Theorising Futurities 11 Alexa Athelstan and Rosemary Deller

Home , It Gets Better Project

Graduate Journal of Social Science July 2012, Vol. 9, Issue 2

Editors: [email protected]

Alexa Athelstan, University of Leeds, UK Rosemary Deller, University of Manchester, UK

Book Review Editor: Melissa Kelly, Uppsala University, SE [email protected]

Copy-Editor: Caroline Starkey, University of Leeds, UK Megan O’Branski, Newcastle University, UK

Web-Editor: Robert Kulpa, Birkbeck College, London, UK

Liaison and Board Coordinator Officer: Adam Pearson, Durham University

Financial Officer: Lia Kinane, Lancaster University, UK

Design and Layout: Amanda Conroy, London School of Economics, UK

The Graduate Journal of Social Science (ISSN: 1572-3763) is an open-access online journal focusing on methodological issues of interdisciplinary relevance. The journal pub- lishes three issues per year, two of which are regular thematic editions organised by the in-house editors and one of which is a special edition organised by guest editors, which brings together innovative and instructive papers from all disciplines. GJSS welcomes submissions from both senior and junior academics, thus providing a forum of publication and exchange among different generations engaged in interdisciplinary research. GJSS is published by EBSCO publishing. For subscription inquiries, requests, and changes, please visit: http://gjss.org/index.php?/ Contact-us/Graduate-Journal-of-Social-Science.html. or Email: [email protected]

All the content and downloads are published under Creative Commons license

Contributors 5

Editorial Theorising Futurities 11 Alexa Athelstan and Rosemary Deller

Precarity and Privilege: A Response to Linda Lund Pedersen and Barbara Samaluk 19 Gwendolyn Beetham and Melissa Fernández Arrigoitía

PHDs of the UK, Unite! Your Future Depends on It 24 Jenny Thatcher

Articles The Coming Crisis? Some Questions for the Future of Empirical Sociology in the UK 40 Sam de Boise

Future Subjects? Education, Activism and Parental Practices 65 Yvette Taylor

Precariousness and Futurity: the Example of Subcontracted Cleaning Workers in the Banking and Finance Industry in London 86 Gerald Koessl

Melancholia and the Radical Particular: Against Archer’s Realism 109 Thomas Allen

Holding on to a Lifeline: Desiring Queer Futurities in Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods 131 Hwa Yi Xing

The Future of Slavery: From Cultural Trauma to Ethical Remembrance 153 Tracey Walker

(De/con)structing Political Narratives: Hannah Arendt and Jacques Derrida on Crafting a Positive Politics 179 Caitlin Boland

Towards Narrative Futuring in Psychology: Becoming Resilient by Imagining the Future 203 Anneke Sools and Jan Hein Mooren Book Reviews Why Stories Matter: The Political Grammar of Feminist Theory by Clare Hemmings 227 Allison Kinsey Robb

The Promise of Happiness by Sara Ahmed. 231 Julia Downes

The Queer Art of Failure by Judith Jack Halberstam 235 Marianna Szczygielska

Children of the Sun: An Ethnographic Study of the Street Children of Latin America by Jerry Hollingsworth 240 Christian Rojas Gaspar CONTRIBUTORS

Thomas Allen studied English and Philosophy at Newcastle University and at the University of Sussex. He is currently living in Berlin and preparing papers on Adorno’s aesthetics, as well as an extended thesis on the Frankfurt School and photography. Photographic attempts can be witnessed at http://www.tomallenphotography.net./ Email: t.callen1@ya- hoo.co.uk.

Alexa Athelstan ([email protected]) is a University of Leeds Research Scholarship funded PhD student at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gen- der Studies, supervised by Dr. Shirley Anne Tate and Professor Ian Law from the Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies. Her PhD research theorises queer, alternative and subversive modes of feminine embodiment and subjectivity in everyday life. Further research interests pertain to gender, feminist and queer theory, critical femininity studies, everyday experiences and representations of embodiment and identity, intersectional approaches to power and identity, visual methodologies, as well as discursive formations and daily practices of age and ageism. Alexa was one of the editors of the October 2011 GJSS special edition ‘Thriving on the Edge of Cuts: Inspirations and Innovations in Gender Studies’, GJSS Vol. 8 (2). Currently, Alexa Athelstan edits the Graduate Journal of Social Science in collaboration with Rosemary Deller (Manchester University). Email: [email protected]

Gwendolyn Beetham received her PhD from the Gender Institute at the London School of Economics, where her work examined the reproduction of gender stereotypes in international development programming. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she does consulting for gender justice organizations, edits the column The Academic Feminist at Feministing.com and participates in feminist, queer and food justice activism. She has published work in The International Handbook on Gender and Poverty, the Gender and Development Journal, The Scholar & Femi- nist Online, The Women’s Movement Today: An Encyclopaedia of Third Wave Feminism, and written for the blogs University of Venus and Girl w/ Pen. She has work forthcoming in Gender: The Key Concepts, Women’s Studies International Forum, and the SAGE Handbook of Human Rights. Email: [email protected]. Caitlin Boland recently graduated from the University of St Andrews with an MLitt in International Political Theory with Distinction. At St. An- drews, her dissertation was awarded the Sir Menzies Campbell prize for the best Masters dissertation in the School of International Relations. Be- fore pursuing graduate studies, Caitlin received her Bachelor’s Degree in Government with Honors from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. In the autumn of 2012, she will be attending law school in her home state of Montana so she may pursue her joint career interests in advo- cacy and the philosophy of law. Email: [email protected]

Sam de Boise is a doctoral research student in the School of Sociol- ogy and Social Policy at the University of Leeds. His research focuses primarily on Western constructions of masculinities, specifically exploring how notions of rationality and emotionality relate to historic and contemporary discourses around music. Having worked previously in commercial sector research, he is also interested in questions of application of theory, ethics and methodologies to empirical sociological enquiry. Email: [email protected]

Rosemary Deller is a first year PhD student in the School of Arts, His- tories and Cultures at the University of Manchester. Her PhD research investigates the transformation of living flesh into dead meat in a range of cultural texts drawn from the sixties to the present day. This forms part of her broader interest in feminist, gender and queer theory, questions of embodiment, and visual culture. She has published in Feminist Theory and in the edited collection Queers in American Popular Culture. Rose- mary previously worked as liaison officer for GJSS between 2010-2011. Email: [email protected]

Julia Downes is a Research Associate in the School of Applied Social Sciences at Durham University where she is currently working on a longitudinal study into the impact of community domestic violence perpetrator programmes on the safety and freedom of women and children. Ju- lia has a BSc in Psychology, MA in Gender Studies (Research) and PhD in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies from the University of Leeds. Julia’s ESRC-funded PhD critically examined contemporary queer feminist activist music cultures in the UK including riot grrrl, Ladyfest and grassroots DIY collectives. She has lectured on popular music and society, feminist cultural activism and queer girl cultures at the University of Leeds, Uni- versity of Derby, University of Birmingham and Durham University. Julia has been active in DIY queer feminist cultural activism for over 10 years

within Manifesta, Ladyfest Leeds, rock camp for girls UK, the Star and Shadow Cinema, even clean hands cause damage and as a drummer in the bands The Holy Terror, Fake Tan, Vile Vile Creatures and the Physi- cists. Her forthcoming edited collection Women Make Noise: Girl Bands from the Modettes to the Modern will be published by Supernova books in September 2012. Email: [email protected]

Melissa Fernández Arrigoitía is a Research Officer at the LSE research centre in the London School of Economics, where she carries out investigations to do with the capital’s social, economic and political life. She has taught gender and politics at Queen Mary University and is a sessional lecturer at the Department of Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck for the Cul- ture Diaspora Ethnicity and Culture Community Identity MA programmes, where she is also an MSc dissertation supervisor. Melissa has degrees in Philosophy and Women’s Studies (BA, Tufts University), Gender and International Development (MSc, LSE) and a PhD on the political, material and symbolic co-productions of public housing in Puerto Rico (LSE, Sociology-Cities). She is interested in interdisciplinary approaches to processes of urban ‘othering’, critical geographies of home and architecture, and the imports of gender, race and postcolonial theories to cultural and urban studies.Email: [email protected]

Christian Rojas Gaspar is currently pursuing a MA in Sociology at Queen’s University. His research interests include criminology, street populations, qualitative research design and irregular migration. He is currently volunteering with an NGO in Mexico over the summer, in order to explicate: (1) the reasons why street youth leave home;(2) their criminal activities; (3) relationships; and (4) reasons for street permanence, through a criminological framework. Email: [email protected]

Hwa Yi Xing is a queer-trans-feminist artist and activist based in Buda- pest, Hungary. Much of yx’s work right now is closely linked to the activities of the Radical Queer Affinity Collective –http:// rqac.wordpress.com. See also http://hyxdesign.tumblr.com/

Gerald Koessl is currently working on his PhD thesis, which explores new temporalities of working lives in the banking and finance industry in London. In his thesis he examines permanently employed banking staff as well as subcontracted service-sector workers such as cleaners, securi- ties and caterers in terms of how each group is thinking about their future working lives and how this relates to questions of uncertainty. Before he started my PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London, he completed a BA and MA at the University of Vienna in the subjects Sociology and Political Sciences, developing a particular focus on quantitative and qualitative research methods. Gerald Koessl is also working as a researcher at Gold- smiths in a project on the impacts of public sector modernisation on law centres in the UK, exploring the motivations and ethos of people working in law centres and the dilemmas and challenges law centre workers are facing in the current funding climate. Email: [email protected]

Jan Hein Mooren is assistant professor in the psychology of the meaning of life and in methods of humanist counseling at the University for Hu- manistics in Utrecht, The Netherlands. He has published several books and articles on these subjects, his latest being Verbeelding en Besta- ansoriëntatie [Imagination and orientation towards existence] (2011).

Allison Kinsey Robb is a PhD Candidate in English and American Stud- ies at the University of Manchester. She completed her M.A. in Art History from the University of Manchester and has a B.F.A. from Syracuse Uni- versity in New York. Her research interests include: feminist art, feminist theory, identity, gender and sexuality studies. Email: [email protected]

Anneke Sools (PhD) is assistant professor in narrative psychology and qualitative methodology at the University of Twente (department of Psy- chology, Health, and Technology) in Enschede, The Netherlands. She is the co-founder of the Network for Narrative Research Netherlands (NNN) and the co-founder of the Life Story Lab at Twente University. Her current research concerns the development of narrative theory and methodology in mental health research. Email: [email protected]

Marianna Szczygielska is a PhD student in the Gender Studies Depart- ment of the Central European University in Budapest. Her background is in philosophy and gender studies and she is interested in posthumanism, queer theory and the philosophy of science. Her current project, entitled “Queer(ing) Naturecultures: The Study of Zoo Animals”, examines how the concepts of nature, animality, and humanness have been and continue to be constructed in relation to sexuality through the specific site of the modern zoological garden. Apart from academic work Marianna is also a feminist-queer activist. Email: [email protected]

Yvette Taylor is Professor in Social and Policy Studies and Head of the

Weeks Centre for Social and Policy Research, London South Bank Uni- versity. She has held a Fulbright Scholarship at Rutgers University (2010- 11). Books include Fitting Into Place? Class and Gender Geographies and Temporalities (Ashgate, 2012); Lesbian and Gay Parenting: Secur- ing Social and Educational Capitals (Palgrave, 2009) and Working-Class Lesbian Life: Classed Outsiders (Palgrave, 2007). Edited collections include Educational Diversity (Palgrave, 2012); Sexualities: Reflections and Futures (2012); Theorizing Intersectionality and Sexuality (Palgrave, 2010) and Classed Intersections: Spaces, Selves, Knowledges (Ashgate, 2010). She has articles in a range of journals including British Journal of the Sociology of Education, European Societies, Sociological Research Online, Sexualities, and Feminist Theory. Yvette is currently working on an ESRC standard grant ‘Making space for queer identifying religious youth’ and recently completed an ESRC (2007-2009) funded project ‘From the Coal Face to the Car Park? Intersections of Class and Gender in the North East of England’. She regularly blogs on the British Socio- logical Association’s (BSA) Sociology and the Cuts and the Gender and Education Association (GEA) websites and is director of the MA Gender and Sexuality at the Weeks Centre. Follow Yvette @YvetteTaylor0 and see the Weeks Centre for Social and Policy Research blog at: http:// weekscentreforsocialandpolicyresearch.wordpress.com/

Jenny Thatcher is one of the co-establishers and co-convenors for the BSA Bourdieu Study Group (http://www.britsoc.co.uk/specialisms/ Bourdieu.htm) along with Dr Nicola Ingram (University of Bristol) and Dr Ciaran Burke (Queen’s University Belfast). She is interested in issues of social class inequality and in particular how they are reproduced through the education system especially given the increasing marketisation of education. Her PhD focuses on Polish migration to London and Notting- ham and looks at how Polish parents choose secondary schools for their children. The research explores their narratives and their perceptions of social divisions in Britain as well as what awareness the Polish migrants hold regarding issues of ‘race’, ethnicity and social class and whether their understandings of these issues influence their interaction with the quasi-market education system in the two different cities. It was this focus on how the education system can intensify and maintain positions of social domination that led to her concern about what is currently happening in the higher education sector and her co-founding of The Postgraduate Workers Association. She often use a Bourdieusian framework to understand social reproduction in education as she is interested in the significance of class distinctions and cultural capital as a mechanism for social reproduction rather than simply economic capital. This can be seen through the choices students will make when deciding which university to attend even though nearly all universities shall be charging £9,000 a year. Email: [email protected]

Tracey Walker completed her Masters degree in Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. She is currently involved in community and social diversity research, working with public sector clients to help them make more authentic connections with marginalised groups. Trac- ey’s wider research interests include Race and Psychoanalysis, Critical Whiteness, Cultural Histories and Black Subjectivity. Email: tracey_walk- [email protected] Editorial: Theorising Futurities

Alexa Athelstan and Rosemary Deller

‘Theorising Futurities’, the July that are increasingly marginalised 2012 edition of the Graduate Jour- by the rise of neo-liberalism. Yet, nal of Social Science, is inspired despite these pre-existing sites of by the degree to which concerns perceived instability and loss, ‘cri- regarding ‘the future’ have gained sis’ and social change seem to have a pressing importance. This has gained palpable meaning following been accompanied by the concur- the global financial crisis of 2008 rent presence of both a language that has continued to dominate dis- and material conditions of ‘crisis.’ course across Europe (and beyond) Frequently, one finds that talk of cri- from the level of the everyday to na- sis and ‘the future’ appears intrinsi- tional and international policy and cally coupled; to speak of a ‘broken’ governance. present seems to encourage one As well as intruding upon mul- to extrapolate from the situation of tiple layers of contemporary social today to consider the terms of the life, the landscape of ‘crisis’ has impending future. Of course, it could also become particularly implicated be argued that the ‘crisis’ and ‘loss’ in discussions surrounding recent found in the discursive landscape of changes to the University as an in- the social sciences are nothing new. stitution (see Calhoun 2006). While They are visible in Jean-François many of the structural changes to Lyotard’s (1984) influential argu- the University find their roots in the ment that we are living amidst the rise of neo-liberalism in the eighties, loss of grand religious and ideo- the economic recession and auster- logical narratives with the advent of ity measures recently imposed by post-modernism (a claim cogently many European governments have discussed in the paper of Anneke been accompanied by – and have Sools and Jan Hein Mooren), in the arguably even legitimised – exten- nineties debates surrounding an ap- sive budget cuts, the growing intru- parent ‘crisis’ of masculinity (see sion of government into academic Robinson 2000; Morgan 2006), in research and funding as well as the growing fears surrounding climate increased precariousness of aca- change, and in Wendy Brown’s demic labour. Indeed, the implica- (1999) exploration of ‘left melan- tions of this changing climate are choly’ within left-wing movements so great that Paul Mason (2012), in

Graduate Journal of Social Science July 2012, Vol. 9, Issue 2 © 2012 by Graduate Journal of Social Science. All Rights Reserved. ISSN: 1572-3763 12 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 a Guardian article published earlier labour were also brought powerful- this month, saw fit to describe the ly into the spotlight by Linda Lund ‘typical’ student of today as a ‘grad- Pedersen and Barbara Samaluk uate without a future.’ While this (2012) in the previous edition ‘Criti- phrase was used by Mason during cal Whiteness Studies Methodolo- a lecture at Birmingham University, gies’ (Vol. 9, Issue 1). Responding it nonetheless speaks to the rising to Lund Pedersen and Samaluk’s number of unemployed graduates timely provocation to direct atten- across Europe and beyond. tion to the unpaid labour increasing- However, as a number of papers ly normalised within the academy, included in this edition highlight, the one of the aims of this edition has precarious status of graduates is been to continue this dialogue. This not only something that lies in the has been enabled by the reflections future of students after they fin- of Gwendolyn Beetham and Me- ish university. It has also entered lissa Fernández Arrigiotía in their the academy as an economic real- essay ‘Precarity and Privilege: ity for many graduate students and A Response to Linda Lund Ped- their academic colleagues. This ersen and Barbara Samaluk’ and transformation of the University Jenny Thatcher in her position pa- consequently threatens to further per ‘PhDs of the UK Unite! Your entrench class hierarchies within Future Depends On It’. Writing in the academy by greatly increasing reaction to Lund Pedersen and Sa- the financial burdens placed upon maluk, Beetham and Fernández those entering academia, whilst Arrigiotía draw attention to the ac- concurrently affecting the research tivities of those seeking to challenge and working conditions of many cur- the institutionalised silences around rently situated in the social sciences unpaid academic work. Highlight- and other related fields. Such a dis- ing similar issues, Thatcher’s article cussion draws upon a dialogue that particularly discusses the formation has woven a course through recent of the Postgraduate Worker’s Asso- editions of the GJSS under the edi- ciation (PGWA) across a number of torship of Gwendolyn Beetham and British universities as an emergent Melissa Fernández Arrigiotía in ‘In- site of student activism and protest terdisciplinarity and the New Univer- against the growing exploitation of sity’ (Vol. 8, Issue 1) and by special labour within the academy. Sam de editors Alexa Athelstan, Cassandra Boise’s article ‘The Coming Cri- McLuckie, Liz Mills, Angelica Pesa- sis? Some Questions for the Fu- rini and Mercedes Pöll in ‘Thriving ture of Empirical Sociology in the on the Edge of Cuts’ (Vol. 8, Issue UK’ offers additional insight into the 2). The implications of such chang- manner in which these changes – es to the conditions of academic in particular the growing emphasis Athelstan and Deller: Editorial 13 upon ‘impact’ as a crucial criterion can be compounded by intersect- for research excellence – are also ing collisions of racial, classed and affecting the status, study and meth- gendered positionings and histo- odologies of empirical sociology in ries. We consequently need to inter- the UK, giving a valuable concrete rogate any self-evident or totalising example of the kind of disciplinary narratives of ‘crisis’ to ask instead transformations that are being en- how futures – rendered necessarily gendered by recent changes to Uni- multiple – are represented, debated versity structures. and played out across the contem- Mason’s article seems to confirm porary social world. that a whole swath of young gradu- Certainly then, this edition asks ates are part of a generation being how social scientists theorise fu- written off as just another addition- turities in times of social change al cost of the continued recession. and how these dynamics affect our Nonetheless, this edition is wary of epistemological and methodologi- positing the experience of a particu- cal approaches. However, Yvette lar environment, institution or social Taylor’s article ‘Future Subjects? group as having a singular, univer- Education, Activism and Parental sal or prioritised relation to the fu- Practices’ suggests that the very ture that can be generalised to ap- ability to discuss ‘the future’ and ply or stand in for all segments of participate in narratives of future be- society at once. In other words, as ing, becoming and belonging (how- self-reflexive academics, we need to ever thwarted they may currently be aware of how such experiences seem) are themselves bound up in fit into a broader social context. Ma- intensely real nexuses of power and son (2012) himself provides some privilege. Turning her critical lens evidence of this when he suggests on the University itself and the posi- that ‘the graduate without a future tion of the mobile academic, Taylor is a human expression of an eco- draws attention to the intricate class nomic problem: the west’s model is hierarchies that must be unpacked broken’, thus putting forward a very in order to uncover the pressing specific experience of impending economic and material conditions ‘crisis’ as paradigmatic of a broader which cut subjects off from access to systemic collapse. Yet, the sugges- the future as a site of meaning. Ger- tion that the graduate forms the ‘hu- ald Koessl’s article ‘Precarious- man expression’ of the recession not ness and Futurity: The Example only risks obscuring the privileges of Subcontracted Cleaning Work- that can be found in academia. As ers in the Banking and Finance Beetham and Fernández Arrigiotía Industry in London’ provides highlight, it may also elide the com- such an exploration by analysing plex ways in which precariousness interviews with cleaning staff in the 14 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

City of London and Canary Wharf, companying discourses of ‘crisis’ whose precarious working condi- are available to some subjects at tions and low wages make it difficult the expense of others. to plan for the future. Thomas Al- While dialogue surrounding ‘cri- len’s discussion of Margaret Archer sis’ often positions it as something in dialogue with Lars Von Trier’s inherently to be avoided, solved or (2011) film Melancholia in his paper ‘made better’ through future action, Melancholia and the Radical Par- this edition also seeks to break open ticular: Against Archer’s Realism debates about the kind of futures offers an imaginative collision of that are seen to be productive and, philosophical critique, filmic analy- indeed, the very notion that it is only sis and discussion of the experience ‘productive’ futures that we must of ‘crisis’ for a range of ‘real-world’ strive for. The so-called ‘anti-social subjects. Allen parallels Von Trier’s turn’ found in the work of a number of apocalyptic narrative with the way in contemporary queer theorists (see which relations of alienated capital Edelman 2004; Halberstam 2005) heavily impact – if not outright tear has, for instance, involved explicit asunder – many people’s ability to explorations of ‘failure.’ Arguing that find meaning in a conceivable fu- queer subjects are always-already ture. These authors thus draw atten- seen as having ‘failed’ according to tion to narratives that operate along dominant heteronormative narra- exclusionary grounds whereby the tives, Sara Ahmed’s (2010) recent future is always-already curtailed for work The Promise of Happiness, subjects marginalised along inter- reviewed here by Julia Downes, secting lines of class and ethnicity. examines what it means to ‘fail’ to These discussions are furthermore be happy or pursue happiness ac- complemented by Christian Ro- cording to heteronormative para- jas Gaspar’s review of Jerry Hol- digms. Furthermore, Judith (Jack) lingworth’s (2008) Children of the Halberstam’s (2011) The Queer Art Sun: An Ethnographic Study of of Failure, reviewed by Marianna Latin America. Rojas Gaspar’s ex- Szczygielska, uses an imaginative ploration of Hollingsworth’s study of bricolage of cultural texts that fail street children in Mexico and Peru to pursue (re)productive pathways may well provide another concrete integral to the functioning of West- site through which to consider such ern capitalist structures. While not temporal exclusions. This prompts explicitly drawing upon this work, us to consequently suggest that Allen’s contribution to this edition networks infused with power, privi- shares Halberstam’s attentiveness lege and precariousness need to to the link between capitalism and be examined in order to understand futurities by suggesting that a rela- how notions of ‘the future’ and action of ‘negativity’ towards the fu- Athelstan and Deller: Editorial 15 ture may be essential for subjects of these ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ fu- in order to emancipate themselves tures. from the alienation of wage labour While this edition certainly places found under contemporary West- emphasis upon ‘the future’ as the ern capitalism. The works of Ahmed site of inquiry, many of the authors and Halberstam, taken alongside featured invite us to consider how Allen’s article, prompt one to ask: the future functions as one tempo- must one always strive to produce ral trajectory among others, nec- ‘positive’ or ‘progressive’ futures in essarily in dialogue with both the the social sciences? Moreover, if present and the past. This need to a ‘positive’ relation to the future is carefully interrogate the narratives seen as interwoven with the tenets that one tells about the past in order of neo-liberalism and its accumula- to engender a particular concep- tive reproductive drives, what can tualisation of the future is found in come out of a social science driven Clare Hemmings (2011) book Why by ‘negativity’? As evidence of the Stories Matter, reviewed by Alli- highly dialogic nature of this edi- son Kinsey Robb, which focuses tion, the work of Taylor and Yi Xing particularly on the way in which the Hwa seeks to temper the idea that history of feminist theory has been the divisive and alienating nature framed by feminist scholars. Caitlin of capitalism necessarily demands Boland’s and Tracey Walker’s ar- a turn towards absolute negativity. ticles also suggest that the process While she discusses the influence of thinking through futurities is not of theorists such as Lee Edelman merely rooted in extrapolations from (2004) and Halberstam in her essay the present in a forward-flung line of Holding on to a Lifeline: Desiring motion; rather, they look at the ways Queer Futurities in Jeanette Win- in which our histories – more pre- terson’s The Stone Gods, Hwa re- cisely, the telling of these histories – mains focused on queer futurities as can be instrumental in how we posi- enabling orientations that can open tion and make sense of the present up new horizons of desire, possibil- and the future. Bringing Hannah Ar- ity and community. Taylor moreover endt and Jacques Derrida into dia- suggests that the privileged mecha- logue in her article ‘(De/con)struct- nism of choice involved in ‘opting ing Political Narratives: Hannah out’ of certain futures can contrast Arendt and Jacques Derrida on deeply with those already posi- crafting a positive politics’, Cait- tioned as outside of the system and lin Boland suggests that meaning thus peripheral to these discourses is actively constructed, rather than of ‘the future.’ The papers brought inherently and passively present, together in this edition thus offer in the stories we tell. This indicates varied investments and traversals that we must acknowledge respon- 16 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 sibility when choosing the narratives the spotlight in order to unpack the that we wish to propel us into vari- assumptions that lie behind this in- ous futures. Tracey Walker’s article terwoven discourse of crisis and fu- ‘The Future of Slavery: From Cul- turity. Admittedly, such discussions tural Trauma to Ethical Remem- include their omissions, gaps and brance’ shares Boland’s invest- silences. This edition, for instance, ment in the role of literature, yet her does not feature articles that relate discussion of the legacy of slavery to the ecological ‘crisis’ and environ- in contemporary Britain highlights mental considerations of the future the need to become more critical that form a particularly pressing par- of the attachments we make to cer- allel to many of the issues explored tain narratives concerning this his- in this edition (see Ackerman 2009; tory. Walker argues that we need to Donovan and Hudson 2011). Other move beyond a paradigm of trauma such omissions may also be noticed and its related trappings towards by our readers. Yet, if the current an ethical remembrance of slavery landscape of crisis seems to impact grounded in alternative narratives upon our relation to our histories, and practices: vital in a society that our research, to society and to each still seeks to clothe the most pain- other, we hope this edition shall ful legacies of the imperialist past in prompt us to ask how we can look at silence. In addition, Anneke Sools’ and examine this elusive, but none- and Jan Hein Mooren’s article ‘To- theless intensely present question wards Narrative Futuring in Psy- of ‘the future’ in order to fundamen- chology: Becoming Resilient by tally reshape these very relations. Imagining the Future’ discusses To conclude, we would further- a narrative psychology project cur- more like to invite readers to contin- rently being undertaken in the life- ue dialogues surrounding questions story lab at the University of Twente, of precariousness in academia and the Netherlands, which invites par- beyond. If you would like to contrib- ticipants to write letters as a means ute a short essay or position paper, of cultivating ‘resilience’ to crisis and please contact the editors at edi- social change. These essays con- [email protected]. sequently share a focus on narratives and stories as an illuminating Acknowledgements and vital means of considering the We would like to thank all members available framings of the future. of the editorial team. We would like Inspired, then, by the feeling of an to thank Caroline Starkey and Megan overriding ‘crisis’ and the accompa- O’Branski for the speed and dedication with which they managed to copy-edit a nying drama of social change, this particularly large batch of essays. Many edition seeks to place this seem- thanks also to Amanda Conroy for the ingly palpable ‘broken’ reality under hard work and enthusiasm with which Athelstan and Deller: Editorial 17 she always approaches an extremely Economics. New York; London: time-consuming role, and to Robert Zed Books. Kulpa for his technical know-how that ensures that we are able to publish Ahmed, Sara. 2010. The Promise of every edition online and on time. We Happiness. Durham and London: would like to thank Melissa Kelly for Duke University Press. all of her hard work in co-ordinating an inspiring book review section that Athelstan, Alexa, Cassandra McLuckie, complements the themes of the edition. Liz Mills, Angelica Pesarini and Thank you to Lia Kinane and her work Mercedes Pöll. 2011. Thriving on as our finance officer. Furthermore, we the Edge of Cuts. Graduate Jour- would also like to thank Adam Pearson nal of Social Science 8 (2): 1-179. for his role in contacting and organising student reviewers as well as in circu- Beetham, Gwendolyn and Melissa lating publicity for this edition since its Fernández Arrigiotía. 2011. Inter- inception. On that note, we must also disciplinarity and the New Univer- thank all the student and academic re- sity. Graduate Journal of Social viewers who generously gave their time Science 8 (1): 1-117. to provide our authors with thorough and constructive criticism: something Brown, Wendy. 1999. Resisting Left which has no doubt proved invaluable Melancholy. Boundary 2 26 (3): in producing the edition published here. 19-27. http://muse.jhu.edu/jour- In particular, we would like to express nals/boundary/v026/26.3brown. our thanks to Mercedes Pöll for find- html (accessed 7 July 2012). ing the time to copy-edit this editorial at such short notice. We would also like to Calhoun, Craig. May/June 2006. Is the thank the editors of the previous edition University in Crisis? Society: 8-18. on Critical Whiteness, namely Barbara http://www.nyu.edu/ipk/files/is_ Samaluk and Linda Lund Pedersen, the_university_in_crisis_calhoun. for their foresight in raising the issue of pdf (accessed 10 July 2012). precarity. Their inspiring and provoca- tive essay has inspired us to continue Donovan, Paul and Julie Hudson. what we hope will prove an influential 2011. From Red to Green? How dialogue on this pressing issue. With the Financial Credit Crunch Could this in mind, we would like to particu- Bankrupt the Environment. Lon- larly extend our gratitude to Melissa don. Earthscan Ltd. Fernández Arrigiotía and Gwendolyn Beetham not only for contributing to this Edelman, Lee. 2004. No Future: Queer debate, but also for offering their gener- Theory and the Death Drive. Duke osity and time in ensuring and support- University Press. ing our transition to the new editorship. Halberstam, Judith. 2005. The Anti-So- References cial Turn in Queer Studies. Gradu- Ackerman, Frank. 2009. Can We Afford ate Journal of Social Science, 5 the Future? Deciphering Climate (2): 140-156. 18 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

White Masculinity in Crisis, New Halberstam, Judith Jack. 2011. The York: Columbia University Press. Queer Art of Failure. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Hemmings, Clare. 2011. Why Stories Matter: The Political Grammar of Feminist Theory. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Hollingsworth, Jerry. 2008. Children of the Sun: An Ethnographic Study in the Children of Latin America. New Castle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Lyotard, Jean-François. 1984. The Post-Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: Uni- versity of Minnesota Press.

Mason, Paul. 2012. The graduates of 2012 will survive only in the cracks of our economy. The Guardian (online). http://www.guardian.co.uk/ commentisfree/2012/jul/01/graduates-2012-survive-in-cracks-econ omy?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETT XT9038 (accessed 7 July 2012).

Morgan, David. 2006. The Crisis in Masculinity. In Kathy Davis, Mary Evans and Judith Lorber eds. The Handbook of Gender and Wom- en’s Studies. London and Thou- sand Oaks: Sage Publications: 109-123.

Pedersen, Linda Lund and Barbara Sa- maluk. 2012. Precarious workers who made this special issue possible. Graduate Journal of Social Science 9 (1): 7-8.

Robinson, Sally. 2000. Marked Men: Precarity and Privilege: A Response to Linda Lund Pedersen and Barbara Samaluk

Gwendolyn Beetham, Brooklyn, USA Melissa Fernández Arrigoitía, London, UK

As former editors of the Graduate taking place as part of a political Journal of Social Science, we were system that has been decreasing asked by the current editors of the public funds directed at Higher Edu- journal to formulate a brief response cation institutions and, particularly, to the precursor to Volume 9, Issue 1 social science programmes. But it is – the special issue on Critical White- also a result of those same institu- ness. The piece, titled ‘Precarious tions which, in their efforts to secure workers that made this special is- the ever-decreasing pot of allocated sue possible’, was a reflection by funds, have been all too complacent the special editors, Linda Lund Ped- with these shifts and, in many cas- ersen and Barbara Samaluk (2012), es, supportive of acts that silence or on the ‘wage theft’ (in this case, of repress opposition to them. an estimated £24,000) that makes These factors are themselves journals like this one possible. embedded within a more ‘toxic’2 en- It is true, as Pedersen and Sa- vironment that is devaluing educa- maluk (2012) assert, that academia tion as a tool for critical thought and thrives on the unpaid labour of its inquiry while favouring a more prof- inhabitants – especially in this era of it-oriented and ‘impact’-driven mod- austerity. As our issue on the ‘cri- el of knowledge creation. This has sis’ in higher education (see Vol 8, translated, for instance, into depart- Issue 1) makes clear, however, this mental scrambles for REF3-rateable is not a new phenomenon, nor is it employees (that have been writing UK-specific. The lives of academics journal articles for free in efforts to are made precarious not only be- gain those points) at the expense cause of the decades-old tradition of others who have spent a greater of unpaid work, but also for the more amount of their time on teaching recent trends through which the in- commitments, now seen as sec- stitutions of academia are being ondary in the race to the top. In this eroded: for example, by a reliance equation, open access journals like on graduate teachers or adjuncts1, the GJSS and the work that goes while long-term or tenured positions into them inhabit a kind of existential become a thing of the past. This is paradox: they are losing their value

Graduate Journal of Social Science July 2012, Vol. 9, Issue 2 © 2012 by Graduate Journal of Social Science. All Rights Reserved. ISSN: 1572-3763 20 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 in a mainstream academic ‘market- a period when we both were also place’ that favours Thompson Re- working part-time and finishing our uter’s citation ‘Impact Factors’ (IF) PhDs – we know the pressures of while gaining greater currency in the over-working; the late nights, the lives of those concerned with open- pressure to produce, the feeling that ly challenging those very frame- you’re never really ‘off the clock’. works. Metrics like IF’s and REF But we also know the joys of the act as structuring devices through profession – the writing, the con- which the neoliberal market logic of versations with interesting people, ‘quantified control’ and competition the ability to do something that you successfully penetrate everyday truly love. And we also know that intellectual cultures. Their numeri- we all learn how to negotiate these cal imperative is multidimensional, different sides: learn to say ‘no’ to trickling down most perniciously into that additional book review; learn to individual academics’ lives through say ‘yes’ to a real weekend, an eight what some have aptly described as (okay, maybe ten) hour work day. an ‘affective somatic crisis’ (Burrows The sad part about the brilliance of 2011; Gill 2011): when our feelings full-time permanent academic posi- about our own (and others’) sense tions is that they are now few and of worth and intellectual value be- far between: the market is satu- come inextricably linked to the ab- rated, and the neoliberal logic that stract performance levels implied by overruns university culture shows these measurements. little sign of abating. As a result, for Recently, one of the author’s every person that is able to secure friends, who is currently finishing a job that allows her to do what she her PhD and thus ‘on the market’, loves, there are several who contin- was asked why she thought that ue to struggle with precarious posi- many of our contemporaries (and tions. For every PhD student who is elders) worked such long hours, for able to complete her studies, sever- little (or no) money, and at the risk al drop out of the PhD due to lack of of burn-out. She responded: ‘Be- funding, lack of institutional support, cause we love our jobs, and actu- and/or other setbacks. ally, to have a [full-time lectureship The fact that a significant portion or] tenured position is a really good of academic work is traditionally un- gig. We are so lucky to be doing paid – in the form of peer reviewing, what we’re doing that perhaps we attending lectures, and, yes, some- almost feel guilty, and so we have times even the editing of journals – to work extra hard to make up for does not make it right. In fact, what it; or at least make it sound like we we suggest is that this tradition is do.’ Having been the editors of the being silently transformed or trans- GJSS for over two years – during ferred into new forms of exploita- Beetham and Fernández: Precarity and Privilege 21 tion, masked as necessary towards carious work visible throughout the the ever-increasing measurements academy, including all kinds of event of success. We do find it interest- organization, reviewing, proposal ing, however, that there has been a writing, etc. and would further sug- lack of dialogue about the privilege gest that special attention be paid that one has to be in academia in to the scandalous and unexplored the first place. Though Pedersen profits being made by large publish- and Samaluk refer to their ‘migrant’ ing houses and companies that are nature, as academics, we are privi- reaping economic benefits from the leged migrants in a way that many unquestioned normality of ‘journal of those in precarious work situa- writing for free’ alongside ‘journal tions can never be, not least be- reading for a fee’. Within the field of cause our academic status gives us mathematics, a campaign and boy- the legal right to be, work and travel cott called ‘The Cost of Knowledge’ in particular countries. In places like (http://thecostofknowledge.com/in- the UK, past and present histories dex.php) concerning said practices of classed, gendered and raced ex- of research journal publishers has clusion further delineate the form recently emerged and is gaining these privileges take. Recognising force.5 Their boycott strategically this privilege, however, should not targets mega-publisher Elsevier to come at the expense of acknowl- condemn ‘everything that is wrong edging the situated, relational and with the current system of com- compounded nature of precarity. mercial publication’. Other inspir- One example (among many) is the ing groups include the Precarious additional structural burden of being Workers Brigade in the UK, who women.4 In London alone, accord- within the field of culture and edu- ing to some recent figures published cation are campaigning for equal by the Fawcett Society: women ex- pay, free education, democratic in- perience a pay gap of almost 23%, stitutions and the commons (http:// child care costs are higher than the precariousworkersbrigade.tumblr. national average and single moth- com/); the Adjunct Project in the US, ers can expect to lose 8.5% of their an accessible database resource net annual income by 2015 (http:// that promotes transparency in High- www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/index. er Education practices and exposes asp?PageID=1273). These logically institutions not faring well in terms of suggest that being a female aca- their educational, labour or human demic, especially as a mother, will rights practices (http://www.adjunct- have additional consequences to project.com/); and the Federacion the ones already stated. de Jovenes Investigadores/Precari- We heed the special editors’ call os in Spain who have spent more to make unpaid labour and pre- than a decade seeking to eliminate 22 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 the exploitative conditions (and al departments. The results- and the ‘working’ scholarship schemes) methodologies used to get them- will under which young researchers determine the governmental allocation must operate (http://precarios.org/). of research funding for each university These mobilisations, both old and and are the subject of intense debate and criticisms. new, are creating growing and productive alliances to not only criticize 4 For a visualised perspective of the but also suggest alternatives for world-wide labour gender divide, see non-precarious futures. ‘We Work Hard for No Money: Who does the most unpaid work around the Endnotes world?’ (http://www.creditsesame.com/ 1 An adjunct position refers to the ca- blog/unpaid-work-world-05312011/) sualised labour force in academia. In the U.S., these are often the remit 5 For more information, see the of PhD students but also of insecure Guardian Article: ‘Academic Publish- short-term contracts that require holding Doesn’t Add Up’ (Naughton 2012, ing multiple jobs in order to earn a living http://www.guardian.co.uk/technol- wage. This stark picture is made stag- ogy/2012/apr/22/academic-publishing- geringly evident in the following statis- monopoly-challenged?fb=optOut) and tic: 70% of faculty positions in the U.S. The Scientist’s ‘Academic Publishing is are non-tenured (Patton 2012). In the Broken ’ (Taylor 2012, http://the-scien- UK, the equivalent (time-restricted and tist.com/2012/03/19/opinion-academic- insecure) position is that of an Associ- publishing-is-broken/). ate Lecturer or part-time teacher. References 2 We borrowed this word from a round- Burrows, Roger. 2012. Living with table hosted by the University of Leeds the H-Index? Metrics, Markets called ‘Academia as a ‘Toxic’ and ‘Care- and Affect in the Contemporary less’ Culture: Academic Labour, Sub- Academy. Sociological Review jectivity, and the Body’ that discussed (forthcoming). http://goldsmiths. the ‘embodied and affective experi- academia.edu/RogerBurrows/ ence of academic labour at a time of Papers/833930 (accessed 7 July intense (re) configurations of academic 2012). cultures and working practices’ (See: http://www.gender-studies.leeds.ac.uk/ Gill, Rosamund. 2010. Breaking the about/events/genderact.php) silence: The hidden injuries of neo-liberal academia. In Roísín 3 The Research Excellence Framework Ryan-Flood and Rosamund Gill (REF) is the new system (following the eds. Secrecy and Silence in the Research Assessment Exercise- RAE) Research Process: Feminist Re- that will be assessing the ‘quality’ of reflections. London: Routledge: search of HE Institutions in the UK in 228–244. 2014 based on ‘outcomes’ submitted by each institution and their individu- Naughton, John. 22 April 2012. Aca- Beetham and Fernández: Precarity and Privilege 23

demic Publishing Doesn’t Add Up. The Guardian (online). http://www. guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/ apr/22/academic-publishing-monopoly-challenged?fb=optOut (accessed 7 July 2012).

Patton, Stacey. 6 May 2012. The Phd Now Comes with Food Stamps. The Chronicle of Higher Education. http://chronicle.com/article/From- Graduate-School-to/131795/ (accessed 7 July 2012).

Pedersen, Linda Lund and Barbara Sa- maluk. 2012. Precarious workers that made this special issue possible. Graduate Journal of Social Science 9 (1): 7-8.

Taylor, Michael P. 19 March 2012. Opin- ion: Academic Publishing is Bro- ken. The Scientist (online). http:// the-scientist.com/2012/03/19/ opinion-academic-publishing-is- broken/ (accessed 7 July 2012). PhDs of the UK, Unite! Your Futures Depend on It

Jenny Thatcher

This paper addresses the increasing casualisation of academic labour in higher education and its implications for PhD students in the UK. It will con- textualise a recent campaign resulting in the formation of The Postgraduate Workers Association established by a group of PhD students in an attempt to build a collective resistance to the growing exploitation of postgraduate students that teach in UK universities. It is also concerned about the way the competitive marketisation of higher education benefits some institutions and disciplines, particularly at the expense of the ex-polytechnics and the social sciences and humanities. As the future of some universities will be left in jeop- ardy, the future of social science may depend on its willingness to adapt to the new economic climate and help those most affected by inequalities of the market to develop a more reflexive mode of relating to the social world. Lastly, it questions what consequences the increasing exploitation of PhD student teachers might have on social class hierarchies in academia.

