Showing papers on "Critical theory published in 2016"

Caring democracy: Markets, equality and justice

Abstract: Caring Democracy Markets Equality And Though keenly aware of the personal and private character of many care activities, Tronto makes a compelling case for care as a public good and for rethinking the way in which caring responsibilities are carried out in order to achieve the freedom, equality, and justice that are necessary not only to better care, but to better democracy. Her notion of & caring with as a fundamental democratic ideal brings a much-needed corrective to the literature on care that enables us to think more ...

The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory

Abstract: Drawing on Adorno’s aphoristic claim in Negative Dialectics that “Progress begins where it comes to an end,” Amy Allen’s The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory is a critique of the concept of progress in critical theory, for the sake of critical theory’s decolonization. It is a clear, forceful and convincing argument that calls us to question what critical theory is, and perhaps more pressingly, for whom. While Allen aims both to decolonize critical theory and to criticalize postand decolonial theory, she thoroughly succeeds at the first but only really invites the latter. While she relies on some postcolonial theorists and feminist and critical race philosophers (Spivak, Saïd, Chakrabarty, Alcoff), Allen’s target and audience are members of the second, third, and fourth generations of critical theory and those inspired by their thought. She employs the method Adorno described as “critique and rescue”: she gives an immanent critique of the concept of progress implicit but largely unacknowledged in the work of Habermas, Honneth, and Forst. And she rescues a version of progress and a method of critical theorizing more friendly to decolonial aims (by means of the work of Adorno and Foucault). book reviews

Genealogy and Critical Historicism: Two Models of Enlightenment in Horkheimer and Adorno’s Writings

Abstract: This article argues that two distinct concepts of Enlightenment coexist uneasily in Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment. According to the first, genealogical concept, Enlightenment is a bewildered form of self-preservation that has existed since the dawn of Western civilization. The second, critical historicist concept views Enlightenment as the critical and anti-authoritarian ideals articulated—most radically in eighteenth-century France—during the uneven development of modern bourgeois society. After examining the origins of these two concepts in Adorno and Horkheimer’s early writings, the article demonstrates why the former became dominant in Dialectic of Enlightenment, while at the same time pointing to significant traces of the latter that remained. The article contends that a reconsideration of the latter concept reveals of a model of early Critical Theory that can still provide a compelling alternative not only to Dialectic of Enlightenment, but also to more recent attempts t...

Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet

Abstract: This book contributes to the foundations of a critical theory of communication as shaped by the forces of digital capitalism. One of the world's leading theorists of digital media Professor Christian Fuchs explores how the thought of some of the Frankfurt School’s key thinkers can be deployed for critically understanding media in the age of the Internet. Five essays that form the heart of this book review aspects of the works of Georg Lukacs, Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Axel Honneth and Jurgen Habermas and apply them as elements of a critical theory of communication's foundations. The approach taken starts from Georg Lukacs Ontology of Social Being , draws on the work of the Frankfurt School thinkers, and sets them into dialogue with the Cultural Materialism of Raymond Williams. Critical Theory of Communication offers a vital set of new insights on how communication operates in the age of information, digital media and social media, arguing that we need to transcend the communication theory of Habermas by establishing a dialectical and cultural-materialist critical theory of communication. It is the first title in a major new book series 'Critical Digital and Social Media Studies' published by the University of Westminster Press.

Illustrating the Importance of Critical Epistemology to Realize the Promise of Occupational Justice.

Abstract: This article argues that it is vital to embrace critical reflexivity to interrogate the epistemological beliefs and principles guiding occupation-based scholarship to move away from frameworks that are incongruent with calls for occupational justice. For this purpose, we describe an epistemic tension between the stated intentions to demonstrate that occupation-based work can be a means to create a more just society and the epistemological beliefs that have historically dominated occupation-based scholarship. To exemplify the potential implications of this tension, a critical analysis of Creswell's social justice/transformative design is presented, illustrating that work that expresses a commitment to social justice while relying on positivist/postpositivist assumptions often risks perpetuating injustices through neglecting their sociopolitical construction. Drawing upon critical social theory, we highlight how engagement with critical epistemological assumptions can facilitate addressing the sociopolitical "roots" of occupational injustices and highlight directions for social transformation.

Out of Adolescence and Into Adulthood: Critical Race Theory, Retrenchment, and the Imperative of Praxis

Abstract: In commemoration of the germinal 1995 critical race theory (CRT) in education manuscript offered by Gloria Ladson-Billings and William Tate IV, the following account seeks to perform several tasks....

