third part we ask how educational spaces hospitable to strangers can be opened up, and argue that we would do better not to construe living with ambivalence as a problem, but as a quest for humanity and justice. (shrink)

Contemporary capitalism is in effect, if not in intent, Deleuzian. As a network of networks, it is rhizomatic, flexible, chaosmotic, evolving, expanding. In the negativist spirit that characterizes the work of the Frankfurt School, this article shows via an analysis of the goverment of the self, the commodification of culture and the modification of nature, how contemporary capitalism does colonize not only the life-world but also life itself.

This article considers the multifaceted concept of ethics and how, despite being a familiar notion within education, it is still much contested within literature and professional practice. Drawing on postmodern, feminist and political literature, the authors explore conceptualisations of ethics and ethicality in relation to ethical identity, professionalism and practice. Applying philosophical and metaphorical tools, such as the rhizome and nomad, the authors suggest there is the potential to accommodate the multiple and often divergent facets of ethics, thereby engaging with (...) different ethical possibilities. It is argued that the propensity for reducing ethics to merely procedural protocols and guidelines marginalises the richness of ethics and, all too frequently, leaves practitioners ill-equipped to navigate the reality of day-to-day ethics.The article is positioned within the field of early years practice and training EY practitioners. This reflects the authors’ own specialism but also celebrates the propensity of the EY practitioner to reflect upon, question and challenge their own practice and ethical identities. This does not reduce the applicability of the subject matter which is relevant to educators of children of any age. The term ‘practitioner’ is used throughout to refer to any adult working with children in an educative role, this includes, but is not limited to nursery nurses, teachers or teaching assistants. (shrink)

For academics and students, Education Management in Managerialist Times offers a critical guide to existing educational management texts and makes a strong case for redefining educational management along more socially and politically informed lines. The book also offers practitioners alternative management strategies intended to contest, rather than support, managerialism, while being realistic about the context within which those who lead and manage schools currently have to work.

This paper rethinks the fostering task of the teacher in a time when it, paradoxically, has tended to become marginalized and privatized despite its public urgency. Following post-holocaust thinkers such as Hannah Arendt and Zygmunt Bauman, the position explored here is radical in the sense that it takes ‘the crisis of traditions’ and the erosion of a common moral ground or value basis seriously, and it is conservative in the sense that it insists on responding educationally to the call from (...) the past by returning to the moral character of our existence and our own embeddedness in the incompleteness of living traditions. The argument is that there is a difference between educating for common values—which entails a belief in pre-existing commonalities—and making values common in and through education. The latter, we argue, entails an aspiration for continuously creating new commonalities and for cultivating the ability to act and judge as a thinking moral agent in specific, lived and worldly cases. In this sense, the fostering task of the teacher is to create commonality of what is not common, turning the liberal democratic values of the past into contested objects of study. (shrink)

Modernity seems to bring a type of relationship with life whereby life appears to be distant. Individuals may mitigate this distance by attaining a meaningful life, but this requires time, decisions and a purpose. In the late modern context, these dimensions – time, decisions and vital purposes – appear to be shaped in a way that further increases this remoteness. This paper analyses how the narratives associated with these three dimensions foster a way of understanding them that restricts the relationship (...) which individuals build with their own lives. The late-modern remoteness from life may stem from experiencing a lifetime without significant time, decisions without real choice and particular forms of self-fulfilment that misappropriate the relationship with life. (shrink)

This paper explores both differences and points of contact between selected contemporary theories of public ethics in the West and China. China is in a greater state of flux in this connection, with new, eclectic approaches to ethical justification for moral agency gaining prominence. There are thematic parallels between East and West in their distinct strains of institutionalism . However, there are recent Chinese theoretical proposals – many incorporating Western sources – that address this quandary, namely the institutional overdetermination of (...) moral agency. These proposals are joined to contributions from feminist and liberation ethics in a critical reconsideration of overridingness in formal ethics. Contemporary Chinese ethics connect moral claims to kin, community, and reciprocity networks, particularly as traditional philosophy is recovered in new theoretical syntheses. The grounding of Confucian ethics i.. (shrink)