Key Words: Higher Education, Casualisation, Labour Exploitation, Precarity, Doctoral Students’ Campaign

Introduction in the early 1990s. The first expan- Participation in higher education sion coincided with the coming of in the UK has expanded significant- age of the post-war baby-boomers ly in recent years. Figures for 2010 and the publication of the Robbins reveal that higher education partici- Report of 1963 which argued that pation rates experienced an all time higher education should not be sup- high of 45 percent in UK universities ply constrained. The early 1990s with 2.49 million students studying witnessed a substantial expansion in higher education (Universities which overlapped the ending of the UK 2011). When higher educa- binary divide between polytechnics tion began its rapid participation in- and universities and the changing crease in the early 1960s, only one nature of the employment struc- in twenty people went to university ture which was demanding more (Coughlan 2010).The expansion of highly educated workers (Mayhew higher education in the UK has un- et al 2007). The last ten years have dergone two rapid waves, the first seen an even greater expansion one in the 1960s and the second one with student numbers at UK higher Graduate Journal of Social Science July 2012, Vol. 9, Issue 2 © 2012 by Graduate Journal of Social Science. All Rights Reserved. ISSN: 1572-3763 25 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 education institutions increasing by bour to be exploited, or to be used 28 percent for the period between to undercut established academic 2000/01 to 2009/10 (Universities colleagues’ pay and conditions. The UK 2011). PGWA plans to fight for postgradu- This unsurprisingly has resulted ate student workers in the higher in an increasing number of people education sector to be given the undertaking full-time doctoral stud- same entitlements as other workers ies. Today’s PhD students are un- in universities including: compre- dertaking their education in one of hensive written contracts, fair pay the worst economic crises since The for every hour worked, holiday and Great Depression. But what does sick pay, trade union representation, that mean for postgraduate students equal, free access to the resources and universities? Postgraduate stu- they need to perform their job and dents are now being faced with no threats, or implicit threats, of ac- growing pressure to engage in ad- ademic repercussions for matters of ditional low-paid and sometimes employment and so on. unpaid teaching and marking work PGWA also believes that re- to enhance their CVs for future em- search students, as early career re- ployment prospects. Dissatisfied searchers, are entitled to adequate with the acceptability of this prac- and fair access to paid teaching op- tice, a group of PhD students across portunities to develop this aspect of different universities have joined their academic skills. Recruitment forces to start a campaign which practices must be fair, transparent collectively resists the exploitation and open. Of course, this is an im- of postgraduate students’ academic portant point because our brief re- labour and have recently formed The search in the issue has shown that Postgraduate Workers Association when some students feel they can- (PGWA). It is still in its early days not get paid teaching work, they but its aims are simple – to work with have taken up unpaid positions for University College Union (UCU) and the work experience. The growing National Union of Students (NUS) struggles that PhD and early career in order to ensure fair conditions researchers endure comes at a time for research students employed by of increasing marketisation of high- UK universities. The PGWA believe er education, escalating commodifi- that students who work in higher cation of university products and the education are professionals like any looming fear of privatisation of the other, deserving of the respect, pay ‘public’ university. Therefore, per- and conditions which should also haps PhD students should be doing be afforded to their non-student all they can to promote themselves colleagues. As such postgraduate in the job market – including taking students are not free or cheap la- unpaid teaching work? Or does this Thatcher: PhDs of the UK, Unite! 26 simply become another strategy The quasi-market creates a system that contributes to the maintenance in which patients, parents, passen- and reproduction of social inequali- gers and so on, become consum- ties and elitist social class domina- ers of a product while the production in higher education? ers are forced to compete with each other (Maclure 1998). The increas- Marketisation of Higher Education ing individualisation and the regime Since the 1980s, higher educa- of choice in education produce a tion has moved away from a social number of anxieties particularly with democratic policy-making model regards to middle class social re- and towards a public sector man- production. It also intensifies the re- agement and quasi-market model of lationship between the structure of education. The current neo-liberal the education system and the struc- free market economics of the British ture of class reproduction, as middle education system should be located class reproduction is no longer as- in this wider context of extensive so- sured unless accompanied by care- cial and economic restructuring of ful planning and consideration (Ball policy which has been experienced 2006) throughout the world (Ball 2003 This neo-liberal free market edu- and Pierson 1998). From the 1970s cational system and the extensive Britain underwent a restructuring of social and economic restructuring social forces which saw amongst that has taken place as a conse- other things an ideological shift from quence of the forces of modern glo- Keynesianism to neo-liberalism. balisation and international compet- This not only resulted in a restruc- itiveness have created new markets turing of the education system but that require new consumerist rela- also the occupational sector. The tionships. Subjected to market com- Western world experienced a down- petition, universities are managed grading and global outsourcing of like businesses with the increasing manufacturing and a move towards commodification of university prac- the ‘knowledge economy’ in which tices and products. This is so the stu- its economy became more reliant on dent can ensure that standards are knowledge-based industries such set, measurable, and comparable as education, training and research. when deciding where to maximise Such a shift in the world of work their investment in their education, has also resulted in the increased be that in the national or interna- participation of women workers in tional market (Smyth and Shacklock the labour market and the growth 2004). As the production of knowl- of part-time, insecure employment, edge becomes commodified, this particularly in the teaching and car- requires a convention to measure ing professions (Giddens 2001). the quality of that product. In the UK, 27 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 the Research Assessment Exercise The commercialisation of knowl- (RAE) was introduced in 1986 under edge also leads to struggles be- the Conservative government to act tween disciplines as well as internal as an evaluative system to assess, battles; between different schools, amongst other things, research pro- different departments, the academ- ductivity (Tomlinson 2005). Each ics themselves, and so on and so department within a university gets forth (Burawoy 2011). a quality score. It is these measures Students are embedded in com- of ‘excellence’ that can help attract plex decision-making settings when students, as well as much needed choosing not only which univer- private research funding. sity to attend, but what to study. Universities themselves need to Universities are subject to national be located within the structural rela- and international ranking systems tions of power as they position their connected to the idea of excellence. own institution within the education One of the most well known rank- market and against other universi- ing systems is the Times Higher ties, in which they are becoming in- Education Supplement (THES). creasingly pitted against each other Students and parents are increas- in their fight for survival (Naidoo ingly using this system for compar- 2004). This situation becomes all ing and ranking their choice of uni- the more complex in the British versity in order to ensure that they context, as the binary system was get the ‘best value’ for their money. abolished in 1992 and polytechnics But the decisions become more were granted university status and complicated as within each universi- independence identical to older unity different schools and departments versities. However, status and fund- are given separate marks of ‘excel- ing differences remain due to his- lence’ (Burawoy 2011a). The edu- toric context (Robbins 2006). Will it cation market and the individualist be the elite universities that survive mode of social reproduction require at the expense of the old polytech- that students plan and reflect upon nics? Only time will tell. However, their strategies for advantages in with a three-year university course the education system. As Stephen J. costing up to £27,000 in tuition fees Ball (2006) states: ‘In the education alone from September 2012, ear- market you can never know enough ly signs do not bode well for post but often know too much’ (Ball 2006, 1992-universities. The projected 266). Such perceived ‘risk’ of mak- figures show that many of them will ing the ‘right’ decision is likely to experience a decrease of more than widen divisions and hierarchies in ten percent in undergraduate stu- higher education. Students are wor- dent numbers this coming academic ried by the prospect of indebted- year of 2012-2013 (Vasagar 2012). ness and want to ensure that the Thatcher: PhDs of the UK, Unite! 28 degree they obtain is valued by pro- Centres. The Economic and Social spective employers. Demand theory Research Council (ESRC) has suggests that when prices rise, the only granted 21 Doctoral Training consumer’s tastes and choices alter Centres (DTCs) (involving 45 insti- in accordance (Leslie and Brinkman tutions) in the UK to the universities 1987). Figures from the Universities which they see as being able to de- and Colleges Admission Service liver the highest quality training pro- (UCAS) reveal that not only has vision. The majority of those recog- there been an overall decrease in nised as DTCs are Russell Group applications to study at university, universities (Holmwood 2011). but a variation in choice of disci- Significantly, no ex-polytechnics pline as well. Humanities and so- were granted DTC status. DTC sta- cial sciences are the worst affected, tus will help universities to attract the whilst Medicine experiences a rela- ‘best’ students and the ones most tively small decline in applications likely to be awarded funding as well (Vasagar 2012). So how are univer- as drawing in top academics look- sities going to deal with the issue? ing to supervise high achieving PhD Universities will search for more students and thereby increasing the strategies to replace public funding output of high ranking research for cuts as well as save money. Michael the universities, while maintaining Burawoy (2011b) suggests that uni- the university’s position in the hier- versities might do this in three ways. archy of institutions. The first involves universities col- The second above-mentioned laborating with the private sector, strategy of raising tuition fees was the second is raising tuition fees introduced by New Labour, which and the third strategy is increasing argued the need for an overhaul of the use of casualised staff. the funding basis of higher educa- In a time of economic recession tion. It introduced tuition fees in the and budget cuts, the social sciences wake of the Dearing Report of 1997, in ‘lower’ ranking universities tend abolished remaining maintenance to be increasingly disadvantaged as grants and expanded the income they are often less likely to find large contingent loan scheme. It also corporate donors to sponsor their brought us the Higher Education research on the same scale as the Act of 2004, concerned with the medical sciences or engineering. implications of mass higher educa- Furthermore, many higher-ranking tion and of the role of higher edu- universities’ social science depart- cation in the global economy, as ments have guarded against public New Labour famously stated that it funding cuts by having ESRC stu- wanted to increase the proportion dentship funding and status avail- of students going into higher edu- able by becoming Doctoral Training cation by fifty percent (Tomlinson 29 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

2005). Furthermore, the Browne Britain was gripped by a backlash Review in 2010 concluded that the to the controversial ‘workfare”’ ex- cap on student fees should be lifted, perience scheme, a ‘voluntary’ that students should pay the main programme in which unemployed proportion of the actual cost of a young people would do unpaid work degree and it should be the univer- in some low-skilled service sector sities themselves who decide what job while still receiving their job- to charge (Vasagar and Shepherd seeker allowance (Topping 2012). 2010). Then there is the growing use of unpaid internships by employers, in Casualisation of Academic which young interns circulate on a Labour conveyor belt simply replacing each The third above-mentioned strat- other and endlessly looking for the egy is already in full swing. The one placement that will lead to that higher education sector is increas- paid job. Is it really surprising that ingly reliant upon casual staff, as universities have jumped on this fiscally constrained universities bandwagon? Just as ‘workfare’ was look for the most efficient and cost- met with a hostile response from the effective way to run. A report by public, postgraduate students and University and College Union (UCU) early career researchers are also estimated that there was a record- going on the counterattack over the number of 77,000 hourly paid teach- escalating abuse of their academic ers in higher education in the UK for labour. the period 2009-10. Universities are One such response has been dealing with cuts of up to forty per- the establishment of a campaign cent in their teaching budgets with by a group of PhD students –one humanities and social science worst that I am myself involved in – unit- affected (Vasagar 2010). Thus, the ing across different universities in salary gaps between and within the an attempt to build a collective re- universities widen, the working con- sistance to the economic exploita- ditions decrease, feelings of insecu- tion of postgraduate students who rity increase and academic labour work as lecturers. After our first con- seems to be more open to exploita- ference held in May in London, we tion than ever before. democratically elected to form The Postgraduate Workers Association (PGWA). Our aims and goals have Of course, the increasing trend been outlined above. But one of towards the casualisation of labour the most important things we want has been happening for some time to do is help organise ourselves as in all sectors of industry, not just postgraduate students into a mass, in higher education. Early in 2012, democratic movement that fights Thatcher: PhDs of the UK, Unite! 30 this exploitation working with or- cal sphere by supporting people to ganisations, including UCU and oth- develop a reflexive and theoretical er trade unions, NUS and student mode of relating to their world. This unions. We also want to assist lo- is what Burawoy (2005a) refers to calised movements across UK uni- as public sociology. versities and help them in their own What about the future of sociol- institution as each case might have ogy? Might it actually be to defend unique differences. As such we are civil society against neo-liberal po- calling for reports from across the litical rationality that attempts to country about experiences of orga- individualise responsibility for the nising postgraduates that teach at problems created by global eco- different universities. nomic forces? After all, sociology When we question the future of from its very beginning embodied a social science, perhaps we might radical reorganisation of social rela- want to think about how sociologi- tions. Maybe a more engaged social cal knowledge is increasingly begin- science is not really as new as we ning to be appropriated for a variety might think? The philosophers of of campaigns in retaliation to the the Enlightenment chanted a revo- current climate of austerity? This is lutionary rhetoric of a new class also being reflected in the anger that struggle against the ideology of the people feel because of the challeng- divine right and natural god-given ing situations they find themselves order of social relations (Hobsbawm in – from the wave of larger-scale 1975). C. Wright Mills was one of the occupation movements to sit-ins original campaigners of public soci- or, for example, a small scale cam- ology viewing professional sociolo- paign to save the local library. What gy as ‘meaningless abstracted em- emerges with this opposition is the piricism’ (Burawoy 2005b, 33). Alvin interaction between the commen- W. Gouldner (1970) argued that it tators of the brutality of the market is not just knowledge and technical and the communities which feel its skills that sociologists require; they impact. Burawoy (2005a) argues also need ‘courage to compromise that post-war sociology operated in their careers on behalf of an idea’ a period of state protectionism from (Gouldner 1970, 504). The fact that the market and that social science sociology challenges the existing was concerned with issues emerg- framework and is accused of being ing with the welfare state. However, too radical is not necessarily a prob- we are now living in an era of ‘third lem, and in truth many would argue wave’ marketisation and the state no it is not radical enough. Sociology longer offers the security it once did. originally began to help spread Therefore, sociology must recog- the ideas of self determination and nise this and engage in the politi- change the world, now often it is 31 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 used to conserve the very thing it ciety reaches beyond the university. sought to change (Burawoy 2005b). Public sociology needs to connect As Gouldner suggests, vulgar ca- with the people whose interests reerism is wide spread amongst the are best served by its knowledge sociological profession and institu- (Burawoy 2005a). tions. According to Gouldner (1970) However, this is more easily said sociology needs to be more reflexive than done given the commodifica- and this reflexivity requires a radical tion and privatisation of academic character. Sociology has become knowledge in the university. So per- too detached from the larger society haps it might be best to start with – the object of its study. Universities, the actual university itself. Take for themselves once a place of intel- example our campaign and The lectual freedom, are now part of Postgraduate Workers Association. the welfare state and as Gouldner I suppose like many campaigners I (1970) puts it ‘sociology has be- was somewhat affected by the issue come dangerously dependent upon personally. I was also the PhD rep- the very world it has pledged to resentative for my school and was study objectively’ (Gouldner 1970, concerned about the financial dif- 512). To be a radical sociologist is ficulties PhD students encountered not just to be critical, it involves a when trying to support themselves total praxis. Reflexive sociology is a through their studies, as well as work ethic that requires sociologists what resources a university offers not to betray themselves in order to for the career development of those fit ‘neatly into the standardised re- students. Recent figures from the quirements of his professional role’ Higher Education Statistics Agency (Gouldner 1970, 505). show that 32,735 students were do- So how might sociology be instru- ing an arts and humanities doctorate mental in defending civil society? in the UK in 2011 (Tobin 2011). An First of all, it needs to acknowledge estimated three out of ten full-time that public sociology cannot exist in PhD students will not complete their isolation from other forms of sociol- doctorate within seven years and ogy, outlined by Burawoy (2004) as only one in three part-time PhD stu- ‘the Division of Sociological Labor’ dents will be likely to submit a thesis consisting of four types of sociology: within six years (MacLeod 2005). professional, policy, critical and pub- Undoubtedly, the ‘right-wing’ press lic. Secondly, social scientists must associates such statistics to the ‘de- become reflexive in what they do. clining’ standards of PhD students They should investigate the causes and holds the university responsi- and consequences of whichever is- ble for not admitting the ‘right’ kind sue they are dealing with and recog- of student, accusing the university nise that their interest in a better so- of seeing international students as Thatcher: PhDs of the UK, Unite! 32

‘cash cows’ (see Paton 2008). dents paying higher tuition fees, Nonetheless, universities need to which is likely to make them more recognise the value and expertise consumer-orientated in their univer- of casual teaching staff, including sity and course choice, as well as PhD students and the contribution more demanding about the quality they make to teaching. In the United of the teaching that they receive. States, universities are reliant on Recently Liam Burns, President low-paid PhD researchers, postdocs of the National Union of Students, and casual staff, often known as the stated that the standard of teaching ‘ugly underworld of academia’. It seminars delivered by postgraduate was once expected that a PhD stu- students needs to be improved be- dent would tolerate such conditions cause of higher tuition fees (Boffey as a form of delayed gratification, as 2012). PhD students working as they would gain a good academic teachers face similar concerns, job later on. However, the struggles aware of the increased expectations that early career researchers1 are that undergraduates will bring with increasingly finding themselves in them and the intensified scrutiny suggest an even more extended they are likely to be under because deferral of job satisfaction. Indeed, of the increased fees. Another issue this might be reflected in the rise of is that many universities will offer PhD teachers’ unions throughout some type of teacher training, but the USA, which includes private uni- will not pay for the PhD students versities. Yet, many of the elite insti- to gain a formal teaching qualifica- tutions have been harder to infiltrate tion. Undergraduate students are as many faculties argue that PhD often observant in the conditions students who teach are simply ap- and treatment of PhD students who prentices and should not have the teach. This has left PhD students same entitlements as workers (The feeling vulnerable. However, the Economist 2010). university could address this by re- There is also a broader concern garding PhD student teachers and about how the increased use of ca- casual staff as valuable members sualised lecturers may interact with of the teaching team by not treating the institutional responsibilities for them as free or cheap labour to be the quality of the learning experi- exploited, or to be used to undercut ence for the student. Commonly their colleagues’ pay and conditions, casualised staff do not have the by also offering them the same pay same facilities as full time lectur- and conditions as other established ing staff, including the use of office full time professionals. space making it difficult to arrange A recent graduate teaching assis- student contact hours. The issue tant (GTA) pay survey carried out by seems even more central with stu- the British Postgraduate Philosophy 33 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

Association at 28 different university students’ CVs for future employ- philosophy departments across the ment prospects. Many universities UK and Ireland revealed one of the encourage PhD students to take biggest problems was being paid on teaching work – so much so that for the actual hours GTAs taught. some universities have started to Many GTAs were paid for the hours ‘outsource’ their PhD student teach- they taught and received no addi- ers. Nearby colleges and other uni- tional pay for preparation or mark- versities often look for additional ing and no additional holiday pay. teaching staff from each other. In Once their hourly wage was divided some situations, PhD students trav- between the actual hours worked el far distances often incurring exit turned out that many were work- pensive travel costs just to gain the ing below the UK minimum wage experience. Then, at many univer- of £7.20 per hour. At one particular sities bursary and scholarship stu- university that remains unnamed in dents are expected to teach or work the survey, it was exposed that the in some capacity for their faculty on average GTA received in real terms an unpaid or reduced amount. This for the hours they worked just £4.79 particularly affects international stu- per hour (Rowland 2012). Our own dents who might receive a bursary PGWA brief research2 revealed that to cover only the cost of their fees. often PhD students3 are asked to They are then tied into a contrac- teach on modules in which they are tual agreement with the university currently doing empirical research in which they undertake this exploit- and have a large knowledge base ative labour, reducing the time they on the subject. Postgraduates who might otherwise have had to earn work as teachers usually bring a money in other types of employment large amount of energy and passion to support themselves financially. into their job as they are not weighed Please do not misunderstand; down with the more bureaucratic PhD students often want to teach, matters of the job that more estab- and some universities have said lished staff members have to deal because of the funding cuts and with. decreased enrolments there will be Paid teaching experience is a no teaching work available to PhD valuable source of income for PhD students from September 2012. students, as well as being helpful Many universities have come up in future employment. But if this is with several solutions to the is- badly paid or not paid at all, why are sue. Some universities are assign- PhD students doing it? Of course, ing teaching work as ‘part of the this has just been answered: expe- course’ even to the point of getting rience. Teaching experience is be- students enrolled in a postgradu- ing sold as a major addition to PhD ate certificate in education (PGCE) Thatcher: PhDs of the UK, Unite! 34 to teach undergraduates for free as classes also altered so as to protect part of their placements. Other uni- their positions in the class hierar- versities are cutting wages for PhD chy. The restructuring of the eco- students and increasing their work nomic field creates a change in the load. At one institution, PhD stu- mode of appropriation of social and dents claim to be fighting a pay cut cultural capital, in which the domi- of over fifty percent by their own cal- nant classes maximise the educa- culation. And, of course, some uni- tion system as an instrument of re- versities are simply increasing the production. According to the Higher class sizes and workloads for full- Education Statistics Agency, there time established lecturers and not has been a 23 percent increase in making teaching work available for people undertaking arts and human- PhD students. So what of the PhD ities doctorates in the UK in the last students who feel that teaching exten years (Tobin 2011). Educational perience is essential as part of their qualifications have become an- es career development? Well, they can sential requisition of economic and gain experience by teaching for free cultural capital in today’s society, to enhance their CVs and it seems therefore increasing the number of that some overstretched lecturers people gaining qualifications to suc- are only too keen to oblige. Indeed, ceed in the labour market. As such, some PhD students were not happy those in dominant positions in the about a campaign that they saw as class structure search for new strat- dictating what others can do and egies to counteract those from other what they believe to be denying oth- social groups orienting themselves er students the opportunity to gain towards the same goals (Bourdieu teaching experience on an unpaid and Boltanski 1978, 218). basis. PhD students working for free However, every action has a con- simply allows the most financially sequence and no more so than in able people to take up these unpaid higher education, which acts as a job ‘opportunities’. This not only af- powerful means for the reproduc- fects the livelihood and chances of tion and maintenance of social in- completion for other struggling PhD equalities. By those PhD students students, but also helps to guar- who can afford to work for free doing antee occupational success in the so, they are consciously or uncon- future through social networks and sciously supporting a strategy of re- enhanced CVs, masking the social production. Pierre Bourdieu and Luc class inequalities that operate in the Boltanski (1978) argued that when world of academia. What is more, there was a change in the structure PhD students should also consider of the education system, the strate- the consequences that working for gies of reproduction by the dominant free will have on those members of 35 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 teaching staff that are essentially employment conditions, the lack of being undercut. Several academ- occupational sick pay and the insuf- ics have contacted the campaign to ficient, or sometimes lack of office say that many of them are working space that fixed-term and hourly on short-term contracts from one paid staff are fighting just as post- semester to the next, and in some graduate students are (PGWA cases have been doing so for as 2012). long as eight years even though this is illegal. They are increasingly Conclusion finding it hard to find paid teaching In the current economic climate, work because universities are using the fiscally constrained university is PhD students on an unpaid basis. under increased pressure to make Although some academic staff might cuts and save money. However, this be tempted to use PhD students will- started because of the neo-liberal ing to work for free to relieve their processes and market competition increasing work load, the staff might that universities have found them- in the process be opening up the selves in since the 1980s. Such lecturing profession to exploitation ruthless market competition might by university management. The have severe effects on the future Postgraduate Workers Association of some universities, notably, the stands in solidarity with, not against, ex-polytechnics as students’ educa- our colleagues and fellow students tional consumer choices intensify. and we aim to unite with academic Universities strive for more imagina- staff to form a democratic move- tive ways to make cutbacks – includ- ment that fights to advance our ining the increased use of casualised terests cutting across all societal and unpaid PhD student teaching divides of social class, gender and staff – and academic labour seems ethnicity, using every appropriate to be more exploited than ever be- method, including industrial action, fore. So should PhD students be protest, non-violent direct action, doing all they can to enhance their and institutional negotiation and lob- CVs for future employment oppor- bying. PGWA supports fair pay, pen- tunities? It seems that PhD stu- sions and conditions for all workers. dents might be mistaken in thinking We oppose fees and the marketisa- that what is essentially exploitative tion and privatisation of education. labour will lead to a well-paid se- We support action taken to advance cure job once they have completed these principles, in this country and their studies, as they might just find abroad. PGWA is planning on col- themselves competing against oth- laborating with UCU anti-casualisa- er PhD students teaching for free! It tion committee to help raise aware- appears that the purpose of social ness of the job insecurity, worsening science also needs to alter in rela- Thatcher: PhDs of the UK, Unite! 36 tion to the current context it finds Endnotes itself in. This may well be to sup- 1 The issue of the casualisation of High- port those whose interests are best er Education and early career research- served by its knowledge. ers is currently being researched by Dr The Postgraduate Workers Kirsten Forkert (University of East An- Association is currently looking for glia) with Dr Bridget Conor (Kings Col- lege London) but is not available for ref- people who want to get involved in erence at the time of writing this. this campaign either at a local university level or a national level as- 2 The research we undertook was of sisting with the main organising very small scale and basically involved duties. If you are interested in the putting out a call for experiences to campaign or the associated issue postgraduate students who contacted please contact us at postgraduate. us (as well as academics) with their sto- [email protected]. We are espe- ries. Therefore, the research has very cially interested in hearing people’s little generalizability and validity. How- experiences and how they might be ever, as the PGWA, one of the things organising to resist this type of ex- we want to do is get the NUS and UCU to carry out more systemic research on ploitation at their own university and the issue. are currently putting out a call for people to write pieces about this for 3 PhD students were encouraged to our blog: http://postgraduateworker. contact the campaign and share their wordpress.com/. You can find us on experiences in order to get a better Facebook at: http://www.facebook. idea of the practices PhD students com/#!/PGWorkers. We are also were experiencing. All participants planning a national conference in were assured that their identity and the autumn of 2012 to help raise their university’s identity would be kept awareness of the issue of post- anonymous. graduate worker’s exploitation and References our campaign and will be having a Ball, Stephen. J. 2003. Class strategies Postgraduate block at the NUS na- and the Education Market: The tional demonstration this autumn. Middle Class and Social Advan- tage. London: Routledge Falmer. Acknowledgements A special thank you goes to all the Ball, Stephen J. 2006. The Risk of other PGWA members, particularly: Social Reproduction The Middle Ben Aylott, Vicky Blake, Robin Burrett, Class and Education Markets. In Luke Evens, Arianna Tassinari, and Stephen J. Ball, Education Policy Jamie Woodcock for all their hard work and Social Class: The Selected in this campaign and for writing the Works of Stephen J. Ball. London: aims and goals of PGWA. Routledge: 264-275.

Boffey, Daniel. 2012. ‘Lecturers should 37 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

need a teaching qualification, don: Routledge: 197-227. says NUS president’. The Guard- ian. April 22. http://www.guardian. Coughlan, Sean. 2010. Majority of co.uk/education/2012/apr/22/li- Young Women in University. BBC- am-burn-nus-academics-lecturers News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/ (accessed 22 April, 2012). hi/education/8596504.stm (accessed 7 June, 2012) Burawoy, Michael. 2004. The World Needs Public Sociology. Sosiolo- Giddens, Anthony. 2001. Sociology. gist Tidsskrit Journal of Sociology Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. 12 (3): 255-272. Gouldner, Alvin, Ward. 1970. The Com- Burawoy, Michael. 2005a. Third-wave ing Crisis of Western Sociology. sociology and the end of pure sci- London: Heinmann Educational ence. The American Sociologist Books Ltd. 36, (3-4): 152-165. Hobsbawm, Eric, J. 1975. The Age of Burawoy, Michael. 2005b. For Public Capital 1848-1875. London: The Sociology. In: Clawson et al eds. Trinity Press. 2007. Public Sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press: 23- Holmwood, John. 2011. ESRC an- 64 nounces Doctoral Training Cen- tres. BSA Sociology and the Burawoy, Michael. 2011a. Redefining Cuts. http://sociologyandthecuts. the public university: global and wordpress.com/2011/01/21/es- national context. In John Holm- rc-announces-doctoral-training- wood, A manifesto for the public centres-by-john-holmwood/ (ac- university, London: Bloomsbury: cessed 9 June, 2012) 27-41. The Economist. 2010. ‘The disposable Burawoy, Michael. 2011b. Learning academic: Why doing a PhD is of- from the global phenomenon of ten a waste of time’. The Econo- “universities in crises”. Irish Times. mist. December 16 http://www. February 01 http://burawoy.berke- economist.com/node/17723223 ley.edu/PS/Universities%20in%20 (accessed 10 May, 2012) Crisis.Ireland..pdf (accessed 3 May, 2012). Leslie, Larry and Paul Brinkman. 1987. Student price response in Higher Bourdieu, Pierre, and Luc Boltanski. Education: the student demand 1978. Changes in Social Structure studies. The Journal of Higher and Changes in the Demand for Education 58 (2): 181-204. Education. In Salvador Giner and Margaret Scotford Archer, Con- Macleod, Donald. 2005. ‘Study reveals temporary Europe: Social Struc- low PhD completion rates’. The tures and Cultural Patterns. Lon- Guardian. January 11. http://www. Thatcher: PhDs of the UK, Unite! 38

guardian.co.uk/education/2005/ cation and society. Oxford: The jan/11/highereducation.uk1 (ac- Bardwell Press. cessed 12 May, 2012). Maclure, Stuart. 1998. Through the Rowland, Richard. 2012. Graduate Revolution and Out the Other Teaching Assistant Pay Survey Side. Oxford Review of Education Results British Postgraduate Phi- 24 (1): 59-78 losophy Association, A Postgrad Philosophers’ Community. http:// Mayhew, Ken, Cecile Deer, Mehak Dua. www.bppa-online.org/node/41. 2007. The Move to Mass Higher (accessed 5 June, 2012) Education in the UK: Many Ques- tions and Some Answers. Oxford Smyth, John, and Geoffry Shacklock. Review of Education 30 (1): 65-82 2004. Teachers Doing Their ‘Eco- nomic’ Work. In Stephen J. Ball, Naidoo, Rajani. 2010. Fields and insti- The RoutledgeFalmer Reader in tutional strategy: Bourdieu on the Sociology of Education, J, Lon- relationship between higher edu- don: RoutledgeFalmer: 240-261. cation, inequality and society. Brit- ish Journal of Sociology of Educa- Topping, Alexandra. 2012. ‘Workfare tion 25 (4): 457-471. that shames UK plc or a leftwing plot by the job snobs?’ The Guard- Paton, Graeme. 2008. ‘UK Universi- ian. February 28. http://www. ties ‘award degrees to non-Eng- guardian.co.uk/society/2012/ lish speakers’ because they pay feb/28/workfare-uk-plot-job-snobs higher fees’. The Telegraph. June (accessed 5 May, 2012). 17. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ education/2146237/UK-Universi- Tomlinson, Sally. 2005. Education in ties-award-degrees-to-non-Eng- Post-Welfare Society. Berkshire: lish-speakers-because-they-pay- Open University Press. higher-fees.html (accessed 29 April, 2012). University College Union. 2011. ‘Sur- vival Guide for hourly paid staff Pierson, C. 1998. The New Gover- in further and higher education’. nance of Education: The Conser- UCU campaigns. April. www.ucu. vatives and Education 1988-1997. org.uk/media/.../ucu_hourlypaid- Oxford Review of Education 24 survivalguide_may11.pdf (ac- (1): 131-142 cessed 2 May, 2012).

PGWA (The Postgraduate Workers As- Universities UK. 2011. Patterns and sociation). 2012. Postgraduate- Trends in UK Higher Education. worker. http://postgraduatework- UK Universities. http://www.uni- er.wordpress.com/ (accessed 9 versitiesuk.ac.uk/Publications/ June, 2012) Documents/PatternsAndTrend- sinUKHigherEducation.pdf (ac- Robbins, Derek. 2006. Bourdieu edu- cessed 9 June, 2012) 39 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

Vasagar, Jeevan, and Jessica Shep- herd. 2010. ‘Browne review: universities must set their own tuition fees’. The Guardian. October 12. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/oct/12/browne-review- universities-set-fees (accessed 2 May, 2012).

Vasagar, Jeevan. 2012. ‘Number of UK university applicants drops 8.7%, Ucas figures show’. The Guardian. January 30. http://www.guardian. co.uk/education/2012/jan/30/uk- university-applications-drop-ucas (accessed 5 May, 2012).

Vasagar, Jeevan. 2010. ‘Universities alarmed by 40% cut to teaching budgets’. The Guardian. October 20. http://www.guardian.co.uk/ education/2010/oct/20/spending- review-university-teaching-cuts (accessed 4 May, 2012). The Coming Crisis? Some Questions for the Future of Empirical Sociology in the UK

Sam de Boise

Working in commercial research, it was interesting to note that many researchers had little grounding in academic social research methods or social theory. Organizations dealing with research often took for granted that to get at ‘the truth’ involved either simply ‘talking to people’ and looking at an aggregation of opinions, or carrying out a mix of ‘pre’ and ‘post’ (usually online) surveys and ‘ad-hoc’ pieces which privilege Likert scales as the primary tool of ‘measurement’.

As Mike Savage and Roger Burrows (2007) note, such industries have challenged the public legitimacy of empirical sociological inquiry. Such a challenge arguably hinges on political rhetoric around demonstrable ‘impact’ and ‘maximising efficiency’. However a lack of attention to research design poses significant problems for the authority that these industries lay claim to. Noting sociology’s ethical value and personal experience of commercial, ‘client led’ research, this paper seeks to outline a case for the continued importance of rigorous, ethical social research in contemporary society and against narrow conceptions of impact.

Keywords: Impact, Ethical research, ‘Coming Crisis’, Mixed methods, Empirical Sociology.

Introduction ther damaging perceptions of soci- The current drive toward mea- ology as ‘useless’. Moves toward surement and ‘impact assessment’ aping commercial sector research (IA) seems increasingly concerned places more emphasis on speed with ‘instrumental’ research, based and efficiency at the expense of on commercial sector models. considering how research comes to Because much sociological re- be used. This article outlines some search is simply not reducible to key issues for consideration in se- quantifiable metrics of impact and curing a future of empirical sociol- causality, a move toward measur- ogy in the UK. ing ‘impact’ seeks to marginalise This article makes the case that the discipline’s ethical value and the there are three general trends which quality of research, as well as fur- have led to the public devaluation of

Graduate Journal of Social Science July 2012, Vol. 9, Issue 2 © 2012 by Graduate Journal of Social Science. All Rights Reserved. ISSN: 1572-3763 de Boise: The Future of Empirical Sociology 41 sociological research. Firstly, sociol- and social justification for what hap- ogy’s relationship to institutional pol- pened” (Independent.co.uk 2011); itics, which stands at odds with dis- these justifications (rather than ex- cursive emphasis on ‘individuality’ planations) give people excuses for and New Labour’s rhetoric around bad behaviour. His accusation fo- ‘policy based evidence’. Secondly, it cused on the fact that sociologists explains how methodological ques- were publicly explaining the vio- tions and challenges within the dis- lence with reference to the material cipline, related to epistemological and social inequalities engendered shifts, have led to a so-called ‘crisis’ by a neoliberal system of gover- (Savage and Burrows 2007). Thirdly, nance. As Burawoy (2005, 6) has it points to the challenge from the argued, sociology as a discipline is private sector dependent on ideas perceived to have moved ‘to the left’ around demonstrable ‘impact’. and Johnson’s comments seem to Zygmunt Bauman’s (2000b) cri- support this perception; sociology is tique is then applied to illustrate dangerous for individuals because it the dangers of reducing empiri- provides an excuse for, if not an im- cal sociological research to what petus toward, accepting that social Michael Burawoy (2005) refers to location shapes behaviour. as ‘policy sociology’, before detail- This is sociology’s fundamen- ing some practical, methodological tal insight, that it is the societies considerations. These include in- in which we live which give rise to creased use of online research and belief in the importance and illusion a broader engagement with ‘mixed of individualism as the perception methods’, as well as fundamental of unrestrained thought and action ethical questions around the uses of independent of others (Wright Mills research. The contribution that so- 1959; Elias 1991; 1994) The idea of ciological research still has to make being an individual is seemingly un- cannot be made reducible simply to done by social influence, because pre-specified ‘outcomes’ and this it suggests that we alone are not piece aims to demonstrate how responsible for our circumstances. client-led initiatives may undermine As C. Wright Mills (1959) succinctly the initial spirit of the ‘sociological notes in his division of ‘issues and imagination’(Wright Mills 1959). problems’: When in a city of 100,000, only The Political Problem of Sociology one man [sic] is unemployed, that In the midst of last year’s unrest is his personal trouble…but when in London, Boris Johnson tellingly in a nation of 50 million employ- declared that “it is time that people ees, 15 million men are unem- who are engaged in looting and vio- ployed, that is an issue and we lence stopped hearing economic may not hope to find its solution 42 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

within the range of opportunities Political mobilisation against the of one individual (Wright Mills ‘sociological imagination’ certain- 1959, 9). ly intensified during the Thatcher years in the UK, manifest in concert- Contemporary neoliberal rhetoric ed attempts to undermine the public advocates precisely the opposite; role of the social sciences. For ex- the paramount importance of taking ample the Social Science Research ‘individual responsibility’, tying ‘free- Council¸ initially established in 1965 dom’ to the perpetual ‘freedoms’ to provide government support for of market choice (Bauman 2000a; a semi-autonomous social scienc- Harvey 2005; Davis 2008a; Bauman es (Bulmer, Coates and Dominian 2011). 2007, 91), was threatened with Sociology, therefore, represents closure (Cornish and Clarke 1987, a particularly difficult case for con- 191). It was eventually kept open temporary politicians. On the one but funding subsidies were severely hand, it assumes a historically cut and its namesake changed to privileged authority to speak about the Economic and Social Science societies (whom politicians alleg- Research Council (ESRC) in 1982. edly serve) and on the other, it is No doubt Thatcher’s public denunci- frequently critical of the impact that ation of society as fictional2 also did governments have on those societ- the discipline a good deal of harm ies. It is unsurprising then that politi- and whilst she subsequently argued cians are increasingly attempting to that the abridged version of her full define the agenda of what academic quote ‘there is no such thing as so- sociologists should be studying; evi- ciety’ was a deliberate distortion of dent last year in the allocation of siz- her intentions (Thatcher 1993, 626), able chunks of Arts and Humanities as Gerald R. Steele (2009) notes, Research Council (AHRC) funding this was something sociologists into investigating the ‘Big Society’ were all too happy to perpetuate. He (Boffey 2011). This disregard for has a point; a lazy demonization of the ‘Haldane principle’1, which in Thatcher on the grounds of one ‘out this country has never been truly of context’ sound-bite is not nearly autonomous from interest-led fund- enough. ing (Shore 2010, 22), indicates em- Not that contempt for sociol- pirical sociology’s common use as ogy is necessarily the preserve of a footnote in a media appearance, Conservative or the current Coalition political spin or commons debate; government (who also slashed to back up what politicians wanted ESRC funding by just under thirty to say, rather than to question the percent last year). Despite com- assumptions behind what they are mon perceptions, sociology is not saying. de facto ‘left wing’ (Holmwood 2007, de Boise: The Future of Empirical Sociology 43

