All markets are embedded in ethical relations and moral discourses. This is often forgotten or ignored in alternative agrofood studies, where there has been a frequent assumption that ‘ethics’ can be inserted into markets (Trentmann, 2007), or are only acknowledged in products certified as ‘ethical’ and suchlike (Barnett, Cloke, Clarke, & Malpass, 2005). This paper takes a different approach, choosing to explore how a mainstream commodity, widely associated with the development of capitalist agriculture (Mintz, 1985), is unavoidably embedded in both (...) a set of moral discourses and a web of ethical relations (Goodman, Maye, & Holloway, 2010). Specifically, I offer a critical reading of the moral discourses that circulated between the Caribbean Sugar Protocol signatories and the European Union in the context of the 2006–2009 European Union Sugar Reform. The paper looks at how both Caribbean and European actors negotiated ‘fairness’ and in doing so, reconfigured their historical relationship. I discuss how a relational—or ethical—approach to fairness was evoked in certain instances, disrupting the European Union's (EU) neoliberal rhetoric. Contributing to the literature around ‘moral geographies’ (Jackson & Ward, 2008; Proctor et al., 1999; Smith, 1999) and also to agrofood studies, I conclude by affirming the significance of a relational approach to how the ‘fairness’ of the EU Sugar Reform might be comprehended and to how the ethics of neoliberal market reform can be more generally understood and critiqued. (shrink)

This article argues that a transcendental materialist conception of subjectivity can move us beyond the orthodox idealist theories that dominate progressive thought in advanced consumer-capitalism. This position can shed new light on current forms of subjectivity that seem to prefer life in consumer culture's surrogate social world rather than active participation in cultural and political resistance and transformation, which requires far more than simply 'transcending the norm'. The rebirth of creative political subjectivity is impossible unless the subject is prepared to (...) risk a traumatic encounter with the Real, the fundamental indeterminacy that exists not in the ideal-symbolic but the material realm, and prepared to reject liberal-postmodernist identity politics to participate in the construction of a coherent alternative ideology. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that scholarship on the cultural impact of neoliberalism provides a vital framework with which to revisit early trans critiques of Butlerian queer feminism. Drawing on this scholarship, I reread the appeals to the real and realness in these critiques through the neoliberal transformation of social difference. I link the early argument that some trans figures were problematically used in queer feminism to represent the fluidity of identity with the more recent argument that the flexibility of (...) identity has become a core part of neoliberal cultures. This context challenges the current dominant view of early trans critiques of Butler as misreadings and instead casts them as resistant to a superficial encouragement of individual flexibility. As a result, revisiting this debate demonstrates the need to rework theoretical frameworks that may continue to inadvertently lead to selective trans inclusion in queer feminism and points the way to trans-queer-feminist theory that is more attuned to shifting models of power. (shrink)

The main trust of this article unfolds around the impasse of democratic politics today, marked by the fading belief in the presumably superior architecture of liberal democratic institutions to nurture emancipation on the one hand, and the seemingly inexorable rise of a variety of populist political movements on the other. The first part of the article focuses on the lure of autocratic populism. The second part considers how transforming neoliberal governance arrangements pioneered post-truth autocratic politics/policies in articulation with the imposition (...) of market rule and, in doing so, cleared the way for contemporary illiberal populisms. The third part considers the institutional configuration through which the democratic has been fundamentally transformed over the past few decades in the direction of a post-democratic constellation. The article concludes by arguing for the need to re-script emancipation as a process of political subjectivation unfolding trough a political act. (shrink)