In the final decades of the 20th century, issues such as identity, Otherness and the role of social and cultural boundaries have been prominent in social theory, sociology and cultural studies. In this context, an analysis of Bauman's work is important because it raises pertinent questions pertaining to the nature of social and cultural boundaries and the nature of boundary construction under modernity. The metaphors of inside and outside and the idea of the boundary are significant in Bauman's critique of (...) modernity's search for a meta-order and in his examination of strangerhood. The article illustrates how this ordering process manifests itself at the individual and societal levels of modernity. Bauman's contention is that modernity's search for a meta-order leads to the construction of boundaries and to exclusionary practices. It is the presence of the Third, for Bauman, which threatens the certainty of order. Different images of the stranger in Bauman's work are identified and the ways in which Bauman's conception of freedom and `community' is intrinsically linked to his work on the ambivalent stranger are demonstrated. (shrink)

This article seeks to explore some of the origins of Zygmunt Bauman's social thought. Using the metaphor of paths from a story by Borges, the article argues that Bauman's work follows paths which were opened up to him by Gramsci, Camus and Levinas. Bauman has acknowledged the importance of Gramsci and Levinas in his intellectual development and, therefore, the identification of a path leading from Camus is offered by way of circumstantial rather than direct evidence. The article discusses each of (...) these thinkers in the context of Bauman's own themes and concerns and, in so doing, it is hoped to show that Bauman's work has long been marked by a consistence of ambition and foundational assumptions. (shrink)

Despite the ongoing consideration of the ethical nature of human resource management (HRM), little research has been conducted on how morality and ethics are represented in the discourse, activities and lived experiences of human resource (HR) professionals. In this paper, we connect the thinking and lived experiences of HR professionals to an alternative ethics, rooted in the work of Bauman (Modernity and the Holocaust, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1989; Theory, Culture and Society 7:5–38, 1990; Postmodern Ethics, Blackwell, Oxford, 1991; Approaches to (...) Social Enquiry, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1993; Life in Fragments, Blackwell, Oxford, 1995) and Levinas (Otherwise than Being, or, Beyond Essence, Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 1998). We argue that the study of HRM and ethics should be contextualized within the discourses used, the practices and activities of HR professionals. Through the analysis of interview data from 40 predominantly Canadian HR practitioners and managers we experiment with Bauman’s notion of ‘moral impulse’ to help us understand how HRM is both a product and perpetuator of moral neutralization in organizations. We suggest that HRM as it is practiced is concerned with distancing, depersonalizing, and dissembling, and acts in support of the ‘moral’ requirements of business, not of people. However, we also recognize that HR practitioners and managers are often confronted with and conflicted by actions and decisions that they are required to take, therefore opening possibilities and hope for an alternative ethical HRM. (shrink)

In this article, the author argues that complexity theories have limited use in the study of society, and that social processes are too complex and particular to be rigorously modeled in complexity terms. Theories of social complexity are shown to be inadequately developed, and typical weaknesses in the literature on social complexity are discussed. Two stronger analyses, of Luhmann and of Harvey and Reed, are also critically considered. New considerations regarding social complexity are advanced, on the lines that simplicity, complexity (...) that can be modeled, and incondensible complexity permeate society simultaneously. The difficulty of establishing complexity models for processes involving ongoing interpretation is discussed. It is argued that the notions of system and environment need recasting in social studies. Existing social studies and literature, it is argued, reflect a polymorphous, contextual, contingent, labyrinthine, dramatic and political face to social complexity. Students of social complexity must be literate in such studies. (shrink)

he importance of gender equality and of women’s work in relation to the environment is regarded as a crucial question for development in “third‐world” rural societies. “Development” and a certain standard of welfare make these issues appear to be less urgent in a wealthier country such as Sweden. In this article, I trace some of the contradictions and connections in the ways in which gender equality is conceptualized in women’s struggles vis‐à‐vis environmental issues in rural areas in Sweden and India. (...) The article throws light on two important insights: First, in Sweden, where gender equality has been actively pursued as the bedrock of modern societal organizing, the space to organize as women in relation to environmental issues was fraught with ambiguity. Second, development discourses about equality and empowerment of oppressed third‐world women not only bear on how gender equality is conceptualized and practiced in the global South but also shape the space for gender equality in the North. Analyzing the two cases in relation to each other reveals the travel of ideas and conversations across distant geographical spaces. While ideas about the independent, empowered woman are used to deny agency to women’s collectives in India, gendered discrimination has taken different forms in Sweden, making it more difficult to contest. Understanding how this takes place opens an opportunity for interruption in an order and a space that appears to have become narrower under the umbrella of development, welfare, and growth. It brings into question the category of development in a southern but particularly so in a northern context, where the North, and especially Sweden, is taken as a referent for questions of development and gender equality. -/- . (shrink)