53) any more than it is completely (Finlayson 1999, 271); sociological ignored by policy makers, as the research however is not often ame- legacy of Parsonian functionalism nable to easy, direct, policy implica- in the U.S. attests (Bauman 2000b). tions (Bulmer, Coates and Dominian Whilst Anthony Giddens’ sociologi- 2007; Monaghan 2008a; 2008b) or cally grounded, ‘Third Way’3 (see providing ‘facts’. Therefore socio- Giddens 2000) famously provided logical research came to be chal- the rationale for New Labour’s pop- lenged not only on the grounds that ulist shift from ‘left to centre left right’ it was antagonistic toward govern- (McRobbie 2000), sociological work mental policy, but also difficult to is increasingly considered of use implement. only if it spells out, in direct ‘action- Conversely, policy-based-ev- able’ terms, exactly what govern- idence meant that it was too easy ment policy should do. to construct a bricolage of multiple To this end, as Katherine Smith pieces of ‘evidence’ (Dwyer and (2011) notes, David Blunkett’s par- Ellison 2009; Monaghan 2011), ticular disdain for sociological re- which may be mutually incompat- search led him to ask: ible in many ways, to push a singu- Can the social science communi- lar policy. Refraining from a fuller ty help to improve government or discussion around the problems of is it destined to be largely irrele- loaded terms such as objective ‘so- vant to the real debates that affect cial’ or ‘natural’ scientific research people’s life chances? […] often in (Papineau 1979; Fay 1984; Harding practice we have felt frustrated by 1986; Longino 1987; Kemp and a tendency for research either to Holmwood 2003; Tebes 2005), it address issues other than those should be noted that the caution- directly relevant to the political ary conclusions of empirical sociol- and policy debate or, in a seem- ogy are often deliberate attempts ingly perverse way, to set out to to stress the impossibility of provid- collect evidence that will prove a ing singular, definitive ‘answers’. policy wrong rather than genuine- Societies as dynamic processes are ly seeking to evaluate or interpret infinitely more complex than ‘cause its impact (Blunkett 2000). and effect’ models that underwrite the assumptions of the ‘natural’ sci- New Labour’s particular problem ences (Holmwood 2001). Thus em- with sociology hinged on the rheto- pirical sociology often requires ap- ric of ‘policy-based evidence’. As propriately complex interpretations. Alan Finlayson remarks, according As a concept, the ‘Third Way’ was to ‘Third Way theory’, ‘policy is le- adopted, not because it was particu- gitimated not by ethical principles, larly radical, but because it reflected but the truth of certain social facts’ a particular ideological stance which 44 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 mirrored that of New Labour’s lead- Sociology’s Comptean legacy of ers (themselves a by-product of ‘social physics’, and later develop- discourses which emphasised the ment through Durkheimian positiv- free market and the abject failure ism (Durkheim 1970 [1897]) have of Keynesianism), whilst appearing often coloured attempts to make it to transgress old class divisions. It more like the ‘natural’ sciences (Fay heralded the death of both left and and Moon 1977). Such appeals are right yet what this kind of rhetoric made on the grounds that in remain- actually did was to further entrench ing ‘objective’, sociological research inequalities in both material and cul- becomes ‘more valid’ and therefore tural terms (Harvey 2005), operating ‘more legitimate’. What is important itself as an ideological driving force; to note here is that sociology is of- what others have termed ‘post-polit- ten perceived as subjective inter- ical’ (Žižek 2000; 2005). pretation, precisely because it is a discipline where the researcher or The Problem with Sociological student is inseparable from the ‘ob- Objectivity ject’ of study; it is a discipline sui ge- The knowledge generated neris (Kilminster 1998). through sociological research also With this in mind, much of sociol- occupies a liminal space between ogy’s political devaluation can also ‘proper science’ and ‘arty subjects’. be explained by shifts in method- Crucially, an ideological separation ological epistemologies. This par- of art and science as polar oppo- tially explains a decentring of socio- sites (Adorno and Horkheimer 1997 logical authority as the discipline has [1947], 18), rests on the perception moved toward more ‘post-structural- of the extent to which the type of ist’ methods of ‘subjective interpre- knowledge generated may be seen tation’. What the ‘phenomenologi- as ‘objective’. ‘Objective’ knowledge, cal turn’ (Husserl 1967) highlighted supposedly achieved through ‘ratio- was that what constitutes ‘A’ singu- nal’, detached experimentation, of- lar population can and should be ten carries greater political freight contested. As Clark E. Moustakas over ‘subjective’ types of knowl- (1994) notes, “Husserl’s phenom- edge, achieved through individual enology…emphasises subjectivity involvement, feelings, thoughts and and discovery of the essences of interpretation. As Victor J. Seidler experience...Husserl’s approach is (1994, 24) notes, the devaluation of called ‘phenomenology’ because it ‘subjective’ knowledge, rests on a utilises only the data available to the particularly gendered conception of consciousness – the appearance of knowledge as distorted through em- objects” (Moustakas 1994, 45, origi- bodied experience (see also Bartky nal italics). 1990; Shildrick 1997). It depends then on how the per- de Boise: The Future of Empirical Sociology 45 ception is shaped by social experi- ing clear of accusations of class, ence; if sociological research re- age and gender bias and ethno- and veals truths, whose truths are they? hetero-centricity. This is, again, a How do respondents understand particular problem for policy makers questions compared to those who who demand easy, direct solutions write them? What are the ethical im- to seemingly universal problems. plications of speaking for people that At both national and suprana- researchers have never spoken to? tional levels, the problems of mak- Such questions facilitated broader ing claims to ‘full’ representation methodological shifts, leading to have therefore been exposed as greater use of qualitative method- more and more difficult, thus -nar ologies and recognising the position rowing the focus of some sociologi- of the researcher in social research. cal projects for justifiably pragmatic However the popular equation of reasons. Alongside this, recognis- interpretivist methods of knowing, ing the researcher’s own biases and which often explicitly involve direct, incorporating reflexivity into the ‘unobjective’ discussion with those process of enquiry (Bourdieu and engaged in society, with subjective Wacquant 1992) refutes any claim and therefore ‘partial’ truths, has to scientific ‘objectivity’. Empirical rendered sociology, in popular and sociological research then is a dou- political consciousness at least, less ble bind; it cannot be removed from comparable to the ‘natural sciences’ its object of enquiry but converse- and therefore less valid. ly, if it gets too close then it loses The impact of feminist cri- claims to providing evidence and tiques of positivism (see Oakley representation rather than opinion. 1981a;1981b; Longino 1987; Bartky However sociological researchers 1990; Harding 1996; Oakley 1998) cannot speak for interstices of every has also shaped sociological em- single variable in complex societ- piricism. The influence of feminist ies nor can sociological enquiry, in theories and methodologies ex- good conscience, make generalised posed both the claims to universal- claims without reflecting on the limi- ity that sociology had made (uni- tations of its scope. versal assumptions didn’t speak for women) and also built on criticisms The Coming Crisis to Empirical that ‘objective’ accounts of experi- Sociology ence were themselves shaped by There is a common public per- ‘malestream’ agendas (Hearn 2004, ception then that if data generated 49). In light of this, sociologists have by qualitative methodologies are themselves been keen to caveat the less ‘scientifically objective’ they are partiality of claims that can be de- therefore less valid. This perhaps rived from ‘populations’, thus steer- strengthens the case for develop- 46 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 ing quantitative methodologies in Gorard calls the ‘numbers are fab’ the social sciences in order to pro- villain (Gorard 2004, 7), still has dis- vide a more rigorous comprehen- cursively popular undertones, both sive analysis of multiple, complex within and outside sociology. This trends where some qualitative re- is a hangover no doubt of positiv- search designs are lacking (see ism as the Enlightenment method of Onwuegbuzie and Leech 2005; generation of ‘facts’, par excellence Onwuegbuzie and Leech 2007). (Adorno and Horkheimer 1997 However there are particular prob- [1947]). lems surrounding quantitative re- In addition to steadily falling sur- search which have also led to the vey completion rates amongst popu- erosion of sociological authority. On lations (Cook, Heath and Thompson this point, as Savage and Burrows 2000, 823), the internet now theoret- (2007) note: ically provides the ability for anyone The sample survey, it is claimed, to conduct ‘social research’ regard- and so we tell our students, al- less of the assumptions that social lows us to generalize and predict research courses have taught us to through revealing enduring regu- be aware of. The growth in survey larities by the use of inferential sites and free survey software en- statistics...[however] one difficulty ables greater ease of data collec- is that in an intensely researched tion, potentially democratising the environment, response rates types of knowledge production that have been steadily falling, and it sociology itself has invested in. This is proving more difficult to obtain carries a potential cost however be- response rates of 80 per cent or cause as Couper (2005) argues, ‘the more, which were once thought internet gives the lone researcher normal. People no longer treat it the power to survey large numbers as an honour to be asked their of potential respondents cheaply opinion, but instead see it as a and quickly. However, in doing so, nuisance, or even an intrusion the profession may be losing control (Savage and Burrows 2007, 889). over the quality of the work being done’ (Couper 2005, 494). Key to the positivist method, com- Savage and Burrows (2007) also monly linked to Emile Durkheim’s point out that the unequivocal ac- positivist sensibilities in Suicide cess to transactional data, which (1970 [1897]), was access to large the internet affords large companies numbers of those who represent ‘a who ‘routinely collect’ this informa- population’. The equation of ‘large tion (Amazon, eBay, iTunes to name robust datasets’ with statistically a few), presents empirical sociology sound ‘scientific’, and thus -‘bet with a problem; can sociologists ter’ conclusions, or what Stephen make claims to specialist knowl- de Boise: The Future of Empircal Sociology 47 edge, when non-academic entities represent a considerable threat to actually have greater access to ‘ac- carefully constructed sociological curate’ data on demographic pro- surveys designed to elicit precisely files, spending habits, tastes and these types of response. behaviour? With regards to induc- Of course what constitutes an tive method (see Blaikie 2010, 84), ‘authentic’ or ‘honest’ thought firstly companies such as Amazon, eBay, requires greater interrogation of the Facebook and Twitter are far more researcher’s philosophical disposi- able to identify underlying trends tions (Mason 1996). That companies (and develop successful marketing such as Facebook cannot set direct- strategies from these trends) than ly the terms of research, and have academic surveys, in order to infer limited application when it comes to not just what people are buying, but exploring anything beyond purchas- why they are buying in certain ways. ing habits, still guarantees a special These companies are able to dem- place for the ‘sociological imagina- onstrate direct singular outcomes tion’ – especially with regards to crit- by multiple demographic factors. ical, social research. Nevertheless, This is Weber’s critical distinction what Savage and Burrows demon- of sociology’s core aims. Typically, strate is that perception around the the main limitation of most forms of usefulness of empirical sociology quantitative research has arguably has shifted significantly. The staples been its stress on the ‘what’ (erk- of positivist method especially have lären) over the ‘why’ (verstehen). been largely rejected by sociology Using sophisticated data mining and colonised by commercial re- techniques in order to map trends search. and target advertising, companies like Facebook almost fully collapse Impact and Accountability a fiercely retained, yet occasionally The ‘coming crisis’ to ‘academic’ arbitrary (Howe 1988; Blaikie 2010) sociology rests on perceptions of, distinction, between the ‘qualita- and political rhetoric around sociol- tive’ and the ‘quantitative’. In many ogy’s ‘use value’. Increasingly, gov- ways Facebook’s almost unparal- ernment funded research with the leled access to personal information intention of feeding directly into pub- makes it a much more effective tool lic policy has been put out to tender for understanding the attitudes and to private research agencies and motivations of different groups than university departments as if they are many national and transnational the same, whilst simultaneously pol- surveys. Given that status updates iticians stress the ‘accountability’ of are commonly taken as indicative universities for the type of research of ‘authentic’ or ‘honest’ attitudes, they conduct (Willetts 2011). As out- an aggregation of Facebook ‘rants’ lined above, looking to commercial 48 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 organisations as well as universities ties. In essence this equates to what may be justified by the notion that in- types of research are considered creasingly sophisticated techniques worthy of funding and which are not, of sociological analysis are not the on the ostensible premise that so- preserve of sociology departments. cial research should be beneficial to The question then is to whom socio- certain aspects of society. Of par- logical research is made account- ticular concern for a sociological au- able. dience however is who ‘worthwhile’ The cornerstone of what is la- research appears to be beneficial belled academic ‘accountability’ for: is the idea of measuring ‘impact’, A key aspect of this definition of encouraging a visible quantifica- research impact is that impact tion of costs over benefits. Integral must be demonstrable. It is not to this in universities is the now enough just to focus on activi- outmoded Research Assessment ties and outputs that promote re- Exercise (RAE) and the incoming search impact, such as staging a Research Excellence Framework conference or publishing a report. (REF) which as Taylor (2008, 336) You must be able to provide evi- notes, ‘marks the push towards 100 dence of research impact, for ex- per cent metrics-driven evaluation ample, that it has been taken up of research for science-based sub- and used by policy makers, and jects and part-metrics, part ‘light- practitioners, has led to improve- touch’ peer review for the social ments in services or business... sciences and humanities’. Journals you can’t have impact without ex- now come with an ‘impact factor’ cellence (ESRC 2012). rating on which to measure ‘good’ and ‘bad’ publications and the as- There is however a troubling consumption is that the ‘best’ journals flation of the ESRC’s conception of have the highest impact and receive ‘use value’ with economic or instru- more submissions so that academ- mental outcomes, indicating that the ics may improve their ‘REFability’. value of social research should be This is entrenched within a neolib- conceived of only in terms of how it eral framework of market creation helps policy makers or profiteering. and ideologically legitimated by ap- This raises three key concerns with peals to ‘driving-up’ research stan- regard to empirical sociology. First, dards (Gillespe, Pusey, Russell and that the outcomes can be specified Sealey-Huggins 2011). in advance so as to be measured; The ESRC have developed a de- this is problematic because it fails liberately broad definition of what to consider the ethical impact of re- constitutes research ‘with impact’ in search in the long term. Secondly, order to allocate funding to universi- cost and time constraints feed into de Boise: The Future of Empirical Sociology 49 bad research design, actually dam- on. Popular opinion would undoubt- aging the quality of the research be- edly be the imaginary figure of the ing conducted. Thirdly, and perhaps (singular) ‘tax payer’, yet the most more troublingly, the idea that im- vocal tax payers seldom reflect the pact can be measured rests on the interests of a diverse society. classic ‘test’ and ‘control’ model of Private research agencies may metric ‘measurement’, discounted be interested in doing government by sociologists but so frequently work for ‘philanthropic’ or ethical used in testing the ‘impact’ of adver- reasons, but their raison d’etre is tising campaigns, which denies the hardly the pursuit of genuine un- subjectivity of ‘objective’ research derstanding of social phenomena. and attempts to ‘predict’ if not con- ‘Costing’ projects, (uncoincidentally trol populations (Bauman 1994; much like current academic work- Bauman 2000b). load models), involve breaking every aspect of a project into quantifi- Questions of Ethics able ‘chunks’; essentially reducing What are noticeably absent from projects to equations of cost vs. the ESRC’s conception of impact as quality. Secondly, in order to secure ‘research which is used by policy future investment from government makers, and practitioners [or] has bodies, and therefore profit, agen- led to improvements in services or cies need to produce results which business’, are fundamental philo- are going to be favourable to those sophical and sociological questions allocating the funding. Providing an of ethics; particularly whom the so- insightful piece of research which cial research taken up by policy mak- goes against the funders is unlikely ers or businesses benefits. Whilst to make for a good working rela- the ESRC recognises that ‘deter- tionship. Local governments must mining the impact of social science certainly also know, even without research is not a straightforward research, that in economically de- task’ (ESRC 2012), there is a signifi- prived areas, people are likely to cant danger that measuring impact say that they want more police, or becomes a euphemism for ‘value more investment. What they really for money’, reduced to a simplistic want are sound bites to show this. cost-benefit equation. This may- ei In breaking research down in ther favour those approaches which such a way so as to maximise the can quantify observations (i.e. quan- efficiency of costs, to deliver an ‘end titative approaches) or those which product’, to make research account- provide economic benefit. Again, a able to the funding body, the longer justifiable concern around impact term impact of this kind of research is how and who empirical sociology on communities, people or popu- will be accountable to and impacts lations is ignored. This is another 50 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 of the key side effects in reducing contention here is that empirical so- ‘impact’ to quantifiable metric as- ciology is being held to ransom. Not sessments (De Angelis and Harvie only by the direct funding of projects 2009) as if they are merely objective by multinationals or conglomerates, reflections of quality. As Bauman but also by the dictates of neoliberal- (2000b) highlights, ‘the humanities ism; rationalised efficiency, competi- may (conceivably) rise to a scien- tion, instrumental value, speed, the tific status in a world in which their commodification of thought through speaking/interpreting human sub- ‘knowledge economics’ (Harvie jects descend (or are pushed down) 2006; De Angelis and Harvie 2009) to the status of speechless objects; and the ‘increased marketability of in a world remade after the likeness scientific knowledge with concomi- of concentration camps’ (Bauman tant commercial investment in its 2000b, 74). A narrowly instrumen- production’ (Holmwood 2007, 48). tal, empirical sociology modelled A notion of ethical, empirical, soon commercial, private sector re- ciology should also not be confused search, like a positivist objective so- with the idea of formalised ethics ciology, is precariously balanced to committees as being the sole de- do more harm than good, as it acts terminant of sociological research’s in the interests of those who define ethical validity. In fact, as Martyn the limits of the research, rather Hammersley (2009) argues, such than those who the research is ac- ethics committees may actually work tually supposed to benefit. against sociology’s ethical contribu- This is exactly what Burawoy tions. Empirical sociology cannot be warned of in his 2004 address. From subject to rigid quantifiable metrics a position in the American academy, of impacts and outcomes or ethical he was well placed to document the approval forms which standardise withering of ethical questions when means / ends approaches (any sociology departments formed eco- more than it already has historical- nomic alliances with private sector ly), because attempts to calculate institutions or, I would suggest, tried and order social life, which ‘ortho- to ape their mechanisms. Empirical dox’ sociology presumed (Bauman sociology should be wary of what he 1994; Bauman 2000b), dehumanis- calls ‘policy sociology’ or ‘sociology es the object of sociological enquiry, in the service of a goal defined by rendering the purposes of sociology a client’ (Burawoy 2005, 9). As he redundant at best and sinister at goes on to argue, ‘if market research worst. had dominated the funding of policy sociology, as [C. Wright] Mills feared Bad Research Design it would, then we could all be held The staple of projects in private to ransom’ (Burawoy 2005, 17). The sector media research, where I de Boise: The Future of Empirical Sociology 51 worked, usually included ascertain- the same agency in which I worked. ing how many people recognised The company was asked to con- an advert on TV before and after duct research on the effectiveness an ad campaign and whether this of a campaign which aimed at try- meant (often on a five point Likert ing to reduce binge drinking behav- scale) that they were more or less iour amongst young people, funded willing or likely to buy a product; jointly by a central government body thus demonstrating impact. Average and a public service broadcaster. turnaround time for a project was Adverts were run on a TV show, about two months, including analy- popular amongst 16-24 year olds, in sis. Generally the sex and age of tandem with storylines on the same the product’s ‘target market’, or the show, highlighting the dangers of potential to buy or watch something, binge drinking. There were also an- were ascertained and then data ti-binge storylines in an online series were generated in line essentially consisting of ten minute episodes, with what would give clients a posi- in an effort to ‘de-glamorise’ binge tive outcome. drinking. Conducting an online sur- Advertising departments for ex- vey with regular viewers and non- ample wanted to see that advertis- regular viewers, before, during and ing on a particular medium ‘worked’, after the storylines and online epi- or have quotes to back up that their sodes were aired, behaviour related advertising was going to work. Many to binge drinking was found to have of the decisions had already been gone up at odd intervals. This was made by the time research was especially amongst those who were conducted, so there was very little regular viewers of the show and had to gain by subsequently critiquing seen the online episodes. those decisions. Research often in- There were four plausible expla- volved quota sampling (for problems nations. Firstly, those regular view- associated with quota sampling see ers were more likely to be engaged Gorard 2004, 72-73) and online sur- in binge drinking than non-regular veys were the primary method of viewers. This didn’t explain overall data collection here because they binge drinking going up amongst were cheap and quick. There was both groups. Secondly, that the huge emphasis on getting the ‘best anti-binge drinking storylines ac- CPI’ (cost per interview), though de- tually glamorised binge drinking pending on the use of the research, (definitely possible). Thirdly, that the sample sizes varied considerably. respondents at one of the stages ‘Accountability’ and ‘impact’ also had completely different attitudes to place undue stress on the design drinking, despite being from similar process. Let me provide a few brief backgrounds (again, fully plausible). examples of how this may happen, in Fourthly, in order to price the work 52 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

‘competitively’, preparation time had generally assumed a linear causal been cut and other potential influ- link between what people said as ences on ‘binge drinking’ had not indicative of their ‘honest’ opinions, been isolated. The ‘post’ stage of marketing and behaviour change; research took place after 16-24 year precisely the same simplistic as- olds were likely to have completed sumptions that have shifted socio- GCSEs, AS Levels, A-Levels and logical research away from instru- University exams and thus were mental behaviourism. Presenting more likely to be drinking heavily interviewees with a series of post- during those periods. Luckily quan- ers designed to shock and produce titative data is often amenable to se- instant change, failed to accurately lective distortion in order to ‘paint a determine why certain areas have positive picture’. higher levels of alcohol consump- This was not necessarily due tion contributing to obesity in the to a series of bad individual deci- first instance. In addition, sending sions, but the demands placed on someone weighing ten and a half ‘time’ and ‘value for money’ leading stone to interview people about to some major oversights on both which advertisements would make the part of the client and research them lose the equivalent of their en- agency. The questions in the survey tire body mass, was on at least one were also mainly derived from per- occasion, met with an unsurprising sonal experiences of binge drinking ‘I’m not being funny mate, but you amongst agency colleagues and the just wouldn’t understand’. client’s own ideas (both parties’ av- This will more often than not be erage ages were often far greater the case in private, market-oriented, than 24). In addition, virtually no outcome driven research. Where consideration was given as to the there is a lack of autonomy, with explanations as to why young peo- the focus on consistent turnover ple seem to drink more in the first of projects and profits, questioning place. This was treated as common the quality, scope and use of the sense. research will always be secondary. Similarly, on commission from re- This is the irrationality of the con- gional Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), veyor belt approach to empirical the agency looked at the causes of enquiry and an increasingly narrow, male obesity in the North of England. instrumental, empirical sociology, The interviews conducted with re- which attempts to ape commercial spondents had a narrow focus on sector models. This is the main con- individual circumstance rather than cern in the reduction of relatively socio-economic or cultural factors, autonomous, governmental fund- which would have taken much lon- ing for the social sciences, greater ger to investigate. Research design emphasis on impact and measure- de Boise: The Future of Empirical Sociology 53 ment (the rhetoric of accountabil- tious ‘insights’ that lead to observing ity), and advocating ‘partnerships’ symptoms rather than understand- between private enterprise and uni- ing their origination. Unreflexive and versities. Good empirical sociologi- unquestioning use of the staples of cal research asks not only about the empirical sociology, surveys, ques- wider social context in which behav- tionnaires and interviews for ex- iours are formulated, but broader ample, which fail to engage with the ethical questions about how the re- broader issues of phenomenology, search will be used and what differ- positivism, experience, ‘truth’ and ence empirical research will make researcher ‘position’, are not the to discursive shifts in understand- practical application of academic ing. Such questions are lacking in theory but a different endeavour en- private research precisely because tirely. they put up barriers to outcome led This is not to say that empiri- research; barriers that are time con- cal sociology should be directed to suming and costly, but mostly un- crudely behaviourist and instrumen- productive to consider. tal policy ends, nor that individual sociologists necessarily should be Some Suggestions for considered as solely dictating the Sociological Empiricism terms of their research from their It is necessary to make value ‘ivory towers’ (as is a popular narra- judgments about good and bad tive). What sociology as a discipline pieces of social research, by un- develops is awareness that socio- derstanding the conditions in which logical research is not undertaken that research is formulated. Social because of the acts of ‘unique’ in- research conducted by either uni- dividual thinkers (Bayatrizi 2009). versities or private sector agencies There is no option to conduct re- is self-defeating on its own terms if search in an individualist, ethical it simply provides the aggregation of vacuum because the agenda has opinions designed to tell a (singu- already been shaped by the meth- lar) ‘story’. In this case ‘researchers’ odological, ideological or institution- become merely narrators (not to be al boundaries. confused with the serious endeav- As Ben Watson (2011) in a char- ours of interpretivism). acteristic polemic against ‘pop so- What the opening up of univer- ciology’, states; ‘designed to inform sities to market-oriented logic has government and commercial bod- the potential to further entrench is ies, empirical sociology must per- the same conveyor belt approach force concentrate on ‘business as to empirical sociology as that of the usual’, rather than on the capitalist private sector; staple methods for society that produced them. The predetermined situations and repeti- normative, quantifying approach 54 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 inevitably promotes reaction, since logue. As Rogers Brubaker (1993) it is concerned with what is, not notes, social theory is itself a form of what might be’ (Watson 2011, 108). constantly ‘becoming’ which shapes Given that quantitative empirical so- our expectations as sociologists. ciology tends toward retroactive cat- Therefore we must be conscious of egorisation, how far can it describe the ways in which identification with and critique social process when, at the discipline informs how we ap- the moment of analysis, its object of proach research and come to imag- study (trends, tastes, behaviours) ine what our research will yield. As may have already eluded it, render- with practical critiques of positivism, ing its critique regressive? the generation of universal claims Whilst this is a deliberately cari- about society made solely from the catured reading of sociology by point of theory is in danger of doing Watson, it raises key issues which precisely what Bauman rightly fears question the relativist nature of soci- about empiricism; the reduction of ology as just a collection of opinions. humans to objects. Even in abstraction, quantitative Perhaps unpopularly, it should data can help to lay bare the mate- also be suggested that the future of rial effects of social processes, lead- empirical sociological research must ing to critique and feeding back in engage more with, but not adopt to empirical research, though not to wholesale, some of the methods the point of ever closing that critique of commercial research. There is down. The relationship between ‘cri- a great deal of potential for refining tique’ and ‘evidence’ need not nec- some of the cruder research meth- essarily be a linear or even cyclical ods employed by private sector or- one. Instead it must be more discur- ganisations, not to mention the co- sive in form; less easily ordered and creation of research by democratic less constrained by the dictates of means. Whilst there are still major instrumental economics. considerations with using online Empirical sociology cannot be methods (see Weible and Wallace separated from a theoretical ground- 1998; Cook, Heath and Thompson ing. Yet sociology cannot start from 2000; Crawford, Couper and a rejection of empiricism either. By Lamais 2001; Vehovar, Manfreda constantly challenging our own as- and Batagelj 2001; Kwak and sumptions as sociologists about the Radler 2002; Shih and Fan 2008), ways in which society works, reflex- of which coverage is still one of the ively questioning our position at ev- most pressing issues (Couper 2000, ery stage (Bourdieu 1989; Bourdieu 467), new techniques of conducting and Wacquant 1992), through the- quantitative or qualitative research ory and experience, sociology can can be a practical means of gener- foster rather than close down dia- ating data particularly on sensitive, de Boise: The Future of Empirical Sociology 55 personal and hard to discuss topics subscribing to an objective positiv- (Duffy, Smith, Terhanian and Bremer ism and qualitative methods do not 2005; DiNitto, Busch-Armendariz, necessarily undermine the ability Bender, Woo et al. 2008). to generalise or capture the expe- Similarly the rejection of some rience of a wide range of different methods or approaches outright be- people. To deny knowledge of any- cause they don’t necessarily fit with thing outside of the researcher’s in- an epistemological tradition, is prob- dividual experience is to commit to lematic (Howe 1988; Johnson and an ‘extreme Protagorean relativism’ Onwuegbuzie 2004, 15). Beginning (Winch 1964, 308), which renders from the premise that different meth- empirical sociology comparable to odologies are only useful for distinct the neoliberal frameworks which and separate reasons, the explor- have undermined sociology’s ethi- atory nature of social research be- cal contributions. comes limited. To see only respon- Kimberlé Crenshaw’s (1989; dents’ interpretations as important 1991) concept of ‘intersectionality’ diminishes the researcher’s ability made the ‘situatedness of all forms to locate these interpretations in a of knowledge’ clear (Haraway 1988; wider, relational context. Clearly Davis 2008b). This is a significantly regularities in behaviour based on important concept for sociological similar social location still exist, de- empiricism, as it makes demands spite the mutability of language. On for a more ethical conception of the other hand, to assume knowl- equality, through the recognition of edge a priori of the respondents’ difference. However, just as the uni- interpretations, therefore conduct- versal ‘truths’ provided by positivism ing a standardised set of quantita- erased certain groups’ experiences, tive interviews on the assumption thus marginalising them, increas- that questions will be understood in ingly microcosmic approaches to exactly the same way, reduces the sociological method have converse- researcher’s ability to understand ly led to increasingly parochial re- subjectivities. search projects. In this respect, all Private agencies do not neces- approaches to social research are sarily have the same moral or philo- equally valid, regardless of their sophical impasses restricting the quality. As already argued above, use of both quantitative and quali- this should not be considered the tative methods, and whilst failing case. to interrogate such assumptions is Whilst the problems of ‘mean- clearly a problem, this is not some- ing imposition’ (Pawson 1989) ex- thing restricted to commercial re- ist more tangibly in quantitative search. Engaging with quantitative research strategies, as Anthony methods does not necessarily mean Onwuegbuzie and Nancy L. Leech 56 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

(2005) note: sponse to bipartisan conflicts, within [I]nterpretivists also are not safe the social sciences, over method- from criticism. In particular, their ologies (Collins, Onwuegbuzie and claim that multiple, contradictory, Jiao 2007; Tashakkori and Creswell but valid accounts of the same 2007; Teddlie and Tashakkori 2009). phenomenon always exist is ex- Whilst ‘mixed methods’, and more tremely misleading, inasmuch as frequently ‘triangulation’, become it leads many qualitative research- terms thrown into research propos- ers to adopt an ‘anything goes’ als or methodology chapters without relativist attitude, thereby not pay- sufficient consideration, mixed meth- ing due att1ention to providing an ods research combines both philo- adequate rationale for interpreta- sophical (Tashakkori and Teddlie tions of their data (Onwuegbuzie 1998; Johnson and Onwuegbuzie and Leech 2005, 378). 2004; Johnson, Onwuegbuzie and Turner 2007) and pragmatic ele- The tendency toward arbitrary ments (Onwuegbuzie and Leech sample selection is as equally at fault 2005; Creswell and Plano Clark in qualitative empirical accounts as 2007) of empirical research in its in quantitative generalisations. The own right. idea that quantitative strategies fail There is no firm consensus as to be of use if they include subjec- to what form a mixed methods de- tive interpretation of the question is sign must take, however it is gen- as naive as thinking that interviews erally agreed that it involves adopt- necessarily counteract the problem ing a combination of qualitative and of ‘imposing meaning’. Seeking to quantitative approaches (Collins, reduce foisting the researcher’s Onwuegbuzie and Jiao 2007, 267), own assumptions on respondents as opposed to the combining of (through the inclusion of lengthy one or more qualitative or quantita- open ended responses, whereby tive methods (for example including respondents can write if they do face-to-face life histories, structured not understand what is expected interviews and online surveys). of them), can be a practical use of John W. Creswell and Vicki L. carefully designed online survey; in Plano Clark (2007) advocate that other words ‘the conduct of the fully ‘[B]y mixing the datasets, the re- objective and value free research is searcher provides a better under- a myth, even though the regulatory standing than if either dataset has ideal of objectivity can be a useful been used alone’ (Creswell and one’ (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie Clark 2007, 7). They go on to note 2004, 15-16 my emphasis). however that ‘it is not simply enough Mixed methods research to collect and analyze quantitative emerged as a distinct paradigm in re- and qualitative data; they need to de Boise: The Future of Empirical Sociology 57 be ‘mixed’ in some way so that to- Bauman (2000b) puts it ‘…the kind gether they form a more complete of enlightenment which sociology is picture of the problem than they do capable of delivering is directed to when standing alone’ (Creswell and such freely choosing individuals; so- Clark 2007, 7). This raises both the ciology is a service to a democratic question of what mixed methods re- society insofar as it enhances and search can add (thus what the pur- reinforces that freedom of choice, pose is of employing both methods re-opens rather than closes the work over using one) and also how to in- of signification’ (Bauman 2000b, 79- tegrate different forms of data. 80). The kind of means/ends instru- Both questions are inevitably de- mental approach that commercially pendent on the methodological and sponsored sociological and com- epistemological persuasions of the mercial research adopts attempts to researcher. If the data generated close down this debate, by provid- are seen as antagonistic rather than ing facile explanation. Empirical so- complementary, then both ques- ciological research needs to retain tions are difficult to answer. What a the idea of not attempting to pro- mixed methods strategy offers is the vide a definitive answer, but better elucidation of key trends, framed in understanding of the ways in which terms of respondents’ interpreta- different ideas are constructed. tions, whilst offering a much broader What is clear is that empirical so- picture of differences and similarities ciology needs to develop autonomy in attitudes between demographic from the dictates of commercial in- groups. Individual respondents’ mo- terests and ‘laissez faire’ knowledge tivations, attitudes and feelings can economics. Whilst the new priva- therefore be explained in their own tised university system in Britain terms, whilst linking this to both indi- aims to further engender ‘account- vidual responses, specifically in re- ability’ as a rhetorical device, espe- lation to the open ended questions, cially with regards to the allocation and the broader trends evident in of research funding, it should be the various demographic categories noted that very few sociologists re- to which they identified. ject the idea of accountability to the ‘object’ of their enquiry. This ‘object’ Summary should be toward people and societ- The future of empirical sociologi- ies however, with a view to expand- cal research is not just about better, ing the opportunities and possibili- ‘more innovative’ methods, more ties of the disenfranchised groups; time spent on thinking about how to not to increasing control of margin- phrase questions or how to ensure alised populations. This was the outcomes. It is about a contribution ordering potential of moral statis- to ongoing dialogue or again, as tics (Bauman 1994; Bayatrizi 2009) 58 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 and orthodox sociology (Bauman thought out designs. This should 2000b), geared precariously toward not be the aim of academic, empiri- social engineering. cal sociology; to bolster the reputa- Governments cannot and should tion, or the profiteering potential of not put funding for social research the university. Aside from undermin- out to competitive tender. There is ing the ethical commitment to which no absolutist way of knowing how empirical sociology should be di- empirical research will be used or rected, a focus on conveyor belt ap- received; thus, directing it to an in- proaches to research grants under- strumentally singular ‘end’, as is the mines the quality of the work done. fear with the new ‘impact assess- On a practical level, empirical soci- ment’ criteria, will inevitably be a fu- ology must seek to reengage with tile, costly and dangerous exercise. the methods, but not the ethos of, This is the broader ethical challenge some aspects of commercial sector that empirical sociology needs to ad- research. The bipartisan conflicts dress which should be placed over which emerged as a reaction to pos- and beyond the dictates of impact, itivism are justified, yet a continuing outcome, or more troublingly, profit. conflation of method with epistemol- At the heart of this system is a ogy has the potential to reproduce shift in accountability from ‘publics’ some of the worst aspects of these to ‘funders’, contributing directly to conveyor belt approaches. On the the perception that if it doesn’t feed other hand, as Savage and Burrows directly into social policy, individual (2007) note, it is not enough to sim- earning potential or economic in- ply reject research done by com- terest, then empirical sociological mercial sector enterprises on the research is useless. It is far more basis of greater expertise within useless however, to feed directly universities. What empirical sociol- into a policy where the parameters ogy has to offer should extend far have already been pre-determined. beyond ‘better’ methods; it should The coming crisis to empirical soci- look to fundamentally question the ology consists not just in a case of uses of research and the value of companies having access to more any empirical work directed toward data than academies, but also in instrumental ends. resisting the temptation to engage with the kind of instrumentality that Endnotes undermines the point of sociological 1 This was established as a result research and reduces it to a mouth- of the ‘Haldane report’, published in piece for commercially selective in- 1918, which advocated that ‘decisions terests. about what to spend research funds on Research geared toward ‘cli- should be made by researchers rather ent satisfaction’ often produces ill- than politicians’ (see http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/ de Boise: The Future of Empirical Sociology 59 cmselect/cmdius/168/16807.htm) Liquid Modern World. Cambridge: Polity Press. 2 ‘There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and Bayatrizi, Zohreh. 2009. Counting the women and people and the beauty of Dead and Regulating the Liv- that tapestry and the quality of our lives ing: Early Modern Statistics and will depend upon how much each of the Formation of the Sociological us is prepared to take responsibility for Imagination (1662–1897). British ourselves and each of us prepared to Journal of Sociology 60 (3): 603- turn round and help by our own efforts 621. those who are unfortunate’ (Thatcher 1993, 626). Blaikie, Norman. 2010. Designing So- cial Research. Cambridge: Polity 3 This essentially purports to be a Press. non-ideological economic and moral position reflecting a ‘middle ground’ Blunkett, David. 2000. Influence or - Ir between Keynesian capitalism and relevance [online]. Available at communitarian socialism and, between [Ac- cessed 6 April 2012]. References Adorno, Theodor W. and Max Hork- Boffey, Daniel. 2011. Academic Fury heimer. 1997 [1947]. The Dialec- over Order to Study the Big So- tic of Enlightenment London: Allen ciety [online]. Available at [Accessed 20 Domination: Studies in the Phe- February 2012]. nomenology of Oppression. New York: Routledge. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1989. Social Space and Symbolic Power. Sociological Bauman, Zygmunt. 1994. Morality with- Theory 7 (1): 14-25. out Ethics. Theory, Culture & So- ciety 11 (1): 1. Bourdieu, Pierre and Loïc J.D. Wac- quant. 1992. An Invitation to Re- Bauman, Zygmunt. 2000a. Liquid Mo- flexive Sociology. Cambridge: Pol- dernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. ity Press.

Bauman, Zygmunt. 2000b. Sociologi- Brubaker, Rogers. 1993. Social Theory cal Enlightenment — For Whom, as Habitus. In Craig J. Calhoun, About What? Theory, Culture & Edward Lipuma and Moishe Society 17 (2): 71-82. Postone eds. Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives. Cambridge: Polity Bauman, Zygmunt. 2011. Culture in a Press. 60 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

Social Science Computer Review Bulmer, Martin, Coates, E. and Domin- 23 (4): 486-501. ian, L. (2007) Evidence-Based: Policy Making. In Hugh M. Bochel Crawford, Scott D., Mick P. Couper and and Sue Duncan eds. Making Pol- Mark J. Lamais. 2001. Web Sur- icy in Theory and Practice. Bristol: veys : Perceptions of Burden. So- The Policy Press. cial Science Computer Review 19 (2): 146-162. Burawoy, Michael. 2005. For Public Sociology. American Sociological Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1989. Demar- Review 70 (1): 4-28. ginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Cri- Collins, Kathleen M. T., Anthony J. On- tique of Antidiscrimination Doc- wuegbuzie and Qun G. Jiao. 2007. trine, Feminist Theory and Antira- A Mixed Methods Investigation of cist Politics. University of Chicago Mixed Methods Sampling Designs Legal Forum 14: 538-554. in Social and Health Science Re- search. Journal of Mixed Methods Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1991. Map- Research 1 (3): 267-294. ping the Margins: Intersectional- ity, Identity Politics, and Violence Cook, Coleen, Fred Heath, and Rus- against Women of Color. Stanford sell L. Thompson. 2000. A Meta- Law Review 43 (6): 1241-1299. Analysis of Response Rates in Web- or Internet-Based Surveys. Creswell, John W. and Vicki L. Plano Educational and Psychological Clark. 2007. Designing and Con- Measurement 60 (6): 821-836. ducting Mixed Methods Research. London: Sage. Cornish, Derek B. and Ronald V. Clarke. 1987. Social Science in Davis, Kathy. 2008b. Intersectionality Government: The Case of the as Buzzword: A Sociology of Sci- Home Office Research and Plan- ence Perspective on what makes ning Unit. In Martin Bulmer ed. So- a Feminist Theory Successful. cial Science Research and Gov- Feminist Theory 9 (1): 67-85. ernment: Comparative Essays on Britain and the United States. Davis, Mark. 2008a. Freedom and Con- Cambridge: Cambridge University sumerism: A Critique of Zygmunt Press: 166-198. Bauman’s Sociology Aldershot: Ashgate. Couper, Mick P. 2000. Web Surveys: A Review of Issues and Approach- De Angelis, Massimo. and David Har- es. Public Opinion Quarterly 64: vie. 2009. ‘Cognitive Capitalism’ 464-494. and the Rat-Race: How Capital Measures Immaterial Labour in Couper, Mick P. 2005. Technology British Universities. Historical Ma- Trends in Survey Data Collection. terialism 17 (3): 3-30. de Boise: The Future of Empirical Sociology 61

Fay, Brian and J. Donald Moon. 1977. DiNitto, Diana M., Noël Bridget Busch- What Would An Adequate Philos- Armendariz, Kimberley Bender et ophy of Social Science Look Like? al. 2008. Testing Telephone and Philosophy of the Social Sciences Web Surveys for Studying Men’s 7: 209-227. Sexual Assault Perpetration Be- haviors. Journal of Interpersonal Finlayson, Alan. 1999. Third Way The- Violence 23 (10): 1483-1493. ory. The Political Quarterly 70 (3): 271-279. Duffy, Bobby, Kate Smith, George Ter- hanian et al. 2005. Comparing Giddens, Anthony. 2000. The Third Data from Online and Face-to- Way and its Critics. Cambridge: Face Surveys. International Jour- Polity Press. nal of Market Research 47 (6): 615-639. Gillespe, Tom, Andre Pusey and Bertie Russell et al. 2011. Reimagining Durkheim, Emile. 1970 [1897]. Sui- the University. Roundhouse Jour- cide: A Study in Sociology. nal 2: 22-25. London:Routledge. Gorard, Stephen. 2004. Quantitative Dwyer, Peter and Nick Ellison. 2009. Methods in Social Science: The ‘We Nicked Stuff from all Over the Role of Numbers Made Easy. Lon- Place’: Policy Transfer or Mud- don: Continuum. dling Through? Policy & Politics 37 (3): 389-407. Hammersley, Martyn. 2009. “Against the Ethicists: on the Evils of Ethi- Elias, Norbert. 1991. The Society of In- cal Regulation.” International dividuals. London: Continuum. Journal of Social Research Meth- odology 12 (3): 211-225. Elias, Norbert. 1994. The Civilizing Pro- cess. Oxford: Blackwell. Haraway, Donna. 1988. Situated Knowledges: The Science Ques- ESRC. 2012. What is Research Im- tion in Feminism as a Site of Dis- pact? [online]. Available at Harding, S. (1986) The Science Ques- [Accessed 6 April 2012]. tion in Feminism Milton Keynes, The Open University Press. Fay, Brian. 1984. Naturalism as a Phi- losophy of Social Science. Philos- Harding, Sandra. 1996. Feminism, Sci- ophy of the Social Sciences 14: ence and the Anti-Enlightenment 529-542. Critiques. In Ann Garry and Mari- lyn Pearsall. eds. Women, Knowl- 62 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

edge, and Reality: Explorations line]. Available at [Ac- Harvey, David. 2005. A Brief History cessed 6 April 2012]. of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johnson, R. Burke., Anthony Onwueg- buzie and Lisa A. Turner. 2007. Harvie, David. 2006. Value Production Toward a Definition of Mixed and Struggle in the Classroom: Methods Research. Journal of Teachers Within, Against and Be- Mixed Methods Research 1 (2): yond Capital. Capital & Class 30 112-133. (1): 1-32. Johnson, R. Burke. and Anthony J. On- Hearn, Jeff. 2004. From Hegemonic wuegbuzie. 2004. Mixed Methods Masculinity to the Hegemony of Research: A Research Paradigm Men. Feminist Theory 5 (1): 49– Whose Time Has Come. Educa- 72. tional Researcher 33 (7): 14-26.