The social impacts of computer technology are often glorified in public discourse, but there is growing concern about its actual effects on society. In this article, we ask: how does “consent” as an analytical framework make visible the social dynamics and power relations in the capture, extraction, and labor of data science knowledge production? We hypothesize that a form of boundary violation in data science workplaces—gender harassment—may correlate with the ways humans’ lived experiences are extracted to produce Big Data. The (...) concept of consent offers a useful way to draw comparisons between gender relations in data science and the means by which machines are trained to learn and reason. Inspired by how Big Tech leaders describe unsupervised machine learning, and the co-optation of “revolutionary” rhetoric they use to do so, we introduce a concept we call “techniques of invisibility.” Techniques of invisibility are the ways in which an extreme imbalance between exposure and opacity, demarcated along fault lines of power, are fabricated and maintained, closing down the possibility for bidirectional transparency in the production and applications of algorithms. Further, techniques of invisibility, which we group into two categories—epistemic injustice and the Brotherhood—include acts of subjection by powerful actors in data science designed to quell resistance to exploitative relations. These techniques may be useful in making further connections between epistemic violence, sexism, and surveillance, sussing out persistent boundary violations in data science to render the social in data science visible, and open to scrutiny and debate. (shrink)

This thesis aims to rework Foucault’s care of the self so that it can be understood as a political activity that opens the possibility for a new type of subjectivity. I develop and exemplify this claim through an analysis of the digital. Firstly, I focus on Foucault’s ethical work, which I articulate and defend by reading the care of the self through the notions of body, critique and limits, thus envisioning a political activity from which a new subjectivity can emerge. (...) Ultimately, I understand the care of the self to be an embodied critical practice that aims at transgressing the limits of imposed truths and forms of life. The exercise of the care of the self, thus, permits for a conversion of power, which signifies the passing from a moment of subjection to one of subjectivation. Secondly, I employ such arguments in a more practical manner and analyse the digital and the subjection process it enacts. I argue that the digital, which I take as the exacerbated use of the internet through gadgets, is a complex tool-like space characterized by quantification, seclusion and symbiosis, and that such notions arise as a result of the mechanisms that uphold the digital: discipline, mediation of discourse and biopower. However, my interest here is not in these characteristics and mechanisms per se but about the subject they create. I claim that the digital serves to exemplify the making of the useful and docile bodies of the twenty-first century: depoliticized in their utility and docility insofar as they are made to take for granted the imposition of a contingent truth. Thirdly, I then explore how my political reading of the care of the self serves to ‘fight’ the depoliticized digital subject, where I claim that our attention should be directed towards the mundane, the everyday, and the regaining of it through thought exercises, which allow for the subject to rethink that which was once taken for granted and regarded as incontestable. In doing so, I argue for the value of the uncertain and the political possibility that rests within. (shrink)

This short paper offers a series of responses to Jochem Zwier and Timothy Barker’s comments on my extended paper ‘Taking Exception: Philosophy of Technology as a Multidimensional Problem Space.’ Part one responds to questions concerning the modality of the renewed understanding of the theme of the transcendental that was argued for in my initial paper: I argue for the deep _contingency_ of such a move, against any sense that it is _necessary._ Part two takes this consideration of modality further, considering (...) the _possibilities_ that a renewal of the theme of the transcendental stands to offer philosophy of technology today. I argue that the contingency of our contemporary sense of the transcendental can be precisely what makes it valuable. Whereas parts one and two turn on incisive questions posed by Zwier, part three closes by reconsidering the claims for a ‘multidimensional problem space’ offered in my initial paper. In response to an acute insight from Barker, I close by arguing that philosophy of technology’s problem space should be explored in terms of a notion of ‘shared agonism’. (shrink)

The sexually violated woman has become a salient symbol in feminist discourse, government policies, the media and transnational activism at this historical juncture. In this article, I seek to understand the conviction of anti-prostitution activists that all women in prostitution are victims (despite evidence to the contrary), and their simultaneous dismissal or condemnation of those women who identify as sex workers. The analysis identifies the centrality of victimhood to the affective logic of women activist leaders in the anti-prostitution movement, and (...) its embeddedness in discourses of suffering and redemption in Korean nationalist historiography. Sexual victimhood thus acquires the power to incite moral outrage, compel consensus and inhibit dissent. Sex workers further come to bear the historical and political burden of righting all that is wrong with the nation, making their elimination essential for the nation’s rescue. Critiques of capitalism and the state become footnotes and silences in this process. In effect, the victimhood of ‘prostituted women’ allows women activists to circulate effectively in the affective economy of the nation as well as in the global anti-trafficking campaign. The passionate activism of anti-prostitution women activists may say less about the state of prostitution than about the activists’ subjectivity as historical and global subjects, and the symbolic world that they locate themselves in. (shrink)