The article attempts a reformulation of globalization theory. We identify ‘flow speak’ and the flattened ontology of the social that goes with it as a major limitation in contemporary globalization theory. Contrary to the prevailing overemphasis on mobility and deterritorialization, we suggest an existential turn that orients future globalization thinking more towards issues of belonging, choice and commitment, and the rhythmicity of social relations. To highlight the processual character of this shift of perspective, we shall draw on the paradigmatic figure (...) of the ‘homecomer’. S/he, in our understanding, embodies the ambivalence between the lure of global options and the need for commitment to lasting bonds. Thus, we do not argue for a post-mortem on globalization theory, but maintain that a deeper understanding of globalization as a ‘way of being in the world’ would require a phenomenologically inclined repositioning of the concept. (shrink)

This paper offers a detailed account of Foucaults ethical and political notion of individuality as presented in his late work, and discusses its relationship to the feminist project of the theory of sexual difference. I argue that Foucaults elaboration of the classical ethos of care for the self opens the way for regarding the I-woman as an ethical, political and aesthetic self-creation. However, it has significant limitations that cannot be ignored. I elaborate on two aspects of Foucaults avoidance of sexual (...) difference as a relevant category for an account of political and ethical individuality, which thus implicitly associates individual agency with men. I argue that Foucault implicitly assumes the existence of an ontological desire to become engaged in political self-creation. However, the ethical position of self-knowledge and desire should be understood as a contingent option that depends on material and historical conditions for its realization. Hence, I argue that a feminist reworking of Foucaults notion of political individuality should add a substantial ethical condition to the imperative of self-knowledge and self-creation – making possible the desiring woman subject. (shrink)

This study used structural equation modeling to verify the performance of the ethical decision-making models developed by Jones and by Kelley and Elm. A comparison showed that the Kelley and Elm decision model yielded the optimal degree of fit. The investigations conducted in this study indicated that moral intensities are not an objective, existing concept but rather the product of subjective perception influenced by organizational factors. In addition to directly influencing ethical decisions, organizational factors indirectly influence ethical decisions through moral (...) intensities. (shrink)

Crisis jargon has become endemic in modernity. Whether in radical or in affirmative versions, the idea that ‘crisis’ offers ‘opportunity’, in accordance with the meaning of crisis as ‘decision’, is widespread. This paper questions the relationship between modernity and crisis, first by highlighting the ways in which modernity itself has been cast as ‘crisis’: first as crisis of tradition, then as crisis of modernity itself. The main part of this paper then consists of a reading of modernity-as-crisis inspired by Walter (...) Benjamin, most notably by his Passagen-Werk. It consists of an attempt to consider ‘crisis’ as what Benjamin calls a ‘wish image’, an image that contains hidden utopian ideals. In invoking ‘crisis’, I argue, a conception of modernity as shock, raised to the level of the collective, becomes apparent. Crisis jargon thereby remains wedded to what Benjamin calls a mythical conception of history. The paper ends with a discussion of the political consequences that follow from this that are grounded in the relation between messianism and profane politics in Benjamin. (shrink)

Although the body has become of increasing importance throughout the social sciences, it has been neglected by the discipline of social policy. The aim of this article is to rectify that neglect. It argues that the connections which some have begun to make between social welfare and the body can be strengthened by reference to the figure of the cyborg. The article develops a model that can be used to explain the cyborgization of social identity. This process of cyborgization is (...) then related to contemporary trends in social welfare: the individualization of rights and the collectivization of duties which is occurring via the prevalence of surveillance technologies and the ideology of productivism. These trends signify a drift towards what can be called post-social security. (shrink)