Holmwood, John. 2001. Gender and Kemp, Stephen and John Holmwood. Critical Realism: A Critique of Say- 2003. Realism, Regularity and er. Sociology 35 (04): 947-965. Social Explanation. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 33 (2): Holmwood, John. 2007. Sociology as 165-187. Public Discourse and Profession- al Practice: A Critique of Michael Kilminster, Richard. 1998. The Socio- Burawoy. Social Theory 25 (1): logical Revolution: From the En- 46-66. lightenment to the Global Age. London: Routledge. Howe, Kenneth. 1988. Against the Quantitative-Qualitative Incom- Kwak, Nojin and Barry Radler. 2002. patibility Thesis or Dogmas Die A Comparison Between Mail and Hard. Educational Researcher 17 Web Surveys: Response Pattern, (10): 10-16. Respondent Profile, and Data Quality. Journal of Official Statis- Husserl, Edmund. 1967. The Thesis tics 18 (2): 257-273. of the Natural Standpoint and its Suspension. In Joseph J. Kock- Longino, Helen E. 1987. Can there be a elmans ed. Phenomenology: The Feminist Science? Hypatia 2 (3): Philosophy of Edmund Husserl 51-64. and Its Interpretation. Garden City: Double Day. Mason, Jennifer. 1996. Qualitative Re- searching. London: Sage. Independent.co.uk. 2011. Residents Vent Anger at Boris Johnson [on- McRobbie, Angela. 2000. Feminism de Boise: The Future of Empirical Sociology 63

and the Third Way. Feminist Re- Journal of Social Research Meth- view (64): 97-112. odology 8 (5): 375–387.

Monaghan, Mark. 2008a. The Evi- Onwuegbuzie, Anthony. and Nancy dence-Base in UK Drug Policy: Leech. 2007. Validity and Quali- The New Rules of Engagement. tative Research: An Oxymoron? Policy & Politics 36 (1): 145-150. Quality & Quantity 41 (2): 233- 249. Monaghan, Mark. 2008b. Appreciating cannabis: the paradox of evidence Papineau, David. 1979. For Science in in evidence-based policy making. the Social Sciences London: Mac- Evidence & Policy: A Journal of millan. Research, Debate and Practice 4 (2): 209-231. Pawson, Ray. 1989. A Measure for Neasures: A Manifesto for Empiri- Monaghan, Mark. 2011. Evidence ver- cal Sociology London: Routledge. sus Politics. Bristol: The Policy Press. Savage, Mike and Roger Burrows. 2007. The Coming Crisis of Em- Moustakas, Clark E. 1994. Phenom- pirical Sociology. Sociology 41 (5): enological Research Methods. 885-899. London: Sage. Seidler, Victor J. 1994. Unreasonable Oakley, Ann. 1981a. Subject Women. Men: Masculinity and Social The- Oxford: Robertson. ory. London: Routledge.

Oakley, Ann. 1981b. Interviewing Wom- Shih, Tse-Hua and Xitao Fan. 2008. en: A Contradiction in Terms. In Comparing Response Rates from Helen Roberts ed. Doing Feminist Web and Mail Surveys: A Meta- Research. London: Routledge Analysis. Field Methods 20 (3): and Kegan Paul: 30-61. 249–271.

Oakley, Ann. 1998. Gender, Methodol- Shildrick, Margrit. 1997. Leaky Bodies ogy and People’s Ways of Know- and Boundaries: Feminism, Post- ing: Some Problems with Femi- modernism and (Bio)Ethics. Lon- nism and the Paradigm Debate in don: Routledge. Social Science. Sociology 32 (4): 707-731. Shore, Cris. 2010. Beyond the Multiver- sity: Neoliberalism and the Rise of Onwuegbuzie, Anthony and Nancy the Schizophrenic University. So- L. Leech. 2005. On Becoming a cial Anthropology 18 (1): 15-29. Pragmatic Researcher: The Im- portance of Combining Quanti- Smith, Katherine. 2011. Unpacking the tative and Qualitative Research Impacts of the Impact Agenda: Methodologies. International The future for Creative and Intel- 64 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

lectual Spaces within Academia. Higher Education in the Liquid Vehovar, Vasja, Katja Manfreda and Modern Era: Swirling Down the Zenel Batagelj. 2001. Sensitivity Drain?, University of Leeds, 9 of e-commerce Measurement to September 2011. the Survey Instrument. Interna- tional Journal of Electronic Com- Steele, Gerald R. 2009. There is no merce 6 (1): 31-52. Such Thing as Society. Economic Affairs 29 (4): 85-86. Watson, Ben. 2011. Adorno for Revo- lutionaries. London: Unkant Pub- Tashakkori, Abbas and John Creswell. lishers. 2007. Editorial: The New Era of Mixed Methods. Journal of Mixed Weible, Robert and Wallace, J. (1998) Methods Research 1 (1): 3-7. The Impact of the Internet on Data Collection. Market Research Tashakkori, Abbas and Teddlie, C. 10(3): 19-23. 1998. Mixed methodology: Com- bining Qualitative and Quantita- Willetts, David. 2011. David Willetts tive Approaches. Thousand Oaks, MP: How this Government is Put- CA, Sage. ting Students at the Heart of our University System [online]. Avail- Taylor, Paul A. 2008. Perverted Re- able at [Accessed 20 Febru- Tebes, Jacob Kraemer. 2005. Com- ary 2012]. munity Science, Philosophy of Science and the Practice of Re- Winch, Peter. 1964. Understanding a search. American Journal of Com- Primitive Society. American Philo- munity Psychology 35 (3/4): 213- sophical Quarterly 1 (4): 307-324. 230. Wright Mills, C. 1959. The Sociological Teddlie, Charles B. and Abba Tashak- Imagination. Oxford: Oxford Uni- kori. 2009. Foundations of Mixed versity Press. Methods Research: Integrating Quantitative and Qualitative Ap- Žižek, Slavoj. 2000. The Ticklish Sub- proaches in the Social and Behav- ject: The Absent Centre of Politi- ioral Sciences. Thousand Oaks: cal Ontology. London: Verso. Sage. Žižek, Slavoj. 2005. Against Human Thatcher, Margaret. 1993. The Down- Rights. New Left Review 34: 115- ing Street Years. London: Harper- 131. Collins. Future Subjects? Education, Activism and Parental Practices

Yvette Taylor

This paper considers the ‘coming forward’ of certain classed subjects through the fields of education, parenting and activism. Questions of the future pose who, where and when questions: who is ‘stuck’ in the past, who is capacitated as taking ‘us’ forward, and what embodied, spatial and material collisions occur in these renderings of past-present-future? I locate feminist questions in educational trajectories, parental practices and forms of activism, and highlight the implicatedness of past and present in ‘travelling’ beyond research trajectories. As some are recognized as activating their own (and their families’) futures, others are condemned as failing, irresponsible and out-of-place. This is a distinctly classed process, witnessed in educational journeys and the parental - even activist - claims enacted therein. In these encounters, class ‘sticks’ as waste and as wrong, as a past residue attached to those behind the times and without worthy futures.

Keywords: Class, Education, Gender, Parenting, Futures, Activism

Introduction: Class as a future responsible citizens and parents subject? (or ‘parenting citizens’). Even when This paper considers the ‘coming these claims are rendered precari- forward’1 of certain classed subjects ous they are, in the case of non- through the fields of education, par- normative (‘queer’) lesbian and gay enting and activism. In these loca- parents, still recuperated and actions, some subjects are praised as cumulative, buffering middle-class future orientated while others are children as future citizens (Ahmed condemned as stuck in the past, re- 2002; Skeggs 2004; Parker 2010). dundant and wasteful. Processes of Gender inequalities also impact on mobilization and capitalization, often these claims with many feminist esteemed as success, care and mo- researchers speaking to the gen- bility, are located alongside sticky is- dering of social futures, as women sues of failure, waste and immobil- are welcomed and celebrated as ity. I argue that only certain subjects now-included in the worlds of work can make legitimate claims on the and education, becoming unstuck future - as educated, knowing and from family cares and all-consum-

Graduate Journal of Social Science July 2012, Vol. 9, Issue 2 © 2012 by Graduate Journal of Social Science. All Rights Reserved. ISSN: 1572-3763 Taylor: Education, Activism and Parental Practices 66 ing parental practices (Adkins 2002; have always hoped to be attentive McRobbie 2009; Taylor 2012a). The and resistant to class, in mapping interconnected spheres of family, my own sense of place in and out- education and employment are lo- side of academia and in keeping cated as sites of change, offering class present on academic agen- new, capacitated and equalized fu- das, as I see it misplaced and ab- tures, to be activated by achieving sent (particularly in sexualities re- subjects. Women in particular are search, see Taylor 2011c for an called upon to be present, to be new overview). Attention is increasingly future subjects standing-in as visible given to identities as fluid, flexible, signs of gender equity (McRobbie multifaceted and de-territorialised, 2009). At the same time, many have rather than located in distinct, sol- queried this celebrated post-gender id markers of a person’s position arrival, given that inequalities are re- (fixed employment positions, stable configured rather than erased within regional identities). Such ‘fluidities’ the still profoundly gendered sites of often centre those entitled and mo- family, education, and employment bile in relation to geographical resi- (Armstrong 2010; Evans 2010). As dence and lifestyle variety, anticipat- some women are recognized as ing how, who and where to be, as a activating their own (and their fami- future orientation and self-becoming lies’) futures, others are condemned (Addison 2012). Notions of choice as failing, irresponsible and out-of- and change also shape research place (Parker 2010). This is a dis- preferences where new sociological tinctly classed process, witnessed in methods are proposed to focus ‘… educational journeys and the paren- upon movement, mobility and con- tal - even activist - claims enacted tingent ordering, rather than upon therein. In these encounters, class a stasis, structure and social order’ ‘sticks’ as waste and as wrong, as a (Urry 2000, 18 in Adkins 2002, 4). past residue attached to those be- Such a call variously recognises the hind the times and without worthy ways that class, gender, race and futures (Allen and Taylor 2011). nationhood are redone anew and To argue that this is so, is not to often aims to take account of so- efface the inevitably intersectional cial paradoxes and contradictions collisions of, for example, class, (Tolia-Kelly 2010). Despite this, less gender and race, which re-emerge is said of the retention of identities in struggles over futures, and the and enduring inequalities as class right and entitlement to be present in particular is dismissed as a relic and legitimate within key sites of of the past, even as it re-emerges parenting and education (Caballero in fields of ‘future-making’: it is re- 2007; Gillies 2007; Reynolds 2010, made in the construction and claim- 2012; Taylor 2009). Empirically, I ing of familial identities, located here 67 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 in the spheres of education, activ- the necessity of ‘intersectionality’ ism and parental practices (Taylor while refusing a reduction of class 2009; Browne 2011; Dixon 2011). analysis, and classed lives, as never These are sites of enduring feminist enough (Taylor et al. 2010). As I will concerns - they are also sites of be- hope to make clear, middle-class longing and welfare where ‘future lives, futures and even ‘failures’ are citizens’ (and ‘parenting citizens’) worthy of comment, rather than be- are made, mobilized and excluded. ing left simply unstated, obvious or Pressing classed intersections celebrated: many have pointed to reside in, and are reproduced the worth of interrogating normative through, new-old labours, research identities and positioning (such as projects, and academic productions. whiteness, able-bodiedness, het- Where others have pointed to the erosexuality) and I hope to join this ‘stickiness’ of race (Ahmed 2002; conversation on a level which is em- Toilia-Kelly 2010) as a blockage and pirically plausible and which ques- a stopping or curtailing, of futures, I tions class and sexuality in framing point to class and sexuality as also futures. bound up in ‘sticking’, ‘blocking’ and Questions of the future pose facilitating futures. The stories that I who, where and when questions: tell are themselves ‘sticky’; they are who is ‘stuck’ in the past, who is care-told by me through my particular pacitated as taking ‘us’ forward, and empirical and theoretical stances what embodied, spatial and mate- (class and sexual positions are also rial collisions occur in these render- ‘stuck’ to me as biographical reali- ing of past-present-future? In times ties and points of dis-identification2) of global economic, environmental and they collide as intersectional, and social crisis, I seek to highlight slippery and lived concerns rather whose paths get marked as urgent, than as points which can be neatly and which routes get facilitated and added to constitute the future sub- endorsed. Here, I dwell on these ject. Many have argued for a more questions in relation to intersecting intersectional framing of class, with UK and US research projects and Linda McDowell (2008) claiming travels, which have all been various- that any re-focus on class must not ly concerned with matters of social marginalize gender, or sexuality; it inequality and justice; of bringing must not make claims to a simple forward attention to enduring in- return-to-class as abandonment of equalities and their new-old shape. intersectionality and other lines of In 2010, I was granted a Fulbright difference (see Binnie 2011; Taylor Distinguished Scholars Award held 2012a). In empirically and theoreti- at Rutgers University in the US, cally turning to classed lives - includ- which enabled a temporary exit from ing my own - I both take seriously the changing UK landscape of high- Taylor: Education, Activism and Parental Practices 68 er education at a time of mass pub- one I hope to hold close as an ur- lic outrage about increased tuition gent measure of feminist engage- fees and devastating welfare re- ment and practice across time and forms (Taylor 2010). In 2012 I spent place. This calls for a different atten- time at the University of California, tiveness to claims made for and by Berkeley as a visiting professor and, ‘future subjects’, rather than wholly again, colleagues congratulated me rejecting or discarding these compli- on my protected status as someone cated intersections. able to enjoy time away from UK As I locate feminist concerns and higher education3 (productive aca- interventions in educational trajec- demic labour did not seem to carry tories, parental practices and forms despite the rhetoric of ‘internation- of activism, I highlight the implicat- alisation’, ‘diverse’ academic routes edness of past and present in trav- and a more ‘global university’ econ- elling beyond research trajectories. omy). Many warned of empty, de- I urge attentiveness to enduring pleted returns and shifting balances disparities rather than ending with between research-teaching in an all personal, or even politicized ‘fail- change ‘no future’ moment. Being ure’ as a transgressive non-norma- geographically near and far away tive ‘art’ (Taylor et al. 2010; Taylor in inhabiting UK and US academia, 2011c; Halberstam 2012). Judith and being aware of, for example, Halberstam (2012) points to the the different meanings and experi- queer art of failure, as a stepping ences of class and sexuality, leaves out of the expectations and binds of me wondering about what is held femininity, family and even feminism between educational journeys and - as it is located onto perhaps sur- distances. These are questions that prising (if non-academic is indeed I map on to my own (non)academic a surprise) celebrity icons (such as trajectories just as they are mapped Lady Gaga). This holds an appeal, onto interviewees’ accounts and ex- a loud, proud coming-forward of periences. In writing, and research- youthful, playful femininity, removed ing, I am aware that I may well be from the everyday of education and producing only myself as a global employment, into the realm of sub- moving academic subject (Skeggs version and performativity. Despite 2002; Taylor 2012). Yet these proj- the appeal, not everyone gets to re- ects have all variously ‘failed’ too, brand their ‘failures’ as successes; in that they don’t by and through some of these act not as performa- themselves create the future femi- tive openings, but as sticking points, nist subject4, capacitating only my where the wrong type of femininity, own professional mobility (Taylor family, feminism and ‘failure’ is read 2012). The question of broader so- as fact (Gillies 2006; Taylor 2012a). cial futures both ‘theirs’ and ‘mine’ is Awareness of the classing of such 69 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 futures or failures sits uneasily with and locations (Black and Minority Lee Edelman’s (2004) notion of Ethnic and working-class neigh- queer politics as one which explicit- bourhoods). Important questions ly rejects reproductive futurism - any have been raised about the rela- queer concerns over education and tionship between ‘rioting’ and the family are not really queerly political, increasingly hostile conditions of simply parental and parochial. His neoliberalism and Coalition policies, call to ‘fuck the child’ while dramatic including; growing unemployment, and dystopian, sidelines the ways rising tuition fees, the withdrawal that some classed bodies/citizens/ of the Educational Maintenance families/futures are already ‘lost’ Allowance, cuts to Sure Start and and dis-invested in; some bodies an overhaul of welfare provision simply do not get imagined as hav- (Allen and Taylor 2012). There are ing a presence or a future (Taylor, distances and cross-overs between 2011a). As such it is important to UK and US provision in changing ask who has the discursive and ma- climates. With my health insurance terial power to construct and enact certificate tucked safely away every Edelman’s call for a certain queer time I enter the US, along with other politics and non-responsiveness visa documents, approvals and in- to ‘future subjects’. When the UK vites, I am conscious of the borders Prime Minister David Cameron is we re-create around belonging and arguably ‘fucking’ over a whole gen- entitlement at local as well as (inter) eration of children, can Edelman’s national levels. Futures are created call really be understood as trans- and extended across local, regional, gressive? national and international spaces, Academics have brought critical affectively and materially. Facts and perspectives to bear on the complex figures could undoubtedly be pored educational, familial and employ- over here, including respective ment causes and consequences spending on healthcare in different of the 2011 summer’s UK riots, as countries. The human cost in lives questions of what the future holds and deaths produces much more for ‘today’s youth’ are dramatically intimate and urgent concerns and highlighted. These interventions negate a romanticized appeal to have unsettled the easy answers ‘fail’ and step out the system (Taylor offered by some politicians, media 2012b). outlets and the police. And they Pragmatic reorientations to fu- unsettle again notions of performa- ture subjects and attentiveness to tivity, failure and a ‘fucking’ of the the emplacement of subjects in and future which is already denied to through the university (see Back some, with waste, loss and failure 2007), could begin to remedy the stuck to specific bodies (‘youth’) classed binary between future po- Taylor: Education, Activism and Parental Practices 70 tential and wasteful subjects (Evans making an impact in responsibilising 2010; Parker 2010). Understandings citizens to come forward and make of whose future, where and when a difference as part of a ‘Big Society’ may be pragmatically and practi- (as conveyed in shifting funding pri- cally orientated to the inequalities orities). The discourse of the entre- which exist in the present, with the preneur has directly influenced the hope of working towards different, role of universities in, among other plural, inclusive futures (rather than things, developing more intense failing-failed futures as normatively collaborations with industry and in- lamented or non-normatively cel- creased involvement in regional ebrated). What this reorientation economic development. Within this means in the research context is model, enterprise and entrepreneur subject to challenge where income are striking concepts that have be- and impact are increased measures come synonymous with the coloni- of a successful viable even enter- sation of academia by the market prising future, involving individual (Allen et al. 2012). What and who are accumulation via CV additions (‘in- our future subjects (future students) come’, ‘impact’) (Back 2007; Taylor and how can different pasts-pres- and Addison 2011). As the editors ences be mapped onto this? There point out, changing social and edu- are several points on the map, rath- cational dynamics shape upon re- er than a start and finishing line. So search and the ‘future subjects’ that I first turn to the University as one of are constituted therein; we fail them my present, pressing locations. The in giving up on other possible fu- promise of entering and achieving in tures negotiated and engaged in by Higher Education is at once seduc- researcher-researched-research. tive (CVs produced, academic stars circulated internationally) and dis- Educational Futures: Theirs and turbing, felt and encountered across Mine the university environment, via ad- If we strive for positive futures in ministrative, teaching and research and through academia, what does concerns. These points of arriving, this now look like in a changing ed- departing and travelling through in- ucational landscape? How do we stitutional space intersect with oc- negotiate the spatial and temporal cupying academia in particular re- collisions of impact agendas and a cessionary times where the future hierarchy of universities as future- of education is in threat. orientated regenerators, bringing As a visiting scholar at US forward capacitated citizens? The ‘premier public university’, the entrepreneurial university – and in- University of California, Berkeley5 deed the ‘entrepreneurial’ funded (2012), I see commonalities in the researcher – has been tasked with ‘happy, diverse student’ urgently en- 71 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 gaged in disseminating value and tell universities and colleges about distinction as cure for future edu- your suitability for the course(s) cational and economic crises - their that you hope to study. You need to place is best, their choice correct. demonstrate your enthusiasm and At Berkeley, even the ‘old’ history of commitment, and above all, ensure activism, radicalism and institutional that you stand out from the crowd’ dis-engagement is re-invoked and (UCAS 2011, in Evans 2012). made safe, or somewhat safer, in the name of variety, where everyone In being duly impressed by this is present, and even the (activist) student standing-out-from-the- past is recast with future value. The crowd, I was joined by other poten- ‘first’, ‘best’ and ‘biggest’ would be tial outstanding students who were words likely to be found elsewhere - informed about the 25% admissions as on my guided campus tour - and success rate. Eager parents were one can wonder about the room for keen to find out what their child improvement, gaps, and ‘failure’ in should put in her or his personal these well-defined university maps. statement - how to make the special child become part of the special Cynical sentiment was nonethe- institution, to secure that special fu- less displaced by the undergradu- ture. While choice of activities, eat- ate Biology student leading a tour eries and societies was described, I around Berkeley campus on a sun- wondered how this process of align- ny March morning; she lead us on ment already demarcates a ‘good a hour and a half walking trip, com- fit’ for future students, institutional plete with historical facts, key statis- stories, and societal success (Taylor tics and noteworthy venues on and 2010). off campus. She was adding to her The sun was shining and it was CV, her future employability, just hard not to ‘just believe’ as one ban- trying to get by and facing life-long ner, quoting words from a current future debts (Taylor 2008; Evans smiling student urged us to do. Our 2010). She excelled as a university guide was believable, committed, representative and her enthusiasm determined. And isn’t that just what earned her resounding applause as we would want from good students? she related her weekly timetable, On a sunny day, with an unobstruct- extra-curricular activities, and exam ed view of the Golden Gate Bridge success. As Evans (2012) high- (this line of sight is university owned lights, educational entrances re- and protected), this all seemed per- quire these ready, activated subject fectly plausible. But the tour also positions, with UK University Central hinted at presences and absences Admissions System stating the ap- beyond these lines of sight. We plication is ‘… your opportunity to tried to find the university mascot, a Taylor: Education, Activism and Parental Practices 72

Golden Bear, on the first university employability: ‘complete the survey, building (1873). I put my glasses on if you don’t, you lose too’. In a time for the task, confident that I could of cut-backs, there is a heightened master it and also achieve. The bear, urgency to market your university – so the story goes, is a guardian, a and yourself – via institutional repu- mother bear who is watching over tations/credentials, to ensure that her cubs. Many parents smiled and the map of campus, even if cut-back the journey from home to university and under-funded, is still resilient was made safe and familial. The and responsive. emergency poles, promising a 1.5 As with many UK campuses, a minute response time from on-cam- park-feel is maintained at Berkeley pus police, if the button is pushed, and I strolled over Strawberry Lake also reassured of a 24/7 presence. via a wooden bridge. Echoing many Campus is made safe, students are University Open Days, eager par- located, and futures are confirmed ents pushed to the front and asked as familiar/familial. their questions - this time about (Future) students are ever-more trees, wildlife and plants. Protection implicated in the marketing of their and security is naturalised, even as universities, often awkwardly dis- the construction of this pervades the played in costly ways (Taylor and architecture and ecology of cam- Scurry 2011). Students appear in pus, also present in evoking scenic prospectuses and even on wel- sounds, taste and smells (Australian coming banners, where their eager Eucalyptus trees, International presence and happy faces stand House café). These scenes shifted for institutional happiness, diversity as an all-in-pink team ran past de- and success (Ahmed 2009; Addison claring their search for a ‘Berkeley 2012). Their presence often repre- personality’; we were told of op- sents a resilient endurance, where portunities to join the cheerleading the successful face of the univer- squad (and even imagine ourselves sity shines on, despite the devas- as having a ‘Berkeley Personality’). tation of Higher Education. The This kind of future may well be en- personal and professional collide ticing… here, where standing for the uni- But just as you reach for that university can also mean standing for versity personality, as I reached for and supporting your own value, now the university door, we were told that made public for a personal return all outside door handles had been (‘employability’, ‘International’ diver- removed after student protestors sity and career mobility). In the UK chained themselves to such handles context, students are warned that not that long ago. The student of to- NSS scores attach to themselves, day has, perhaps, no choice but to marking current status and future align; to be un-obstructive to these 73 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 directing pathways as ‘good guides’. of students and staff is foregrounded My Berkeley guide did all this with on and off campus, where broader good humour, intelligence and conceptualizations of learning may pride. She told the story of Athena, also exceed the numerical count of Goddess of Wisdom, who, sitting entrance and (employment) exits, above the arched entrance bestows only conferred in following specif- knowledge on those entering the li- ic, and often expensive, university brary. Because Athena is greedy, as routes and certain futures. These well as knowledgeable, she takes dis-junctures in and around univer- this away as students make their sity settings (mis)place young peo- exit. Universities have this know- ple as future citizens, subjects and ing, yet greedy, potential, and the workers, posing the question of who strategies to resist this - in times of can inherit the future. abiding doors (without handles) - are vital. Suspicious students, we Inheriting the Future: ‘I’ve Got are told, choose a different exit. But You’ what would it mean for universities Despite differences in welfare to choose another entrance? To be regimes, educational provisioning responsive to those not included on and the private financing of post- campus and not identified as future compulsory education, debates in subjects/workers/citizens and not both the UK and US frequently posi- capacitated as ‘coming forward’? tion the middle-class white child as But even a supposed responsive- the new potential victim of a ‘lottery’ ness to those off campus can be re- system which robs them of their in- worked to close down possibilities herent right to elite educational ac- and futures; to highlight an inevitable cess. The grief – and joy – in failed/ failure rather than a more equalized fostered futures re-appears regu- plural future. ‘A Smug Education’ larly in US and UK press. Time (Delbanco 2012) responded to pre- magazine’s front page recently vious US Republican Presidential declared ‘The Truth About Tiger Candidate, Rick Santorum’s attack Moms’6 attaching future economic on American colleges as ‘indoctrina- competitiveness between the USA tion mills’, which we are advised not and China onto children’s achieve- to enter. In his call, Barack Obama ments, as accumulated and trans- was named as a ‘snob’ for urging mitted through families (and specifi- Americans to go to college, with uni- cally via mothers’ gendered labour). versities cleverly placed as unknow- This news feature produced much ing, out-of-touch and pretentious, commentary on practices of good while ‘reality’ and hard work are sit- parenting as bringing forward future uated elsewhere. In these colliding citizens – yet this hope/practice for claims, it is vital that the hard work the future is not to be transmitted Taylor: Education, Activism and Parental Practices 74 to all. Witness the criminalisation of rather than challenging of – societal Tanya McDowell, a homeless moth- and educational inequalities. er charged with the crime of sending In the broader project, I argue her son to a better school by lying that middle-class parental practices about her address in the context of seek to bring forth a future capaci- locational and classed stratifica- tated citizen, as a measure of queer tions around educational provision, parents’ sameness to and even as reported in the New York Times success against their heterosexual (Applebome 2010). counterparts: (re)producing a cer- Somewhat differently, Lesbian tain future involves a turn from so- and Gay Parenting: Securing Social cial difference, disgust and abjection and Educational Capital (2009) ex- to one of sameness, inclusion and a plores changing welfare regimes desirable diversity (Taylor 2011a, b). and recognitions in the UK context. Within this process of resourcing Jeffrey Weeks (2007) explores the the good, succeeding child, others ‘coming forward’ of certain sub- are positioned as failing, excessive jects in moments of sexual citizen- and culpable. This has an embodied ship, and sums this up as a linear and spatial dimension where (social, success across time and place, a parental) ‘disgust’ is re-located onto ‘winning of worlds’ in which LGBT working-class bodies and practices. citizens are now capacitated and The shaping of children’s bodies/ filled with life (as parents, citizens, spaces as a (middle-class) caring recognized subjects) as opposed to act involves ‘choice’, ‘balance’ and death (as criminals, deviants, sick- ‘discernment’ as indicators of diver- subjects). The increasing existence sity/difference, and as claims upon a of rights gained and demanded by new improved version of good par- LGBT activists/scholars (manifest enting. By positioning working-class around e.g. Civil Partnership Acts, families as failing children, the impli- Equalities Legislation), often inter- cation is that they are also failing to sects parental claims, hopes and bring forth a certain future, capaci- ‘failures’. To some extent these new tated citizen; working-class families’ rights represent a success and a se- choices and realities remain fixed curing of (feminist) futures in so far through notions of risk and blame. as claims can be made on the State While queer parents were once po- and new existences can be secured sitioned rather homogeneously as and materialized; further, individual gambling with social futures, this and family futures are also protected judgment now firmly attaches itself and legitimised in these socio-cultur- to working-class parents and re-em- al transformations. But even seem- beds current injustices. ingly subversive ‘winning’ practices To turn to some empirical ex- project specific futures aligned to – amples from queer ‘parent citizens’, 75 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 many middle-class interviewees uncertain in exercising a selective celebrated their children’s entrance discernment, speaking instead of to ‘very graded’ ‘top schools’, in the their children ‘just being happy’, ‘top 5%’ in the UK’. Awareness of where they could be provided for, different gradations of successful socially as well as educationally. and failing schools, gauged through The value in proximity was gauged published league tables, often gen- through access to friends, where erated a fear around political chang- their kids could enjoy the compa- es and disruption, leading ‘good ny of others living locally. Mostly judgements’ to be troubled. Middle- working-class parents spoke of lo- class respondents spoke of feel- cal schools as the ‘obvious’ or only ing nervous of changes in schools’ ‘straightforward’ choice: ‘…I didn’t admissions policies, which would think about it really. I’m not sort of make children’s education some- a great pick and chooser’ (Katerina, what of a ‘lottery’. Jess speaks of 52, working-class). Here, the local doing her homework and selecting a was ‘good enough’ for parents and better school outside of her immedi- children, while middle-class parents ate catchment area, capitalising on spoke of the local as sufficient when family connections: it was also a ‘good school’ – entry It’s really important that they get was not automatic but was instead a good education and it has af- sited as suitable only when it worked fected the choice of schools – educationally. they go to one just outside of the Queer theorists, such as Edelman catchment area. We researched (2004), reject claims around re- the local schools, their dad’s a productive futurism, which can be teacher and so we made him do at least partly located in overlap- his homework and read the Ofst- ping in parental and educational ed reports, which then enabled us sites. Yet, this transgressive ‘opting to pick a school with good results out’ does not resonate with efforts and a nice feel. It’s a state school made in ‘getting-by’ by those lost but we’ve been selective. in the accumulative logics of bring- (Jess, 43, middle-class) ing forward certain classed futures. It is not that working-class parents These respondents, however, did are ‘stuck’ in place but rather they not face the penalty of homeless are unlikely to be recognised in re- mother Tanya McDowell, criminal- search, social policies, media and ized for her ‘poor parenting’ despite popular representations, which fore- her attempted strategies at exactly grounds agentic capacities, mobility this kind of maneuvering. Others, and ‘good parenting’, or in research predominantly working-class re- which poses dystopian/transgres- spondents, in my study were more sive rejection. How then to locate Taylor: Education, Activism and Parental Practices 76 these futures and failures and to lies/futures are already lost within recuperate value amidst distinction these logics. In everyday practices and discrediting? of queer parenting, classed realities Edelman (2004) provides a cri- shatter and complexify measures of tique of the state of play within homo-hetero-normativity, where the queer theory and queer lives, where ‘coming forward’ for some (via e.g. queer politics is dependent upon Civil Partnership recognition) eras- the rejection of reproductive futures the immediacy of fundamental ism: ‘queerness names the side of classed presences, inequalities and those not ‘fighting for the children,’ endurances (Taylor 2011b). the side outside the consensus by The fantasy of the ‘good par- which all politics confirms the abso- ent’ and the ‘good child’ who can lute value of reproductive futurism’ be resourced and propelled into (2004,3, italics in original). Read in the future is a profoundly classed the context of a politics that centers and (hetero-homo) normative dis- on same-sex marriage, parenting course and practice which re-cir- and reproductive rights, Edelman’s culates in current times. In relation call to ‘fuck the child’ represents a to LGBT parental sites and strug- rejection of reproductive futures gles, as with educational sites and and parental ‘credentials’, citizen- struggles more generally, it can be ship and claims-making. Indeed, asked: whose movements or ‘com- Edelman argues that the queer sub- ing forward’ into citizenship take ‘us’ ject is defined by all that is negative somewhere? When children act as and non-productive. Rather than condensed signifiers of the future of responding with calls for equal- ‘the family’ and, by extension, the ity and recognition, Edelman urges nation, it is important to trouble the queers to embrace negativity and linear narrative of futurity and com- non-futurity. For Edelman, standing forward which capacitates some ing outside reproductive futurism (middle-class) subjects as capable, entails standing outside of futurism rendering others as culpable. But itself: ‘Fuck the social order and the it is also important to carve out a Child in whose name we’re collec- claim for – rather than rejection of tively terrorized; fuck Annie; fuck – plural futures, where these can the waif from Les Mis; fuck the poor, be re-orientated as pragmatic, prac- innocent kid on the Net; fuck Laws tical and as also existing in the ev- both with capital ls and with small; eryday ‘here and now’ (Gillies 2006; fuck the whole network of symbolic Armstrong 2010). relations and the future that serves Consider this other ‘queer’ every- as its prop’ (Edelman 2004, 29). day example: the playful video ‘I’ve This call sidelines the ways that got you’ by Black, female, gay US some classed bodies/citizens/fami- rapper, Mélange Lavonne (2008), 77 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 which represents some of the issues of raising children in LGBT house- I used to spend money now all I holds. The images and accompany- do is invest. ing song depict the normal activities So you can go to college and be of childhood and parenting and we as great as you can witness the not so unusual footage And accomplish all your dreams of children in play parks, held lov- as a young woman or man. ingly, if notably, between two (pre- But until then help you get an pared) queer mums: awesome education, You weren’t even here yet and I’m And make sure you’re the proper preparing myself, age when you start dating. I’m trying to give you the best, like (Lavonne 2008) love and help So I’m doing everything I can Sentiments of bringing forth a even though they keep telling me proper future at the right time are Raising kids needs a woman and heard in the call for some parents to man. rethink their parenting skills, placed But I met your other mama, that’s in the context of crime, drug tak- the love of my life, ing and parental disinterest, sum- I got down on one knee and made marised in the defiant declaration her my wife that ‘I’m not saying I might be a bet- And we both wanted kids so we ter parent than you, what I’m saying made it a plan. is that I am a better parent than you’ I gave up the two seater and (Lavonne 2008). Such claims, even bought me a van. if subversively and defiantly made, (Lavonne 2008) deploy and re-inscribe distinctions of value, worth and respectability. The song describes anticipated Education fuels parental anxiet- discrimination, to be dealt with and ies and ‘winning’ victories, echoed buffered by preparedness (such as in Lavonne’s rap as well as in em- education, which sets a ‘good foun- pirical accounts of lesbian and gay dation’), maturity and financial in- parents in the UK. Such sentiments vestment. While an ‘ordinariness’ is are re-articulated over lives - and undermined and mobilised through- deaths - of queer youth. ‘Queer out, responding to anticipated nega- suicides’, including the suicide of tive responses constructed through Rutgers student Tyler Clementi in sexual, class and racial inequalities, September 2010, fuel complex ed- there is a tension in voicing defenc- ucational-parental-activist responses and ‘attacks’ without re-invoking es (apparent and felt as I visited normative notions of what – or who Rutgers University in 2010-11, see – constitutes good or bad parents: Taylor 2011a). Following the death Taylor: Education, Activism and Parental Practices 78 of Clementi, the ‘It Gets Better’ with a regenerative futurity, a multi- Campaign started by openly gay cultural diverse inclusivity, but this is columnist Dan Savage was posted denied to those ‘already lost’ to pub- on Youtube; it now has its own web- lic concern and our communities – site and book with global hopes of as homophobic others who should preventing queer suicides and sus- be expelled from institutions and na- taining the future of LGBT commu- tions7, removed as ‘backward’ and nities (see http://www.itgetsbetter. ‘out of place’. Many clips from queer org/). The campaign’s sentiments people dissent from the happy mes- of protection, danger, mobility, ori- sage of upward mobility and move- entate and guide us to certain fu- ment to a queer city: some don’t ‘get tures, away from harm. out’ to be out; some don’t get to ‘grasp On the website there is an the future’ via educational and geo- opening pledge: ‘THE PLEDGE: graphical travels (Taylor 2007). And Everyone deserves to be respected others too, it seems, function as the for who they are. I pledge to spread depository for the lack of tolerance, this message to my friends, family affluence and becoming. While ho- and neighbors. I’ll speak up against mophobia could be located within hate and intolerance whenever I see university environments, ‘being edit, at school and at work. I’ll provide ucated’ is described as the solution hope for lesbian, gay, bi, trans and to discrimination, positioning white other bullied teens by letting them middle-classes as rightful inheri- know that ‘It Gets Better’’. Youtube tors of futures, as liberal correctives clips have been archived on this site against racialised working-class ha- (given the enormity of responses) tred (Puar 2007; Haritaworn 2010). providing an insight for queer youth We are asked to lament the deaths into what the future might hold for of some – those young people who them: ‘Many LGBT youth can’t pic- could have ‘been something’ – while ture what their lives might be like as others are already excluded from openly gay adult ... So let’s show this future. them what our lives are like, let’s show them what the future may hold Future Subjects, To Be in store for them’ (http://www.itgets- Continued… better.org/). Celebrities and ordinary Children act as signifiers of the ‘survivors’ are invited to talk about future of family and as future citi- troubled childhoods and developed, zens, responsibly inserted into the successful adulthoods as indicat- spaces of education by knowing ing full recovery, where bullies by parents carving out accumulative contrast are positioned as ‘losers’, claims on the future (as ‘parenting ‘weak’, ‘less worthy’ and ‘inferior’. citizens’). In empirically attending to The youth of tomorrow are imbued these claims and practices it is im- 79 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 portant to trouble the linear narra- ral futures, where these can also be tive of futurity and coming forward re-orientated as pragmatic, practical which capacitates some (middle- and as also ‘getting-by’ in the every- class) subjects as capable, render- day ‘here and now’, rather than as ing others as culpable. Articulations accumulative and re-productive of of present inequalities and resolved (homo)normative middle-class fu- futures (as expressed in The World tures (Gillies 2006; Armstrong 2010). We’ve Won, Weeks 2007) need to Not everyone can flexibly cast them- go beyond the map of legislative selves through trajectories of future and educational rights and entitle- potential, but a dystopian side-step ments pursued by the good cam- away from negotiated futures ig- paigner/ parent/child in celebrating nores intersecting dimensions of our moves forward, our diverse po- agency and constraint. I have made tentialities and even in claiming our a case for the importance of class injuries and failures (e.g. ‘queer sui- within the attention to ‘future sub- cides’) as a claim and a capital. jects’ as part of a continued rather In a time of increasing social than ended conversation, about recognition via equality legislation which futures are celebrated and which carves out certain futures, it is which are marginalized. The risk in important the current injustices are leaving privileged lives unproblema- centered rather than passed over as tised is that these are understood a straight-forward linear movement as fitting, standard and chosen; as of ‘coming forward’ (Weeks 2007; the trajectories of agentic and ca- McRobbie 2009). Queer theories pable future-orientated subjects generally associated with the work now able to take full advantage of of Leo Bersani (2009), Edelman ‘parenting citizenship’ while being (2004), and Halberstam (2012) pro- injured by others’ lack, failure and vocatively assert that queer sub- culpability. Moments of pragmatism jects should embrace non-produc- and ‘getting by’ are lost again and tivity, resisting narratives of futurity mis-placed by a queer pessimism explicitly bound in capitalist accu- or failure. There are research ef- mulation. But in empirically disen- forts and orientations compelled in gaging classed lives from the web of inhabiting university settings - as intersecting inequalities construct- my thoughts on inhabiting US-UK ing (non)productive lives this queer campuses across time hoped to il- rejection of the non-normative side- lustrate. These professional-per- lines the practical and pragmatic sonal-political trajectories are recast classed (im)possibilities and pres- in researcher-researched-research ent material injustices. relations and occupations as femi- It is important to carve out a claim nist researchers necessarily make for – rather than rejection of – plu- future claims. Present-future re-ori- Taylor: Education, Activism and Parental Practices 80 entations towards higher education, glements of racialised and classified as ‘engagement’ and ‘impact’ bound configurations of youthful femininity. So to monetary evidencing and materi- emphatic and so frequently repeated in al measuring, rework future subjects this celebratory discourse that it comes (see Taylor and Addison 2011). The to function as a key mechanism of social transformation. From being as- good researcher has a ‘five year sumed to be headed towards marriage, plan’ and knows her ‘five key words’ motherhood and limited economic par- (Taylor, 2009): sometimes these ticipation, the girl is now endowed with subjects stick and sometimes they economic capacity’ (McRobbie 2009, travel. But the effort seems to be in 58). trying again for the sake of bringing forth plural inclusive futures. 2 As Skeggs (1997, 2004) highlights, only certain people’s stories are consid- Endnotes ered worthy of telling, posing problems 1 Angela McRobbie (2009) argues for feminist inspired calls of ‘putting that the ‘movement of women’ substi- one’s self’ into the research process: tutes the ‘women’s movement’ based ‘By telling a story about myself, I rede- on a ‘coming forward’ in the realms of fine myself as a subject with a specific education and the workplace, where history and seek to persuade others of women are placed – and self-place – the importance of that history’ (Felski as ‘efficient assemblages for produc- 2000 in Halberstam 2005: 126). tivity’; their achievements can be mea- 3 sured, their work/life balance assessed In May 2010 a new UK coalition gov- and rated, ever-monitored on intimate ernment, comprising of the Conserva- scales, where, with appearance and tive and the Liberal Democrat parties, self-presentation, this work to reinforce was formed. Prior to the election, these what are (hetero)normative and class two parties had espoused considerably specific constructs of successful femi- different views on the future of HE fund- ninity (Skeggs 1997). Unsurprisingly, ing in the UK. The leader of the Liberal there are various (im)mobilities re-con- Democrats, Nick Clegg, had pledged stituted in such ‘movements’, where a that his would work to abolish the tuition ‘coming forward’ reproduces and rests fee system. In December 2010, both upon a supposed ‘backwardness’ and the House of Commons and House of ‘failure’, attached to specifically classed Lords voted to implement an amended women. The centering of the mobile version of one of the recommendations ‘global girl’ as a subject with education- made by Lord Browne (2010) in his real and employment capacity, occurs at port on the future of HE funding, which the expense of impoverished people recommended the removal of the cap to somehow elsewhere: ‘[T]he attribution tuition fees, alongside an amended stu- of both freedom and success to young dent loan system, supposedly ensuring women … take different forms across that ‘No one has to pay back the loan the boundaries of class, ethnicity and unless they are earning above £21,000 sexuality, producing a range of entan- per year. Payments are linked to income’ (Browne 2010: 37). The coalition 81 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 government voted to raise the basic Bank University, which despite its long- threshold for fees to £6,000 per annum standing commitment to widening par- with a cap at £9,000 to be implemented ticipation, ‘added’ value and employ- from the academic year 2012–2013. ability cannot claim a ‘premier’ status, where ‘post-1992’ attaches negatively 4 This raises questions of what kind of as a gross ‘catch-all’ by which the ‘en- futures we might hope for and insti- gaged institution’ can never come for- gate. Current desires and discontents ward, the ‘1992’ indicating a stick rath- can be situated alongside debates on er than a substance (Taylor and Allen ‘future feminist subjects’ as emerging 2011). from somewhere, as involving a history of activism, debate and academic 6 See Time Magazine, 31 January labour. While we mustn’t forget about 2011 (http://www.time.com/time/cov- where ‘we’ve’ come from, as we seek ers/0,16641,20110131,00.html).vii expansion of who the ‘we’ is in these Vice-President Joe Biden reassures shifting debates across time and place, that ‘There’s not a single thing about care has to be taken to avoid rehearsal you that’s not normal, good or decent’, of past scholarship as a debt to pay, a urging us to contribute and make ‘us’ truth to convey or a burden to shake feel better about ‘our country’. Even US off in moving to ‘new’ terrain. Several President Barack Obama has added feminist authors have challenged the his own tale of survival and overcom- linearity of feminist stories of ‘now’ and ing of hardships to the voices which ‘then’ - including Lisa Adkins and, more echo ‘It Gets Better’ as an incentive for recently, Clare Hemmings (2011), prob- young queer youth to hold on, keep go- lematising how the ‘loss’ of feminism ing and never kill themselves. as failure is attached to a younger generation, as incapable of heeding wise References words and repeating history-as-future. Addison. Michelle. 2012. Feeling your way within and across classed 5 At Berkeley, approximately 64% of spaces: The (re)making and (un) undergraduates receive some form doing of identities of value within of financial aid: in 2008-09, 37% of all Higher Education in the UK. In Berkeley undergrads were eligible for Yvette Taylor, ed. Educational Di- Pell Grants (family incomes generally versity: the subject of difference less than $45,000 a year). Berkeley and different subjects. Basing- educates more economically disad- stoke: Palgrave Macmillan. vantaged students than all of the Ivy League universities combined. Some Adkins, Lisa. 2002. Reflexivity and the 5,700 undergraduates received a total Politics of Qualitative Research. of $33 million in scholarships, many of In Tim May, ed. Qualitative Re- them privately funded. In 2009, Berke- search in Action. London: Sage: ley received $649.46 million in research 332-348. funding. The positioning of this contrasts somewhat drastically from my Ahmed, Sara. 2002. The Contingency current home institution, London South Taylor: Education, Activism and Parental Practices 82

of Pain, Parallax (8) 1: 17-34. Oxford and New York: Berg Pub- lishers. Ahmed, Sara. 2009. Embodying diversity: problems and paradoxes for Bersani, Leo. 2009. Is the rectum a Black feminists. Race Ethnicity grave? And other essays. Chica- and Education 12 (1): 41 – 52. go: The Chicago University Press.

