Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/14797585.2023.2194552
Ashitha Mary Christopher, Unni Krishnan Karikkat
ABSTRACT This article explores the duality of law with regard to the LGBTQ+ community, examining both its historical regulation of non-heteronormative genders and sexualities and its contradictory potential to transcend such regulations over time. Situated within a postcolonial analytical framework, it undertakes a thematic overview and narrative appraisal of research materials, drawn from a diverse array of social science disciplinary intersections, spanning the timeline from 1990 to 2022, that expounds on the intricate and overlapping imbrications between law and the LGBTQ+ community in India. It was observed that the extant academic deliberations on the subject are dispersed across disciplinary boundaries within the larger scope of humanities and social sciences, necessitating an integrative approach. By delving into the historical antecedents of the subject matter, the current findings are situated within four domains, namely: i) the colonial nexus; ii) the postcolonial public redress; and iii) other domains of sustained legal contestation, such as healthcare, workplace, media censorship, and the fraught terrain of identity and legal lexicon.
{"title":"From colonial violence to decriminalisation and recognition: An interdisciplinary appraisal of perspectives on Indian LGBTQ+ community’s encounter with law","authors":"Ashitha Mary Christopher, Unni Krishnan Karikkat","doi":"10.1080/14797585.2023.2194552","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14797585.2023.2194552","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article explores the duality of law with regard to the LGBTQ+ community, examining both its historical regulation of non-heteronormative genders and sexualities and its contradictory potential to transcend such regulations over time. Situated within a postcolonial analytical framework, it undertakes a thematic overview and narrative appraisal of research materials, drawn from a diverse array of social science disciplinary intersections, spanning the timeline from 1990 to 2022, that expounds on the intricate and overlapping imbrications between law and the LGBTQ+ community in India. It was observed that the extant academic deliberations on the subject are dispersed across disciplinary boundaries within the larger scope of humanities and social sciences, necessitating an integrative approach. By delving into the historical antecedents of the subject matter, the current findings are situated within four domains, namely: i) the colonial nexus; ii) the postcolonial public redress; and iii) other domains of sustained legal contestation, such as healthcare, workplace, media censorship, and the fraught terrain of identity and legal lexicon.","PeriodicalId":44587,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Cultural Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46197922","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/14797585.2023.2187312
Antonio C. Cuyler
ABSTRACT Since their enslavement in the U. S. Black Americans have longitudinally suffered some of the most heinous crimes against humanity. Yet, despite cultural policies intended to discriminate against, marginalise, oppress, and subjugate them, Black folx have unfailingly demonstrated remarkable creative resilience. This conceptual article explores three research questions: (1) in what ways have exclusionary U. S. cultural policies discouraged Black Americans’ cultural engagement, (2) how have Black Americans responded to exclusionary cultural policies in the U. S. and (3) what longitudinal impacts might exclusionary cultural policies have on Black Americans’ creative and expressive lives, and the U. S. creative sector? This article used Critical Race Theory (CRT) and interpretive policy analysis to identify the ways in which racism has and continues to shape Black Americans’ creative and expressive lives. I conclude this article by making the case for a research agenda that comprehensively investigates Black Americans’ cultural engagement as well as other historically and continuously oppressed groups.