The article explores the relationship between visual culture and the fight for visibility and attention in contemporary society. It draws on a concept of visual culture which not only sees the rising significance of the visual and the proliferation of images as its defining traits, but also the fact that, today, people are—to a much higher degree—both consumers as well as producers of images. Based on this definition, it is argued that in visually oriented communication and media societies, the anthropologically (...) fundamental need for attention manifests itself as a fight for visibility which takes on the form of ever more extreme forms of public self-display. Furthermore, a portrait of two social figures—the star and the voyeur—will serve as further analysis and description of the social trends which can be tied to the emergence of today's visual culture. The article will close by discussing attention and visibility in terms of inclusion and exclusion and by proposing an analytical model for differentiating four modes of existence in a visual culture. (shrink)

As many authors have acknowledged in these pages, Will Kymlicka has produced an admirable attempt to reconcile the differences of communitarians and liberals. However, Kymlicka's synthesis ignores the aspects of each theory which make his task impossible. Particularly, his analysis rests upon a misleading picture of communitarian community and an incomplete appreciation of the divergent liberal and communitarian understandings of freedom and pluralism. In the process of demonstrating the incompatibility of these theories, the similarities between communitarianism and nationalism are explored.

The concept of the Transitional Economy denotes the problematic processes of change confronting nations wishing to achieve levels of economic development comparable with that of Western nations. Such an objective is problematic, as these nations may also be said to be in a state of transition. Globalization and E-commerce have necessitated a reconsideration of the nature of business activity and its implications for both society and the individual.Writers such as Gray (1998) warn against the "refashioning" of other nations in the (...) image of the American free market. Business ethics can be seen as a symbolic expression of Beck''s (1992) concern with the implications of Risk Society and the uncertainties arising from the realization that scientific, technological, and economic progress are not necessarily concomitant with social, cultural, and political progress. Locating business ethics within the theoretical context of Reflexive Modernity provides a means of evaluating the contribution that it can make to providing a critical forum for considering the ways in which business organisations are responding to concerns regarding business activity. (168). (shrink)

Zygmunt Bauman’s sociology has often been seen as a bleak worldview; he has been called the ‘sociologist of misery’. This article argues that assigning pessimism and misery to Bauman’s work relies on a reading which does not fully consider his sociology of morality. When this is accounted for, Bauman can be seen to have a very optimistic worldview. The significance of such an observation rests on where Bauman’s optimism lies—namely in the hands of inevitably moral individuals who can acquiesce to, (...) reject or modify the demands of liquid modernity. This article argues, with reference to G.H. Mead’s concept of the ‘genius’, that this is where the potential for agency lies in Bauman’s conception of liquid modernity. This is given a political dimension by both Mead and Bauman’s advocacy of democratic forms to help realise this agency. Democracy operates as a ‘societal’ form of morality which builds upon Bauman’s ‘pre-societal’ discussion. (shrink)

In 2018, the Bauman Institute and the Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory & History, both based at the University of Leeds, initiated a transdisciplinary programme to assess the legacies of Zygmunt Bauman, whose prolific writings we felt to be profoundly relevant to the multiple challenges of the 21st century. In this special issue of Thesis Eleven, we are marking just over three years since the death of Zygmunt Bauman by bringing together some of the contributions to that programme in order (...) to revisit, elaborate, and crucially to extend his intellectual archive. Taking Bauman’s revision of contemporary social realities as a point of departure, each of the participants in this special issue re-examine – critically but also generously – the many questions Bauman asked, tried to answer, and imbued on the way with new and sometimes shocking insights. This paper surveys those contributions by way of introducing the special issue. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the theoretical foundations of collective interest in the sufferings of strangers. Concern with the suffering of others, accompanied by the urge to help, is compassion. This study develops the social and historical conditions under which public compassion emerges. Two broad interpretations of these developments are suggested. The democratization perspective suggests that with the lessening of profoundly categorical and corporate social distinctions, compassion becomes more extensive. A second perspective is linked to the emergence of market society. By defining (...) a universal field of others with whom contracts and exchanges can be made, market perspectives extend the sphere of moral concern as well: however unintentionally. Public compassion is part of the language of modernity. This gives compassion the possibility to be also part of a newly emerging ‘Second Modernity’. (shrink)

This article critically investigates the presumption that we are living in a qualitatively new `age of anxiety'. It suggests that most sociologists who address this topic have so far failed to recognize the analytical complexity of the condition of anxiety itself. By examining the possibility of establishing sociological indicators of the prevalence and character of anxiety in contemporary societies, the author argues that the `sociological imagination' has yet to provide a sufficient account of the interrelationship between representations of social problems (...) in the public sphere and the variety of anxieties which individuals may encounter in their `personal troubles of milieu'. (shrink)