Allen, Kim, Quinn, J., Hollingworth, S. Binnie, Jon. (2011) ‘Class, sexuality and Rose, A. 2012. Doing Diversi- and space: A comment’ in Yvette ty and Evading Equality: The Case Taylor (ed) Sexualities and Class, of Student Work Placements in Special Issue Sexualities, Feb the Creative Sector. In Yvette Tay- 14(1): 21-26 lor, ed. 2012. Educational Diver- sity: the subject of difference and Browne, John. (2010) Securing a Sus- different subjects, Basingstoke: tainable Future for Higher Educa- Palgrave Macmillan. tion in England. Available at http:// webarchive.nationalarchives.gov. Allen, Kim and Yvette Taylor. 2012. uk/+/hereview.independent.gov. Failed femininities and troubled uk/hereview//report/ [accessed mothers: gender and the ri- March 2012] ots. http://sociologyandthecuts. wordpress.com/2012/01/17/ Browne, Kath. 2011. ‘By partner we failed-femininities-and-troubled- mean ...’: Alternative geographies mothers-gender-and-the-riots-by- of ‘gay marriage.’ In Yvette Taylor, kim-allen-and-yvette-taylor/ ed. Special Issue ‘Sexuality and Class’ Sexualities 14(1): 100-122. Applebome, Peter. 27 April 2010. In a Mother’s Case, Reminders of Ed- Butler, Judith. 2004. Precarious Life: ucational inequalities. New York The Power of Mourning and Vio- Times (online). http://www.ny- lence. New York: Verso. times.com/2011/04/28/nyregion/ some-see-educational-inequality- Caballero, Chamion. 2007. ‘‘Mixed’ at-heart-of-connecticut-case.html families: Assumptions and New (accessed 7 July 2012). Approaches. In Mixed Heritage: Identity, Policy and Practice. Lon- Armstrong, Jo. 2010. Class and gender don: Runnymede Trust. at the intersection: Working-class women’s dispositions towards Delbanco, Andrew. 8 March 2012. employment and motherhood’. In A Smug Education? New York Yvette Taylor, ed. Classed Inter- Times (online). http://www.ny- sections: Spaces, Selves, Knowl- times.com/2012/03/09/opinion/ edges. Aldershot: Ashgate: 235– colleges-and-elitism.html?_r=1 253. (accessed 7 July 2012).

Back, Les. 2007. The Art of Listening. Dixon, Catherine Ann. 2011. Working- 83 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

class lesbian parents’ emotional It Gets Better Project. http://www.it- engagement with their children’s getsbetter.org/ (accessed 7 July education: Intersections of class 2012). and sexuality. In Yvette Taylor, ed. Special Issue ‘Sexuality and Lavonne, Mélange. 2008. I’ve Got You. Class’ Sexualities 14(1): 79-99. Mlk Inc. Song.

Edelman, Lee. 2004. No Future: Queer McDowell, Linda. 2008. Redundant Theory and the Death Drive. Dur- Masculinities: Employment ham, NC: Duke University Press. Change and White Working Class Youth. London: John Wiley and Evans, Sarah. 2010. Becoming ‘Some- Sons. body’: Examining Class and Gen- der Through Higher Education. In McRobbie, Angela. 2009. The After- Yvette Taylor, ed. Classed Inter- math of Feminism: Gender, Cul- sections: Spaces, Selves, Knowl- ture and Social Change. London: edges. Farnham: Ashgate: 53-72. Sage Publications.

Gillies, Val. 2006. Working class moth- Parker, Sue. (2010) ‘Working Capital: ers and school life: exploring the Ownership and (Some) Means of role of emotional capital, Gender Production’ In Yvette Taylor, ed. and Education, 18 (3): 281–293. Classed Intersections: Spaces, Selves, Knowledges. Farnham: Halberstam, Judith. 2005. In a Queer Ashgate: 13-34. Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New Puar, Jasbir K. 2007. Terrorist As- York: New York University Press. semblages: Homonationalism In Queer Times. Durham and Lon- Halberstam, Judith. 2012. The Queer don: Duke University Press. Art Of Failure. Durham and Lon- don: Duke University Press. Reynolds, Tracey, ed. 2010. Young People, Social Capital and Ethnic Haritaworn, Jin. 2010. Queer lovers Identity. London: Routledge and hateful Others: Political and Cultural Economies of Sexual- Reynolds, Tracey. 2012. Routes to ity, Race and Gender in Gentrify- Roots: Family Lives and Social ing Berlin, Keynote at Reinstating Ties of Caribbean Young People Transgression, Washington DC in the UK. Oxford: Berg Hahn. April 17--‐18, 2010. Skeggs, Bev. 1997. Becoming a Mod- Hemmings, Clare. 2011. Why stories ern ‘Women’ (review article). Cul- matter: the political grammar of tural Studies 11 (3): 489-492. feminist theory. Durham and Lon- don: Duke University Press. Skeggs, Bev. 2004. Class, Self, Cul- ture. London and New York: Rout- Taylor: Education, Activism and Parental Practices 84

ledge. of civic acceptance. Gender, Place and Culture 18 (5): 583-601. Taylor, Yvette. 2007. Working-class lesbian life: Classed Outsiders. Bas- Taylor, Yvette. 2011c. Ever faced the ingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan walk of shame? Designing disgust. http://www.genderandeducation. Taylor, Yvette. 2008. Good Students, com/issues/ever-faced-the-walk- bad pupils: constructions of ‘aspi- of-shame-designing-disgust/ ration’, ‘disadvantage’ and social [accessed 1 May, 2012] class in undergraduate-led widening participation work. Education- Taylor, Yvette and Michelle Addison. al Review 60 (2): 155-168. 2011. Placing Research: ‘City Publics’ and the ‘Public Sociolo- Taylor, Yvette. 2009a. Lesbian and gay gist’. Sociological Research On- parenting: securing social and line 16(4) [not paginated]. educational capital. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Taylor, Yvette and Kim Allen. 2011. Sinking or Swimming? Academic Taylor, Yvette. 2009b. ‘Facts, fictions, Strokes, Anxious Provokes. http:// identity constrictions: sexuality, sociologyandthecuts.wordpress. gender and class in higher educa- com/2011/11/22/sinking-or-swim- tion’. Lesbian & Gay Psychology ming-academic-strokes-anxious- Review 10 (1): 38-41. provokes-by-yvette-taylor-and- kimberly-allen/ Taylor, Yvette. 2010. Letter home? Dis- tances, Proximities, Returns and Taylor, Yvette and Tracy Scurry. 2011. Escapes. BSA blog spot [accessed 1 May, 2012] Taylor, Yvette. 2012a. Fitting into place? Taylor, Yvette, Sally Hines and Mark Class and Gender Geographies Casey, eds. 2010. Theorizing In- and Temporalities. Ashgate tersectionality and Sexuality. Bas- ingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Taylor, Yvette. 2012b. ‘Connecting the Cares: Lines of Flight, Emo- Taylor, Yvette. 2011a. Queer Pres- tional Drives’ http://www.gen- ences and Absences: Citizenship, derandeducation. com/issues/ Community, Diversity – or Death. connectingcares/#more-4394 [ac- Feminist Theory 12(3): 335-341. cessed 1 June, 2012]

Taylor, Yvette. 2011b. Lesbian and gay Time Magazine. 31 Jan 2011. The parents’ sexual citizenship: Costs Truth About Tiger Moms. http:// 85 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

www.time.com/time/cov- ers/0,16641,20110131,00.html (accessed 7 July 2012).

Tolia-Kelly, Divya P. 2010. Landscape, Race and Memory: Material Ecol- ogies of Citizenship. Farnham: Ashgate.

Urry, John. 2000. Sociology Beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twen- ty-First Century. London and New York: Routledge.

Weeks, Jeffrey. 2007. The world we have won. New York: Routledge. Precariousness and Futurity: The Example of Subcontracted Cleaning Workers in the Banking and Finance Industry in London

Gerald Koessl

By adopting a temporal perspective this article examines the relation between people’s conditions of work and their possibilities of being agents of their future working lives. This is done in the empirical setting of subcontracted cleaning firms servicing the banking and finance industry in the two main financial districts of London – the City of London and Canary Wharf. An analysis of eighteen in-depth interviews with cleaning workers and two trade union organisers reveals the divisions and processes of polarisation within organisations along core and periphery positions, resulting from the fact that cleaning workers are not employed in-house but by subcontracted cleaning firms. The precarious conditions of work induced by the periphery position from their ‘real employers’, that is, the banks, undermine cleaning workers’ possibilities to individually confront their future. Poverty wages - in many cases still being paid - in combination with the absence of appropriate social protection (e.g. sick pay or pension schemes) force many of the workers to ‘stabilise the present’ whilst future plans remain out of individual reach. However, in recent years, many of the workers have joined trade unions, aiming to collectively improve their future working lives.

Keywords: Precariousness, Future, Subcontracting, Cleaning industry, Trade Unions

Introduction in suits, modern high-rise architec- This article examines the tem- ture and luxury, I will turn attention poral dimension of precariousness to a less glamorous side; that is, of subcontracted cleaning workers to a workforce that is easily forgot- in the banking and finance industry ten and overlooked in this industry. in London. Specifically, by adopting This workforce comprises service- a temporal perspective I will inves- sector workers who allow everyday tigate how precariousness can be business to take place and includes understood vis-à-vis the ways in cleaners, security staff and cater- which these workers relate to their ers. Typically, these services are not present and future working lives. provided in-house but are contract- Whilst the public perception of bank- ed-out to specialist firms. ing and finance may be of people More specifically, this article con-

Graduate Journal of Social Science July 2012, Vol. 9, Issue 2 © 2012 by Graduate Journal of Social Science. All Rights Reserved. ISSN: 1572-3763 87 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 centrates on subcontracted clean- interviews with trade union organ- ing in two main financial districts isers were undertaken at the Unite of London - the City of London and office in Holborn, the majority of Canary Wharf. The City of London, the interviews with cleaning work- sometimes referred to as the Square ers took place in their homes. It is Mile, is located in Central London. of significance that all of the work- Canary Wharf, which is situated ers interviewed were not born in the within an area of the former dock- UK and have histories of migration, lands of London, is the second ma- which will be addressed as well in jor financial centre in London after this article. However, the main fo- the City. While the City of London cus will be on how ‘subcontracting has been the historical centre for as a new employment paradigm’ business and finance, Canary Wharf (Wills 2009a) shapes the temporali- was built in the 1980s as an exten- ties and in particular the future per- sion of the City, during a time when spectives of cleaning workers in the financial services were expanding contracted-out cleaning sector in rapidly and port-related industries the banking and finance industry in were in decline. London. My analysis in this article is based These interviews also revealed on eighteen interviews conducted the importance of trade unions for between October 2009 and March the way in which cleaners imagine 2010 with cleaning workers of vary- their futures. As such this chapter ing age groups who service the will examine the role of unions in banking industry, and on two inter- shaping the temporal structures of views with trade union organisers. the working lives of this group of The contact with the cleaners was workers. Before analysing the em- established by attending events for pirical data, I will briefly discuss the the campaign ‘Justice for Cleaners’, context of this research, namely which demands better conditions of the changing structure of London’s work and payment for the workers, economy and the growing inequali- as well as by going to monthly meet- ties and processes of polarisation in ings of the cleaning workers branch London’s service sector, and spe- committee of the union Unite. These cifically the situation in the banking meetings were well suited for inter- and finance industry, which has be- views with organisers and represen- come dependent on subcontracted tatives of the union about their ac- cleaning workers in recent decades. tivities and challenges of organising More specifically, I will first discuss labour under conditions of subcon- how subcontracting as a business tracting, the financial crisis and the practice has become a new em- increasing importance of migrants ployment paradigm in the low-paid in London’s workforces. While the service sector of the banking and Koessl: Precariousness and Futurity 88 finance industry in London and how 31). However, since the mid 1960s, this subcontracted cleaning industry both manufacturing and London’s mainly employs migrant workers, port witnessed a gradual downturn which has created a new migrant (Hamnett 2003, 14), which had far- division of labour. Thereafter this reaching effects on London’s la- paper will argue that the changing bour market. While employment in of contractors often results in a de- manufacturing and port-related in- terioration of conditions of work and dustries declined over the last de- frequently leads to workers need- cades, there has been a considering to do more work in the same able growth of the service sector, amount of time. In this context I will in particular the banking, finance, also discuss how changing contrac- insurance and business services tors mitigate against upward mobil- (Hamnett 2003, Massey 2007). ity or incremental wages within the These transformations, however, cleaning industry. The third section were not a straightforward result will then show that the precarious of economic and technological nature of employment relationships changes, but were also induced in the cleaning industry requires politically by the Conservative gov- workers to ‘stabilise the present’, ernment in the UK under Thatcher often by doing two or three jobs, (Helleiner 1994, Toulouse 1992, without being able to plan or con- Tallon 2010). The establishment of front the future individually. The last London as a centre for banking and sections will go on by illustrating the finance has thus been enabled by importance of trade unions for the neoliberal policies that deregulated futurities of cleaners and it will pro- financial services (Buck et al. 2002, vide evidence for the challenges of Butler and Hamnett 2009, Massey organised labour in the context of 2007, Toulouse 1992), which in turn subcontracting. ‘strengthened its role as one of the major control centres for the glob- The rise of London as a centre for al economic and financial system’ banking and finance and new mi- (Hamnett 2003: 4). grant divisions of labour The role of London as a ‘glob- The growing importance of sub- al city’ (Sassen 2001) or ‘world contracting in London’s banking city’ (Friedmann and Wolff 1982, and finance industry is the result of Massey 2007), was paralleled by a number of economic and politi- new inequalities that reflected the cal changes that occurred over re- changing corporate structures in the cent decades. Until the mid 1960s service sector economy. The growth a considerable amount of London’s of well-paid employment in finance, economy was still based on light banking, insurance and business manufacturing1 (Hamnett 2003, services has been accompanied 89 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 by a rising demand for ‘work on the of foreign-born workers to clean periphery’, that is, for workers en- its offices, care for its sick, make suring the cleanliness and security beds, and serve at its restau- of the respective workplaces. New rants and bars. (…) in relation to economic and social divisions with- its global-city status, London has in the service sector have become become almost wholly reliant on particularly evident in London’s foreign-born workers to do the banking and finance industry, which city’s ‘bottom-end’ jobs (Wills et employs two very different types of al. 2010, 1). workforces. By drawing on her empirical research on contract clean- As Wills (2008) points out, this ers in London (Wills 2008), Jane migrant division of labour is particu- Wills illustrates these two types of larly true for London’s two financial workforces: districts, that is, the City and Canary The stark divides between rich Wharf, where a large proportion of and poor are nowhere more evi- cleaning workers come from coun- dent than at Canary Wharf and tries that were once under British in the City of London. The well- colonial rule, such as Nigeria or heeled army of analysts, brokers, Ghana (see also Wills et al. 2010, dealers and traders do their busi- 61). As noted earlier, these clean- ness in the gleaming tower blocks ing workers are typically employed and offices alongside a support- by subcontracted specialist cleaning cast of low-paid caterers, ing firms. Subcontracting has been cleaners and security staff (Wills identified as a major factor -in de 2008, 305). termining the rhythms and pace of work as well as in shaping the ways Similarly, Saskia Sassen argues in which workers relate to their fu- that ‘the rapid growth of the financial ture working lives. Furthermore, industry and of highly specialised subcontracting plays a vital role in services generates not only high the formation of new divisions of la- level technical and administrative bour and in the development of new jobs but also low wage unskilled inequalities, which is why I will now jobs’ (Sassen 1996, 583). In the turn attention to analysing the spe- case of London’s banking and fi- cific case of subcontracted cleaning nance industry, these low-paid jobs workers in the banking and finance are mainly filled by migrants (see industry in London. also Pai 2004). Wills et al. (2010) indeed argue that a ‘new migrant division of labour’ has been put in place over recent decades: London now depends on an army Koessl: Precariousness and Futurity 90

Subcontracting as a new em- and conditions. Robert MacKenzie ployment paradigm – the case of places subcontracting in a broader cleaning workers in the banking context by arguing that: industry in the City of London [t]he deregulation of employment and Canary Wharf has been a key feature of the There have been many attempts 1990s. There have been consid- to describe division and polarisa- erable reforms visited upon tration processes within organisations. ditional systems of employment While some authors speak of the di- over this period. The hierarchical- vision of workforces into a core and bureaucratic employment struc- periphery (Atkinson 1984, Harvey tures represented in the tradi- 1989, Pellow and Park 2002, tional internal labour market have Virtanen et al. 2003), others sug- been undermined. This has been gest the notion of a dual labour mar- paralleled by a revival of interest ket, which is divided into a primary in the contract as the favoured and secondary market (Barron and mechanism for the organisation Norris 1976, Gordon 1972, Piore of economic activity. (…) A key 1971, Doehringer and Piore 1971). feature of this restructuring of Whatever model one chooses, it is employment has been the use of apparent that cleaning workers in the subcontracting (MacKenzie 2000, banking industry of London can be 707-708). located in the periphery or the secondary market. This was evidenced The use of subcontracting ex- by the fact that all of the people in- poses cleaning companies to fierce terviewed working as cleaners for competition and systematic short- the banking sector were employed termism, which has fundamental by specialist cleaning firms that are impacts on the terms and conditions contracted to perform the cleaning of workers. Drawing on their recent of bank buildings for an agreed pe- research on subcontracted labour in riod of time. Subcontracting as a the UK, Wills et al. (2010) note how business practice has become more subcontracting has served as a tool widespread over the last decades, for privatising services in councils, mainly as a result of measures to hospitals, schools and universities cut down costs of services that are and how in conditions of subcon- not directly related to the core-ac- tracting: tivities of a company (cf. Rees and [r]egular re-tendering and intense Fielder 1992). Cleaning contracts competition between contractors in the banking industry are usually meant that wages, conditions and negotiated only for a few years and staffing were kept at minimal lev- are hence re-tendered on a regu- els, and managers no longer had lar basis with newly agreed terms the burden of responsibility for 91 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

employing their staff. New work- empirical data suggests, has funda- ers could be taken on without mental impacts on the temporalities the troublesome costs of annual of working lives of cleaners and is increments, sick pay or overtime a major reason for their precarious rates (Wills et al. 2010, 3). situation. Precarisation due to subcontracting is particularly preva- The economic and social trans- lent in low-paid industries, such as formations that enabled the intro- cleaning, catering or security servic- duction of subcontracting must es. The incomes of workers in these be put into the context of the rise industries are in many cases only of neo-liberalism, which gained slightly above the legally required ground in the UK from the 1980s national minimum wage (NMW), onwards (King and Wood 1999, which is currently set at £6.082 per Prasad 2006). Neo-liberal agendas hour. The widespread use of sub- introduced subcontracting in the contracting in contemporary econo- public as well as private sector in mies makes Wills go so far to say order to reduce cost at any price, that while ‘the paradigmatic form of without considering the effects on employment during the middle years people’s conditions of work. As a of the twentieth century was the fac- result of ‘neoliberal policy agendas’ tory (…) subcontracted capitalism is that ‘allowed greater market pene- becoming paradigmatic today’ (Wills tration in sectors like cleaning’ (Wills 2009a, 442). 2008, 310), the competition among Despite legal regulations such cleaning contractors has intensi- as the Transfer of Undertakings fied. A competitive climate in which Protection of Employment contractors are trying to beat each Regulations3 of 2006 (TUPE), which other’s offers has triggered a down- does not allow new contractors to ward spiral not only as regards pric- employ its staff at conditions and es at which they offer their services terms that are worse than the previ- but also as regards the resulting ous contractor offered, the majority conditions of work for the cleaners, of the interviewees in fact reported who have no real influence over the a deterioration of their working con- bidding and contracting process. ditions after a new contractor had For organisations such as banks, taken over. Nonetheless, my analy- subcontracted cleaning provides a sis of the interviews suggests that cheap and easily available labour there is not a straightforward rela- force as they [the banks, A/N] nei- tion between subcontracting and ther have to pay incremental wag- the effects on people’s conditions es nor offer fringe benefits such as of work. The people interviewed sick pay or pension schemes. The stated a number of ways in which absence of these benefits, as my the contracting-culture impacted on Koessl: Precariousness and Futurity 92 their working lives. Apart from those ing work, where increases in pro- who mention that they were being ductivity4 were only attainable by dismissed during the course of a ‘getting fewer workers do the same change of contractors, one of the amount of work’ (Rees and Fielder most immediate forms of change 1992, 356). The authors also state that many cleaners experienced that efforts to raise productivity and was an increase of workloads and cut costs were accompanied by ‘a hence an intensification of time. An general deterioration of working intensification of time means that conditions’ (Rees and Fielder 1992, the actual amount of time per task is 356). Similarly, Jean-Yves Boulin reduced and time hence intensified, (2001) argues that over the last de- as Efia’s case illustrates: cades, due to just-in-time production There are also less people now... and a demand-oriented economy, I don’t know why they don’t put working time has increasingly be- anybody there. After somebody come intensified and densified, as left some time ago the manager individuals need to complete more didn’t replace her which means work in the same or less amount of that there is more to do now. So time. For the interviewed cleaners, you do the job of the other people time intensification increased the but you don’t get paid for the ad- pressure on each individual worker ditional work. This happened re- and easily escaped the legal regu- cently, maybe over the last two lations of the TUPE law, as there years. So two or three years ago I are no clear standards as to what had twenty something colleagues amount of work can or should be and now I have fifteen, so maybe done within a certain time-period. In we are five or six persons less particular, in a current climate domi- who actually do the same amount nated by uncertainties about the fu- of work (Efia, female cleaner, five ture, workers accept these changes years’ service for Lancaster at easier than would be the case in an- Merrill Lynch). other industry or job where people have stronger collective representa- These findings add weight to tion and hence stronger bargaining Gareth Rees and Sarah Fielder’s em- power over their conditions. pirical study (1992) of subcontract- In addition to this effect, sub- ed cleaning workers in the 1980s, contracting keeps cleaners at arms in which they provide evidence for length from their ‘real employers’ processes of time intensification in and therefore makes them more the cleaning industry. Processes of vulnerable in regard to redundancy, intensification, as Rees and Fielder as many of the interviewees stated. go on to say, mainly result from the Uncertainty for the future intensified labour-intensive character of clean- during the period of the financial 93 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 crisis in 2008 and 2009, the effects bilise their present situation, without of which were indirectly felt in the being able to individually engage cleaning industry. As many of the with their future working lives. This banks were laying-off people, banks temporal dimension of precarious- searched for smaller premises or ness5, in particular in terms of futu- reduced their office space consider- rity, has already been noted by sev- ably. As a result, cleaning compa- eral authors (Kraemer 2009, Dörre, nies lost their contracts or required Lessenich and Rosa 2009, Tsianos fewer workers. The fact that most of and Papadopoulos 2006, Fantone the interviewees experienced some 2007). The interviews revealed that form of change to their working lives most of the cleaners are required to as a direct result of subcontracting have two and sometimes even three has made them realise the link be- jobs in order to earn enough to make tween subcontracting as a business a living. Many of the interviewees practice and their own precarious were still working on an hourly in- situation. Ajagbe, a male clean- come that only marginally exceeded ing worker for six years at Johnson the current minimum wage of £6.08. Control and Mitie in the Goldmann However, despite this fact there is an Sachs building in Canary Wharf ex- increasing amount of cleaning sites, plained that ‘when you come to the where cleaners, together with the cleaning companies… like we are support of trade unions, have nego- working for Goldmann... our job is tiated with cleaning contractors and not safe because we are contract- ‘real employers’ (i.e. the banks) to ed’. Indeed, my analysis evidenced pay the London Living Wage, which a strong link between the (business) is currently set at £8.30 for London practice of subcontracting and the (£7.20 outside London). The impor- extent to which workers are able tance of the London Living Wage, to be agents of their future working as a social and economic minimum lives, that is, between precarious standard, became particularly evi- conditions of work and the way in dent in cases where people needed which individuals relate to their fu- to do two full-time jobs. The inter- ture. This point will be addressed in view with Madu illustrates the daily more detail in the following sections rhythms and time pressures of do- of this article. ing so:

Precarious (working) lives: I was working eight hours at Com- Stabilising the present and losing pass, I started at six am in the the future morning, I finished at half two, In this section I suggest that the then I would go home, I would precarious situation of the majority sleep, I wake up at around eight, of the cleaners forces them to sta- have my shower and go back to Koessl: Precariousness and Futurity 94

Lancaster, both of them are in Ca- relatives abroad forces some to nary Wharf. At Lancaster I work work excessive hours that would far from nine pm and I finish at six am exceed the legal regulations if they and from there I go to my money were employed by a single organi- job, eight hours, you understand? sation. Because of these excessive (…) So I was working in the day hours of work and the time-con- with Compass and I was work- straints faced by some of the working in the night with Lancaster, ers, the location of the workplace you understand, sixteen hours. and the time they need to get there (Madu, male cleaner, three years’ is vital. This geography of time is service for Lancaster at Nomura particularly true for London, where Bank and two years’ service for living and transportation costs are Compass, a catering company as high and workers usually have to a porter). commute considerable distances and spend a lot of time only to get In some instances people men- to work in the City of London or in tioned that they were taking on a Canary Wharf, places they could second job in order to secure their never afford to live. futures by saving while in other cas- Moreover, many cleaners in the es interviewees stated that a second banking industry are doing night- job helped them to provide for their shifts. By doing an additional job family members, either in the UK or during the day, they only get a few in their countries of origin. Morowa hours of sleep per night, which in the put it as follows: long run poses a serious health haz- You can only save some money ard. Ebo, who is doing two cleaning if you have two jobs. The money jobs, one from ten pm to six am in from one job is maybe just enough the City and another one in west to live, but you can’t save for the London from seven am to nine or future, or often people have rela- ten am, spoke about the reasons for tives in their home countries who doing more than one job as well as they want to support; you can only the effects of doing night work on his do that with a second job (Mo- health: rowa, female cleaner, four years’ Working in the night affects your service for OTS at JPMorgan). health because in the day you cannot sleep very well, as you can in Morowa’s account shows that the night... and that’s more or less the ways people engage with their a health hazard. By the time I get working lives is often only to stabi- home, it should be around eleven. lise the present. The desire to man- (…) with the high cost of living in age and save money for the future the city you can’t depend on only or to maintain family members or one job. This is why people have 95 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

up to three jobs. Without that you rent and everything (Morowa, fe- can’t survive (Ebo, male cleaner, male cleaner, four years’ service five years’ service for Johnson for OTS at JPMorgan). Control and Mitie at Goldmann Sachs). Morowa as well as numerous other interviewees gave similar ac- The previous two interview ex- counts stating that with their cur- tracts demonstrate the tensions be- rent income they could not meet the tween financial constraints that re- expense even for staying at home quired people to take on more than for a few days. Nonetheless, there one job and the desire to gain con- were also interviewees who men- trol over their future. These desires, tioned that they did get a certain however, were often contrasted by amount of days of sick pay per year, the extreme time pressures and although at a lower level of pay than health risks involved in doing exces- the actual income would be. sive working hours in two or even The precarious condition of the three different jobs. cleaning workers is aggravated Another reason that makes the even more by the fact that subcon- work of the cleaners particularly tracted cleaning companies rarely precarious is the contractual nature offer pension schemes to their work- of their employment relationship, ers. Hence, subcontracting does not which in many cases does not offer only result in low wages as the in- entitlements such as sick pay, a pen- terviews evidenced, but also in very sion scheme and in some instances limited social protection individuals only a reduced number of days of get via their employment. Abena, paid holidays. The absence of these for instance, described her situation entitlements had fundamental ef- at work after a new contractor had fects on the conditions of work and taken over in the following manner: life of the cleaners. Morowa explains Well, since we work with Lancast- what it meant for her to work without er there is no job security... they being entitled to sick pay: just want to make money and We don’t get sick pay. So that’s they just work like that, we don’t why a lot of the workers who are have any security like that when sick go to work, because they you are old they would pay you a cannot afford to stay at home. pension, nothing like that (Abena, Sometimes you feel so sick, but female cleaner, eight years’ ser- you have to go to work. When you vice for Lancaster and Eurest at stay in the house for two, three Royal Bank of Scotland). days, your money is gone... you don’t have enough money. And Although some of the workers you need the money to pay your would be entitled to receive a pub- Koessl: Precariousness and Futurity 96 lic pension if they paid contributions daily experiences at work. Mira, a fe- for a long enough period of time, male cleaner with two years’ service these pensions would hardly suf- for Lancaster at Tower 42, put it the fice. For this reason, many of the following way: ‘I can’t go on like that, cleaners I spoke with had already I have to move forward. That’s why I ideas of what they would like to do decided to do my own thing, my own after they retire from their (clean- dance company’. In this statement, ing) job. Keeping in mind that all of Mira expresses not only the desire the workers that were interviewed to ‘do her own thing’ but also that had personal histories of migration ‘she wants to move forward’, which and were not born in the UK, some is not easily possible in the cleaning said that they would like to return to industry. However, the plan to open their countries of origin after they re- one’s own shop or business was tire. This was mainly the case with strongly affected by the precarious cleaners who had close relatives in retirement perspectives that many their home countries. Other workers of the cleaners are expected to face spoke about the desire to open their in the future. Put differently, as a re- own business or shop after their sult of their low incomes, most of the retirement, as Ajagbe for instance cleaners said that they were not able stated: to make proper provisions for their So after you are sixty, you have pensions and were therefore forced to plan for your coming years. If to continue work or open their own you reach the age of sixty, nobody business that allows them to earn knows... but you have to plan. If some additional income when they you are old you can’t afford to look are retired in the future. after yourself. So if you can get a job... If I can look for a job with The (im-)possibilities of individu- a little bit of money, I can sell my al change? own product that would be very The relationship of precarious- good. So I would like to have my ness to certain understandings of own shop (Ajagbe, male cleaner, the future was also evident when six years’ service for Johnson interviewees spoke about their de- Control and Mitie at Goldmann sire to either change job or to do Sachs). some additional education in order to qualify for other jobs. In many The plan to open one’s own shop cases, individuals were financially or business was closely related to not able to take the necessary time the desire to either ‘be one’s own off they would need to do some ad- boss’ or to ‘do one’s own thing’, as ditional education or to search for some of the workers noted, which another job. These economic con- contrasted many of the cleaners’ straints made it hard for cleaners to 97 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 individually change their future. The But as I also said I’m going back following excerpt from Adeola’s in- home by next month and I’m go- terview underscores this situation: ing to figure out some things there You know in the case of a clean- and that will tell me what my plans er’s job… you just want to stay will do to me... to my future life. because you want to earn money, So I can start to think of myself you don’t want to lose any money. when I am more independent, If you find something better from when I can afford it (Kodwo, male there you can leave, but people cleaner, six years’ service for ISS cannot afford to leave and wait to at Morgan Stanley). find something else without working (Adeola, female cleaner, eight Previous excerpts from inter- years’ service for Johnson Control views demonstrate that cleaners and Mitie at Goldmann Sachs). time their working lives and in particular changes to their work in ac- In cases where change was pos- cordance with the financial neces- sible, decisions were not taken in- sities and commitments they have, dividually but were weighed against mainly towards members of their other financial and familial obliga- family. An individually determined tions such as children or relatives working life is projected into the fu- living abroad. In the interviews this ture and seen as something that is was the case when cleaners aimed only possible once ‘one is able to af- to do some further education or up- ford it’, as Kodwo put it. However, grade their previous education to UK familial relations as well as personal standards, as Madu’s interview illus- networks and in many instances trates: ‘There were so many things also ethnic support networks were for me to do back home... because also reported to be important re- of that I could not go back to school. sources, in particular for finding So I decided to continue working’ employment or affordable accom- (Madu, Lancaster at Nomura). The modation in London. The majority of only way people imagined a more the interviewees noted that they had individually determined working life found their job as cleaning worker lay beyond a distant point in the fu- with the help of a friend or relative, ture with less commitments, as an who introduced them to their current interview extract with Kodwo under- workplace. Although these personal lines: networks provide important systems I don’t have a specific plan... I of support for cleaning workers, they don’t have any choice now be- rarely help in terms of offering bet- cause when my children grow ter future perspectives or opening up to the point that they can sort up possibilities for progression. This themselves out... it’s different. is so mainly because the people Koessl: Precariousness and Futurity 98 who support each other usually do indicate, the temporal structures of not have access to other sectors of cleaners’ working lives and the way employment. Hence, despite these in which they relate to the future can support networks many cleaners thus be characterised by notions of find themselves in a precarious situ- precariousness and the structural ation with little possibilities for indi- impossibility to individually influence vidually engaging with their future the future of one’s own working working lives. life. In contrast to commonly held This precarious situation is exac- views about individuals being active erbated even more by the absence agents of their working lives, such of incremental wages or possibili- understandings of (individualised) ties for progression within organi- agency are unfeasible in the con- sations. Andy, who works with OCS text of my analysis of subcontracted at Lloyds in the City of London, de- cleaning workers, where the (im-) scribed the impossibility of moving possibilities of individual change forward in the cleaning industry as were mainly shaped by external follows: factors that were beyond individual Cleaning is not a job I would control. While the precarious condi- strongly recommend for you be- tion of many cleaning workers does cause you don’t get promotion not allow for a more individual en- from it. As a cleaner you will be gagement with their future working cleaning for all of your life, be- lives, it has prompted new ways of cause they transfer managers confronting the future in a collective from there to there and even for way. The following sections draw the position as a supervisor, you on interview data in order to dem- don’t hear. You just see that they onstrate that trade unions are one brought in and introduce you a of the major resources and forms of new supervisor or a manager. socialisation that enable cleaners to Those few who are there, no mat- imagine a future which they are able ter how many years you have to influence and shape. been there, there is no opportunity there. They don’t say ‘Let’s train Collective futures: trade unions this man, let’s see what he can and the representational gap do’, except if you know someone The impossibility of changing who can influence and help you. If their working lives or improving their you don’t, it’s difficult (Andy, male situation in the future has raised the cleaner, more than twenty years’ awareness among cleaners that service for OCS and Maclellan at change and an improvement of their Lloyds). condition is only possible at the collective level. For this reason many As previous interview excerpts of the cleaners have joined a trade 99 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 union over the last years. In the fol- spect and feelings of being valued, lowing excerpt, Kodwo explains as Eze elaborated: how the union provides a resource The union has given us some for imagining a better future: kind of strength. So, if you are If you are a union member you organized on the site, you have are one. When you got a problem, some kind of confidence, that the I got a problem and when I get a managers will not treat you too problem you also get a problem. bad. As far as you are bullied… So we team up all the time and you know your rights better than fight for our right and hope we before. Also the way they talked can change our future to the bet- to us was... they talked to us as if ter. Before the union, we couldn’t we are nobody, they didn’t show do much as individuals, alone you any respect (Eze, male cleaner, don’t have the power to change two years’ service for ISS at Citi- anything but as a union you do group). (Kodwo, male cleaner, six years’ service for ISS at Morgan Stan- The dilemma with subcontracted ley). work is that a mere pressure on the contractors to ‘improve [the] pay Trade unions have become in- and conditions of work (…) would creasingly important for cleaning probably price their [the cleaners’, workers because ‘in a subcontract- A/N] immediate employer out of ed economy, many workers have the market’ (Wills et al. 2010, 180). no industrial relations contact with Therefore, workers have started their “real” employer’ and thus ‘the to organise themselves with the workers themselves have no chan- help of the trade union in order to nel through which to bargain over increase pressure on the ‘real em- [these] terms’ (Wills et al. 2010, 180) ployers’, that is, on banks and finan- and conditions of work. By ‘real em- cial institutions. In 2005, the clean- ployer’, Wills et al. mean the compa- ing workers, together with the union, nies who have subcontracted some launched a campaign for a London of their services, which in the con- Living Wage (Wills 2009b). A London text of this research are banks or Living Wage as Alberto, a union or- financial institutions. The cleaning ganiser, put it ‘means a salary that workers’ engagement in the union the workers can live with in London, and the struggle for improvements because London is one of the most to their conditions further illustrated expensive places around the world’. that a ‘good’ workplace does not The Living Wage Campaign, which only concern the levels of pay and was originally launched by London social security but encompasses a Citizens, the biggest community al- wide range of aspects including reliance in Britain, is set every year Koessl: Precariousness and Futurity 100 by the Greater London Authority. where he works: Although the London Living Wage If you are sick you have to go to is not legally binding but rather ad- work because you cannot afford dresses employers on a social and to stay at home. But since the ethical basis, the campaign has union is in, the situation is better managed to introduce the Living because they introduced sick pay Wage into a considerable number of ten days a year. So if you are of workplaces, including subcon- sick for ten days, you will be paid. tracted cleaning companies in the But after the ten days, if you are banking industry. The London Living still sick you will not be paid. But Wage has been of particular impor- we achieved this only because of tance in the context of subcontract- the activities of the union. That’s ed work, as Wills et al. illustrate: something the union fought for. Al- The idea of a Living Wage cam- though it’s still not yet fair it’s bet- paign was developed to over- ter than we didn’t have at all. We come [the] ‘representational gap’ hope that in the future the num- between subcontracted workers ber of days will go up. The other and their ‘real’ employers by link- thing is that we are not offered ing subcontracted workers with any kind of pension scheme, not a broad alliance of community at all. This is another goal for the organisations (Wills et al. 2010, future that we are going to fight 180). for. It’s not for now, but in the future we will tackle this issue (Ebo, Trade unions and collective imag- male cleaner, five years’ service inations of the future for Johnson Control and Mitie at Goldmann Sachs). Apart from the attempts to increase the levels of pay and create Ebo’s experience of improvement a work environment where workers through the union, which is shared are respected and appreciated, the by the majority of the other clean- workers also demand benefits such ers, shows that positive change is as sick pay, pension schemes and a mainly a result of collective effort higher degree of job security. Ebo, and hardly possible at all individu- who works as a cleaner at Johnson ally. His account also outlines the Control in the City is also very ac- importance of non-monetary entitle- tive in the union and in organising ments such as pensions or sick pay, people to improve the situation of entitlements that amongst regularly cleaning workers. He explained how employed workers are an implicit the collective ambition of the union part of their employment contracts has helped to a certain degree to and do not have to be demanded improve the conditions at the site explicitly. The erosion of regular em- 101 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 ployment contracts and the rise of precarious nature of cleaning urges contracts that offer social security workers to stabilise the present, only at a marginal level, facilitated a stabilisation which brackets en- by practices such as subcontract- gagement with their future working ing, have thus fundamentally con- lives. tributed to present-day precarious- The high number of migrant ness in the workplace and have workers among cleaners has also undermined individuals’ agency in challenged trade unions as institu- terms of shaping their personal fu- tions that have been traditionally ture working lives. involved in disputes over (white) This relation between precari- working class issues. In fact, the re- ousness and the inability to engage lation between trade unions and mi- with one’s future has also been grant workers has not been and is noted by Wills et al’s (2010) empiri- still not always as smooth as these cal research on migrant workers in previous statements may indicate. London. The authors discuss how In fact, in the decades of post-war the structural positions of migrant immigration to Britain, trade unions workers in low-paid jobs are related were often opposed to immigration to possibilities of individual future as they tried to restrict the labour planning. Their findings reveal that: supply (Wrench and Virdee 1995) although migrants have consid- and were thus reluctant to represent erable agency to respond to the migrant workers. Until the 1980s, challenges facing them, such ef- which ‘saw the integration of black forts are constantly undermined voices6 and anti-racist practice into by poverty, poor working condi- the political mainstream’ (Wills et al. tions, state policy, and community 2010: 167), many migrant workers exclusions that frustrate their abil- faced racism even from the side of ity to develop longer-term or more trade unions. As Wills et al. (2010) ‘strategic’ goals. Indeed, although go on to say, ‘it was only during the migrants’ lives may include very 1980s, and following efforts at black careful planning and budgeting, self-organisation within the unions, these are often aimed only at cop- that these new members were re- ing with the immediate exigencies ally accepted’ (2010: 167, see also of their day-to-day lives (Wills et Wrench and Virdee 1995). Despite al. 2010, 126). the ongoing difficulties many migrant workers are facing in terms This argument about the ways in of being adequately represented by which migrant workers are unable trade unions, the majority of the in- to relate to their future is supported terviewees in my sample were very by the findings reported in this pa- positive about their experiences per, where I demonstrated how the with the union and felt that this was Koessl: Precariousness and Futurity 102 the only way to improve the future that in the subcontracted economy it conditions of their working lives. is important to address both the so- called ‘real employer’ as well as the Subcontracting as a challenge to contractor. Over the past years and organised labour decades, trade unions have experi- Apart from the changing role of enced the challenges of organising unions as regards the represen- people in the subcontracted econo- tation of an increasing number of my, which, according to Unite organ- migrant workers, one of the big- iser Nick, has become ‘much, much gest challenges for unions that are more prevalent since Thatcher, so dealing with low-paid service sec- since the mid 80s’. Nick emphasised tor work is the mounting prevalence the importance of getting in contact of subcontracting. The unions of- with the ‘real employers’: ten have to negotiate with both the …because cleaning companies cleaning companies as well as the such ISS, OCS, etc. will always ‘real employer’, which in the case of say: well, it’s not our problem; we this research is the bank. Alberto, are only paying what we can with an organiser at Unite, explains the the contract. So the way we go situation as follows: is trying to embarrass the banks, We work with both, the cleaning which is the main weapon we companies and the banks. Usu- have. And the media, of course, ally we have meetings with the play a very important role in that cleaning companies to establish (Nick, Unite Organiser). the London Living Wage. And also if necessary we speak with the cli- The excerpts from Alberto’s ents, the banks. In some places, and Nick’s interviews demonstrate like when we went to a demon- not only the role that trade unions stration against one of the banks, have in terms of offering individu- after speaking with the cleaning als the possibility of being agents of companies we went directly to change but they also give account the bank and we explained them of the changing nature of the unions that we will continue embarrass- themselves. Changes to business ing them if they don’t sort this out practices such as subcontracting (Alberto, Unite Organiser). as well as an increasingly diverse workforce have challenged the work Alberto’s statement shows that of the unions and have shown that damage to their public reputation union organisers need to respond to poses serious problems to banks these changes. This is particularly and hence is a main target in the true for a global city like London, union’s fight for better pay and con- where there is a concentration of ditions of work. It also makes clear service sector industries such as 103 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 banking, finance and insurance, Peter, who was working with the and with them the number of sub- contractor OCS for six years, is now contracted workers servicing these working with a new contractor in the industries. In these subcontracted same site. The reason why he could industries, labour turnover is high keep his job was mainly due to the and they employ many migrant TUPE regulation, as he explains: workers, who often find themselves So I continued with GSF because in situations that do not allow them OCS lost the contract. They lost or make them hesitant to get organ- the contract last year in October. ised in trade unions. As several of So this company took over and I the interviewees mentioned, this is continued there. That’s because often due to people’s uncertain im- of the TUPE; it gives you the se- migration status and the fear of los- curity that you can stay (Peter, ing one’s job when joining the union male cleaner, four years’ service or when speaking out on their con- for GSF at State Street). ditions of work. These factors pose a serious challenge to organised la- However, as noted earlier, de- bour in the context of subcontracted spite the TUPE regulation, there economies with large numbers of were also cases in which a change migrant workers. of contractor resulted in either peo- My analysis of interview data fur- ple losing their jobs or having to face ther revealed that apart from the a considerable deterioration of their support that unions offer, it is politi- conditions of work. cal and legal regulations7 that give a certain degree of job security to cleaners, in particular the previously Conclusion mentioned TUPE Regulation, which The data analysed in this article applies when new contractors are suggests that ‘work on the periph- coming in and take over from pre- ery’ in the banking and finance in- vious ones. The time periods for dustry in London creates precari- which cleaning contractors stay at a ous conditions of work and life and bank are often only for a few years furthers existing divisions and in- and many of the interviewees there- equalities within this industry. These fore reported a change of contractor divisions reflect the widening gap in during their working lives as clean- incomes and social protection in the ers. The fact that cleaning workers service sector economy more gen- are not included in negotiations and erally, which has increasingly be- hence have no influence over the come dominated by subcontracting terms and conditions of new con- and precarious forms of work with tracts makes national legal regula- little future perspectives. This article tions particularly important for them. further showed that in the case of Koessl: Precariousness and Futurity 104 the banking industry these divisions questions of class, gender or age are divisions of ethnicity as well as could not be explored in more de- core and periphery (subcontracted) tail. However, from the eighteen positions in organisations and have conducted interviews no identifiable fundamental impacts on individual pattern emerged across different life chances and future perspec- age groups that would indicate vari- tives. Subcontracting has contrib- ations as regards the questions be- uted to a situation where people ing asked in this paper. Questions working in bottom-end jobs and of social class were even more thus at arms-length from their ‘real difficult to address as a number of employers’ often only earn poverty those interviewed did not want to incomes with little or no social and speak about some aspects of their legal protection. In terms of futurity, past lives, which was mainly due to these precarious conditions of work people’s difficult histories of migra- engender a lack of choice as the de- tion or the fact that they had to leave velopment of an individually deter- their home countries for political mined working life is hard to achieve reasons. The research undertaken and change in the future often only rather indicated that a more impor- possible on a collective level. These tant factor in shaping individuals’ fu- divisions along core and periphery turities was related to factors such positions are particularly striking in as the degree to which past educa- an industry where profit margins tional degrees were acknowledged, have been growing enormously whether the respective person had over recent decades and where a to support other members of family bonus culture has been established or relatives, either abroad or in the that created vastly diverging pay ra- UK, and how well support networks tios between executives or traders were suited to offer access to em- and those working on the periphery. ployment opportunities or affordable These divisions provide additional housing in London. evidence for ongoing polarisation Considering the limitations men- processes within the service-econo- tioned in the previous section, fur- my where low-level jobs are increas- ther work needs to be done to ex- ingly outsourced or subcontracted amine in more detail gender and and as a result of that do no longer class related issues as well as the offer possibilities for progression or influence of age in terms of people’s incremental wages within an organi- possibilities to determine the course sation. of their working lives. This is particu- Finally, a number of important larly true for a growing and increas- limitations need to be considered. ingly diverse migrant population in One important limitation is that due London, which is usually hardest to the relatively small sample size hit by organisational downscaling, 105 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 subcontracting and by changes to mumWage/DG_10027201 (accessed the legal framework of employment. February 14, 2012). 3 Future research may also help to The Transfer of Undertakings (Pro- establish in further detail the ‘geog- tection of Employment) Regulations raphies of time’, that is, the tensions (TUPE) protects employees’ terms and conditions of employment when a busi- arising from the fact that cleaning ness is transferred from one owner to workers, alongside other low paid another. Employees of the previous workers, are working in one of the owner when the business changes most expensive areas of London hands automatically become employ- whilst being increasingly forced to ees of the new employer on the same move further away from central ar- terms and conditions. It is as if their em- eas of London due to rising housing ployment contracts had originally been costs and processes of gentrifica- made with the new employer. Their tion. This may result in a situation continuity of service and any other where the majority of those who rights are all preserved. Both old and service, clean and maintain the new employers are required to inform and consult employees affected directly working of the banking and finance or indirectly by the transfer (www.acas. industry have to commute consider- org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1655, ac- able distances and thus spend a lot cessed February 12, 2012). of time and money in order to get to work, which would further already 4 In economics productivity is usually existing precariousness and socio- measured in terms of the ratio between economic inequalities. input and output.