Re-Politicizing Participatory Action Research: Unmasking Neoliberalism and the Illusions of Participation.

Abstract: Utilizing potential cross-pollinations of theoretical insights taken from approaches to educational and social research that have mostly emerged outside of the university and been generated by critical theorists and most recently indigenous researchers as work that has not only challenged the epistemological and ontological foundations of the Western social science canon but have systematically contested the coloniality of neoliberal globalization in policy and practice, the primary purpose of the paper is to foreground the contributions that these critical perspectives can bring to reconceptualizing participatory action research (PAR) as a vehicle for energizing social networks that are anti-capitalist and anti-colonial. First, the paper outlines some of the key principles that have guided the development of critical or radical approaches to PAR methodology and practice over the past five decades. We then move onto discuss the impact of neoliberal thought on educational and social research in the contemp...

Public Administrators’ Use of Social Media Platforms Overcoming the Legitimacy Dilemma?

Abstract: Previous research incorporates Habermas’ theory of communicative action with implications of social media for public discourse, yet few studies consider the theory’s relevance and applicability to ...

On Justification and Critique: Luc Boltanski’s Pragmatic Sociology and International Relations

Abstract: Luc Boltanski is one of the most important contemporary social theorists. Whether and how his sociology matters for International Relations (IR) theory has, so far, not been explored. Boltanski’s work, as this article demonstrates, can greatly advance international political sociology by further developing a practice theoretical account which reconciles Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory and Pierre Bourdieu’s praxeology. Boltanski’s pragmatic sociology is mainly inspired by pragmatism and ethnomethodology, but it is still concerned with sociology as a critical project of emancipation. He aims to renew critical sociology by focusing on the ‘critical capacities’ ordinary actors use in disputes and controversies of political life. Practices of justification and critique as triggers of conflicts and sources of agreements are consequently the subjects of analysis. This implies, furthermore, a strong notion of normativity in practice, which reveals a blind spot in current debates in IR. Justification becomes a social practice through which diverging legitimacy claims are tested under conditions of uncertainty. Such a view is conceptually and methodologically relevant for IR scholars interested in contested norms, moral ambiguity, and the fragile character of political reality. Considering Boltanski’s work broadens the empirical scope of practice theory and provides promising new directions for IR theory.

Discourse analysis as immanent critique: Possibilities and limits of normative critique in empirical discourse studies:

Abstract: Although discourse analysts often conceive of their work as critical, there is little theoretical discussion regarding the possibility of normative critique in the scientific community of discourse...

Critical Theory and Processual Social Ontology

Abstract: Abstract The purpose of this article is to bridge the gap between critical theory as understood in the Frankfurt school tradition on the one hand, and social ontology understood as a reflection on the ontological presuppositions of social sciences and social theories on the other. What is at stake is the type of social ontology that critical theory needs if it wants to tackle its main social ontological issue: that of social transformation. This paper’s claim is that what is required is neither a substantial social ontology, nor a relational social ontology, but a processual one. The first part of this article elaborates the distinction between substantial, relational and processual social ontologies. The second part analyzes the various ways in which this distinction can be used in social ontological discussions. Finally, the third part focuses on the various possible social ontological approaches to the issue of social transformation.

The Critical Turn in Education: From Marxist Critique to Poststructuralist Feminism to Critical Theories of Race

Abstract: The Critical Turn in Education traces the historical emergence and development of critical theories in the field of education, from the introduction of Marxist and other radical social theories in the 1960s to the contemporary critical landscape. The book begins by tracing the first waves of critical scholarship in the field through a close, contextual study of the intellectual and political projects of several core figures including, Paulo Freire, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Michael Apple, and Henry Giroux. Later chapters offer a discussion of feminist critiques, the influx of postmodernist and poststructuralist ideas in education, and critical theories of race. While grounded in U.S. scholarship, The Critical Turn in Education contextualizes the development of critical ideas and political projects within a larger international history, and charts the ongoing theoretical debates that seek to explain the relationship between school and society. Today, much of the language of this critical turn has now become commonplace—words such as "hegemony," "ideology," and the term "critical" itself—but by providing a historical analysis, The Critical Turn in Education illuminates the complexity and nuance of these theoretical tools, which offer ways of understanding the intersections between individual identities and structural forces in an attempt to engage and overturn social injustice.

Theories and concepts in critical discourse studies: Facing challenges, moving beyond foundations:

Abstract: This article emphasises the need to devote more attention to concepts and theories in critical discourse studies (CDS). We are particularly eager to emphasise that CDS theory of the second decade o ...

