A Fresh Start to the Day…
The impossibility of thinking or to think the impossible
Chrysanthi Nigianni
To think is to experiment; thus to think is to risk. But then what does ‘to risk’ mean? I would say to risk is to undergo unforeseen consequences. If to think is to experiment and consequently to risk, then ‘thinkers’, intellectuals, are risky individuals… But what do they risk nowadays? Status, social life? Is thinking today into our life or even better, is life itself a thinking event? Or are these two terms still separate, reproducing thus restricting oppositional structures that actually do not risk anything?
These are some of the questions that my paper will bring into the fore. Starting from Baudrillard’s notion of the ‘impossible exchange’ and relating it to a conceptualization of postmodern thinking as being deprived of its antagonistic other, its double, with whom it exchanges and thus risks itself, I will argue for a thinking that will acquire a symbolic character - which means a social character- and which will aim at the creation of new assemblages, which in turn will embrace and bring into contact all kinds of bodies: human bodies, material, spiritual, real, imaginary, organic, inorganic, social and individual bodies, blurring thus dichotomies that persist in the present society.
Alex J. Bridger
This paper explores the use of situationist theory as a specific form of cultural political psychology to address the war on terror. Initially, the paper will introduce situationist theory located within its historical context. Then I will apply the concepts of situationist theory to the events of September 11th and to the notion of ‘the society of the spectacle’. The final section of the article will address the ethical and moral implications of the use of situationist theory in psychology and this paper aims to open up a debate in the discipline for its use as a particular type of psychology.
Subjectivities…
Knowing Me, Knowing New
Ruth Silver
This is an autoethnographic, narrative paper following the multivalent development and transformation of personal identity during one three- year period of higher education. Using past journal entries interspersed with reflexive academic thinking, I apply some of the theoretical perspectives learned during my degree to my personal experience in order to better understand my ever-evolving self and my place in the world around me. From an initially dislocated and internally ruptured standpoint of ‘either/or’ conflicting identity positions, I tentatively trace my fledgling academic and familial journey as I slowly learn to accommodate and blend the many facets of my being into an emergent ‘and/both’ symbiotic hybrid self-narrative.
To Think About Space is To Experiment:
Reconstructing The City Through Subjectivity
Betty Nigianni
This presentation will be a speculation on space and subjectivity and how the relation of those two terms informs and transforms the experience of the city. Subjective space will be examined through highly personalised literary writings in which particular urban elements (e.g. the street, the avenue) are described as directly related to subjectivity (e.g. the body, emotion); in these texts space is experienced as a continuum indispensably linked with the subject.
I will specifically discuss texts about the city of Athens by Greek writers Manos Kontoleon and Vangelis Raptopoulos: the first one describing the identification of the writer with an Athenian avenue that leads a ‘double’ existence (an office area during the day, a place of entertainment and prostitution at night), the second narrating walking journeys in the streets of central Athens in which the physical and the psychical intermingle.
The paper will argue that the subjective narrativisation of the city is a transgressive operation revealing space as a subversive terrain and making room for further transgressions at all levels.
The presentation will also include some film footage.
Self-Made Men Revisited:
The Production of The Subject on Gay Websites.
Our research on gay men's internet profiles is informed by social constructionist approaches to the self and identity, LGBT psychology, and queer studies. "Reality" is not seen as anterior to language and social practices but rather as instantiated by them (Harre, 1986, Davies and Harre, 1990, Burr, 1990). In this initial report, 100 profiles posted by gay men on a dating website were analyzed in terms of the narrative and interpretative resources used to construct a gay on-line identity. Our work differs from previous research on personal ads by examining the materiality of communication media (e.g., the Internet) not as 'blank slates' onto which identities are constructed, but as a set of
technological affordances for the transformation of the self, sexuality, and interpersonal relationships .
Sexuality…
Perceptions of Success within Services For Sexually Exploited Youth:
Recurring Storylines
H. Kathleen Manion
Globalisation and postmodernism have impacted the sexual exploitation of
children and youth prostitution. Debates on the issue have pushed beyond
national borders, motivated not least by storylines propagated by increased media coverage and proliferation of international and national legal frameworks. As public attitudes towards both 'childhood' and 'prostitution' have changed over time, new intervention strategies have evolved. One marked change has been the shift in perceptions of sexually exploited youth from juvenile delinquents to victims of sexual abuse. Voluntary and statutory criminal justice, health and social service agencies have had to redefine their aims and methods for grappling with this issue, while working towards joined-up services. This is an emotive and longstanding topic and these changes have occurred with an underlying influence of 'recurrent storylines'.