5 (N.B.The names of the inter- See for example Franco Berardi’s def- viewees in this paper have been inition of precarity: ‘Precarious is a per- changed in order to guarantee con- son who is able to know nothing about one’s own future and therefore is hung fidentiality.) by the present’ (Berardi 2009, 148, see also Berardi 2005). Endnotes 1 In 1961 London had 1.45 million man- 6 The interviews showed that for those ufacturing jobs (32.4 per cent of the to- who do not have English as their first tal) in electrical engineering, food, drink language and who have language and tobacco, chemicals, instrument en- problems, the union has an important gineering, paper and printing, furniture ‘voice function’ in articulating their com- making, clothing and footwear. By 1981 plaints and thus maintaining their sense it had fallen by just over fifty per cent to of autonomy. The union ‘can speak for 681,000 (nineteen per cent of the total); them’, as a female cleaner put it in an (Hamnett 2003, 31). interview.

2 http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employ- 7 For a discussion on policy responses ment/Employees/TheNationalMini- to precarious work from the EU see Di- Koessl: Precariousness and Futurity 106 amond Ashiagbor (2006). labour in contemporary London. London: Routledge. References Ashiagbor, Diamond. 2006. Promoting Butler, Tim and Chris Hamnett. 2009. precariousness? The response of Regenerating a Global City. In EU employment policies to pre- Robert Imrie, Loretta Leeds and carious work. In Judy Fudge and Mike Raco, eds. Regenerating Rosemary J. Owens, eds. Pre- London: governance, sustainabil- carious work, women and the new ity and community in a global city. economy: the challenge to legal London: Routledge: 40-57. norms. Oxford: Hart Publishing: 77-98. Castel, Robert, and Klaus Doerre, ed. 2009. Prekarität, Abstieg, Aus- Atkinson, John. 1986. A flexible future. grenzung. Die soziale Frage am Britain’s dual labour force. Marx- Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts. ism Today 4: 12-17. Frankfurt/New York: Campus Ver- lag. Barron, Richard David, and Geoffrey Michael Norris. 1976. Sexual di- Doeringer, Peter B., and Michael J. visions and the dual labour mar- Piore. 1971. Internal Labor Mar- ket. In Diana Leonard Barker and kets and Manpower Analysis. Sheila Allen, eds. Dependence Lexington, Mass.: Heath Lexing- and exploitation in work and mar- ton Books. riage. London: Longman: 47-69. Dörre, Klaus, Stephan Lessenich, and Berardi, Franco. 2005. Arbeit - Wis- Hartmut Rosa. 2009. Soziologie - sen - Prekarität. http://eipcp.net/ Kapitalismus - Kritik. Eine Debatte. transversal/0704/bifo/de/print (ac- Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. cessed 17 October, 2011) Fantone, Laura. 2007. Precarious Berardi, Franco. 2009. Precarious changes: gender and generation- rhapsody. Semiocapitalism and al politics in contemporary Italy. the pathologies of the post-al- Feminist Review 87: 5-20. pha generation. New York: Minor Compositions. Friedmann, John and Goetz Wolff. 1982. World city formation: an Boulin, Jean-Yves. 2001. Working time agenda for research and action. in the new social and economic International Journal of Urban and context. Transfer: European Re- Regional Research 6 (3): 309- view of Labour and Research 7: 344. 197-210. Fudge, Judy, and Rosemary. J. Ow- ens, eds. 2006. Precarious work, Buck, Nick, Ian Gordon, Peter Hall, Mi- women and the new economy: the chael Harloe, and Mark Kleinman. challenge to legal norms. Oxford: 2002. Working capital: life and Hart Publishing. 107 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

Gordon, David M. 1972. Theories of zung. Die soziale Frage am Be- poverty and underemployment: ginn des 21. Jahrhunderts. Frank- Orthodox, radical and dual labor furt/New York: Campus Verlag: market perspectives. Lexington, 241-252. Mass.: Lexington Books. MacKenzie, Robert. 2000. Subcon- Hamnett, Chris. 2003. Unequal city: tracting and the reregulation of the London in the global arena. Lon- employment relationship: A case don: Routledge. study from the telecommunica- tions industry. Work Employment Harvey, David. 1989. The condition of and Society 14 (4): 707-726. postmodernity: an enquiry into the origins of cultural change. Oxford: Massey, Doreen. 2007. World city. Basil Blackwell. Cambridge: Polity.

Helleiner, Eric. 1994. States and the re- Pai, Hsiao- Hung. 2004. The invisibles - emergence of global finance: from migrant cleaners at Canary Wharf. Bretton Woods to the 1990s. Itha- Feminist Review 78: 164-174. ca, NY, London: Cornell University Press. Pellow, David N. and Lisa Sun-Hee Park. 2002. The Silicon Valley of Imrie, Robert, Loretta Lees, and Mike dreams: environmental injustice, Raco, eds. 2009. Regenerating immigrant workers, and the high- London: governance, sustainabil- tech global economy. New York, ity and community in a global city. London: New York University London: Routledge. Press.

King, Desmond and Stuart Wood. Piore, Michael J. 1971. The Dual Labor 1999. The political economy of Market: Theory and Implications. neoliberalism: Britain and the In David M. Gordon, ed. Theories United States in the 1980s. In of poverty and underemployment: Herbert Kitschelt, ed. Continuity Orthodox, radical and dual labor and change in contemporary capi- market perspectives. Lexington, talism. Cambridge: Cambridge Mass.: Lexington Books: 93-97. University Press: 371-397. Prasad, Monica. 2006. The politics of Kitschelt, Herbert, ed. 1999. Continuity free markets: the rise of neolib- and change in contemporary capi- eral economic policies in Britain, talism. Cambridge: Cambridge France, Germany, and the United University Press. States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kraemer, Klaus. 2009. Prekarisierung - Jenseits von Stand und Klasse? Rees, Gareth and Sarah Fielder. 1992. In Robert Castel and Klaus Dörre, The services economy, subcon- eds. Prekarität, Abstieg, Ausgren- tracting and the new employment Koessl: Precariousness and Futurity 108

relations – contract catering and Wills, Jane. 2009a. Subcontracted em- cleaning. Work Employment and ployment and its challenge to la- Society 6 (3): 347-368. bor. Labor Studies Journal 34 (4): 441-460. Sassen, Saskia. 2001. The global city: New York, London, Tokyo. 2nd ed. Wills, Jane. 2009b. The Living Wage. Princeton, N.J., Oxford: Princeton Soundings Journal 42:33-46. University Press. Wrench, John and Satnam Virdee. Tallon, Andrew. 2010. Urban regenera- 1995. Organizing the unorgan- tion in the UK. London: Routledge. ised: race, poor work and trade unions. Research paper in ethnic Toulouse, Chris. 1991. Thatcherism, relations No 21. Centre for Re- class politics, and urban develop- search in Ethnic Relations: Uni- ment in London. Critical Sociology versity of Warwick. 18 (1): 55-76.

Tsianos, Vassilis and Dimitris Papado- poulos. 2006. Precarity: A savage journey to the heart of embodied capitalism. http://eipcp.net/ transversal/1106/tsianospapado- poulos/en (accessed 17 October, 2011)

Virtanen, Pekka, V Liukkonen, Jussa Vahtera, Mika Kivimaki, and Mark- ku Koskenvuo. 2003. Health inequalities in the workforce: the labour market core-periphery structure. International Journal of Epidemiology 32 (6):1015-1021.

Wills, Jane, Kavita Datta, Yara Evans, Joanna Herbert, Jon May, and Cathy McIlwaine. 2010. Global cities at work: new migrant divisions of labour. London: Pluto.

Wills, Jane. 2008. Making class politics possible: Organizing contract cleaners in London. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 32 (2): 305-323. Melancholia and the Radical Particular: Against Archer’s Realism

Thomas Allen

The successful refutation of post-modern conceptions of subjectivity does not automatically give one the right to posit an acting subject. What is missing in any such positing is a value-judgement. How much is such a subjectivity worth? Why is such an attempt even being made? This paper argues that it is precisely these questions which go unasked in Margaret Archer’s work, and as such her human being is hollow. This is not because it is purely linguistic, but because if conditions of generalised exchange are taken as a normative ground for subjectivity then it can only exist as a bourgeois capitalist. To posit agency within these boundaries is to affirm them. To gain a different view of subjectivity one must forego the liberal need to rescue the ‘soul’ of the human and investigate the subject in its unfreedom and in its non-actuality. This position is, paradoxically, one which remains far more true to the idea of meaningful subjectivity than one which believes that the wrong life may be lived rightly. This paper begins by manifesting a contradiction in Archer’s work and goes on to read her development of human agency through the work of Georg Lukács and Theodor W. Adorno. Following this I read Lars Von Trier’s (2011) film Melancholia through Sigmund Freud and Adorno and claim that in times of crisis a negative conception of subjectivity may allow for an experience of emancipation precisely due to the tangential relation between the subject and the social world. I conclude with a brief consideration of the ontology of capitalist crisis and maintain that a melancholic and essentially negative structure is essential for understanding agency as it exists outside of demarcated social roles.

Key words: Margaret Archer, Adorno, Von Trier, Futurity, Melancholia, Negativity

PART I cy in the face of post-modernism and other trends that she claims seek to ‘They speak and hear, impoverish the concept of the hu- and are cast into the deep.’ man in favour of a view of subjec- Dante, The Inferno. tivity that is entirely socialised and a human being that is merely a gift Contradiction of society. This project takes place Margaret Archer is a realist social over the course of several books in- theorist dedicated to reinvigorating a cluding Realist Social Theory: The working conception of human agen- Morphogenetic Approach (1995), Graduate Journal of Social Science July 2012, Vol. 9, Issue 2 © 2012 by Graduate Journal of Social Science. All Rights Reserved. ISSN: 1572-3763 110 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

Culture and Agency: The Place of what one cares about most (Archer Culture in Social Theory (1996) 2007, 325). and Being Human: The Problem This notion of opting out is con- of Agency (2000). The first part of tentious, and it displays a prejudice this paper will focus primarily on in Archer’s thinking that can be il- the latter of these works, as well as lustrated with a brief consideration Archer’s more recent text Making of a more recent event. In the UK Our Way Through the World: Human last year, in the early hours of the Reflexivity and Social Mobility morning of 19th October 2011, (2007). around eighty-three families were I mean to argue that there is an made homeless in the violent evic- inherent contradiction in Archer’s tion of Dale Farm, a long standing work because, while she success- Traveller site in Essex, southern fully argues that a human subject England. Reports of police beatings must exist, she does not provide an and the use of tasers were com- adequate criticism of the objective mon. Spokesmen for the residents circumstances in which that subject at the site explained their refusal to moves. This results in her overes- leave before the eviction with the timating the potential for subjective simple statement that they had no- autonomy. To see this contradiction where else to go. 1 At that point, and one need only consider the clos- in countless others, it became clear ing passages of Making Our Way that involvement in the social world Through the World. Here Archer de- is not something which one may scribes a personal experience of a opt in or out of. Or rather, to ‘opt recent holiday she spent in the com- out’ one must already be in some pany of family and relative strangers degree ‘opting in.’ As Theodor W. in a Swiss Châteaux. The youngest Adorno writes, ‘The form of the total of these individuals are described system [society] requires everyone as ‘opting out’ of a system of corpo- to respect the law of exchange un- rate interest and free-competition: less he wants to be destroyed and These young professionals were regardless of whether profit is his rejecting the organisational contexts motive or not’ (Adorno 1970, 147). I in which they were occupationally maintain, along with Mattias Benzar expected to exercise their skills and (2011), that many of the problems were crafting small, new outlets for that pre-occupied Adorno in sociol- themselves in the social order....We ogy have yet to be solved, or rather, seemed to be celebrating not only are insoluble. As such, I believe his the New Year, but also the freedom work to be of the highest importance to pursue one’s where one would - when considering any social theory, following the situational logic of op- especially one that claims to deal portunity in order to give priority to with an authentic subjectivity. Allen: Melancholia and the Radical Particular 111

The affirmation of subjective free- at the end. Archer’s human being is dom in Archer’s model sits comfort- defined by its positive relation to the ably alongside objective entrapment. future and its integration into a social The question then presents itself totality. This positive futurity is main- as to how does a theory attempt- tained via the existence of subjec- ing to describe agency complement tive concerns and commitments that exactly a situation of unfreedom? I each individual seeks to actualise attempt to answer this by first of all within their own life-world (Archer sketching the development of self- 2007, 97). Such a standpoint can be hood and agency as it appears in easily questioned. To begin with one Being – Human, and counterposing may consider the following passage it to Adorno’s conception of reified from Adorno’s ‘Minima Moralia’: subjectivity. I mean to argue that A mankind which no longer knows if subjectivity is affirmed positively want may begin to have an inkling within the social world then it is a of the delusory, futile nature of all subjectivity that must be reified, and arrangements hitherto made in as such, the affirmation of a positive order to escape want, which used futurity is deeply conservative. After wealth to reproduce want on a this I will present a reading of the large scale...Being nothing else, structure of melancholia as present- without any further definition and ed in Lars Von Trier’s 2011 film of fulfilment, might take the place of the same name and attempt to point process, act, satisfaction....(Ador- towards a notion of subjective sin- no 2005, 157). gularity that emerges precisely from a radical incommensurability with If this passage were making a the temporality of the status-quo. positive claim about the future of subjectivity then it would be open Archer’s Subject to the criticism of gross utopianism. As I stated above, my interest However, it is essentially negative is not in whether Archer success- in nature. What it succeeds in do- fully counters the arguments of ing is connecting a positive relation post-modern thinkers and man- to the future, a relation of ‘process, ages to give the self a necessary act, satisfaction,’ within the context constitution, but how and why such of historically specific relations of a subjectivity complements objec- production and prevailing conditions tive conditions of unfreedom. As of want amongst the human popula- such, I will not consider at length tion. Neither of these things are es- the first sections of Being Human sential components of human social that are dedicated to a refutation of life, although they are historically Michel Foucault, Richard Rorty and prevalent. Jacques Derrida; rather, I will begin One may consider Adorno’s state- 112 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 ment that ‘there is nothing under vendi. Through prioritisation con- the sun, which in being mediated... ducted by inner dialogue...The through the human intelligence... subject constitutes her identity as and thinking, is not socially medi- the being-with this constellation of ated (Adorno 2002, 15-16; Adorno concerns (Archer 2007, 97). in: Benzar. 2011, 47). One sees a presupposed ontological ground These ‘concerns’ emerge through imprinted upon any social theory. a subject’s interaction with three Indeed, it is the task of a sociologi- stratified layers of the real: the natu- cal interpretation to allow the sedi- ral, the practical and the social. It is mented history in social phenom- the ability to reflect on them in each enon to come to light (Adorno 2002, of these arenas that guarantees 145). This is not to return to an ar- some kind of autonomy for the sub- gument of socialisation but, rather, it ject. is to say that no theory escapes its The natural order is the pri- own historical context. It is with re- mary stage of self-development. gard to the existence of this imprint Here Archer makes use of Maurice that I will consider the formation of Merleau-Ponty’s conception of an Archer’s subject. ‘embodied practice,’ a conception In Being Human subjectivity is of the subject as necessarily orien- developed through a series of stag- tated and corporeal. As an infant a es which culminate in the social subject forms relations with her im- ‘actor’ who is possessed of both a manent exterior surroundings and ‘social’ and a ‘personal’ identity. The repeated interactions with them latter comes about through a se- lead to the emergence of the self as ries of reflections known as ‘internal a ‘relational property, whose realisa- conversations’ by which a subject tion comes about through the nec- considers their previous experience essary relations between embodied in terms of their future plans and at- practice and the non-discursive en- tempts to live their life accordingly. vironment’ (Archer 2000, 123). This This reflection revolves around a environment remains non-discur- collection of concerns which are sive because the relation to it is con- described as ‘emotional states...not ducted on the level of sensual imme- commodities which can be costed...’ diacy, not through the ‘disembodied (Archer 2000, 63). As we read in Cartesian cogito’ (Archer 2000, 128). Making Our Way Through the World: At this point the subject experiences The goal of defining and order- her ‘inherent attunement to things ing our concerns, through what which is the nature of our being-in- is effectively a life-long internal the-world’ (Archer 2000, 132). This conversation, is to arrive at a sat- attunement would be impossible isfying and sustainable modus vi- without a minimal sense of memory. Allen: Melancholia and the Radical Particular 113