In diesem Open-Access-Sammelband setzen sich Autor*innen aus unterschiedlichsten Disziplinen mit der Auswirkung einer digitalisierten Öffentlichkeit für die Politische Bildung auseinander. Sie erörtern, wie sich die Formen digitaler politischer Kommunikation auswirken, wie der Politikunterricht mit der veränderten Ausgangslage umgehen könnte und welche Kompetenzen Schüler*innen benötigen, um in der digitalen Öffentlichkeit selbstbestimmt und -ermächtigt politisch teilzuhaben. Die Komplexität und die Interdependenzen digitaler Kommunikation verlangen nach einer multiperspektivischen und transdisziplinären Perspektive, der dieser Band verpflichtet ist.

Given that the Obama administration still relies on many strategies we would think of as sitting on the side of secrecy, it seems that the only lasting transparency legacy of the Obama administration will be data-driven or e-transparency as exemplified by the web interface ‘data.gov’. As the data-driven transparency model is exported and assumes an ascendant position around the globe, it is imperative that we ask what kind of publics, subjects, and indeed, politics it will produce. Open government data is (...) not just a matter concerning accountability but is seen as a necessary component of the new ‘data economy’. To participate and benefit from this info-capitalist-democracy, the data subject is called upon to be both auditor and entrepreneur. This article explores the implications of responsibilization, outsourcing, and commodification on the contract of representational democracy and asks if there are other forms of transparency that might better resist neoliberal formations and re-politicize the public sphere. (shrink)

Despite the burgeoning literature on right-wing populism, there is still considerable uncertainty about its causes, its impact on liberal democracies and about promising counter-strategies. Inspired by recent suggestions that (1) the emancipatory left has made a significant contribution to the proliferation of the populist right; and (2) populist movements, rather than challenging the established socio-political order, in fact stabilize and further entrench its logic, this article argues that an adequate understanding of the populist phenomenon necessitates a radical shift of perspective: (...) beyond the democratic and emancipatory norms, which still govern most of the relevant literature. Approaching its subject matter via democratic theory and modernization theory, it undertakes a reassessment of the triangular relationship between modernity, democracy and populism. It finds that the latter is not helpfully conceptualized as anti-modernist or anti-democratic but should, instead, be regarded as a predictable feature of the form of politics distinctive of today’s third modernity. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders the claim made by mainstream internet platforms that they inherently foster a democratic public sphere, offering reasons why the opposite may be true. It surveys past studies that have supported both views, showing how the position taken by scholars tends to depend on their disciplinary perspectives. Historically, scholarly approaches to the public or political impacts of the internet and social media have been characterised by four main interpretative lenses: technodeterminism, behaviourism, and the prioritising of either ideology, or (...) the economics of media ownership. This article pays particular attention to the last two, and to Facebook, which among mainstream internet platforms has notably associated itself with democratic ideals. The article describes how many of the democratic ideals associated with Facebook’s impacts on society are in fact reversed by the platform’s practices, with effects that directly contradict the platform’s stated principles. The article ends by suggesting that Facebook consciously pretends to favour the public sphere, and that such Orwellian doublethink is a deliberate attempt to divert attention away from its augmentation of private and personal issues at the expense of collective engagement and empowerment. designed differently, Facebook could have had favourable impacts. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence plays an important role in current discussions on information and communication technologies and new modes of algorithmic governance. It is an unavoidable dimension of what social mediations and modes of reproduction of our information societies will be in the future. While several works in artificial intelligence ethics address ethical issues specific to certain areas of expertise, these ethical reflections often remain confined to narrow areas of application, without considering the global ethical issues in which they are embedded. We, (...) therefore, propose to clarify the main approaches to AIE, their philosophical assumptions and the specific characteristics of each one of them, to identify the most promising approach to develop an ethical reflection on the deployment of AI in our societies, which is the one based on information ethics as proposed by Luciano Floridi. We will identify the most important features of that approach to highlight areas that need further investigation. (shrink)