{"title":"Casualties of exclusionary cultural policies: exploring the paradox of Black American cultural engagement","authors":"Antonio C. Cuyler","doi":"10.1080/14797585.2023.2187312","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14797585.2023.2187312","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Since their enslavement in the U. S. Black Americans have longitudinally suffered some of the most heinous crimes against humanity. Yet, despite cultural policies intended to discriminate against, marginalise, oppress, and subjugate them, Black folx have unfailingly demonstrated remarkable creative resilience. This conceptual article explores three research questions: (1) in what ways have exclusionary U. S. cultural policies discouraged Black Americans’ cultural engagement, (2) how have Black Americans responded to exclusionary cultural policies in the U. S. and (3) what longitudinal impacts might exclusionary cultural policies have on Black Americans’ creative and expressive lives, and the U. S. creative sector? This article used Critical Race Theory (CRT) and interpretive policy analysis to identify the ways in which racism has and continues to shape Black Americans’ creative and expressive lives. I conclude this article by making the case for a research agenda that comprehensively investigates Black Americans’ cultural engagement as well as other historically and continuously oppressed groups.","PeriodicalId":44587,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Cultural Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43125909","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/14797585.2023.2189019
J. Stratton
Abstract One component in the vote to leave the European Union was a nostalgic image of Empire and the assertion by Brexiteers like Boris Johnson that after Britain had left the EU new trade links would be made with countries who were members of the Commonwealth, countries that Britain had previously governed as colonies. The foundation for this idea was the understanding that Britain’s governing of its colonies had been benign and, indeed, that British control had brought with it the benefits of civilisation. This view of the British empire was pervasive in the UK. This article focuses on the sitcom As Time Goes By in which the male protagonist, Lionel, is writing a book about his time in Kenya in the 1950s and 1960s. Everybody who reads the ms considers it boring. Yet Kenya during those decades was subject to a grass-roots uprising against the British colonists known as Mau Mau and Kenya was granted independence in 1963 by which time large numbers of white settlers had left the country. The portrayal of Lionel’s book as boring elides this history and reinforces the perception that British colonialism was well received by the indigenous population.
{"title":"As Time Goes By: colonialism, the revision of the past and Brexit","authors":"J. Stratton","doi":"10.1080/14797585.2023.2189019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14797585.2023.2189019","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract One component in the vote to leave the European Union was a nostalgic image of Empire and the assertion by Brexiteers like Boris Johnson that after Britain had left the EU new trade links would be made with countries who were members of the Commonwealth, countries that Britain had previously governed as colonies. The foundation for this idea was the understanding that Britain’s governing of its colonies had been benign and, indeed, that British control had brought with it the benefits of civilisation. This view of the British empire was pervasive in the UK. This article focuses on the sitcom As Time Goes By in which the male protagonist, Lionel, is writing a book about his time in Kenya in the 1950s and 1960s. Everybody who reads the ms considers it boring. Yet Kenya during those decades was subject to a grass-roots uprising against the British colonists known as Mau Mau and Kenya was granted independence in 1963 by which time large numbers of white settlers had left the country. The portrayal of Lionel’s book as boring elides this history and reinforces the perception that British colonialism was well received by the indigenous population.","PeriodicalId":44587,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Cultural Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48162265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/14797585.2023.2185532
Zeliha Dişci
ABSTRACT The concept of ‘immunity’ is the central notion in Roberto Esposito’s assessments of modern politics. Understanding modern politics from Esposito’s perspective is synonymous with understanding the concept of immunity. However, if one looks at modern political theory, one finds that a number of concepts such as social contract, state/sovereignty, person, property, and liberty stand out as central concepts rather than a single concept. This article argues that these concepts, which have different meanings, are part of one and the same logic, and that it is possible to conceptualise this logic around ‘immunity.’ For this reason, this article proposes, first, to consider the concept of ‘immunity’ as a concept that expresses the logic to which these concepts belong. Second, it argues that the concept of immunity allows us to see the continuity between modern politics and contemporary political tendencies. Based on this argument, the article claims that Esposito increases the explanatory power of Michel Foucault’s understanding of biopolitics, which is insufficient to explain the logic of the transition from life-protective to life-hostile activities in politics. The article concludes that ‘immunity’ provides a conceptual key to understanding the possibility of totalitarianism in biopolitical times from Nazism to the COVID-19 pandemic.