The ‘self’ is precisely this repository. and musicians dedicate themselves As such, Archer’s self emerges ‘mo- from an early age to many hours of nologically’ as a pure individual in its practice because they experience surroundings. It is important to note the activity as fulfilling, or expect that it has been rightly suggested that it will yield such fulfilment in the that this attitude over-individualises future. Personal identity forms itself the self to the extent that the input of around what activities are decided carers and minimal linguistic influ- to be the most profitable for a sub- ence is ignored. This is not to sug- ject, and through this process the gest a re-socialisation of the self, practical order provides the ultimate but rather to suggest that Archer ontological ground for the formation maintains a bias towards absolute of social identity (Archer 2000, 213). individuality when one is not nec- This dialogue is described as a essary for her argument (Luckett ‘dialectic between our human con- 2008, 303). cerns and our emotional commen- Once the practical order has been taries on them’ (Archer 2000, 231). entered then a sense of personal It is maintained that the potential for identity begins to be formed, and the agency emerges through the fact ‘internal conversation’ comes into that, in appropriating the world we play. This, Archer maintains, is pres- have ‘taken responsibility for these ent in every normally functioning hu- concerns, and have made them man being and represents the major our own’ (Archer 2000, 173). At this PEP (Personal Emergent Property) stage, it is clear that social integra- that contributes to the irreducible tion is crucial to agency. Just as in nature of the human being. The con- John Elster’s ‘Adaptive Preference versation initially functions by medi- Formation’, a theory which Archer ating emotional commentary on the derides (Archer 2000, 63), the nor- subject’s relations with the practical mative ground for a healthy sub- order of reality. Archer insists that jectivity is its ability to adapt to the emotions are primarily to be seen current social world.2 I would argue as ‘anthropocentric commentaries that the existence of this normative on the situations in which we find ground is already an affirmation of ourselves...’ (Archer 2000, 207). As that status-quo’s rationality. such the internal conversation ex- Once a personal identity has been plains the continuation or cessation adequately formed, one begins to of action according to the pleasure become aware of one’s own social or lack of it that is expected to be re- objectivity, and to be represented as ceived from different activities. For an agent, or rather as one of a group example, people decide to pursue of agents who share a similar stock or not pursue sports based on their in cultural (and, presumably, real) aptitude for or enjoyment of them, capital. Agents may manifest their 114 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 singularity as an ‘actor’ by taking on 296) The human agent is ultimately a pre-existing social role. Archer is neither the gift of, nor the king, of insistent that there is no contradic- society but is involved in a continu- tion involved in this process. Rather, ous morphogenetic relationship with each actor, typified by some kind of it which changes both the normative involvement in wage-labour, whilst structure and the subjects defined not free to choose their role, is free by it. to ‘activate or personify it in a par- ticularistic way’ (Archer 2000, 284). Archer’s Conservatism Archer insists that through the use Archer acknowledges that her of reflexivity the actor is able to se- work is largely commensurable with cure a human status rather than a phenomenology (Archer 2000, 127). merely objective one (Archer 2000, She maintains that this is because 288). The adult internal conversa- both schools of thought give pri- tion grows as social roles are oc- macy to action in the practical field. cupied. It is through juggling these However, they are also commensu- social roles with personal ones that rable on another point; a pre-occu- human agency again comes to the pation with the irreducible freedom fore. The subject is effectively split of the human being. Archer effec- between social roles and concerns tively adopts Jean Paul Sartre’s dic- which are animated by a personal tum that ‘freedom…is the being of identity (Archer 2000, 293). man’ (Sartre 2003, 441). However Archer’s argument for the posi- much this may be true, the descriptive relation between personal and tions of freedom that Archer uses social identity relies on the concep- all manifest themselves within the tion that roles may be performed, as normatively sanctioned realm and it were, in an unscripted way, that, are minuscule in their reality such although occupying a certain role as taking the dog for a walk, giving means being restricted, the sub- children breakfast etc. One may ar- jects are their own ‘script writers’ as gue that the prisoner in solitary con- ‘even the smallest print which spells finement maintains a similar degree out formal obligations cannot tell us of freedom because they are free to how to greet our partners, breakfast walk around their cell as and when the children, let the dog out or ac- they choose. I would argue that one knowledge God’ (Archer 2000, 303) may say the same thing of Archer’s As a result changes in roles and in conception of freedom as Adorno societies’ normative ground may oc- says of existentialism; that it is, to cur through ‘a continuous stream some extent, ‘allergic to objectiv- of unscripted performances, which ity’ (Adorno 2000, 50) The logic of also over time can cumulatively al- ‘no matter how small the small-print’ ter role expectations (Archer 2000, (see above) is a logic whereby the Allen: Melancholia and the Radical Particular 115 tighter objective circumstances be- is present again in the conception of come, the more a subject manifests ‘taking responsibility’ for social con- its freedom. cerns and models. As Judith Butler The subjective ground of freedom (1990) observed, on the back of exists at the expense of a critique of Franz Kafka, conceptions of subjec- a subject’s objective conditions and, tive autonomy are primarily useful in ultimately, acts as an apologist for a courtroom situation (Butler 1990, them. This is apparent in the con- 157) and I would argue that a prej- ception that the internal conversa- udice towards legalistic schemas tion is a universal linguistic experi- of freedom of choice heavily influence. No consideration is given to ences Archer’s model of subjective the fact that individuals may have growth. One does not necessarily different linguistic abilities based choose to take responsibility for the on background and cultural capi- social world; rather one may equally tal. Pierre Bourdieu’s conception of well be forced to do so in order to the habitus, for example, describes survive. Money is required in order a situation in which ‘schemes of to live and getting a job is gener- perception, appreciation and action ally required to get money, and this enable them [social subjects] to per- comes with a series of normatively form acts of practical knowledge, sanctioned social responsibilities. based on the identification of and The primary movement, however, recognition of conditional, conven- could just as equally be seen as one tional stimuli to which they are pre- of forced adaptation rather than a disposed to react’ (Bourdieu 2000, voluntary assumption of responsibil- 138). Thembi Kate Luckett main- ity. The citizens of a particular state tains that the dialectical relation be- do not choose to be born under its tween thought and language is un- laws, although they are assumed derestimated in Archer’s work: ‘The to be responsible for not breaking more abstract one’s thoughts are, them. the more they depend on access to This point can be elaborated repertoire of discourses which en- if one considers the term ‘reifica- ables higher order thinking’ (Luckett tion.’ Literally meaning to make a 2008, 139). thing of something, it enters the There is in Archer’s thinking lexicon of critical theory via Georg something deeply conservative Lukács’s (1975) History and Class which points towards the thought Consciousness, and draws on the that, regardless of a person’s up- a specific section in Capital Vol.1 in bringing, all they have to do is to go which Marx remarks that it is a pecu- out in the world and prioritise their liar characteristic of commodity pro- concerns appropriately, and they duction and exchange that relations may exist as a fulfilled agent. This between men take on the character- 116 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 istic of relationships between things ing which has effectively ‘adapted (Marx 1990, 164). Key to this idea itself to objects’ (Adorno 2005, 193). is the conception of abstract labour. I would argue that Archer’s subject Stemming from the same chapter represents almost a case in point of of Marx, this refers to the process subjective reification. The language through which the individual labour of accumulation and exchange per- time that goes into making a com- meate her work. To quote another modity, be it an item of clothing passage regarding the formation or a pot of stew, is necessary ho- of social identity: ‘What new em- mogenised into an abstracted form ployees have to do is to evaluate of value which then allows for the the up-side against the down-side exchange of otherwise incommen- and come with a positive balance surable items. The object produced if they are going to find a cause to emerges as both a use-value and an invest something of themselves exchange–value, a dual structure of in that role’ (Archer 2000, 191. my materiality and abstraction. Lukács emphasis). This is the reasoning of writes that ‘this fragmentation of the finance capital, not the language object of production necessarily ne- of an emancipated human subject. cessitates the fragmentation of the The abstraction between personal subject...Neither objectively, nor in and social identity mimics almost his relation to his work does man exactly the abstraction between the appear as the authentic master of individual person and their socially this process. He finds it already pre- abstracted labour. According to existing and self-sufficient....and he Archer the further one goes in terms has to conform to its laws whether of subjective reification, in terms of he likes it or not’ (Lukács 1975, 91). an internalised division of labour The subject that emerges from this amongst one’s concerns, the closer process encounters a situation in one comes towards singularity. The which ‘the relations between man successful subject is ‘everyone who that lie hidden in the immediate has managed to achieve both per- commodity relations...have faded to sonal and social identity’ (Archer the point where they can be neither 2000, 296) This is not to say that recognised nor perceived’ (Lukács Archer’s theory is not an accurate 1975: 93). description of current human be- For Adorno, the entire social haviour, but that it mistakes histori- world itself exists as a reified set cal contingency for a transcendental of relations between individuals, human nature. one predicated entirely on the ex- Rather than attempting to ground istence of exchange relations and the subject in the social, Adorno re- commensurability. Adorno defines marks, quite simply, that the objec- a reified consciousness as that be- tive nature of society only becomes Allen: Melancholia and the Radical Particular 117 present when it ‘hurts’ (Adorno within discourse orientated towards 2002, 36). The normative ground ideas of progress. In Benjamin’s of social integration must be shifted ‘Thesis on the Philosophy of History’ on to the individual suffering for this one reads of the necessity for a to come clear. Benzar notes that ‘messianic cessation of happening’ ‘to job seekers who must do what (Benjamin 2007, 263, my empha- they do not want to do, the coercion sis) within the continuum of histori- to adapt to the almighty exchange cal progress; a continuum that nec- principle and to sell themselves is essarily passes over the individual immediately evident’ (Benzar 2011, suffering of those who ‘lie prostrate’ 59). This thought cannot be inte- before it (Benjamin 2007, 256). The grated into a system of positive fu- idea of a normatively sanctioned turity, in which an individual subject subject moving towards the future locates itself comfortably within the manifests this same characteristic social, because it locates the two on an individual level. Those sin- at a point where they are radically gular moments of suffering which incommensurable. One could argue society passes over in a violent si- that if Archer’s subject feels no pain, lence are re-appropriated into that does not understand the nauseating subject’s narrative as necessary experience of selling themselves in preconditions of the attainment of a order to gain work, it is because they precarious social identity. In this way have successfully adapted them- they are retrospectively justified ac- selves to a reified objectivity. For cording to the same logic which in- Adorno, this road ends in Auschwitz flicts them. I would argue that the in which ‘even in his formal freedom wound in both the subject and the the individual is as fungible and re- social which occurs when the indi- placeable as he will be under the liq- vidual stands against their systems uidator’s boots’ (Adorno 2000, 362). of mutual appropriation must be It is this dialectic between fungibility kept open. and ‘formal freedom’ which charac- Archer’s work demonstrates that terises many people’s experience of positing a positive subjective agen- the social world. To affirm freedom cy within the currently existing so- within it is to fail to see that this au- cial world must end with the objec- tonomy can only exist along lines tive reification of that subject. This is which do not belong to the subject simply because in order to survive and which can always be denied to one must engage in some form of it. continued process of exchange. Finally, on a macro level, I would Such a conclusion demands a re- argue that Archer’s work forms a focusing on the ontological consti- parallel with what Walter Benjamin tution of the subject as it exists in identifies as a narrativising tendency its unfreedom. Archer states that 118 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 a primary sense of self-hood is a tus. Categories of understanding condition of possibility for ‘experi- serve to reflect back to the subject ence.’ Likewise, she insists, via the only what it is capable of knowing quotation of Piatget’s work on child about the object in the first place. development, that it is only through What appears to be natural is alan awareness of the permanence of ready domesticated by the subject the object that the self can be found- into its own perceptual schema. For ed (Archer 2000, 147). This bears Adorno this represents a mimesis of a striking resemblance to the follow- the capitalist exchange: ing passage from Kant’s Critique of This tautology [between subject Pure Reason: and object] is nothing other than ‘The original and necessary con- the expression of captivity: as sciousness of oneself is at the knowing subjects we are never same time a consciousness of the able to get outside of ourselves... original and necessary synthesis The world in which we are cap- of all appearances in accordance tive is in fact a self-made world: with concepts...for the mind could it is the world of exchange, of not possibly think of the identity of commodities, the world of reified itself in the manifold of its repre- human relations that confront sentations...if it did not have be- us, presenting us with a façade fore its eyes the identity of its ac- of objectivity...a second nature’ tion which submits all synthesis of (Adorno 2001, 137). apprehension (which is empirical) to a transcendental unity (Kant It is through this dialectic of domi- 1999, 231-232). nation, subsumption and abstraction that the world is experienced as The subject predicates itself reified. upon the objectivity of its surround- On this model, there is no escap- ings, upon the schema of cause and ing the positive unfreedom of the effect that it sees within the world, subject by further enmeshing it in the and the ability to infer permanent social. Rather, Adorno inherits from existence upon a series of tempo- Hegel the conception of the inherent ral encounters with the ‘same’ ob- negativity of the subject. One reads ject. This maintains itself throughout in The Phenomenology of Spirit the subject’s life time, as a neces- that ‘the genuinely positive exposi- sary pre-condition of ‘making our tion of the beginning is…also, con- way through the world.’ However, versely a negative attitude towards what follows from the Kantian it’ (Hegel 1977, 13) Active thought thought is that object is itself medi- anchors itself via the negation of ated already through the subject in what is. Within the original Hegelian order to achieve its objective sta- dialectic this movement of negation Allen: Melancholia and the Radical Particular 119 resolves itself into a positive resolu- begin by considering the melanchol- tion and the structure of determinate ic subject’s relation to time. negation is ultimately the restoration PART II of the positive. However, to maintain ‘For only what does not fit into this the conception of positive negation world is true.’ is to maintain the possibility of a Adorno, Aesthetic Theory reconciliation between subject and object; a reconciliation impossible in the world of the reified social. Melancholia and the Social Rather, the fidelity to be maintained Melancholia is inherently anach- is to the inherently negative act. As ronistic. By this I mean that, in its we read in Negative Dialectics: ‘The most literal sense, it is a condition seriousness of unswerving nega- which acts against time. Freud de- tion lies in its refusal to lend itself to scribes the condition in relation to sanctioning things as they are. To mourning, a process that involves negate a negation does not bring a similar removal from world affairs, about its reversal; rather it proves but is not treated as pathological be- that the negative was not nega- cause ‘we rely on it being overcome tive enough’ (Adorno 2000, 159- within a period of time’ (Freud 2005, 160). The original negative action is 202). The latter occurs due to the that which maintains the space for identifiable loss of a loved object. In the new by existing against time, melancholy, however, the lost object against the narrative appropriation cannot be replaced and as such is of the positive future. internalised into the unconscious In the following section I will at- resulting in a paradoxically narcis- tempt to ground a negative concep- sistic incessant series of self-abase- tion of time and subjectivity within the ments (Freud 2005). Julia Kristeva experience of melancholy; a state of discusses the effect succinctly: ‘It being-in-the-world which a focus on is impossible to change partners or positive futures necessarily renders plans, for the object that has caused pathological. By reading Von Trier me pain is not only hated but also (2011) through Freud and Adorno, I loved and thus identified with me’ will aim to show how subject – ob- (Kristeva 2000, 47). In essence, the ject relations can be unsettled in the impossibility of replacing the lost ob- event of objective crisis, and how ject makes it impossible for a per- this provides a negative framework son to ‘get on with their life’ because for conceiving of action in the world their very personhood is predicated and comportment towards objects, on loss. and, by extension, subjects, which This status becomes more com- is not modelled around the principal plicated as Freud later concludes of equivalency and exchange. I will that the normally functioning ego 120 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 is founded on the loss of a beloved bind manifests itself in Adorno’s object, and on the acceptance of a statement that ‘thought awaits to be socially sanctioned number of re- wakened one day by the memory of placements. David L. Eng (2000) what has been missed, and to be has suggested that the melancholic transformed into teaching’ (Adorno structure of subjectivity becomes 2000, 81). This restoration would a manifestation of the inability for provide the ultimate justification for public language to address unsanc- social philosophy. Its mission is ‘to tioned objects, allowing clinical de- show objects in their truly alienated, pression to take an overtly ‘political’ deformed state ‘as they would ap- meaning (Eng 2000, 8). In this sense pear in the messianic light’ (Adorno it becomes an index for that which 2000, 247). The presentation of the must be passed over in silence with- messianic here is negative. It is in the social world. As Butler (1997) through the light of the a-historical writes, ‘the character of the ego ap- objective, that objectivity that can- pears to be the sedimentation of not be conceived within the world objects loved and lost, the archae- of the falsely objective, that aspects ological remainder...of unresolved of the social world can be shown grief’ (Butler 1997, 133). These in their true state. Such discourse griefs themselves catalogue hetero- relies on the view point of the mel- normative prohibitions and gender ancholic; the one who refuses to demarcations. It is this powerfully maintain themselves within a pro- anachronistic relation to the status- gressive narrative. It is therefore quo that connects Adorno’s nega- through the action of negation and tivity with the melancholic structure loss, those essential constituents of of subjects. It is also at this point the subject, that the potential for a that Archer stands most obviously redeemed relation between subject opposed to this conception of sub- and object indexes itself. jectivity. The narrative assumption It is within this ontological nexus of ‘social roles’ necessarily pushes of false and unrealised objectivity the subject into demarcations which that I will consider Lars Von Trier’s cannot allow for the restoration of film Melancholia. Released in the the lost object. The world actively autumn of 2011, by the Danish stu- promises fulfilment and works at the dio Zentropa, a company started same time to deny it. and part-owned by Von Trier, it is If one continues the discourse of the Danish director’s most recent second-nature and reification then work. I will argue that the structure what are missing from the social of melancholy appears here as hav- world are not only specific objects ing two faculties. The first of these is of desire, but equally a meaning- its anachronistic nature, the second ful objectivity as such. This double is an emphasis on particularity and Allen: Melancholia and the Radical Particular 121 a potential for an experience of an tempted to see them as examples object which is paradoxically nega- of the aestheticising power of the tive. Kristeva writes that the artistic melancholic consciousness, as dis- drive avoids succumbing to melan- cussed above. However, I would ar- choly by investing a subject’s drives gue that equally what are presented into individual objects; by ‘sexual- are particulars as particulars. They izing words, colours and sounds’ are not entirely removed from a uni- (Kristeva 2000, 60). This may ap- versal, such a thing would be impos- pear impotent whilst the world func- sible to comprehend, however they tions normally around the subject, are not subsumed by the subject. however I will argue that this struc- They exist outside of an exchange ture, as it appears in Von Trier, con- relation. It is at this point that the tains a reflection of a relationship to negative and the anachronistic as- objectivity not based around utility pects of melancholia already con- and exchange. verge. It is the dialectic between This emerges if one considers them, and its relation to the social the opening sequence of the film world which I will argue manifests in which, against the musical back- an ontological ground for a negative drop of Wagner’s prelude to ‘Tristan subjectivity. und Isolde,’ one sees a series of Once the opening sequence is brilliantly composed high resolution, finished the viewer witnesses the slow moving photographs, in which bride, Justine, played by Kirsten objects and people exist radiant in Dunst, delayed on the way to her their particularity. These images wedding reception as the limou- include a bride attempting to walk sine in which she is travelling with away from roots in which she is en- her new husband fails to negoti- tangled, a horse falling in slow mo- ate a tight bend in a country road. tion against a sky spotted with stars Eventually the couple arrive two and three figures; two women, whom hours late, and are greeted by we later find out to be the film’s cen- the frustrated figures of Clare, tral characters, and a child, standing Justine’s older sister, played by in a perfect composition against the Charlotte Gainsbourg and her hus- back drop of a large country home. band, played by Kiefer Sutherland. Intercut between these is the image Justine increases this frustration by of Earth being destroyed in a colli- immediately going to say ‘hello’ to sion with another, much larger, and her favourite horse in the family sta- clearly dead, planet. What I would bles. As the scene progresses from note about these images is that they this point it becomes clear that her appear to be aesthetic before they sense of time is not commensurable are narrative. They appear as meta- with the world in which she finds phor not documentary. One may be herself. The wedding is running ac- 122 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 cording to a strict timetable, one achieve her combination of the per- that, as Claire’s husband remarks, sonal and the social identities that was drawn up by ‘the most expen- would enable her to function as an sive wedding planner on the planet.’ active human, but she induces in In contradiction with this attempt to those around her the feeling that manage her subjectivity, Justine fre- this very relation as it exists in them- quently drops out of the appropriate selves may be something inessen- forms of behaviour. The Archerean tial. Characters, with the exception social roles present themselves for of her father, react with increasing her to play. She is a new bride, she desperation and frustration towards is a woman and is clearly from a her behaviour. Her husband leaves, privileged background. As such, her presumably for good, and Claire tells agential status seemingly equips her how some times she hates more her with everything necessary to than she can say. This is not the re- become a successful actor. What action of a benevolent social world is missing is a reified relation to the nurturing personal identity; rather it future; a desire to realise her own manifests the inherent violence of concerns as they placed before subjective constitution. This is not through a temporally bound series to suggest that Justine manages to of commitments. sublimate gender in any meaning- The assumption of such roles ap- ful way, however her negative rela- pears to her as an essentially de- tion to it, along with the economic meaning and boring act. Options structures in which she finds herself available are meaningless. Upon placed, allows disjunction between her arrival at the reception, she is these structures and a subjective asked to guess how many beans freedom to come to light. are in a jar and upon receiving a congratulatory speech from her Melancholia and the Negative employer, during which she is pro- If the first half of Von Trier’s film moted, is given the task to come deals with the false objectivity of the up with a tag-line for a new adver- world of second nature, then the tising image. Both these tasks she second introduces objectivity of a fails to achieve, eventually telling new and absolute kind. The tauto- her boss that she despises him and logical domination of the object by having sex with the young man who the subject, the second nature of has been plucked from obscurity to subjective existence, is obliterated encourage her to come up with the by an object unable to be domes- slogan. Throughout this sequence, ticated within the subjective frame- the constitution of social identity is work. The half, entitled ‘Claire’, shown to be an inherently violent starts an indeterminate amount of act. Not only does Justine fail to time after the wedding. The opening Allen: Melancholia and the Radical Particular 123 scenes deal with the title character’s core of positive subjectivity. efforts to cope with the, now literally, From the images that open the debilitating depression of her sister. film there is consistent emphasis Several scenes depict her attempt- on an ability to experience pas- ing to help Justine with small tasks, sively within Justine’s character, such as getting into a bath and eat- to achieve something approaching ing supper. The latter remains inca- a relationship to an object which pable of doing these things, scream- does not amount to subsumption. In ing as she is walked to the bath tub Structure, Agency and the Internal and saying that food tastes ‘like Conversation, Archer makes refer- ashes.’ At other times she is seen ence to what she describes as the as marvelling other specific flowers possibility of a ‘fracturing’ within in the garden, and at the flight of a a subject’s internal conversation bird passing above her. When this which would result in an inabil- happens, Claire looks on, seeming- ity to prioritise one’s concerns and ly happy but unable to participate. move through the world accord- In the previous section, I men- ingly (Archer 2003, 298). Needless tioned that Archer’s subjective on- to say, this is judged as an incom- tology is explicitly Kantian, in that plete subjectivity. However, what she predicates the subject’s knowl- Von Trier (2011) emphasises is that edge of itself on the knowledge of it is precisely this inability to function its objective surroundings. This re- according to the standard normative sults in the subjective alienation ground that maintains itself against experienced as ‘second nature’, an that ground’s failure in moments of inability to know oneself and a per- objective crisis. sistent sense of entrapment. If the This ontology takes centre stage discourse of melancholia allows one as it emerges that a planet named to notice the particular of individual Melancholia has been ‘hiding’ be- suffering that is missed in the social hind the sun and is approaching universal, it also contains intimations Earth. Claire begins to worry that it of a state in which neither the object will collide with them and her hus- or the subject are committed to their band assures her that it will not. mutual bind. This is something that From this point, the planet repre- may approach subjective freedom: sents precisely the social world’s ‘A freedom to step outside of the inability to appropriate an absolute object, a freedom which the identity object. Indeed, I would argue that claim cuts short’ (Adorno 2000, 313) this failed domestication is present The identity claim, the fastening of from the opening shots of the film. an object to its concept by a subject Von Trier’s affinity and familiarity that in turn is fastened to the object, with the work of Nietzsche has been is something that reaches to the noted (Bainbridge 2008). This rela- 124 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 tion between object and metaphor is about this object is its relative size. a pre-occupation in both their work. Merleau-Ponty (2005) writes that As one reads in the small essay ‘sense experience is that vital com- ‘On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral munication with the world which Sense’: makes it present as a familiar setting Every concept originates through of our life. It is to it that the perceived our equating what is unequal.... object and the perceiving subject What then is truth? A mobile army owe their thickness’ (Merleau-Ponty of metaphors. metonyms and 2005, 61, my emphasis). What anthropomorphisms: in short, a emerges in Melancholia is a process sum of human relations which by which an object appears that have been enhanced, transposed cannot provide a foundational point and embellished...truths are illu- for a life-world precisely because it sions...metaphors which are worn is too much of an object. As such it out and without sensuous power’ causes terror amongst those whose (Nietzsche 1994, 47, my empha- subjectivity is contained within a sis). schema of a positive futurity. Justine’s relation to the planet The construction of discourse, is strikingly different to her sis- of objectivity itself, predicates itself ter’s. Two scenes serve to illustrate on making the visceral familiar via this. The first takes place at night. the use of metaphor and transla- Justine goes walking in the grounds tion, in which objects are literally of the house, and Claire follows her transplanted into different areas of clandestinely. Melancholia is shin- discourse. As the film progresses, ing brightly in the sky and after a this appropriation is made explicit in few minutes the latter stumbles its failure. The opening shots, origi- across Justine who is lying naked nally taken as metaphor, become on a river bank staring back up at increasingly prophetic as this failure the planet and bathing in its white becomes more and more evident. In light. The position here is clearly the most moving example Claire’s voyeuristic. What is witnessed is husband presents her with a device a mode of comportment towards made by their son. It consists of a an object which manifests itself as stick of wood with an adjustable ring a paradoxical stepping outside of of metal that can be held up to the the remits of subjective objectifica- planet and adjusted according to tion. Such a position is only possible its size. The holder then waits for via the fractured subjectivity of the five minutes and places it over the melancholic and from a subjective planet again to see whether or not perspective that is outside of social it is approaching or receding away. time. It is from this position that the Ultimately, all that can be known apocalyptic object appears as both Allen: Melancholia and the Radical Particular 125 redemptive and destructive; as the ture converges with the conscious- messianic perspective from which ness unable to participate in it. The the false is shown in its falseness. societal roles, the sedimentations of The second scene occurs close social history are obliterated along to the end of film when it is now ir- with the very subjectivities that they refutable that the Earth will soon be render necessary. For Justine, the destroyed. Claire finds her husband melancholic always outside of time, dead in the stables, and tells Justine the last moment is immortal. The that she wants to re-enact a famil- social world that throughout has iar ritual and to sit out on the terrace been predicated on a violent appro- drinking wine with her sister and her priation of subjectivity and time dies young son. According to all of the because the lost object that founds requirements of rational behaviour, the ego in its melancholy state re- this plan is a good one. Claire has turns in all of its objectivity. Justine’s the means and the money at her relation represents a model for a disposal to actualise her plan, and comportment outside of exchange, the act exists within a social role a relation that can only exist as es- that she is comfortable in playing. sentially negative. After a few moments of strained silence Justine tells her sister that Conclusion: Crisis this is one of the most stupid ideas As the preceding discussion has that she has ever heard and pro- investigated, the condition of melan- ceeds to walk out into the grounds cholia acts against time in two ways. of the house where she meets her It refuses the necessary incorpora- nephew and tells him that they will tion of the subject into the schema make a magic cave to escape the of the world’s temporality, and it fo- apocalypse. What is revealed in the cuses on the particularity inherent in convergence of the objective lack that world’s crass universals. In both of a future with the attempt to main- of these ways it is experienced as a tain a degree of behaviour within the deviation from the normal mode of social world is that those normative existence. It represents a prolonged behaviours are themselves guaran- existential crisis, the process which, teed by a false objectivity. for early phenomenology, reveals The film ends with a negative im- the ‘world as world’ (Heidegger. age of redemption as the planet im- 1978, 139). It is the visceral experi- pacts and the three characters are ence of being out of joint with one’s sitting in a makeshift house formed surroundings, an interruption in the from dead branches. History ends Kantian self-narrative. with an event which is precisely a- The experience of financial crisis historical and the object that is never can be described in a similar way. It appropriated into schema of the fu- is the point at which discourses of 126 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 progress and inevitable subjective something right and true. One who actualisation fall away. To view this affirms the idea of wishful thinking position as ontologically secondary serves only to justify the punishment to the normal flow of life in the so- of those mad enough to believe that cial world, is to appropriate the cri- the world could be different, and to sis into a discourse of the future in sympathise with those who benefit which the basic ontological ground from such punishment. It is no coin- of pre-crisis states will inevitably re- cidence that Don Quixote receives emerge. One could argue that the his most sadistic humiliation at the apperception of capital mimics that hands of the nobility. of its subjects. Every drive towards Benjamin once described the economic growth necessitates the state as possessing a ‘monopoly on enforcing, and tightening, of ac- violence’ (Benjamin 2004, 239). A di- ceptable social roles and the sub- rect consequence of this is an equal jects / objects which occupy them. monopoly on time. This monopoly is The conception of a ‘constellation two-fold and involves both demar- of concerns’ is rendered meaning- cating the social roles available and less in the face of social objectiv- the subjective conditions of those ity attempting to recover from such who occupy them, and in dictating a crisis. The situation which led to the narratives with which any cri- one elderly man shooting himself sis within those roles is explained. outside of the Greek parliament is Actions orientated towards eco- a fitting example of what remains of nomic recovery focus themselves subjective freedom when objective equally on fixing the ontological gap circumstances allow no avenue for experienced in times of financial cri- its realisation.3 sis and on re=establishing a univer- It is situations like this when one sal narrative between both subjects realises the essentially conservative and objects; a narrative that does nature of a focus on positive subjec- not belong to either of them. In the tivity. This is a focus that must take UK one saw this process working the currently existing world of social explicitly in the discursive domesti- relations as its normative ground. cation of the London Riots of 2011. As such, throughout her work The reaction of the media and po- Archer refers to the ‘epistemic fal- litical mainstream served to either lacy’ as the mistaken belief that the condemn what took place or to pro- world is how we imagine it, and not vide a liberal framework of justifica- as it is in reality (Archer 2003, 207). tion for the actions.4 Actions which However, whilst the world in which interrupt the expected temporality the naïve person moves may be op- of capital accumulation must be re- posed to their own conceptions of appropriated into its structure, both it, this does mean that it is, in itself, through a narrative and a legal pro- Allen: Melancholia and the Radical Particular 127 cess of punishment based on the narrative appropriation; they main- grounds of individual responsibility. tain a melancholic negation and sin- However, before any retroactive jus- gularity achieved through, as much tification takes place, I would argue as is possible, the refusal of the so- that acts that necessitate this reac- cial world’s sedimented discourses. tion are essentially melancholic in It is this phenomenon of stepping nature. They represent a negation outside, via the paradoxical act of of the expected behaviour of actors negation, of prevailing time frames who occupy a minimal social role, that presents an intimation of some- not by a slow burning change in a thing approaching the ground for a society’s normative ground, but by a positive subject. To affirm this posi- violent rupture in its time-frame. It is tivity outside of these demarcations at these historical moments that the is to affirm the conditions that make appropriative elements of the state such a stepping outside necessary. come into full view. A piece from the string of universi- It is also at these moments ty occupations in California declared when the potential for something itself to be a ‘Communique from an new emerges. In early March 2012 Absent Future’ (After the Fall 2009). Cambridge University invited ex- This is wrong. The future is not ab- head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss sent, but it is estranged. This is not a Kahn, to speak at their student time stream from which anyone may union on the subject of economic re- ‘opt out,’ precisely because it exists covery. Outside approximately two tangentially to the subject. But it is hundred protestors gathered dem- one that one may act against. In the onstrating against the speaker’s words of another recent publication: on-going involvement in allegations A revolutionary time form, a time of sexual assault. As the evening away from time as we know it, proceeded, women began to come cannot be understood in anything forward from the crowd and share other than negative terms...It is stories of surviving rape. Individuals not exhaustion and industry, but emerged from the crowd, told their neither is it free time and leisure stories and returned to tears of in the current ways in which those solidarity from complete strang- are understood...Time must be ers. One independent blogger de- interrupted by us. Not Eden, not scribed the atmosphere as such: Heaven. NOW’ (Escalate, 63). ‘We sustain one another, we create a vocabulary for our experiences, a Time, as a reified quantity, can- discourse where we get to tell our not be taken as a defining aspect own stories, and no one else can tell of a meaningful autonomy because us what they mean.’5 These expe- it is a time that can always be cut riences exist outside of the time of short; a freedom in chains. Rather, 128 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 the subject, if it is to mean anything Adorno Theodor W. (ed. Rolf Tieder- at all, must stick fast to its own po- mann). 2006. Kant’s Critique of tential for negativity. At a time when Pure Reason. London: Polity. statements regarding the universal reification of life impress one with Adorno, Theodor W. (transl. Edmund F. N. Jephcott). 2005. Minima Mora- their empirical verifiability rather lia: Reflections from Damaged than their rhetoric, such an aggres- Life. London: Verso. sive fidelity could hardly be more vital. Adorno, Theodor W. (transl. E.B. Ash- ton). 2000. Negative Dialectics. Endnotes London: Routledge. 1 See Alexandra Topping (2011). http:// www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/19/ Adorno, Theodor W. (transl. Fredric R. dale-farm-eviction-police-taser. Jameson). Fall 1969-Winter 1970. Society. Salmagundi 10/11: 144- 2 See John Elster (1985) Sour Grapes: 153 Studies in the Subversion of Rational- ity. After The Fall. 2009. Communique from an Absent Future: The Ter- 3 See Helena Smith (2012). http://www. minus of Student Life. http://www. guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/04/ revolutionbythebook.akpress.org/ greek-man-shoots-himself-debts. communique-from-an-absent-future-the-terminus-of-student-life/ 4 For an example of an article which (accessed 3 Jan 2012). manages to do both, see Mary Riddell (2011). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ Archer, Margaret. 2000. Being Human: news/uknews/law-and-order/8630533/ The Problem of Agency. Cam- Riots-the-underclass-lashes-out.html. bridge: Cambridge University Press. 5 See Elly (2012). http://www.gender- agenda.org.uk/discuss/931/breaking- Archer, Margaret. 1996. Culture and silence-breaching-the-peace/. Agency: The Place of Culture in Social Theory. Cambridge: Cam- References bridge University Press. Adorno, Theodor W. (transl. Edmund Jephcott. ed. Rolf Tiedermann). Archer, Margaret. 2007. Making our 2002. Introduction to Sociology. Way Through the World. Cam- London: Polity. bridge: Cambridge University Press. Adorno, Theodor W. (ed. Rolf Tieder- mann). 2006. History and Free- Archer, Margaret. 2003. Structure, dom: Lectures 1964 – 1965. Lon- Agency and the Internal Conver- don: Polity. sation. Cambridge: Cambridge, University Press. Allen: Melancholia and the Radical Particular 129

Archer Margaret. 1995. Realist Social Breaching the Peace. http:// Theory: The Morphogenetic Ap- www.gender-agenda.org.uk/ proach. Cambridge: Cambridge discuss/931/breaking-silence- University Press. breaching-the-peace/ (accessed 10 April 2012). Bainbridge, Caroline. 2008. The Cine- ma of Lars Von Trier: Authenticity Elster, John. 1985. Sour Grapes: Stud- and Artifice. New York: University ies in the Subversion of Rational- of Columbia Press. ity. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- versity Press. Benjamin, Walter (transl. Edmund Je- phcott). 2004. The Critique of The Escalate Collective. 2012. Salt. Violence. In Marcuse Bullock and www.escalatecollective.net (ac- Michael W. Jennings. Selected cessed 14 Jan 2012). Writings Vol 1: 1913 – 1926. Lon- don: Harvard University Press: Frued, Sigmund (transl. Shaun White- 236 – 252. side). 2005. Mourning and Mel- ancholy. In Sigmund Freud. On Benjamin. Walter (transl. Harry Zohn, Mourning and Melancholia. Lon- ed. Hannah Arendt). 2007. The- don: Penguin: 201-218. ses on the Philosophy of History. In Walter Benjaming. Illumina- Kant, Immanuel (transl. and ed. Paul tions. New York: Shocken. Guyer and Allen W. Wood). 1999. The Critique of Pure Reason. Benzar, Mattias. 2011. The Sociology Cambridge: Cambridge University of Theodor Adorno. Cambridge: Press. Cambridge University Press. Kristeva, Julia (transl. Jeanine Her- Bourdieu, Pierre (transl. Richard Nice). man). 2000. The Sense and Non- 2000. Pascalian Meditations. Cal- Sense of Revolt. New York: Co- ifornia: Stanford University Press. lumbia University Press.

Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Heidegger, Martin (transl. John Mac- Feminism and the Subversion of quarrie and Edward Robinson. Identity. London: Routledge. 1978. Being and Time. London: Blackwell. Butler, Judith. 1997. The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection. Hegel, Georg W. F. (transl. A. V. Mill- California: Stanford University er). 1977. The Phenomenology of Press. Spirit. Oxford: Oxford University Eng, David L. 2000. Melancholia in the Press. Late Twentieth Century. Signs 25 (4): 1275 – 1281. Lukács, Georg (transl. Rodney Living- stone). 1975. History and Class Elly. 2012. Breaking the Silence, Consciousness: Studies in Marxist 130 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

Dialectics. London: Merlin Press. cessed 5 Oct 2012).

Lukács, Georg (transl. Anna Bostock). Topping, Alexandra. 2011. Dale Farm 1978. The Theory of the Novel. protestors tasered as eviction Massachusetts: MIT Press. erupts in violence and flames. The Guardian (online). http://www. Luckett, Thembi Kate. 2008. Unsettling guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/19/ Humanity: A Critique of Archer’s dale-farm-eviction-police-taser Being Human. Journal of Critical (accessed 5 Oct 2011). Realism 7 (2): 297-313. Von Trier, Lars. 2011. Melancholia. Arti- Marx, Karl (transl. Ben Fowkes). 1990. ficial Eye. DVD. Capital: Critique of Political Econ- omy. Vol. 1. London: Penguin Classics.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (transl. Colin Smith). 2005. The Phenomenol- ogy of Perception. London: Rout- ledge.

Nietzsche, Friedrich (transl. and ed. Walter Kaufmann). 1994. On Truth and Lie in the Extra-Moral Sense. In Friedrich Nietzsche. The Porta- ble Nietzsche. London: Penguin: 42-47.

Riddell, Mary. 2011. London riots: the underclass lashes out. The Telegraph (online). http://www. telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ law-and-order/8630533/Riots-the- underclass-lashes-out.html (accessed 5 Oct 2011).

Sartre, Jean-Paul (transl. Hazel E. Barnes). 2003. Being and Noth- ingness. London: Routledge.

Smith, Helena. 2012. Greek man shoots himself over debts. The Guard- ian (online). http://www.guardian. co.uk/world/2012/apr/04/greek- man-shoots-himself-debts (ac- Holding on to a Lifeline: Desiring Queer Futurities in Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods

Hwa Yi Xing

This paper seeks to address the question: How do we ‘arrive’ at queer(er) futures? To begin with, queer rethinkings of futurity need to make a radical break from logics that find their basis in heteronormativity and reproductive futurity. Sara Ahmed’s concept of orientations provides a framework within which we might move beyond nostalgic narratives and the reiteration of these normative logics. Developing orientations that are critically queer (enough) will enable one to choose lines of disorientation, to remember differently, and to integrate the past and future differently in relation to the present. I also look at José Esteban Muñoz’s suggestion that we put queer ‘on the horizon’, viewing it as potentiality for a different world. Further, I regard the element of community as an essential element in one’s queer knowledge production, as ‘queer’ cannot exist in isolation. How to shape our bodies, lives, and worlds differently, and develop queer potentialities that might eventually materialize? In Jeanette Winterson’s novel The Stone Gods, I examine how her characters are orientated, and how they reorientate themselves when obstacles throw them off course. What do they do with these queer moments? Do they invest in them, or do those moments just slip away, unnoticed?

Key words: Orientations, Queer Potentiality, Queer Futurity, Utopia, Nostalgia

In my assessment, one of the central is- at queer(er) futures? I take the sues at stake in this project is how to rec- term ‘arrival’ from Sara Ahmed’s oncile historicity, and therefore agency, with the (unconscious) desire for change. The Queer Phenomenology, in which most difficult task is how to put the will to she argues that arrivals are not by change together with the desire for the new chance; rather, there is work that that implies the construction of new desir- comes before an arrival (Ahmed ing subjects. 2006, 16–17). This work, I argue, This difficulty is due to the fact that inner, psychic or unconscious structures are concerns narratives; it is about the very hard to change by sheer volition. stories people tell about themselves Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects and others, and about that which (Braidotti 1994, 38) surrounds them. This work also concerns the retelling of stories. In Introduction Jeanette Winterson’s writings, she My paper seeks to address regularly insists that stories are to this question: How do we ‘arrive’ be told again. Can we change their Graduate Journal of Social Science July 2012, Vol. 9, Issue 2 © 2012 by Graduate Journal of Social Science. All Rights Reserved. ISSN: 1572-3763 132 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 endings? My analysis here which fers to recurring patterns such as engages Winterson’s novel The these as ‘faultline stories’; they Stone Gods is part of a larger proj- are the ‘narratives which we revisit ect that explores the ideas of ‘home’ compulsively (in literary writing and and queer belonging. Due to the many other forms)’ (Sinfield 2004, limitations of this paper, I primarily 6). In our visiting and revisiting of discuss the first part of the novel, faultlines, Sinfield suggests that we although I do incorporate textual either then stick to ‘old shapes’, and analysis from other parts when nec- end up telling known stories, or we essary. manage to break into ‘new shapes’ I will begin with a brief introduc- (Sinfield 2004, 6). Winterson herself tion to the novel, before moving on insists on telling the story again, on to discuss some of the key theoreti- new beginnings, on different end- cal concepts and positionings that I ings (Winterson 2000, 243). The will use in this paper. Secondly, I will Stone Gods, however, is a story of define my use of ‘queer’, which fol- a repeating world. Do Winterson’s lows Judith Halberstam’s work, and characters manage to change approach the logics of reproductive shape, to tell us something new in time (Halberstam 2005, 4) and re- this narrative? Further, apart from productive futurism (Edelman 2004, this text, how do we visualise queer 2), which are key points of departure futurities when nostalgic narratives for my understanding of queer futu- of ‘home’ abound? rity. Third, I will link José Esteban The novel is written in four parts. Muñoz’s work on queer and utopia In this repeating world, humans with Ahmed’s work on orientations, seem to make the same mistakes in order to provide the final frame- again and again, collectively sealing work within which I approach The the fate of their doomed planet(s). Stone Gods and its characters. Still Winterson insists that stories Utilizing this theoretical framework, I can be ‘written again’, and that hu- will examine how Winterson’s char- man beings have the potential to acters are orientated, and how they change the outcome in a quantum manage to reorientate themselves world where things are ‘neither ran- when obstacles throw them off dom nor determined’ (Winterson course. What do they do with these 2007, 181, 203). Part One, Planet queer moments? Do they, can they, Blue, begins on the planet Orbus. invest in them? Or do those mo- The narrator, Billie Crusoe, lives in ments just slip away, unnoticed? one of the cities of the Central Power, In dealing with Winterson’s work, a corporate, capitalist democracy the themes of love and belonging more technologically advanced than (among others) have been returned the other two governmental systems to time and again. Alan Sinfield re- that inhabit the planet. Orbus is dy- Hwa: Desiring Queer Futurities 133 ing, and the humans’ only hope is to way ‘orientation’ leaves more room relocate to the new planet that they for ruptures, change, and imagina- have found. Billie, through a turn of tion, in that it allows for multiple lines events, ends up leaving her farm- and trajectories in several directions home on Orbus to join the explorato- at a time - some of which may be ry trip to Planet Blue - during which ‘queerer’ or ‘straighter’ than others. she and the Robo sapiens Spike be- For the same reason - i.e. to avoid come lovers. Billie/Billy and Spike/ any essentialised constructions of Spikkers appear in several different ‘queerness’ - I use terms like ‘queer- incarnations throughout the novel, er’ and queer (enough) in this paper. and in Part Two, which takes place My view is that any given behaviour, on Easter Island in the 1770s, they orientation, or element of being can are both gendered male. In Part only be termed ‘queer’ in relation Three and Part Four, Billie is living to its given context. Hence, when I in a near-future, post World War 3 say ‘queerer’, or ‘queer (enough)’ scenario. I mean that something is relatively In my arguments I endeavour, ‘queer’ in relation to something that as far as possible, not to set up a might be more ‘normative’ in that ‘queer’/’straight’ dichotomy, but to given context. At the same time, I use ‘queer’ together with Ahmed’s don’t view ‘queer elements’ or ori- concepts of ‘lines’ and ‘orientations’ entations as occurring on a straight in a way that bypasses patterns of line; rather, there may be a range or binary thinking. For this purpose I field of ‘queer things’ and there is no find it useful to focus the discussion absolute ‘queer value’ that can be on the concept of ‘orientation’ in- attached to any of them. stead of ‘subjectivity’. I have decided Rosi Braidotti and Donna Haraway against using the term ‘subjectivity’ both argue that one needs to be situ- because it is too totalizing - ’queer ated/located enough in order to say/ subjectivity’, for example, implies produce anything of general value that one is either a queer subject or (Braidotti 1994, 36; Haraway 1991, is not, that a line can be easily drawn 196). Haraway argues that ‘the only somewhere between ‘straight’ and way to find a larger vision is to be ‘queer’. I would like to suggest that somewhere in particular’ (Haraway the terms ‘orientations’ and ‘lines’ 1991, 196). One does not pursue as employed by Ahmed in Queer situated knowledges for their ‘own Phenomenology (Ahmed 2006) sake’, rather, the point is that these are located in the dynamic seman- types of knowledge unexpectedly tic field of a verb, and as such are produce different connections and potentially less essentialising than openings, perhaps those that would a noun which is drawn in relation to have been impossible to find other- the concerns of subjectivity. In this wise (Haraway 1991). Situatedness 134 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 promises a certain form of orien- work here tries to explore how we tation. But what of disorientation, might more effectively deal with the and a lack of situatedness? While ‘where have you come from’, in a Winterson’s Billie is in some ways way that then better addresses the orientated ‘queerly’, at many other question ‘where are you going?’ points we get the feeling that she is Ahmed’s concept of orientations overly disoriented/lost. While being provides a framework within which disoriented or ‘lost’ (as I will argue we might move beyond nostalgic later) might be a prerequisite to un- narratives and the reiteration of derstanding and becoming ‘queer’, normative logics. Developing ori- remaining lost is not a very produc- entations that are critically queer tive option. Billie more often than (enough) will enable one to choose not comes across as ‘just lost.’ As lines of disorientation, to remember Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick has dem- differently, and to integrate the past onstrated, it is all too easy to fall into and future differently in relation to the trap of producing solely para- the present (Muñoz 2009, 27). I also noid or reactionary forms of knowl- look at Muñoz’s suggestion that we edge (Kosofsky Sedgwick 2003, put queer ‘on the horizon’, viewing it 123-124). I argue that this is the only as a potentiality for a different world form of knowledge that Billie is able (Muñoz 2009, 25). The development to produce while being ‘lost’, and it of queer-er orientations - doing the is only when she manages to orien- work of walking paths less-trodden tate later in relation to ‘something and imagining alternative futurities - else’ that she is able to produce dif- is crucial. How to shape our bodies, ferent forms of knowledge. In addi- lives, and worlds differently, and de- tion to a relative situatedness, I re- velop queer potentialities that might gard the element of community as eventually materialize? an essential element to one’s queer production - production of orienta- Queer, Futurity, and Nostalgia tions, positionalities, knowledges, How do queer-er refigura- etc. Ahmed argues that ‘queer’ is tions of the future begin? Where not something that exists in any one do they come from? To start with, body, but that it is ‘dependent on the queer rethinkings of futurity need mutuality of support’ (Ahmed 2006, to be radically different in at least 170). Challenging ‘straight’ time and these two ways: first, they need to space requires a combination of move away from logics of repro- both individual and collective action. ductive time, reproductive futurism, ‘There are two questions,’ and the nuclear family, in order to Winterson’s Billie says, ‘where have move in the direction of imagining you come from, and where are you models of queer kinship. By exten- going?’ (Winterson 2007, 204). My sion, secondly, they need to reject Hwa: Desiring Queer Futurities 135 assimilationist LGBT politics, called (Edelman 2004, 2). Speaking from out by Duggan as ‘the new homo- the political context of the United normativity’ - a politics, she argues, States, Edelman argues that the that simply serves to reinscribe the Child is identified with ‘the future of very same heteronormative struc- the social order’ - the Child is the tures and institutions just men- ‘Imaginary fullness’ that wants for tioned, instead of questioning them nothing, it is the ‘innocence’ that is (Duggan 2004, 50). The rejection of ‘constantly under siege’ (Edelman these originary, normative, and limit- 2004, 21, 25). Further, he argues ing logics serves as the underlying that reproductive futurism, which structure of my argument and analy- fetishizes the figure of the Child, sis. assigns any force or element that Judith Halberstam, in In A Queer threatens to rupture this social or- Time and Place, has defined ‘queer’ der as ‘queer’. Queerness, then, to mean ‘nonnormative logics and represents a structural position; it organizations of community, sexual is ‘the force that shatters the fan- identity, embodiment, and activity in tasy of Imaginary unity’ (Edelman space and time’ (Halberstam 2005, 2004, 22). Within the Central Power 6). Halberstam also importantly em- of Orbus, the Resistance is one el- phasizes queer subcultural activ- ement that represents this queer ity and cultural production, which force; it is an anti-government politi- play a large part in the production cal movement that Billie has coop- of these nonnormative logics. My erated with in the past (Winterson use of ‘reproductive time’ above re- 2007, 59). Edelman goes on to cri- fers to the temporal logic described tique the ‘future itself as fantasy’, by Halberstam as the ‘middle-class and seems to understand futurism logic of reproductive temporality’ as always inscribed in an impos- which ‘sustains conventional forms sible ‘Imaginary past’, linked to the of association, belonging, and iden- construction of a future ‘Imaginary tification’ (Halberstam 2005, 4). It wholeness’ (Edelman 2004, 28, 10). is a logic that privileges longevity, In the novel this structure is made a logic that privileges the cycle of visible through this fact: ‘the official birth, marriage, reproduction and line’ is that ‘there is no Resistance to death (Halberstam 2005, 2, 4). the Central Power’ (Winterson 2007, By comparison, ‘reproductive 26). The Central Power’s insistence futurism’ is a term used by Lee on this is necessary to maintain a Edelman in No Future, where he present and future imaginary whole- describes how the figure of the ness. While I agree with Edelman in Child structures and determines the his critique of reproductive futurism, framework within which all political I take a different stand on how futur- discourse necessarily takes place ism may be conceived of, a depar- 136 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 ture from his insistence that ‘the fu- is a ‘polar-swirled, white-whirled, di- ture stop here’ (Edelman 2004, 31). amond blue’ world (Winterson 2007, In my view, queer futurities need 32, 30). The new planet is an im- to do things, inform our lives in new age from the past, said to resemble ways, and desire different objects Orbus sixty-five million years before and relations. The challenge is: (Winterson 2007, 30). The protag- how to create new logics to struc- onist Billie is critical, however, of ture these futures, without repeat- these representations, saying ‘We ing known ones that lead us again just stay in line and get there some into unproductive, nostalgic narra- day. Yeah, we’ll get there some day, tives? Edelman’s understanding of blue planet, silver stars’ (Winterson futurism, in fact, ties up with how I 2007, 13). In my opinion, nostalgia understand and use the term ‘nos- is risky when it ‘remembers’ in a way talgia’. Dictionary definitions of nos- that too easily erases cracks and talgia tend to describe a longing for fissures - in this manner creating a places and times of the ‘past’. But longing for an overly idealized time the question that needs to be asked and/or place. This version of nos- is: what kind of ‘past’ does nostal- talgia involves forgetting memories gia actually create? Svetlana Boym that cause cognitive dissonance points out that nostalgia is in effect, while carrying forward the ones that not just about the past, but that it uphold an unquestioned satisfaction is a reconstruction of the past tied with the past. It can limit rather than to present needs which can have a expand, if it rejects any excess that ‘direct impact on realties of the fu- does not agree with its story or log- ture’ (Boym 2001, xvi). She adds ic, and rejects alternative logics that an important element by defining may provide different narratives. nostalgia as ‘a longing for a home Paradoxically, while Billie is critical that no longer exists or has never of certain nostalgic narratives that existed’ (Boym 2001, xviii). There is are produced by the Central Power, no straightforward way to remember she invests in her own nostalgic the past; one reconstructs the same narratives, tied to her particular vi- ‘slice’ of the past in different ways at sion and knowledge of the past. For different times, and as Boym points example, she uses a notebook and out, because of different present pencil, instead of a SpeechPad, in needs. a world where ‘nobody reads and The logics of futurity that Edelman writes any more’ (Winterson 2007, and Boym describe are further visible 8). in the discourse surrounding Planet For the purposes of this paper, I Blue. Planet Blue is repeatedly por- view nostalgia as a specific form of trayed in idyllic terms; it is ‘pristine’ ‘remembering’, a remembering that with ‘abundant natural resources’, it often projects an ideologically re- Hwa: Desiring Queer Futurities 137 constructed form of the past into the some of Lee Edelman’s work,1 but present and future. It might be ar- Muñoz then goes on to position him- gued that insofar as nostalgia con- self very differently by linking ‘queer’ tains the force of longing/desire, it to ‘utopia’. He refigures ‘queer’ in has the potential to be a somewhat essence to mean something that productive force. Nostalgic narra- hasn’t yet arrived, suggesting that tives, then, are not necessarily ‘un- this way of thinking queer enables productive’, but insofar as they con- ‘greater conceptual and theoretical struct an idealized time and place, leverage’ (Muñoz 2009, 22). For and reiterate the originary and nor- Muñoz, queer is a utopian impulse mative logics that my argument en- that can often be seen in every- deavours to depart from, I do use day moments, in ‘utopian bonds, ‘nostalgia’ in a somewhat negative affiliations, designs, and gestures’ sense. In this vein, I do agree with (Muñoz 2009, 22). He argues that: Edelman’s argument that queer- Queerness is utopian, and there ness has the ability to dismantle the is something queer about the uto- logics on which these sorts of (what pian (…) Indeed, to live inside I term) ‘nostalgic narratives’ - futures straight time and ask for, desire, that have already been foreclosed and imagine another time and by reproductive time and futurism - place is to represent and perform are built (Edelman 2004, 24, 25). a desire that is both utopian and Muñoz’s queer problematization queer (Muñoz 2009, 26). of time and space in Cruising Utopia is strongly influenced by the ideas of Muñoz posits the utopian impulse Ernst Bloch. He understands Bloch as excess, as the ‘extra to the ev- in The Principle of Hope to be cri- eryday transaction of heteronorma- tiquing ‘straight time’, which Muñoz tive capitalism’ (Muñoz 2009, 22). goes on to define as that which ‘tells This ‘extra’ might be thought of as us that there is no future but the that which is articulated outside of here and now of our everyday life’ normative structures, logics, or rep- (Muñoz 2009, 22). Muñoz is also resentations. The ‘extra’, in fact, is very critical of reproductive time crucial; it provides potential points and capitalist logics; he comments of departure from these normative that the only type of ‘futurity’ that is imperatives, and a starting point promised is that of the ‘reproduc- then from which alternative repre- tive majoritarian heterosexuality, the sentations and lives that reject log- spectacle of the state refurbishing ics of the ‘majoritarian public sphere’ its ranks through overt and subsi- (Muñoz 2009, 56) might be created. dized acts of reproduction’ (Muñoz Queerness for Muñoz is ultimate- 2009, 22). His criticism of this sort ly about an insistence on potentiality of reproductive futurity agrees with - ’a certain mode of nonbeing that is 138 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 eminent, a thing that is present but how ‘we apprehend this world of not actually existing in the present shared inhabitance, as well as ‘who’ tense’ (Muñoz 2009, 1, 9). To this or ‘what’ we direct our energy and end, queerness needs to be seen attention towards’ (Ahmed 2006, ‘as horizon’, perceived as ‘a modal- 3). One’s orientation determines ity of ecstatic time’ that interrupts ‘who’ and ‘what’ is within reach, and straight time’s linear progression, in turn ‘who’ or ‘what’ is then close encouraging ‘a greater openness enough to have an effect on oneself to the world’ (Muñoz 2009, 25, 32). - in a way that might then alter one’s He argues that it is the possibility of (future) orientation (Ahmed 2006, and desire for a different world, and 7–8). Our orientations form and in- a complex relation to the present, form our worlds, directing what we which informs and drives ‘queer’ see and do not see, or what we turn (Muñoz 2009, 1, 27). toward and turn away from. She suggests that a queer phenomenol- To Arrive Somewhere Else ogy might begin ‘by redirecting our I turn to Ahmed’s work on ori- attention toward different objects, entations now; first, to provide a way those that are ‘less proximate’ or of understanding how the ‘majoritar- even those that deviate or are devi- ian’ and ‘normative’ social structures ant’ (Ahmed 2006, 3). that Halberstam and Muñoz speak Ahmed also points out that the of function, and second, towards ability to be orientated, first and ways of developing less conven- foremost, depends upon taking tional, queer-er orientations. Ahmed certain perspectives and ‘points of explores how bodies gain orienta- view as given’ (Ahmed 2006, 14). tion by the ways in which they oc- These ‘givens’, which tend to dis- cupy time and space (Ahmed 2006, appear from sight and be forgotten, 5). Inhabitance is a key point of her become the basis for the construc- discussion, as being orientated, tion of collective (and individual) di- she argues, is really about how inti- rection. If not for that which is given/ mate bodies are able to be with the unquestioned/forgotten, upholding spaces that they inhabit, and how any particular orientation is impos- well they are able to extend into any sible. If every orientation requires given space (Ahmed 2006, 8). It is that some things be taken as given, a certain ‘familiarity’ with the world this suggests that one should pay that allows one to be orientated, but closest attention to the different also, importantly, to ‘feel at home’ ‘givens’ of various ways to be ori- (Ahmed 2006, 7). entated. Billie doesn’t ‘remember’, Ahmed argues that orientations for instance, the downsides to ag- shape the way in which we inhabit ing ‘naturally’ - a viewpoint which space, but importantly, also shape is revealed in her startling encoun- Hwa: Desiring Queer Futurities 139 ter with an old woman. For political this way how they become more reasons, Billie had (illegally) cho- conducive to some bodies than oth- sen not to be genetically ‘fixed’ - in ers. The orientation of space, for this way running the risk of aging Ahmed, is always a reciprocal/two- ‘naturally’. But when she encoun- way mutual constitution; bodies ‘are ters the first aged person she has shaped by their dwellings and take ever seen, she is not able to look at shape by dwelling’ (Ahmed 2006, 9). her. The old woman tells her point- Bodies also ‘direct’ spaces through blank: ‘I am what you will become.’ their inhabitation of them, and ‘ac- Billie describes her as looking like ‘a quire direction’ through this inhab- thing with skin like a lizard’s, like a itance (Ahmed 2006, 9, 12). For stand-up handbag (…) Her arm was example, think of the many objects bones and stretched flesh – brown, and spaces in this world that are de- thin skin pulled over bluish, visible signed for right-handed people. All tendons. I looked away’ (Winterson the right-handed people in the world 2007, 37–38). - who, needless to be said, form At the same time, Ahmed argues the majority - have ‘directed’ these that one’s orientation, along with spaces and objects in this way. We one’s (past) choices determine the can speak, Ahmed says, of ‘collec- future choices that become available tive direction’, for example the ways (Ahmed 2006, 14–15). Because in which nations or other ‘imagined moving in certain directions inevita- communities’ (Anderson 2006, 6–7) bly excludes certain options for us: move in a certain direction, or face The lines that allow us to find our the same way: way, those that are ‘in front’ of us, Becoming a member of such a also make certain things, and not community, then, might also mean others, available. When we follow following this direction, which specific lines, some things become could be described as the political reachable and others remain or requirement that we turn some even become out of reach. Such ex- ways and not others. We follow clusions - the constitution of a field the line that is followed by others: of unreachable objects - are the indi- the repetition of the act of follow- rect consequences of following lines ing makes the line disappear from that are before us: we do not have view as the point from which ‘we’ to consciously exclude those things emerge (Ahmed 2006, 15). that are not ‘on line’. The direction we take excludes things for us, Speaking of communities before we even get there (Ahmed and collective direction also implies 2006, 14–15). that there are certain directions and Ahmed then goes on to discuss lines that are followed more than how spaces are orientated, and in others. In effect, being orientated 140 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 entails being ‘in line’: tions, of routes and paths taken, but The lines we follow might also they are also created as an effect of function as forms of ‘alignment,’ this repetition’ (Ahmed 2006, 16). or as ways of being in line with This leads us into an important others. We might say that we are point of Ahmed’s, which is crucial orientated when we are in line. for my argument: to term lines ‘per- We are ‘in line’ when we face the formative’ means that we make a direction that is already faced by way and direction only ‘as an ef- others. Being ‘in line’ allows bod- fect of work, which is often hid- ies to extend into spaces that, as den from view’ (Ahmed 2006, 16). it were, have already taken their Arriving at a certain place involves shape (Ahmed 2006, 14–15). the previous work of following particular directions and lines; arrivals The experience of dis-orientation do not happen ‘by magic’ (Ahmed then, is the experience of being ‘out 2006, 16). To ‘arrive’ at alternative of line’. When the body does not line futures, then, we need to do work up with the direction of the space in the present that entails the work that it is in, or when the body does of following non-normative lines - of not line up sufficiently well with other shaping our bodies such that differ- bodies, it is then that the body expe- ent potentialities are created. To ar- riences disorientation (I will discuss rive differently first entails imagining this point further in a moment). differently, imagining different arriv- Recall the contingency inherent als. With queer on the horizon, we in the way that spaces and bodies can then engage in a ‘“doing” that is shape, and take shape, through a becoming’ (Muñoz 2009, 26). inhabitance. Ahmed references Butler’s discussion on performativ- Intentionally Queer, ‘Lost’ ity in order to elaborate on the rela- Investments tionship between how lines emerge, Although my discussion is and how they are followed. She says largely concerned here with how to that when we talk of the ‘path well move in the direction of orientating trodden’, for example, the paradox more ‘queerly’ in order to create dif- is that lines are both ‘created by be- ferent potentialities, Ahmed reminds ing followed and are followed by be- us that the question is not so much ing created’ (Ahmed 2006, 16). It is what constitutes a ‘queer orienta- only through following and treading, tion’. It would be naïve to suppose through a repetition of lines, that the that there is one ‘queer line’ that lines themselves are reproduced. we could follow (Ahmed 2006, 171, She argues that the lines that pro- 179). The more crucial question, she duce ‘collective direction’ depend on argues, is ‘asking what our orienta- the ‘repetition of norms and convention toward queer moments of devi- Hwa: Desiring Queer Futurities 141 ation should be’ (Ahmed 2006, 179). is to create and forge alternative di- We might think of ‘queer moments’ rections that break with dominant as the ‘extra’, the ‘utopian impulse’, logics/narratives/lines. Bodies that moments of disorientation, ‘the point invest in queer-er ways of being at which things fleet’ (Ahmed 2006, oriented in the world, that make a 172). ‘Queer’, then, might open up point of ‘not following’, are in effect from those points, from those mo- investing in different potentialities by ments that are inhabited, invested accepting the experience of ‘disori- in, instead of being allowed to ‘slip entation’ or ‘lostness’ (Ahmed 2006, away’ (Ahmed 2006, 172, 179). 177–179). Muñoz in fact argues that Queer-er orientations, ones that al- queerness involves ‘the intention to low these queer moments to open be lost’; Queerness is illegible to the up new directions and possibilities, logic of heteronormativity, the logic will result in the following and cre- of straight time and space (Muñoz ation of different lines, paths less 2009, 73): well-trodden. This in turn will create To accept loss is to accept the potentialities, make available new way in which one’s queerness will objects and lines that might previ- always render one lost to a world ously have been excluded or out of of heterosexual imperatives, reach (of course, it is also possible codes, and laws. To accept loss that certain ‘queer lines’ might be- is to accept queerness - or more come relatively well-trodden, to the accurately, to accept the loss of extent that the line in question might heteronormativity, authorization, become less ‘queer’ - perhaps as it and entitlement. To be lost is not becomes more normatively compel- to hide in a closet or to perform a ling in its directionality, and harder to simple (ontological) disappearing deviate from.) act; it is to veer away from het- In line with the discussion thus erosexuality’s path (Muñoz 2009, far, it seems to be the case that the 73). work of sustaining relatively queer orientations requires a degree of in- Committing to a ‘queer politics’, tentionality and critical awareness. Ahmed argues, is committing to a This work involves an awareness certain way of inhabitance, a certain of what it means to be ‘in line’ and way of being (dis)orientated in the ‘out of line’ - which basically is an world - even if one cannot afford ‘a awareness of the normative logics life of deviation’ (Ahmed 2006, 176– that tend to dictate ‘activity in space 177). Disorientation comes about as and time’ (Halberstam 2005, 6). The an effect of ‘doing’ and living queer intentionally queer body is more politics (Ahmed 2006, 177). aware of how bodies get directed While accepting lostness/disori- (Ahmed 2006, 15); necessary if one entation in relation to the space of 142 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 heteronormativity is crucial toward imity, on arms that are crossed with being able to invest more queerly, other arms, we are reminded of how queerness cannot exist as ‘just lost’. queer engenders moments of con- It is necessary for queer lives to ori- tact; how we come into contact with entate in relation to something (else) other bodies to support the action of - not just in opposition or reaction to following paths that have not been heteronormative logics - and to be cleared (Ahmed 2006, 170). situated or located enough such In my analysis of the novel below, that one might produce knowledge I argue how Billie’s lack of commu- that is of relative value (Haraway nity and support is a major element 1991, 196). I believe that Muñoz’s that halts her movement toward view of queer as horizon, in combi- being more productively ‘queer’. It nation here with Ahmed’s work on does not do to walk a path alone, orientation, point us in the direction what’s more an overtly nostalgic of being able to conceive of what one. For queer potentiality to mate- this ‘something else’ might be, as rialize, to re-imagine, to be creative their ideas, even as they begin with in its representations, we need to a move away from heteronorma- build community networks that will tive imperatives, open up multiple sufficiently situate us, that will- pro potentialities and the possibility of vide support and inspiration in the multiple ways/lines/trajectories to continual work of facing different di- explore and move into. Ahmed’s rections, walking different lines, and work also, importantly, reminds us imagining different futures. that there is work that must be done, in order to be able to imagine and Refusing the Imprint orientate ourselves differently. In the earlier sections of Part In addition to keeping in mind the One, Billie demonstrates an overtly ‘something else’ that queer orienta- nostalgic disposition, one that is en- tions might relate to, I strongly agree meshed largely in paranoid and re- with Ahmed’s argument that in order actionary forms of knowledge. She for ‘queer’ to be productive, it needs yearns for a time long gone, for a to exist in community. She argues time when people still lived on real that ‘queer’ depends on mutual sup- farms, read books, and wrote with port; it is not a phenomenon that re- pens and pencils (Winterson 2007, sides ‘in a body’ (Ahmed 2006, 170). 8, 11). In the following sections I When we tread on paths that will look at how some of the ways are less trodden, which we are not in which she is orientated might still sure are paths at all (is it a path, or be termed somewhat ‘queer’. She is the grass just a little bent?), we demonstrates some queer poten- might need even more support. (…) tiality, which does actually result in In refocusing our attention on prox- her life moving in a completely un- Hwa: Desiring Queer Futurities 143 expected direction. However, her Planet Blue. There is no system.’ somewhat queer orientation, though (Winterson 2007, 45) it has direct impact on her life, does not appear to have much of a wider In another instance, while en- impact - it does not produce any gaged in a discussion of the bomb- ‘queer knowledge’ that is of more ing of MORE-Futures - the branch general value. I argue that this fail- of MORE that enabled and intro- ure to more effectively realize her duced the practice of genetic fixing queer potentiality is due to her isola- - Billie tries to draw attention to the tion and lack of community. It is only fact that their ‘democracy’ is largely at certain points in the latter half of owned by the MORE corporation. Part One, when Billie/y manages to Pink, in response, simply says, orientate herself in closer relation to ‘Can’t see why you want to blow a at least one other figure (the lover) place up for making a woman look that she is able to begin to produce good on a date’ (Winterson 2007, different forms of knowledge. 59). This particular quote from Pink I argue that that Billie’s life and also demonstrates her unquestion- body on Orbus are organized ac- ing acceptance of genetic science’s cording to some ‘non-normative progress - specifically of the process logics’. She very much rejects known as ‘Fixing’. ‘Science can’t fix the ‘majoritarian public sphere’ of everything, though,’ Billie points out the Central Power (Muñoz 2009, (Winterson 2007, 9). No women 56), and frequently experiences Fix older than thirty, but men on the moments of disorientation within other hand are sometimes confident it. Billie is overtly critical of the enough to Fix late-forties, Manfred system, and voices disagreement being one example. In other words, with many of its given, unques- ‘women feel they have to look youth- tioned logics, while the charac- ful, men less so, and the lifestyle ters Pink McMurphy and Manfred programmes are full of the appeal often serve as the voices of the of the older man’ (Winterson 2007, more ‘normative’ Central Power 9). People no longer celebrate birth- citizens. Take, for example, the days, instead they throw G parties following exchange between that celebrate the date that they get Manfred and Billie (in which he is fixed genetically (Winterson 2007, telling her that she either leaves 15). Orbus or gets arrested): Billie, however, looks to the past ‘I believe in the system. You and questions how ‘normal’ the don’t.’ practice of fixing is, arguing that it ‘No, I don’t. It’s repressive, cor- makes people ‘fucked up and miser- rosive, and anti-democratic.’ able.’ Pink’s replies by saying, ‘It is ‘Then you’ll be very happy on normal…What was so normal about 144 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 getting old?’ (Winterson 2007, 58). however, stands in contrast to the Her response, though at first glance other ways in which she is orien- a ‘normative’ one that is unquestion- tated in a particularly nostalgic and ing of the current system, in actuality solitary manner. Billie seems to lead manages to also question what was a fairly isolated life - her home is a ‘normal’ even ‘back then’ - some- farm, the last remaining one of its thing which Billie actually fails to kind, a space that she inhabits with do. Nevertheless, Billie questions a her dog. The only hint that we are dominant logic of the Central Power given of any sort of ‘community’ that in her present time, and in relation Billie is/was involved in, is her in- to this logic, Billie is a non-normative volvement with the Resistance - the body within the system. She has il- group that she assisted in the bomb- legally chosen to not be Fixed, and ing of MORE-Futures (Winterson has had her data-chip reprocessed 2007, 59). Billie’s present orienta- to hide this fact (Winterson 2007, tion on Orbus, in which she seems 44). Billie’s choice necessarily re- to invest primarily in her farm-home- routes her life in a way that rejects space while rejecting many ele- the dominant temporal life narrative ments of ‘normal’ life in the Central of the Central Power’s society. Power, demonstrates a problematic In another exchange with sort of isolation and lack of reflexiv- Manfred, where he blames the ity. She exists in a sort of vacuum, Caliphate and the Pact2 for ‘destabi- resisting the imperative that Spike, lizing the planet’, Billie argues an al- the Robo sapiens, puts forth: ‘The ternative interpretation of the ‘facts’, universe is an imprint. You are part reminding Manfred of the part that of the imprint – it imprints you, you the Central Power had to play in imprint it. You cannot separate your- global warming and the like. ‘We self from the imprint, and you can made ourselves rich polluting the never forget it. It isn’t a ‘something’, rest of the world, and now the rest of it is you’ (Winterson 2007, 87). the world is polluting us’ (Winterson By comparison, the character 2007, 31). Overall, Billie’s orienta- Pink McMurphy is worth paying at- tion - unconventional by the Central tention to. As an inhabitant of the Power’s standards - demonstrates Central Power who is quite ‘norma- a relatively critical perspective. tively’ orientated, she deals very well Although she often falls into the trap when confronted later with the crisis of nostalgia, of romanticizing a past situation on Planet Blue. Billie thinks that she does not really know, she to herself, ‘Who could have said that still manages to highlight different Pink would cope and Billie would interpretations of the past and pres- not?’ (Winterson 2007, 79). This ex- ent. ample suggests that Pink had suf- This relatively queer potential, ficient resources behind her to cope Hwa: Desiring Queer Futurities 145 when ‘knocked off course’ (Ahmed that reveals how one’s orientation 2006, 19), more than queerly-orient- and past lines can limit, or potentially ed-but-isolated Billie. ‘We’ll make it,’ open up, the choices that are actu- Pink says confidently, even finding ally available to oneself. Ahmed ar- time to speculate about the pos- gues how some bodies can be pres- sibility of an ‘arctic romance’ with sured to reproduce certain kinds of Handsome (Winterson 2007, 79). lifelines that follow narratives of fa- Pink’s use of ‘we’, and hint toward milial inheritance and reproduction. romance, demonstrates that it is She then goes on to say: her investment in community, mu- How ironic that ‘a lifeline’ can also tual support, and interaction, which be an expression for something allows her to hope. This gathering that saves us. A lifeline thrown to of resources allows her to continue us is what gives us the capacity to moving forward (into the unknown, get out of an impossible world or the path not-yet trodden) despite an unlivable life (…) And yet, we the difficult circumstances. don’t know what happens when While Billie’s isolation here is we reach such a line and let our- problematic, the progression of the selves live by holding on. If we are narrative illustrates how the follow- pulled out, we don’t know where ing of certain lines still opens up the force of the pull might take us. different potentialities. If we think We don’t know what it means to about Ahmed’s points regarding follow the gift of the unexpected the directionalities of bodies and line that gives us a chance for a spaces, and the way in which they new direction and even a chance are mutually constitutive, it is pos- to live again (Ahmed 2006, 17– sible to view Billie’s choices as hav- 18). ing directed her body in a certain way. Her refusal to be completely Ahmed also speaks of lifelines ‘imprinted’ by the Central Power’s as becoming possible through ‘ac- norms and directionalities - through cidental or chance encounters’ her resistance of genetic fixing, and that happen, that might ‘redirect us investment in the inhabitance of a and open up new worlds’ (Ahmed nostalgic-nonnormative space - has 2006, 19). When one is ‘knocked a direct impact on the lines and ob- off course’, what happens next de- jects that become available and pends on oneself, on the resources within her reach. that we have available to draw upon (Ahmed 2006, 19). Holding on to a Lifeline The second half of Part One Ahmed’s discussion of lifelines is takes place in outer space, and then conducive to a brief analysis of an on Planet Blue. Billie, whose rela- example from The Stone Gods, one tively queer orientation has resulted 146 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 in her stepping out of line within the I want shops and hospitals. I’m not Central Power’s system, is faced a pioneer. I like city life, like every- with the choice of being arrested one likes city life. The Central Power and losing her farm, or being sent believes that the biggest obstacle to to Planet Blue and losing her farm migration will be setting up the infra- anyway. Billie chooses to go. The structure in time. We can’t go back chance to go to Planet Blue was a to the Bog Ages (Winterson 2007, lifeline for Billie, one that she chose 32). to hold on to. While her chosen lines Lifelines can only save us if we thus far had been limiting in some choose to grab a hold of them and ways and perhaps questionable let ourselves be led into the un- in the (lack of) directionality of her known. Manfred seems unable to motivations, they still brought her (theoretically) grab a hold of this to this point where a specific lifeline lifeline that is Planet Blue. We could opened up. At one point, after leav- argue that his more normatively ori- ing Orbus, Billie says, ‘One word, entated body is really unable to do and a million million worlds close. so—the choices that he has made One word, and for a while there’s a thus far do not allow him to say ‘yes’ planet in front of me, and I can live to this, to step into the unknown. there’ (Winterson 2007, 69). This line, this possibility, is ‘out of Compare, for example, how reach’ for Manfred. He made ‘invest- Winterson’s different individuals ap- ments’ and shaped his body in such proach such chance encounters. a way that this option - ’going back Billie, as we have seen, grabs on to the Bog Ages’ - is a non-option, to the lifeline and lets new possi- is simply impossible for him (Ahmed bilities open up. Manfred however, 2006, 17–19). Billie’s queerly orien- responds very differently when pre- tated body, on the other hand, and sented with a different sort of crisis. her previous investments, put her Orbus is dying, and factually speak- in a position where the lifeline was ing, the humans’ only chance is to within reach. relocate to Planet Blue, quickly. Spike points out that human beings Set Adrift will have to ‘make the best of [their] Overall, lostness/disorientation is mistakes’ on Orbus, and ‘begin a significant theme in the novel. In again…differently’ (Winterson 2007, this excerpt below we get a sense of 32). Starting anew on Planet Blue is Billie’s disorientation: the human race’s ‘second chance’, Strange to dream in the right a lifeline. Manfred, however, say: shape and build in the wrong We need infrastructure, buildings, shape, but maybe that is what we services. If I’m going to live on a dif- do every day, never believing that ferent planet I want to do it properly. a dream could tell the truth. Hwa: Desiring Queer Futurities 147