With the question of the title of this paper, which recalls an issue that Valcárcel already asked herself in 1991, I reflect on the need to recover the struggle of feminism as a political struggle. To this end, I argue that feminism cannot be understood without the objective of trying to transform societies, without the aspiration to emancipation. Therefore, it will be urgent to be able to answer and resist the task of depoliticization that the neoliberal capitalist system administers until (...) it tries to convert feminism into another commodity. I propose to recover the collective subject of feminism, above the constant ontological and epistemological function that neoliberal politics applies, as the only way to aspire to that liberation and emancipation that we feminists long for. (shrink)

Using the temperate nature of recent social protest as its entry point, this analysis investigates the current state of liberal democracies as one in which the purported crisis of capitalism has en...

Recent scholarship on the idea of communism leads to questions of organization and what Michael Hardt refers to as “the problem of leadership.” Beyond the critical assessment of the crises of contemporary capitalism, and beyond the existing social democratic solutions, a psychoanalytically-informed Žižekian notion of the party offers solutions to ultra-left theories of networked horizontalism as well as versions of the party that repeat the problems of communist modernism. If the context of climate change, economic inequality and political authoritarianism require (...) that we reconsider “what is to be done” about global neoliberal capitalism, then the idea of the political party, understood in terms of Jacques Lacan’s Discourse of the Analyst, can provisionally occupy the place of a neutral knowledge of the objective demands of history that is premised on the experiences of the emancipatory left. Like the Analyst, the party does not stand in for or represent the people. However, through the fetishistic aspect of representation, as opposed to materially or ontologically-grounded guarantees for political power, the party registers a minimal difference from a technocratic University Discourse and an ultra-left Discourse of the Hysteric. (shrink)

Few have treated the critical literature on neoliberalism as an object of study in its own right. Those that have question the literature’s partisanship, theoretical coherence, and explanatory power, denouncing it as a thinly veiled form of leftist politics. Rather than leave the matter there, I pick up the thread and ask the following: if the critical theorization of neoliberalism is a leftist pursuit, what does it do for the left? How does the critique of neoliberalism affect the left’s self-understanding, (...) coherence, direction, and future? In this article, I argue that the critique of neoliberalism defines today’s political left via the negation of its neoliberal Other, is the ideological–discursive means by which the left articulates its diverse constituencies, and builds theoretical resources necessary for the left to go beyond marriages of convenience and achieve unity. Regarding the latter, the literature augurs a left battling for the subjectivity of popular actors, with solidarity, social freedom, and democracy as both the weapons and the stakes. I conclude the article by reflecting on what often goes missing in the literature – namely, Kapitalkritik and socialism – and the significance of these omissions for the left in light of the arguments above. (shrink)

This article has already been published, under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License in Ephemera – Theory & Politics in Organization, 2019 volume 19 : p. 513-536. We thank William Davies for the permission to republish it here. abstract : In the context of ubiquitous data capture and the politics of control, there is growing individual and managerial interest in ‘pulse', both in the literal sense of arterial pulse - Rythmes des corps – Nouvel article.