{"title":"From politics for life to politics against life: “immunity” as modern logic of politics","authors":"Zeliha Dişci","doi":"10.1080/14797585.2023.2185532","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14797585.2023.2185532","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The concept of ‘immunity’ is the central notion in Roberto Esposito’s assessments of modern politics. Understanding modern politics from Esposito’s perspective is synonymous with understanding the concept of immunity. However, if one looks at modern political theory, one finds that a number of concepts such as social contract, state/sovereignty, person, property, and liberty stand out as central concepts rather than a single concept. This article argues that these concepts, which have different meanings, are part of one and the same logic, and that it is possible to conceptualise this logic around ‘immunity.’ For this reason, this article proposes, first, to consider the concept of ‘immunity’ as a concept that expresses the logic to which these concepts belong. Second, it argues that the concept of immunity allows us to see the continuity between modern politics and contemporary political tendencies. Based on this argument, the article claims that Esposito increases the explanatory power of Michel Foucault’s understanding of biopolitics, which is insufficient to explain the logic of the transition from life-protective to life-hostile activities in politics. The article concludes that ‘immunity’ provides a conceptual key to understanding the possibility of totalitarianism in biopolitical times from Nazism to the COVID-19 pandemic.","PeriodicalId":44587,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Cultural Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45430468","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/14797585.2023.2188602
Gregory Stephens
ABSTRACT As a point of departure for reconsidering the “troubled concept” of postcolonialism, Stephens proposes a cultural analysis in which Communication Studies, ethnographic approaches, and transnational Writing Studies are on speaking terms. This revisioning is routed through an aspirational “reclaiming” of communication, which would a) practice Bazerman’s ”disciplined interdisciplinarity”; b) use the positionality of what anthropologists call ”halfies.” Stephens recounts instances of ”editorial bullying” in which U.S. editors project postcolonial theory onto all Puerto Rican contexts. He then surveys recent Marxist critiques of postcolonialism. Finally he distills Mignolo's arguments for three openings leading away from essentialized, binary versions of postcolonial theory, and towards more historically grounded, ethnographically oriented approaches such as decoloniality.
{"title":"Postcolonialism as leftist firing squad and procrustean bed: a communicative take","authors":"Gregory Stephens","doi":"10.1080/14797585.2023.2188602","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14797585.2023.2188602","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT As a point of departure for reconsidering the “troubled concept” of postcolonialism, Stephens proposes a cultural analysis in which Communication Studies, ethnographic approaches, and transnational Writing Studies are on speaking terms. This revisioning is routed through an aspirational “reclaiming” of communication, which would a) practice Bazerman’s ”disciplined interdisciplinarity”; b) use the positionality of what anthropologists call ”halfies.” Stephens recounts instances of ”editorial bullying” in which U.S. editors project postcolonial theory onto all Puerto Rican contexts. He then surveys recent Marxist critiques of postcolonialism. Finally he distills Mignolo's arguments for three openings leading away from essentialized, binary versions of postcolonial theory, and towards more historically grounded, ethnographically oriented approaches such as decoloniality.","PeriodicalId":44587,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Cultural Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42636226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/14797585.2022.2161052
R. Popoola
ABSTRACT Celebrity studies is an expansive and expanding field in European and American scholarship. Unfortunately, Africanist scholars have paid limited attention to this significant branch of scholarship. Drawing from varied secondary sources, including audio-visual materials, newspaper articles and journals, and books in the fields of celebrities and development, I examine Nigerian celebrity philanthropy in the age of internet technology. I argue that Nigerian celebrity philanthropy, given its mediatised nature and impact on its recipient, is a palliative measure to systemic and structural crises of poverty. I show that this individualistic effort only gives temporary respite for some of its recipients while others are left even worse off after their encounters with celebrities helping. My research sits at the crossroads of multiple fields in the humanities and the social sciences and offers a new direction for celebrity studies in the global South. Future research may examine individual Nigerian celebrity philanthropy while centring on gender, class, education, ethnicity, religion, and location in celebrity humanitarians in the global South, particularly in Nigeria.