In the last decade we have entered the era of remote controlled military technology. The excitement about this new technology should not mask the ethical questions that it raises. A fundamental ethical question is who may be held responsible for civilian deaths. In this paper we will discuss the role of the human operator or so-called ‘cubicle warrior’, who remotely controls the military robots behind visual interfaces. We will argue that the socio-technical system conditions the cubicle warrior to dehumanize the (...) enemy. As a result the cubicle warrior is morally disengaged from his destructive and lethal actions. This challenges what he should know to make responsible decisions (the so-called knowledge condition). Nowadays and in the near future, three factors will influence and may increase the moral disengagement even further due to the decrease of locus of control orientation: (1) photo shopping the war; (2) the moralization of technology; (3) the speed of decision-making. As a result, cubicle warriors cannot be held reasonably responsible anymore for the decisions they make. (shrink)

Although Aristotle did not mention it, integrity can be understood in an Aristotelian framework. Seeing it in these terms will show that it is an executive virtue which concerns the existential well being of an agent. This analysis is not offered as an exegesis of Aristotle's text, but as an attempt to use an Aristotelian framework to understand a virtue deemed important today. This account will have the benefit of solving some problems relating to motivational internalism and, as such, will (...) contribute to that recent current of thought which has been highlighting the importance of virtue thinking in moral theory. I will distinguish moral judgement from decision and show that moral judgement is dependent upon virtue more strongly than it is upon impartial rationality. I will suggest that integrity is the virtue to which moral judgement gives expression and is the virtue which links judgement to decision so as to overcome akrasia. (shrink)

Corporate and commercial values are inducing some healthcare organizations to prescribe a customer service model that reframes the provision of nursing care. In this paper it is argued that such a model is incommensurable with nursing conceived as a moral practice and ultimately places nurses at risk. Based upon understanding from ongoing research on compassion fatigue, it is proposed that compassion fatigue as currently experienced by nurses may not arise predominantly from too great a demand for compassion, but rather from (...) barriers to enacting compassionate care. These barriers are often systemic. The paradigm shift in which healthcare environments are viewed as marketplaces rather than moral communities has the potential to radically affect the evolution of nursing as a discipline. (shrink)

Aesop's fables are used to gather HR fables and these fables are told mainly in the words of the protagonists of these moral stories, HR practitioners. Leaving the moral meaning of the fables for the reader to interpret so the reader can ethically connect with the morality of HR work, the personal narratives of practitioners and their humanity, the fables conclude with a critical commentary by the author, the promotion of a human virtue and HR moral maxim. The article, itself, (...) then ends with an explanation of the research methodology adopted to compile the HR fables. (shrink)

This article brings interconnects three debates to show what this might imply for the ‘redemocratisation’ of UK society and for pedagogical reform. One debate concerns deliberative types of democratic reform, arguing in favour of a ‘creative agnosticism’ towards the two philosophical frameworks which dominate this literature. This leads into a discussion of education and critical rationality, arguing for an aptitude-based account of moral agency, one which relates to the sociocultural resources we inherit from the past. The final debate therefore concerns (...) social memory. I do not offer a theory of social memory but critique various commentators in arguing for what I call a ‘multipolar analysis’. This both describes the analytical method adopted in this article and the skills and capacities which a system based upon ‘education for discourse’ would need to facilitate. The article therefore proposes that democracy, education and memory—deliberativeness, critical rationality and social remembering—be brought closer together for the mutual benefit of each debate. (shrink)

Situating Manuel Castells's three-volume work, The Information Age, within a broad tradition of classical social theory that has sought to come to terms with the emergence of new forms of social, economic and cultural life, critical consideration is given to a series of concerns, including questions of analytic perspective and in particular the relevance of the work of Marx; the concept of the network society; the movement from production to consumption as the primary medium through which individuals are engaged within (...) contemporary society; and issues of identity and community. In contrast to Castells's identification of an ethical foundation or spirit of informationalism, it is argued that an aesthetics of consumption is central to modern society in its informational capitalist phase and that as society has become more exposed to the consequences of informationalism and the associated globalization of capital, the prospect of living in an ethically responsible manner has diminished significantly. (shrink)