Der vorliegende Artikel beleuchtet Variationen selbststigmatisierender und zugleich selbstkonstituierender Akte männlicher Internet-Subkulturen. Allen Akten gemeinsam ist ihre Nähe zu Schmutz und Fäkalien. Die Analyse des Autors bewegt sich systematisch von den »Computerfreak«-Milieus der frühen 2000er Jahre über die sogenannten »Pickup-Artists« (Frauenverführungskünstler) und Online-Männerrechtsgruppen hin zu den »Incels« (Akronym für »involuntary celibate«: unfreiwillig sexuell enthaltsam) – der extremsten Variante dieser Subkulturen. Dabei dient Donald Meltzers Studie über den anal-masturbatorischen Charakter als heuristische Folie; mit ihr lässt sich die konstitutive Relevanz der analen (...) Sexualität für die im Internet sich differenzierenden Maskulinitäten und deren »Frauen-Feind-Bilder« herausarbeiten. So lässt sich beobachten, wie Computerfreak-Milieus im Netz ironisch mit dem Stigma der analen Vorgeschlechtlichkeit spielen, die Männerrechts- und Incelgruppen jedoch das Spielerische im Umgang mit diesem Stigma weitestgehend verloren und eine (auto-)aggressive Identifikation mit ihm entwickelt haben. Übergreifend zeigt die Analyse, wie die spezifische Netzwerkstruktur des Internets, die Funktionsweisen des Digitalen sowie dessen kommerzielle Nutzung auch permanente »Überbietung« und Extremisierung begünstigen. (shrink)

This paper fills a gap in Flusser scholarship by conducting an initial comparison of Flusser with Rudolf Arnheim. After noting their similar approaches – open both to science and phenomenology – it looks closely at each theorist’s respective theory of photography. They differ in that Flusser believes that the photography as a technical apparatus is not objective. However, with some contextualization each can be seen to say complementary things. Reflecting on each theorist’s cautiously optimistic or pessimistic approach to evolving media, (...) the paper concludes with thoughts on how they give helpful ideas on how to flesh out aspects of the other’s thought. (shrink)

Opposition to corporate legal rights has become more visible in recent years. Activists seek ways to address the influence of corporations on the state and its ancillary institutions. The most well-known tactics range from Occupy's embrace of anarchic, leaderless horizontalism to the Mayday PAC raising money to elect representatives who support a campaign finance amendment to the US Constitution. The spectrum of political efforts between these two approaches speaks to how the problem of corporate power resonates with many people in (...) the United States. It also, however, demonstrates how "democracy," as the ostensible opposition to corporate politics, can be interpreted as everything from... (shrink)

Simply put, charter schools have not lived up to their advocates’ promise of equity. Using examples of tangible civil rights gains of the twentieth century and extending feminist theories of invisible labor to include the labor of democracy, the authors argue that the charter movement renders invisible the labor that secured civil protections for historically marginalized groups. The charter movement hangs a quality public education—previously recognized as a universal guarantee—on the education consumer’s ability to navigate a marketplace. The authors conclude (...) that the neoliberal agenda of positioning choice as the best mechanism for securing an education rolls back the rights that were already secured through the labor of democracy. (shrink)

The intensifying speed-up of contemporary economic, social and political life troubles democratic theorists because they assume that democracy depends on patience. This article turns to Martin Luther King, Jr. to challenge democratic theory’s temporal bias. I argue that King demonstrates that impatience, too, is a democratic virtue. Building on impatient knowledge, democratic impatience aides in overcoming undemocratic legacies, fosters democratic subjectivity and agency, ensures political accountability, and creates a more inclusive practice of democratic belonging. I furthermore show that King reveals (...) the temporal sophistication of democratic impatience, thereby contradicting the prevailing interpretation of self-defeating instantaneousness. In particular, democratic impatience’s temporal origins of centuries of injustice, human mortality, and the context of social acceleration provide a mature impetus for democratic action. Moreover, democratic impatience persists over time. On the one hand, it does so because injustice persists. On the other hand, democratic impatience contains within itself a subordinate operational patience. In other words, democratic impatience is always already somewhat ‘patient.’ King’s democratic impatience therefore not only redresses democratic theory’s shortcomings, but it also generates a renewed sense of democratic possibility in our age, as democratic impatience is well suited to help us in redressing the crises and injustices deepened or generated by social acceleration. (shrink)