{"title":"When charity and camera collide: Nigerian celebrity philanthropy in the age of technology","authors":"R. Popoola","doi":"10.1080/14797585.2022.2161052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14797585.2022.2161052","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Celebrity studies is an expansive and expanding field in European and American scholarship. Unfortunately, Africanist scholars have paid limited attention to this significant branch of scholarship. Drawing from varied secondary sources, including audio-visual materials, newspaper articles and journals, and books in the fields of celebrities and development, I examine Nigerian celebrity philanthropy in the age of internet technology. I argue that Nigerian celebrity philanthropy, given its mediatised nature and impact on its recipient, is a palliative measure to systemic and structural crises of poverty. I show that this individualistic effort only gives temporary respite for some of its recipients while others are left even worse off after their encounters with celebrities helping. My research sits at the crossroads of multiple fields in the humanities and the social sciences and offers a new direction for celebrity studies in the global South. Future research may examine individual Nigerian celebrity philanthropy while centring on gender, class, education, ethnicity, religion, and location in celebrity humanitarians in the global South, particularly in Nigeria.","PeriodicalId":44587,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Cultural Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47715539","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/14797585.2022.2137820
B. Hamamra, Ayman Mleitat, Abdel Karim Daragmeh
ABSTRACT Al-Bassam’s The Al Hamlet Summit (2006), an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1603), presents a cynical comment on the political corruption in the Arab World and it constitutes from a presentist perspective, we argue, an anachronistic critique of some Arab leaders’ lapse into normalisation with the long-standing Other, the Israeli occupation. Al-Bassam captures the political corruption and Arab leaders’ liaison with Israel through the figure of Claudius, who, like Arab leaders, normalises relations with the enemies of his nation, Fortinbras and the Arms Dealer. Many Arab leaders are normalising relations with Israel as a defensive mechanism against their citizens who have been protesting against dictatorial and tyrannical regimes that have conceived rottenness and corruption in the political and spiritual foundations of the states. While the waves of normalisation that have plagued the contemporary Arab scene raise the spectre of Western hegemony over Arabs, being channelled by the Trump Administration, many Arab leaders hurl to the strategy of normalisation ‘pants down’ so as to curb their citizens prospective revolutionary acts.
{"title":"Sulayman Al-Bassam’s The Al Hamlet Summit: normalisation and Arab treacherous politics","authors":"B. Hamamra, Ayman Mleitat, Abdel Karim Daragmeh","doi":"10.1080/14797585.2022.2137820","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14797585.2022.2137820","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Al-Bassam’s The Al Hamlet Summit (2006), an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1603), presents a cynical comment on the political corruption in the Arab World and it constitutes from a presentist perspective, we argue, an anachronistic critique of some Arab leaders’ lapse into normalisation with the long-standing Other, the Israeli occupation. Al-Bassam captures the political corruption and Arab leaders’ liaison with Israel through the figure of Claudius, who, like Arab leaders, normalises relations with the enemies of his nation, Fortinbras and the Arms Dealer. Many Arab leaders are normalising relations with Israel as a defensive mechanism against their citizens who have been protesting against dictatorial and tyrannical regimes that have conceived rottenness and corruption in the political and spiritual foundations of the states. While the waves of normalisation that have plagued the contemporary Arab scene raise the spectre of Western hegemony over Arabs, being channelled by the Trump Administration, many Arab leaders hurl to the strategy of normalisation ‘pants down’ so as to curb their citizens prospective revolutionary acts.","PeriodicalId":44587,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Cultural Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46308100","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/14797585.2022.2137819
Thierry Suchère
ABSTRACT Financial markets have a social history. In the 19th century, birth of capital markets led to the birth of the stock exchange novel, which inspired H de Balzac, E Zola, etc. During the 1980s, the financialization of the economy saw the cinema captured this change through the financial thriller. Oliver Stone’s Wall Street (1987) inaugurates a list of recent movies that deals with the stock exchange. The film Wall Street shows us that financial activity allows rapid social ascension. The stock market activity is presented as a zero-sum game. Money simply passes from one pocket to another by the virtue of magic. The dynamic of capitalism thus finds part of their source in the greed of the individuals that it exploits. The market is the place where another form of economic rationality unfolds in the form of an instinct for predation which is not burdened by morality.