Feminist Philosophy, Pragmatism, and the “Turn to Affect”: A Genealogical Critique

Abstract: Recent years have witnessed a focus on feeling as a topic of reinvigorated scholarly concern, described by theorists in a range of disciplines in terms of a “turn to affect.” Surprisingly little has been said about this most recent shift in critical theorizing by philosophers, including feminist philosophers, despite the fact that affect theorists situate their work within feminist and related, sometimes intersectional, political projects. In this article, I redress the seeming elision of the “turn to affect” in feminist philosophy, and develop a critique of some of the claims made by affect theorists that builds upon concerns regarding the “newness” of affect and emotion in feminist theory, and the risks of erasure this may entail. To support these concerns, I present a brief genealogy of feminist philosophical work on affect and emotion. Identifying a reductive tendency within affect theory to equate affect with bodily immanence, and to preclude cognition, culture, and representation, I argue that contemporary feminist theorists would do well to follow the more holistic models espoused by the canon of feminist work on emotion. Furthermore, I propose that prominent affect theorist Brian Massumi is right to return to pragmatism as a means of redressing philosophical dualisms, such as emotion/cognition and mind/body, but suggest that such a project is better served by John Dewey's philosophy of emotion than by William James's.

Negative dialectics and the critique of economic objectivity

Abstract: This article explores Adorno’s negative dialectics as a critical social theory of economic objectivity. It rejects the conventional view that Adorno does not offer a critique of the economic forms ...

Theoretical Foundations of an Anti-Racist Queer Feminist Historical Materialism:

Abstract: Bringing together Karl Marx’s key intellectual contributions and the best of contemporary anti-racist (critical race) queer feminism is a promising direction for critical social theory. Important s...

The future of whiteness

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Enlightenment, Neoliberalism, and Information Literacy

Abstract: This essay focuses on the ways in which ideas popularly associated with the Enlightenment function as common sense in the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, which was formally approved by the Association of College and Research Libraries at the beginning of 2015. This essay begins with a close reading of the Framework for Information Literacy, followed by an analysis of its ideological underpinnings, specifically liberalism. I then use postcolonial and political theory to think through the role of historical difference in pedagogy generally and in the information literacy pedagogy articulated by the Framework more specifically. The hegemonic ideological liberalism of the Framework, its universality, narrative of progress, and disinterest in power, must be supplemented with historical difference in order to provide context for its truth claims and to inculcate responsibility to the other. This work could take the form of kairotic information literacy pedagogy, or local and contextual articulations of the Framework, or something else. The Framework is not worthless or useless, but it is also not the answer.

Environmental sociology and the Frankfurt School 2: ideology, techno-science, reconciliation

Abstract: In a two-article project, I demonstrate that the first-generation Frankfurt School’s critical theory can conceptually inform sociological examinations of societal–environmental relations. This second article clarifies and systematizes the theories of Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse in the context of current debates and issues in environmental sociology: (1) the constructionism/realism debate and its relation to the critique of ideology; (2) the role of science and technology in human–nature relations; and (3) how society might bring itself into a sustainable and ethical relationship with the environment. I argue the Frankfurt School’s metatheory can help environmental sociologists denaturalize human–nature relations that appear fixed; explain how their theories of science and technology transcend the debate of whether science and technology are harmful to or helpful for the environment; and show that the underpinning normative goal of early critical theory was to reconcile human–nature relations. In addit...

Reclaiming the emancipatory potential of adult education: Honneth’s critical theory and the struggle for recognition

Abstract: Mezirow’s theory of transformative learning built on the learning experiences of nontraditional adult students returning to education and on the critical theory of Habermas, more recently progressed by Honneth. This paper links transformation theory with the work of Honneth who in recent works advances ideas about identity development and freedom that allow us update gaps in transformation theory – that it has an inadequate understanding of the social dimension of learning. A new understanding of ‘disorienting dilemma’ as a struggle for recognition is suggested. This paper expands our understanding of the emancipatory intent of transformative learning. EU funded empirical research supports this new iteration of the adult learning theory. Implications are drawn for teaching non-traditional students in adult and higher education.