‘Left melodrama’ is a form of contemporary political critique that combines thematic elements and narrative structures of the melodramatic genre with a political perspective grounded in a left theoretical tradition, fusing them to dramatically interrogate oppressive social structures and unequal relations of power. It is also a new form of what Walter Benjamin called ‘left melancholy’, a critique that deadens what it examines by employing outdated and insufficient analyses to current exploitations. Left melodrama is melancholic insofar as its use of (...) older leftist critical methods disavows its attachments to the failed promises of left political-theoretical critique: that it could provide direct means to freedom and moral rightness. Left melodrama is melodramatic insofar as it incorporates the specific melodramatic narrative, style and promise of the text that stands in for its disavowed attachments: the Manifesto of the Communist Party. Whereas the Manifesto's critical power promised radical political transformation, left melodrama incorporates the Manifesto's melodramatic style in an effort to revivify that promise. It thus inhibits the creation of new critical methods appropriate to our current historical moment and occludes Marx and Engels' warning that the possibility of radical transformation is diminished when the past furnishes the vision for the future. Left melodrama can be found in the texts of Giorgio Agamben, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri; their reincorporation of the Manifesto's melodrama both contributes to their widespread success and undercuts their critical capacities to examine and challenge the inequalities, injustices and unfreedom that shape the present moment. (shrink)

Habermas claims that an inclusive public sphere is the only deliberative forum for generating public opinion that satisfies the epistemic and normative conditions underlying legitimate decision-making. He adds that digital technologies and other mass media need not undermine – but can extend – rational deliberation when properly instituted. This paper draws from social epistemology and technology studies to demonstrate the epistemic and normative limitations of this extension. We argue that current online communication structures fall short of satisfying the required epistemic (...) and normative conditions. Furthermore, the extent to which Internet-based communications contribute to legitimate democratic opinion and will formation depends on the design of the technologies in question. (shrink)

This essay is a response to Askegaard and Linnet’s : 381–404) call for a greater epistemological plurality within consumer culture theory. The article begins with a brief review of what these authors refer to as the dominant existential–phenomenological perspective and their Morinian alternative and then presents contemporary political philosophy as another alternative. Political philosophy has experienced quite a renaissance in recent years, and the school of thought has inspired major epistemological and ontological interventions throughout the academy. Here, I provide a (...) general introduction to this field of social inquiry and then focus specifically on the contributions of French philosopher Alain Badiou. Badiou’s work is particularly valuable for fields such as CCT, as it presents a unified epistemological framework for developing knowledge of social structures, cultural forms and subjectivities. The utility of political philosophy in general as well as the Badiouian framework is then demonstrated with recourse to the extant CCT literature. Ultimately, a Badiouian perspective has the potential to fulfil Askegaard and Linnet’s call for epistemologies that can attend to everyday experience while also considering the operation of cultural, political and sociological forces. (shrink)

This study is an intervention in postcolonial theorising through a critique of technologies of representation. It examines the effects of technologically-mediated representation in a postcolonial condition that the Philippines has exemplified. New media technologies are mechanisms of representations that embody the logic of spectrality presented in Jacques Derrida’s later work. Spectrality, which brings doubts, ephemerality, and instability to dominant discourses and modes of representation, provides a chance for change.Spectres are effects of technologically-mediated representation that articulate the infinite demand for justice (...) under conditions of enduring inequality. As quasi-transcendental elements of deconstruction, spectres are not reducible to either human or technical intervention; they express the relation of humans to technologies, in which representation is central to the mediation of political authority. This technological representation is the condition of what Derrida calls “iteration,” or the transformation of hegemonic authority through the very repetition of its fundamental terms of identification. The examination of emancipatory new media technologies in a postcolonial condition is inspired by the work of Jacques Derrida, in his deconstructive reading of Marx’s spectres. However, the writings of Habermas and Adorno have offered an implicit appraisal of the ontology of spectres. Habermas’s theory of the public sphere and Adorno’s negative dialectics are discourses that unwittingly solicit spectres. The account of the postcolonial condition in the Philippines works through the questions of universality, subalternity, and the right to theory that are raised by the project of Western critical theory. (shrink)