{"title":"Wall Street: on capitalism and the predatory instinct","authors":"Thierry Suchère","doi":"10.1080/14797585.2022.2137819","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14797585.2022.2137819","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Financial markets have a social history. In the 19th century, birth of capital markets led to the birth of the stock exchange novel, which inspired H de Balzac, E Zola, etc. During the 1980s, the financialization of the economy saw the cinema captured this change through the financial thriller. Oliver Stone’s Wall Street (1987) inaugurates a list of recent movies that deals with the stock exchange. The film Wall Street shows us that financial activity allows rapid social ascension. The stock market activity is presented as a zero-sum game. Money simply passes from one pocket to another by the virtue of magic. The dynamic of capitalism thus finds part of their source in the greed of the individuals that it exploits. The market is the place where another form of economic rationality unfolds in the form of an instinct for predation which is not burdened by morality.","PeriodicalId":44587,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Cultural Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46199636","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/14797585.2022.2154936
Jacob W. Glazier
ABSTRACT I explore Martin Heidegger’s figure of the last god found in his middle period of thinking from 1936–1939 centring my analysis on Contributions to Philosophy: Of the Event (Beiträge) and how this conception is messianic in nature. The last god is a particular instantiation of a being among beings rather than representing a literary or philosophical structure that lies ahead in the future. I emphasise the notion of the turning that occurs within Ereignis, a revived playfulness, wherein the lightning-flash (das Blitzen) appears as a trace or guide towards a new beginning. I conclude by investigating the historical and cultural ramifications that the arrival of the last god would have.
{"title":"The last god: lightning of turning in Heidegger","authors":"Jacob W. Glazier","doi":"10.1080/14797585.2022.2154936","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14797585.2022.2154936","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT I explore Martin Heidegger’s figure of the last god found in his middle period of thinking from 1936–1939 centring my analysis on Contributions to Philosophy: Of the Event (Beiträge) and how this conception is messianic in nature. The last god is a particular instantiation of a being among beings rather than representing a literary or philosophical structure that lies ahead in the future. I emphasise the notion of the turning that occurs within Ereignis, a revived playfulness, wherein the lightning-flash (das Blitzen) appears as a trace or guide towards a new beginning. I conclude by investigating the historical and cultural ramifications that the arrival of the last god would have.","PeriodicalId":44587,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Cultural Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41702063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-27DOI: 10.1080/14797585.2022.2128280
Johanna Vuorelma
ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic has been the most mediatised health crisis in human history, involving a rapid circulation of knowledge in global networks and a continuous flow of spectacular images and narratives that have rendered the pandemic graspable in cultural, political, and moral terms. This article proposes that the intertwined nature of two opposite trends of knowledge production – scientific reasoning and affective storytelling – can be analytically approached through the concept of ‘outformation’ that provides explanatory power and conceptual clarity to make sense of the disorderly flows of knowledge in the pandemic-era. Using frame analysis, the article examines how one key term of the pandemic era, herd immunity, is taken from its scientific context and mobilised across different epistemic arenas from journalistic media to parliamentary debates as a vehicle for mistrust towards political and expert authorities in Finland that is a country characterised by high levels of trust towards authorities. The Finnish case is not only a national case about the framing of a specific term in times of epistemic instability but also provides a valuable lens to knowledge production during the pandemic era.
{"title":"Framing the pandemic: from information to outformation in the COVID-19 era","authors":"Johanna Vuorelma","doi":"10.1080/14797585.2022.2128280","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14797585.2022.2128280","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic has been the most mediatised health crisis in human history, involving a rapid circulation of knowledge in global networks and a continuous flow of spectacular images and narratives that have rendered the pandemic graspable in cultural, political, and moral terms. This article proposes that the intertwined nature of two opposite trends of knowledge production – scientific reasoning and affective storytelling – can be analytically approached through the concept of ‘outformation’ that provides explanatory power and conceptual clarity to make sense of the disorderly flows of knowledge in the pandemic-era. Using frame analysis, the article examines how one key term of the pandemic era, herd immunity, is taken from its scientific context and mobilised across different epistemic arenas from journalistic media to parliamentary debates as a vehicle for mistrust towards political and expert authorities in Finland that is a country characterised by high levels of trust towards authorities. The Finnish case is not only a national case about the framing of a specific term in times of epistemic instability but also provides a valuable lens to knowledge production during the pandemic era.","PeriodicalId":44587,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Cultural Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47880846","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}