This paper briefly presents some of the initial findings from a qualitative study that explored perceptions of success of interventions for sexually exploited youth in London, Vancouver and Sydney. The study concentrated on the perspective of sexually exploited youth and their caregivers. The focus of this paper will be to present some recurrent storylines given by participants and analyse how they help/hinder successful interventions.
Tracing Political Discourses in Sexuality Narratives by Two Generations of Women in Turkey
Cigdem Esin
In Turkey, our, women’s, narratives of personal histories and identities have always been relational to either dominant or counter discourses around modernization project of republic. This presentation is an attempt to trace these discourses in the sexuality narratives of a mother and a daughter in Turkey.
Politics:
Organising in the Sex Industry–An Action Research Investigation
Ana Lopes
This presentation will be based on an action research project that consisted in establishing and developing a union for people who work in the sex industry.
After a pilot phase, a small group of sex workers and supporters set up an association called “International Union of Sex Workers” in the year 2000. This organisation campaigned for labour rights, especially the right to join a recognised union and the mainstream trades union movement. After several attempts, the group was accepted by the GMB, British General Union, in 2002. This presentation will particularly discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the action research methodology when applied to the understanding and development of new social movements. Action research evades simple definition, since there are so many approaches and traditions within this methodological approach. Although it has been used in the field of the sex industry before, this project is the first application of action research to the movement for sex workers’ rights.
By taking the role of both researcher and activist and by involving sex workers themselves in the research process, this project has been an attempt to challenge the division between academics and activists.
ICTs, Empowerment and Women in Rural Uganda: A SCOT Perspective
Patricia K. Litho
This presentation uses a constructivist perspective to investigate the efficacy of ICTs in the empowerment of women in rural Uganda (Uganda is in East Africa). This perspective questions the dominant view that technology leads to social change. The constructivist school of thought forwards the view that technological change is a result of choices and negotiations between ' relevant social groups', who then influence the direction that a technology takes depending on their different 'interpretations' on what the technology can do for them.
Reflections on Radical Democracy on the Internet: analysing the discourse of the official and unofficial ESF 2004 Websites
Irem Inceoglu
Regarding the recent debates in political and cultural studies about influence of the information communication technologies on democracy and multiculturalism, one of the fundamental questions, I wander around, could be stated as whether a new democratic formation, so-called ‘radical democracy’, can emerge via the use of the Internet. As a part of my PhD research, which intends to investigate and theorise the new anti- systemic movements; the relationship amongst the components of this ‘movements of movement’, and to analyse the newly developed way of ‘political networking’ via the Internet, the aim of this paper is to analyse the European Social Form (ESF) process through a discourse analysis of two web sites, one of which belongs to the official organisation of ESF; ( http://www.fse-esf.org ) and the other one of the unofficial, autonomous spaces; ( http://esf2004.net ) throughout 2004, ESF in London..
Although the autonomous space concept has always been a part of all other ESFs too, London 2004 ESF was possibly the most diverse one in that sense. ESF itself as being the part of the anti-systemic movements or more popularly known as the global justice movement was being criticised as becoming a part of hierarchical structures and politics. Autonomous spaces, not denying the importance of or ignoring the process of ESF, aimed to create a grassroots network-based movement. As the participants of this autonomous site name themselves the ‘horizontals’ they claim to challenge the ‘vertical’ structures of formal organisations. Hence, they do not isolate themselves from the ESF as the movement, on the contrary, esf2004.net has links to official ESF website and autonomous spaces have been included in the programme of the official ESF.
Websites have been the major tool for the horizontals to publish their ideas, as well as for the official ESF, regarding the multinational feature of the event itself. The form, content, structure and the use of the websites are important to reflect the discourse of the events. Therefore, my study, aims to illuminate the differences in discourse of the official ESF and the autonomous forums employing the concepts of radical democracy, hegemony, universality/particularity along with rhizomatic networking and how those concepts can collaborate to within the two forms of anti-systemic movements.