Discourse Power And Resistance

This edited collection is an eclectic and provocative volume taken from presentations that reflect the scholarship of the inaugural AQR/ DPR Down Under conference that was held in Cairns in 2011 in Australia. This was a ground-breaking conference that brought together scholars, researchers and practitioners from across Australia, UK, Japan, Italy, Finland, New Zealand, Luxembourg, South Africa, Vietnam, Malaysia, Tanzania and Mexico. The theme of the conference represented at the conference and in this volume was that of: Politicizing Qualitative Research. Delegates presented papers that sought to challenge research practices that too often can delegitimize Other ways of knowing. Confronting, disrupting and resisting the epistemological ‘common sense’ way of doing research within the academy can be a risky business and is often a fraught and contested endeavor. However, as the papers in this volume illustrate, contestation promises opportunities for re-perceiving, re-interpreting, and productively disrupting the orthodoxies of disciplinarity. – ‘Many thanks to Ignacio Rojas whose patient assistance and expertise as an artist in designing the cover proved invaluable in bringing this book to print.’

This edited collection is an eclectic and provocative volume taken from presentations that reflect the scholarship of the inaugural AQR/ DPR Down Under conference that was held in Cairns in 2011 in Australia. This was a ground-breaking conference that brought together scholars, researchers and practitioners from across Australia, UK, Japan, Italy, Finland, New Zealand, Luxembourg, South Africa, Vietnam, Malaysia, Tanzania and Mexico. The theme of the conference represented at the conference and in this volume was that of: Politicizing Qualitative Research. Delegates presented papers that sought to challenge research practices that too often can delegitimize Other ways of knowing. Confronting, disrupting and resisting the epistemological 'common sense' way of doing research within the academy can be a risky business and is often a fraught and contested endeavor. However, as the papers in this volume illustrate, contestation promises opportunities for re-perceiving, re-interpreting, and productively disrupting the orthodoxies of disciplinarity. - 'Many thanks to Ignacio Rojas whose patient assistance and expertise as an artist in designing the cover proved invaluable in bringing this book to print.'

This fifth volume in the Discourse, Power, Resistance series considers how teachers and learners are under relentless pressure to conform their professional identity to a model imposed by policymakers. The book deals with the fundamental question facing teachers and learners worldwide: who are we, what are we supposed to be doing, why. Policymakers offer stultifying answers to these questions, based on a narrow, instrumental view of education that is viewed by teachers and learners with growing anger and dismay. What is to be done? The official view - and the discourse through which that view is articulated - is shown in this book to be weighty and vacuous at the same time - a massively ponderous discursive absurdity. Consequently, this book goes on to offer wide ranging and serious strategies of resistance The book encourages faculty and students in universities and partner institutions involved in teaching, training, and/or carrying out research in all areas of education. It will appeal to staff and students involved in training for compulsory and post-compulsory/vocational education and lifelong learning, and to lecturers in all areas of Higher Education with an interest in issues of policy and identity formation. The contributors are David Selby, Cheryl Hunt, Christina Schwabenland, Eileen Honan, Mhairi Mackie, James Avis, Anne-Marie Bathmaker, Yota Dimitriadi, and Michael Watts.

"Play fool, to catch wise."--proverb of Jamaican slaves Confrontations between the powerless and powerful are laden with deception--the powerless feign deference and the powerful subtly assert their mastery. Peasants, serfs, untouchables, slaves, laborers, and prisoners are not free to speak their minds in the presence of power. These subordinate groups instead create a secret discourse that represents a critique of power spoken behind the backs of the dominant. At the same time, the powerful also develop a private dialogue about practices and goals of their rule that cannot be openly avowed. In this book, renowned social scientist James C. Scott offers a penetrating discussion both of the public roles played by the powerful and powerless and the mocking, vengeful tone they display off stage--what he terms their public and hidden transcripts. Using examples from the literature, history, and politics of cultures around the world, Scott examines the many guises this interaction has taken throughout history and the tensions and contradictions it reflects. Scott describes the ideological resistance of subordinate groups--their gossip, folktales, songs, jokes, and theater--their use of anonymity and ambiguity. He also analyzes how ruling elites attempt to convey an impression of hegemony through such devices as parades, state ceremony, and rituals of subordination and apology. Finally, he identifies--with quotations that range from the recollections of American slaves to those of Russian citizens during the beginnings of Gorbachev's glasnost campaign--the political electricity generated among oppressed groups when, for the first time, the hidden transcript is spoken directly and publicly in the face of power. His landmark work will revise our understanding of subordination, resistance, hegemony, folk culture, and the ideas behind revolt.