The Sublime Perversion of Capital

Abstract: In The Sublime Perversion of Capital Gavin Walker examines the Japanese debate about capitalism between the 1920s and 1950s, using it as a "prehistory" to consider current discussions of uneven development and contemporary topics in Marxist theory and historiography. Walker locates the debate's culmination in the work of Uno Kozo, whose investigations into the development of capitalism and the commodification of labor power are essential for rethinking the national question in Marxist theory. Walker's analysis of Uno and the Japanese debate strips Marxist historiography of its Eurocentric focus, showing how Marxist thought was globalized from the start. In analyzing the little-heralded tradition of Japanese Marxist theory alongside Marx himself, Walker not only offers new insights into the transition to capitalism, the rise of globalization, and the relation between capital and the formation of the nation-state; he provides new ways to break Marxist theory's impasse with postcolonial studies and critical theory.

Evolutionary critical theory and its role in public affairs

Abstract: This work addresses one of the most central and timely subjects in Public Administration - how to make sense of critical theory and especially how to assess its implications for everyday practice.

‘Global sociology’ in different disciplinary practices: Current conditions, problems and perspectives:

Abstract: This article discusses perspectives for the formation of a truly ‘global sociology’, implying active, open, mutually beneficial and equal interaction between sociologists from different locations, countries and cultures, in their joint efforts to comprehend, explain and improve the social world. The study is based on the conceptual scheme proposed by Burawoy, highlighting four different disciplinary practices: ‘professional sociology’, ‘policy sociology’, ‘critical sociology’ and ‘public sociology’. The formation of a ‘global sociology’ demands harmonious development and mutual enrichment between all the four ‘sociologies’, however, each of them has its own path in the global arena. The literature analysis demonstrates serious limitations in the global progression of ‘professional sociology’, while ‘policy sociology’ and ‘critical sociology’ also experience major difficulties. ‘Public sociology’, largely inspired by Burawoy, seems to be especially promising globally due to its key advantages: orientation ...

Teacher Voice, Teacher Education, Teaching Professionals

Abstract: Introduction The ideas presented in this article are based on a reconstruction of narratives of two beginning teachers. The ideas, however are guided by forces outside of these narratives at least as much as they are by the words within them. Two forces which inform both the reconstruction and the analysis deserve attention here. First, the author's personal experience as a classroom teacher has been influential in the direction of her research agenda as well as in analysis of qualitative data. On-going discourse about teaching throughout graduate work helped me recognize the absence of this type of professional discourse while I was a classroom teacher. The collegiality I found in graduate school provided opportunities to reflect on my work and grow as a qualitative researcher and teaching professional. The value of these relationships for my personal practice clearly influences the direction of this analysis. A second force informing the analysis of these narratives is related to basic theoretical assumptions. "Post" critical theory both uncovers the hegemonic in schools and also reveals spaces where teachers' voices are heard. The analysis presented in this article assumes the power of the state in determining school structure and proceeds to acknowledge teacher agency and voice in shifting that structure and thus impacting school culture. Culture is emergent and is continuously in flux. This statement holds true for the culture of schools despite the image of the rigid power structure and conservative school culture portrayed in critical educational research. Structural theory has promoted a base of critical ethnography in education which portrays images of school structure and the marginalization of teachers and students within this structure. The inequitable power structure described in critical education research leaves little room for the evolving nature of school culture and the active role of both teachers and students in the continuous construction and reconstruction of this culture. The image of the school as an egg carton portrays teachers who are isolated from each other and powerless in impacting progressive change in schools. The power of the state and the silencing of teachers within the hegemonic discourse of schools is a fundamental piece of structural critical theory. As stated, this perspective in critical theory does not provide space for the teacher agency clearly documented in poststructural research. Still, structural critical theory is useful and should not be neglected. While postmodern theory provides a lens through which we see agency of the oppressed and recognize the inherent bias in the limited perspective of much critical theory, the two perspectives should be integrated rather than treated as oppositional and mutually exclusive. Michael Apple and Anita Oliver (1998) argue that critical educational studies would benefit from an integrative approach in terms of theory, emphasizing both "the power of the state and the ideological currents within common sense and the power of cultural movements from below" (p. 142). The "post" critical construction and analysis of teachers' stories presented in this chapter recognizes the hegemonic in teachers' experiences in schools, but also challenges the image of teacher as silenced within this structure. The stories of beginning teachers provide insight into the ingredients which support the active practice of teachers in the construction and reconstruction of school culture. Preservice teacher education programs which have continued to distinguish course work from field work, assume a fixed power structure in schools and neglect to help teachers develop the tools necessary to be informed agents in the development of school culture. These forces inform the analysis of stories reconstructed from the narratives of two beginning teachers. The preservice experiences of these two "successful" teachers indicates that success is related to the degree of autonomy and collegiality, characteristics essential to being a professional. …