This article is designed to explore ideas in the recent sociology of morality about the conjunction of ethics and embodiment in everyday life. While it draws on an interpretation of the ethical encounter as a relation of moral proximity, it extends this conception of ethics beyond the dyad to include a discussion of gift giving and generosity in the present context. This is done in order to analyse a concrete empirical event in terms of the web of moral and social (...) codes that inform it. The event in question is a well-known New Zealand breastfeeding case in which a woman breastfed another woman's baby `without her consent'. As well as drawing attention to the ethical risks in encounters between strangers and others in contemporary social life, this particular breastfeeding case also brings to the fore the invisibility of breastfeeding as an embodied ethical practice. (shrink)

Many feminist sociologists would agree that most breastfeeding research to date has been primarily undertaken from the perspective of medical and public health discourses. While there is evidence of a shift in research on breastfeeding to qualitative studies that focus on the lived experiences of breastfeeding women, this article addresses a number of concerns remaining in the literature surrounding breastfeeding. First, it questions the absence of breastfeeding as a legitimate philosophical topic, and, as a corollary, the invisibility of breastfeeding women (...) as moral or ethical subjects. Second, by drawing on Michel Foucault's account of ethics and Judith Butler's notion of performativity, it is suggested that breastfeeding is best conceptualized as a gendered and embodied ethical practice rather than an aspect of one's being. Finally, this materialist approach to theorizing breastfeeding is discussed in relation to the Lucy Lawless poster that was released in Aotearoa New Zealand to launch World Breastfeeding Week in August 2002. (shrink)

This article draws on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas to consider, from an ethical perspective, the current transparency and accountability agenda in Australian schooling. It focuses on the case of the My School website and the argument that transparent publication of comparative performance data via the website provides a basis for making things better in schooling. The article argues that while technologies of accountability may have potential benefits, they cannot provide a basis for this ethical project. Instead, the ethical experience (...) described by Levinas arises from an encounter with opacity in the face-to-face relation with the Other, who is harshly illuminated by the transparency promised through calculation and comparison. Such encounters with opacity hold the potential to disrupt the politics of visibility promoted by transparency agendas and provide an alternative to the growing practice of 'accountability at a distance' based on performance data. (shrink)

The 20th century saw a profound change to the model of humanity commonly accepted in the West. At the start of the century the tripartite model of personhood included the components of mind, body and soul, or the physical, mental and moral/spiritual aspects of being. By the end of the century, this had changed to physical, mental and emotional. This substitution of 'emotional' for 'moral' has had profound effects, not the least on teaching. The effects have included alterations to the (...) content of education, including the introduction of programs to preserve/promote children's self esteem, and interest in topics such as 'emotional intelligence'. Also affected, however, has been how teaching itself is conceptualised. This paper will consider some of these effects and their consequences for teaching and teachers. (shrink)

In common-sense usage, violence is usually conceptualized as intentional physical harm. This makes violence identifiable, locatable, and it facilitates the governing of those identified as committing infractions upon the non-violent community. In this article it is illustrated how this conception of violence legitimates the state by blocking the state’s own foundational violence from critical scrutiny. It argues that the liberal state rests on the differentiation between active and reactive violence, whereby the latter is seen as the legitimate violence of the (...) people against violent infractions committed by private individuals. The concept of a ‘regime of violence’ describes the relation between various forms of violence, i.e. their selective and differential articulation and negation. Regimes of violence constitute a way of governing conduct in the medium of violence. The current regime of violence consists of what is called a trias violentiae, which is a specific conception of the relations and translations between private violence, state violence and structural violence. (shrink)

This article makes both a more general and a more specific argument, and while the latter relies upon the former, the inverse does not apply. The more general argument proposes that empirical disciplines such as sociology are better suited to the production of ethical knowledge than more characteristically abstract and legalistic disciplines such as philosophy and theology. The more specific argument, which is made through a critique of Bauman’s Levinasian articulation of ethics, proposes what it calls ‘pragmatic humanism’ as a (...) viable alternative model for sociological ethics to follow. This model rejects the abstract notion of some innate and universally distributed moral impulse, and instead turns to acknowledgement of the precariousness of life as a strategic resource in the construction, rather than revelation, of ethical solidarity. (shrink)