Sometimes, at the moment of imagine a more productive queer fu- waking, I get a sense for a second turity. that I have found a way forward. We see this lostness/disorien- Then I stand up, losing all direc- tation surfacing again in Part Two tion, relying on someone else’s where Billy says, ‘Here I am, little instruments to tell me where I am. Billy, and nothing round me but If I could make a compass out of the sea.’ Billy of Part Two is a crew a dream. If I could trust my own member of Captain Cook’s voyage night-sight…(Winterson 2007, 62) to Easter Island in the 1770s. When he gets stranded on the island, he Her thoughts suggest that she attempts to drown himself, only to does not have sufficient resources be rescued by the character named ‘behind’ her, to support the path for- ‘Spikkers’. Billy, like Billie of Part ward. It is arguable that this is due One, demonstrates the ability to to her relative isolation and lack of hold on to the lifeline that is held out community. While it might be worth to him. He comes to accept the situ- noting that at this point in the narra- ation, and again, like Billie, he reori- tive Billie is actually in the process entates in relation to the figure of the of re-orienting herself somewhat dif- lover, who in this case is Spikkers. ferently in relation to Spike, I would The key point in Billie and Billy’s argue that this bit of narration is a stories is that they both manage to reflection of Billie’s general orien- reorientate themselves in relation to tation in Part One. Billie’s inability ‘something else’ when faced with a here to believe enough, to trust her difficult choice. In a queer moment own vision(s), points again to that where the ‘extra’ presented itself which is missing—she is a loner as an option, they reached out for who has not gathered sufficient re- it, and moved forward in a new di- sources around her to support, or to rection, at the same time producing ascertain the validity of her dreams. new knowledge and perspectives Despite her ability to hold onto the - rather than letting themselves be lifeline which takes her in a new di- held back. In both cases too, the key rection - which was a result of her perspective/viewpoint that changed relatively queer orientation - the lack was the way in which they thought of community support and interac- of home and belonging. Their reori- tion meant that Billie’s potentiality entations happened in relation to never managed to move beyond a the (new) figure of the lover. If Billie non-normative, nostalgic disposi- (Part One) had managed to orien- tion. She was never really able to tate herself earlier on in relation to imagine anything beyond her nos- a community (and not just toward a talgic home-space on Orbus. In her single person/Robo sapiens), per- relative isolation, she was unable to haps she would have been able to 148 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 realize her queer potentiality more 2007, 124). productively on Orbus. Perhaps Billie’s lostness/disori- In Part Four Billie is presented entation is most extreme in Part with at least one opportunity to Three and Part Four. In these two ‘break the shape’, to reach out to sections of the novel, the character touch and orientate herself different- is primarily orientated by a single, ly. She doesn’t, however, manage to profound, experience of loss: change direction: The line that is the first line of this He looked at me. I nearly touched story – I was born. The line that him. There are so many things had nothing to read between it – that we nearly do and they don’t being only one, one only, my life- matter at all, and then there are line (Winterson 2007, 120). the things that we nearly do that would change everything. The ‘lifeline’ that Billie speaks He looked at me. He turned to of here carries an entirely differ- clear the plates (Winterson 2007, ent meaning from ‘lifeline’ as the 167). term from Ahmed. Here, rather than opening up a new direction, this Ultimately, in the novel, the only line seems to be the one and only points where Billie/y manages to ‘ar- thing that Billie holds on to. Given rive’ differently, to create new forms up for adoption by her mother after of knowledge, is when s/he man- a month, Billie spends her whole ages to detach from what has been life unable to ‘break the shape’ of lost, and walk a different path that this loss (Winterson 2007, 127). opened up in a queer moment. The Throughout Part Three, Billie dem- figure of the lover, in both Part One onstrates her inability to let go of and Part Two, provides a new be- her attachment to her lost mother ginning, a new way to orientate. In - whom she places in a completely Part Three and Part Four, however, idealized, imagined narrative. She when Billie is unable to detach from is never able to do something differ- the loss of her mother, when her only ent with the queer moment of loss; orientation draws a line from the instead it paralyzes her, binding her past to explain her present, she re- to an “echo” of a life: mains bound to a singular narrative You never stop looking. That’s of origins that renders her unable to what I found, though it took me invest in any ‘queer moment’. years to know that’s what I’ve been Throughout the novel, Billie doing. The person whose body I shows minimal attachment to forms was, whose body was me, van- of community, if any, and is only ever ished after twenty-eight days. I live shown to be orientated strongly in in an echo of another life (Winterson relation to one other person (plus Hwa: Desiring Queer Futurities 149 her dog, in Part One). The novel, ‘queer’ way also entails maintaining in my reading, actually ‘regresses’, a critical perspective on the past, re- as Billie of Part Three and Part Four membering that which takes place is orientated in an overtly nostalgic before in order for something to ‘ar- way - this orientation does not really rive’, and interrogating structures develop or change, and the ending that tend to dictate that which is re- of the novel in fact reiterates some membered and forgotten (Ahmed conservative logics that my argu- 2006, 37–42). Developing queer-er ment insists against. However, we orientations that are sustained in do see some potential in secondary community is a way to break with (1) character representations like Pink normative logics that find their basis McMurphy, who showed how an in- in heteronormativity, reproduction vestment in community enabled her and the nuclear family, and (2) with to persist along a difficult path. Part solely paranoid/reactionary forms of Four of the novel also actually intro- knowledge (Sedgwick 2003, 123– duces some of the queer potentiality 124). Putting queer on the horizon and orientations found in the space provides us too with another way called ‘Wreck City’—the alternative of thinking about a complex past- communities found there include a present-future relation; further, the few ‘dinosaur-friendly lesbian veg- imagining and desiring of a different ans’ and six nuns (Winterson 2007, future helps us orient in new ways 174–175). These subcultural com- towards queer moments or utopian munities, in contrast to Winterson’s impulses in the present. main character, seem to have rather We might orientate towards the successfully invested in various dif- desire, in fact, for something differ- ferent forms of belonging, and in ent. Elspeth Probyn argues that it is queer spaces and temporalities. desire that moves bodies, that propels them into ‘forms of living with Conclusion: Remembering That ourselves and with others’ (Probyn Which Fleets 1996, 23). Desire, in fact, is where In this paper I have argued that we ‘start from and what we go with’ developing queer-er ways to be ori- (Probyn 1996, 62); it is a point from entated is essential towards produc- which we might also begin again. ing queer potentiality, which leads to Desiring a different future pulls the the ability to realize alternative ‘ar- utopian into the present, directs us rivals’. Further, community is a nec- towards new paths that might lead essary element in one’s ‘queer pro- to new forms of becoming and be- duction’; without sufficient support, longing. It is the desire for something it might be difficult if not impossible else, that which is not on our current to realize the potentiality that might path, that renders us more likely, be present. Being orientated in a and more able, to choose different 150 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 ones. Probyn too, reminds us that (Ahmed 2006, 170). Similarly, bodies need to ‘engage with others’; ‘queer’ collectives do not and should this is the only way that queer, and not reside in isolation from hetero- queer forms of desire, become rel- normative worlds. Complete coher- evant and productive (Probyn 1996, ence and agreement is not the goal 49). of collectivity; Haraway reminds us Winterson, throughout The Stone that ‘the joining of partial views and Gods, constructs human beings as halting voices into a collective sub- agents with free will. Spike tells us ject position’, and working within our that free will is the human capacity ‘limits and contradictions’ can prom- to ‘affect the outcome’ in a quantum ise a relative situatedness - and universe where things are ‘neither ‘views from somewhere’ (Haraway random nor determined’ (Winterson 1991, 196). Our ‘somewheres’ 2007, 181). It is a universe of poten- should arise out of positions and ori- tialities, and ‘true stories,’ Winterson entations that are engaged and ac- tells us, ‘are the ones that lie open countable (Haraway 1991, 196). at the border, allowing a crossing, What, ultimately, should be the a further frontier’ (Winterson 2007, goal of thinking and rethinking queer 87, 181). To get to the point where futurities? What do we want to cre- the border lies open, however, to ate? Ahmed argues that perma- the point where one is able to reach nence is not the goal, and instead certain potentialities and choose to points us in the direction of ephem- make them reality - one first has to erality: choose lines that lead to that border, It is given that the straight world to that space of possibility. A critical is already in place and that queer awareness, an intentional disorien- moments, where things come out tation, and intentional queer orien- of line, are fleeting. Our response tations are needed in order to real- need not be to search for perma- ize alternative lifelines, alternative nence, as Berlant and Warner stories of space and time, different show us in their work, but to lis- ways of being in the world, and dif- ten to the sounds of ‘the what’ that ferent ways to orient oneself. The fleets (Ahmed 2006, 106). refusal to be mass-collectively-orientated keeps different objects and While the work of orientat- options within reach, and ensures ing differently toward the utopian that the point of how bodies get di- impulse might be aimed at produc- rected and pressured into certain ing queer spatialities and tempo- lines more than others remains in ralities that stick around for a tad sight (Ahmed 2006, 17). longer, perhaps we should always Ahmed argues that ‘queer’ does remember to pay attention to that not reside in any individual body which ‘fleets’ - and to remain -criti Hwa: Desiring Queer Futurities 151 cally aware of the ‘givens’ in our jects: Embodiment and Sexual own orientations. In this way we Difference in Contemporary Femi- might collectively cultivate queerer nist Theory. New York: Columbia pasts, presents, and futures - and University Press. also move in the direction of imagin- Duggan, Lisa. 2004. The Twilight of ing new models of queer belonging. Equality?: Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democ- Endnotes racy. Boston: Beacon Press. 1 See Muñoz’s consideration of Edel- man’s work on page 22, and his rela- Edelman, Lee. 2004. No Future: Queer tionality/anti-relationality discussion on Theory and the Death Drive. Dur- pages 10-12 (Muñoz 2009, 22, 10-12 ham and London: Duke University Press. 2 The Caliphate and the Pact are the ‘other’ two governmental systems that Halberstam, Judith. 2005. In A Queer share Orbus; they are also referred Time & Place: Transgender Bod- to as ‘the Believers’ and ‘the Collec- ies, Subcultural Lives. New York: tive’ (Winterson 2007, 7). I read these New York University Press. names as thinly-veiled references to Is- lam and most likely, Communism. Win- Haraway, Donna. 1991. Simians, Cy- terson’s division of this world into these borgs and Women: The Reinven- three political systems seems to be a tion of Nature. New York: New sort of projection of our current situa- York and London: Routledge. tion into the future, and in this way is an extremely simplified and problematic Muñoz, Jose Esteban. 2009. Cruising point in itself. However I regret not be- Utopia: The Then and There of ing able to discuss this further as this Queer Futurity. New York Univer- point lies beyond the scope of my pa- sity Press. per. Probyn, Elspeth. 1996. Outside Be- References longings. New York & London: Ahmed, Sara. 2006. Queer Phenom- Routledge. enology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham and London: Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. 2003. ‘Para- Duke University Press. noid Reading and Reparative Reading, or, You’re So Paranoid, Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined You Probably Think This Essay Communities. London and New Is About You’. In Eve Kosofsky York: Verso. Sedgwick. Touching Feeling: Af- fect, Pedagogy, Performativity. Boym, Svetlana. 2001. The Future of Durham & London: Duke Univer- Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books. sity Press: 123-151.

Braidotti, Rosi. 1994. Nomadic Sub- Sinfield, Alan. 2004. On Sexuality and 152 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

Power. New York: Columbia Uni- versity Press.

Winterson, Jeanette. 2000. The Power- book. London: Vintage.

———. 2007. The Stone Gods. Lon- don: Hamish Hamilton. The Future of Slavery: From Cultural Trauma to Ethical Remembrance

Tracey Walker

This paper focuses on the current and ongoing engagement with slavery as a space for traumatic remembrance and explores how one’s sense of self and identity might be transformed by applying ethics to the remembrance of slavery. I reject the ideas central to trauma theory purported by Cathy Caruth (1991) that considers cultural trauma to be rooted in the tragic episode itself, arguing that it is driven by the strategic, practical and political interests of both nationalist discourses and the Black diaspora. By engaging with new thinking in cultural trauma proposed by Jeffrey C. Alexander (2004), I maintain that trauma is evoked through the effects of stories, narratives and images which are adopted and accepted as our history and attempt to look past the constructed slavery narratives premised on death and victimhood to reveal subjectivities that expose tropes of renewal, creative energy and agency. I further criticise trauma theory’s denial of unconscious fantasies and psychopolitical forces behind the representation of traumatic memories and consider the importance of applying psychosocial thinking to the impact of this cultural atrocity on a post-slavery generation. The paper attempts to fashion an ethical mode of remembrance by engaging with postcolonial thinkers such as Franz Fanon, Paul Gilroy, Saidiya Hartman and Toni Morrison and includes literary pieces by Caryl Philips, Octavia Butler and William Blake. In addition, Judith Butler’s (2005) theory of ‘opacity’ is used to reveal the fragmented nature of slavery and slave subjectivity. Overall, I argue that applying ethical thinking to the memory of slavery is of critical importance not only for the creation of black subjectivity and political lives, but also for the future of multicultural relations in the UK.

Keywords: Memory, Slavery, Cultural Trauma, Psychopolitical, Ethical Remembrance.

‘They will remember that we were sold astonishing atrocities to have exist- but they won’t remember that we were ed in human history. The rationale strong. They will remember that we were bought, but not that we were strong.’ for this paper is based on my con- William Prescott, former slave in the cern with the lack of contemporary United States, 19371 black British voices with regards to the topic of slavery as well as the on- Introduction going pathologisation of its memory As an event, institution and phe- in the postcolonial present. With the nomena, the trans-Atlantic slave 200th anniversary of the abolition trade was arguably one of the most of slavery having been commemo- Graduate Journal of Social Science July 2012, Vol. 9, Issue 2 © 2012 by Graduate Journal of Social Science. All Rights Reserved. ISSN: 1572-3763 154 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 rated in England recently, it seems memory I explore new perspectives a good time to think again about in cultural trauma focusing specifi- black British subjects and their re- cally on the work of theorists Jeffrey lationship to slavery such that our C. Alexander (2004) who reject experience is included alongside the common sense ideas central the monopoly of American slavery to trauma theory as purported by studies that already exists within the Cathy Caruth (1991) and Shosana academy (Wood 2003). Feldman & Dori Laub (1992). I ar- By engaging with cultural critic gue that trauma theory’s emphasis Arlene Kiezer’s (2004) assertion that on the ‘event’ as the trauma induc- ‘representing the broadest range of ing stimulus is reductive when we black subject positions under slav- consider the unique circumstances ery enables the representation of of raced subjects and the role of a myriad of black subjectivities of symbolic fantasies and psychopoliti- the present and the future’ (Kiezer cal forces in the practice of remem- 2004, 16), I argue that modern rep- brance. In an attempt to create alter- resentations of slavery in the public native strategies for remembrance domain have a tendency to focus based on ethics, I demonstrate on the sentimentally constructed how Judith Butler’s (2005) theory slave, reifying factors such as pas- of ‘opacity’, which proposes a way sivity, death, victimhood and the pa- of ‘seeing differently’ to release the thology of plantation life. However, subject from a tyranny of fantasies there seems to be less focus on the and projections, can offer something stories of slaves who demonstrated new to the way in which we engage agency, personhood and above all, with the remembrance of slavery. In a critical consciousness. The paper addition, I explore slavery’s position is concerned with the polarisation of within the context of the wider world slavery’s memory as a one dimen- and other cultural atrocities and con- sional story of terror and explores sider the importance of recognising the significance of ethical remem- ‘another-side’ to the ‘white perpetra- brance as a means through which to tor’ of slavery’s memory; aspects locate narratives that move beyond not usually discussed in traditional terror and pathology. This practice studies of the slave experience. asks that we seek a new language Taking a multidisciplinary ap- to narrate cultural histories pre- proach, my exploration of slavery mised not only on trauma but also and ethics is conceived through creation, renewal and mutual recog- the ideas of postcolonial theorists, nition. writers and novelists such as Franz In order to expose the mediating Fanon, Paul Gilroy, Saidiya Hartman forces and political regimes inher- and Toni Morrison and employs liter- ent in the representation of slavery’s ary pieces by Caryl Phillips, Octavia Walker: The Future of Slavery 155

Butler and William Blake. Situated force of Western hegemonic ide- with the works of Dominick LaCapra, ologies and discourse into racially Paul Ricoeur and other theorists bounded, non-human subjects, not concerned with history and ethics only continues to shape the socio- and its role in contemporary lives, political ideology of Britain today this paper aims to make an original (Gilroy 1993a), but also has a pro- contribution to the current debates found effect on the becoming of in slavery studies and considers its black subjectivities (hooks 2003). application a pedagogic resource The legacy of slavery continues to for future generations. haunt public memory in contemporary black society through recollec- A Tale of Terror tions that are ‘memories’ passed on It is a commonly held belief that through generations and retained trans-Atlantic slavery is an expe- across various representations and rience that belongs to the past. specific discourses (Eyerman 2004). Certainly, contemporary global This ‘familial discourse’ forms the and local lives seem to be preoc- root of collective identity amongst cupied with their own new revolu- black people (Eyerman 2004, 108) tions, injustices and fresh acts of and culminates in a “shared racial barbarism. Moreover, black British memory” across black disaporic subjects, born and raised in the communities (Gilroy 2000, 263). modern Western world to immigrant Although popular and nationalist Caribbean parents, already occupy discourses in Britain tend to posi- a diasporic location that is twice re- tion slavery as an event from the moved from their ancestral home of past and unconnected to modernity Africa, perhaps making the experi- (Gilroy 1993b), its memory is none- ence of migration more powerful and theless a central, albeit silent fea- relevant than the memory of slavery ture in the lives of black British in- in contemporary black British lives dividuals. This perhaps uncommon (Gilroy 1993a). idea has been fully embraced by Such a notion of the past repeat- historian Sidney Mintz (1974), who ing itself has preoccupied postco- describes the embedded nature of lonial thinkers and theorists, all of cultural memory as forever sutured whom are interested in slavery’s onto its host: legacy in the modern world as well we might be struck by the breath as its impact on black British cul- and depth of the embedding of tural lives. These theorists argue the slavery institution in the social that the experience of the trans- fabric not of one but of many dif- Atlantic slave trade, where millions ferent new world societies – an of Africans were, in Althusserian embedding so intimate and per- terms, ‘interpellated’ through the sistent that the aftermaths of slav- 156 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

ery still endure in the social forms which insidiously haunts the collec- and perceptions of new world tive (Eyerman 2004). peoples (Mintz 1974, 62). The concept of trauma itself originates from Freud’s (2003) work in The legacy of slavery therefore is Beyond the Pleasure Principle, always-already residually active in where he demonstrates that the pa- the present such that it is cyclically tient’s inner conflict, motivated by a ‘lived and living’ (Eyerman 2004, traumatic event, would become an 108), despite the ‘historical amne- outer reality through the ‘acting out’ sia’ of its memory in Britain (Hall of internal dramas (Freud 2003). 1997, 173). Contemporary thinking about trau- If the historical consciousness ma has been rooted in the work of of the Black diaspora is, as argued scholar Caruth (1991), heralded as by French postcolonial theorist having produced some of the most Edoaurd Glissant (1996), ‘the prod- pioneering work on trauma to date. uct of shock, contradiction, pain- Along with fellow trauma theorists ful negation and explosive forces’ Feldman and Laub (1992), Caruth’s (Glissant 1996: 62), then contem- trauma theory has been used to ex- porary black individuals are auto- plain the traumatising effects of the matically implicated in and are car- Holocaust on post-survivors and riers of a violent cultural memory delineate a unifying theory of post- embodying the psychic ‘afterlife’ of atrocity generations as they experi- slavery (Hartman 2008, 6). In addi- ence trauma’s effects from the past: tion, they are deemed to be collec- In its most general definition, tively haunted by the shame, domi- trauma describes an overwhelm- nation and abuse inflicted on their ing experience of sudden or cata- ancestors by European perpetrators strophic events in which the re- (hooks 2003), which means that its sponse to the event occurs in the memory has been framed within a often delayed, uncontrolled repet- narrative of cultural trauma. In its itive appearance of hallucinations simplest form, this trauma pertains and other intrusive phenomena to the symptoms and traumatic ef- (Caruth 1991, 181) fects experienced by a group who have been subjected to a rapid The hallucinations and delayed and massive social change due to effects that are the symptoms of a sudden and unexpected episode living in the aftermath of slavery’s (Alexander 2004). As a result, in the legacy have been explored by the- modern Western world black people orists bell hooks (2003) and Joy who have no direct experience of Degruy Leary (2005), who consider the event of slavery are nonethe- the traumatic effects of slavery to be less implicated in a common fate at the heart of pathological and de- Walker: The Future of Slavery 157 structive behaviours amongst con- consciousness (Sztompka 2000, temporary blacks living in the New 458). World. In her book Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, Leary asserts that With such a powerful force at play the trauma of forced domination and within the collective cultural psyche, systematic torture suffered by the there are huge efforts to facilitate slaves has caused future genera- ‘recovery’ from the traumatic loss of tions to suffer from traumatic stress- history and identity. In trauma the- es such as low self esteem, anger, ory, the recovery from such a trau- and aggression. This form of Post matic loss is worked around the idea Traumatic Stress Disorder, linked that this unconscious memory must directly to the horrors of slavery, be revisited in order for the event to is also affiliated with distorted no- be assimilated, understood and actions of masculinity, fatherhood and cepted (Caruth 1991). Therefore, underachievement (Leary 2005). the postmodern trend is towards Similarly, In Rock My Soul: Black subjective narratives premised on People and Self-esteem, hooks redemption and return and hidden (2003) maintains that slavery’s leg- histories which include the recovery acy has created an ‘internalisation of slave narratives, oral histories, of shame’ for black women which documents, images, poems and impacts on feelings about hair tex- rebel slave accounts. Narratives are ture, skin colour and body shape the important substance of remem- (hooks 2003: 37). These examples brance and it is through this medi- are what sociologist Piotr Sztompka um that the ‘education of memory’ (2000) identifies as the side-effects finds its voice and where some form of a massive social change which of healing is able to begin (Ricoeur might produce ‘dislocations in the 1999, 8). routine, accustomed ways of act- However, my concern here is ing or thinking [and] change the life- that the canon of redemptive nov- world of the people in often dramatic els unearthed as part of an ethical ways’ (Sztompka 2000, 456). He ar- postcolonial project to represent a gues further that this type of trauma traumatic past has produced ‘frag- is also the ‘most threatening’ as it mented accounts’ which offer an takes its hold upon each generation: ‘intensity’ of experience yet little in- like all cultural phenomena it has sight into the depth of the human the strongest inertia; it persists condition (Parker 1997, 169). For and lingers considerably longer example, slavery historian Marcus than other kinds of trauma, some- Wood (2003) explains how aesthet- times over several generations, ic trauma influenced the most popu- preserved in collective memory lar and widely disseminated repre- or hibernating in collective sub- sentations of slavery during the 18th 158 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 century within which stereotypes counts. Moreover, these fragmented such as the mulatto mistress, the stories leave no room for other sub- rape victim, the runaway and the ject positions or alternative slave idle slave were constructed (Wood subjectivities to emerge (Kieser 2003). In addition, American aboli- 2004). Given that a heavy dose of tionist literature at this time was par- Manichaeism and polarised subject ticularly interested in the pathology positioning exists in the represen- of plantation life, while British slave tation of slavery, Trinidadian theo- literature tended to focus on the ter- rist and poet Derek Walcott (2006) rible conditions of the middle pas- warns that history in this context sage in an attempt to appeal to an ‘petrifies into myth’ and results in a emphatic public and secure political ‘literature without morality’ (Walcott support against the evils of the slave 2006, 371): trade (Wood 2003). Using poems, In the new world servitude to the stories, pictures and other repre- muse of history has produced a sentations, the horror of the slaves’ literature of recrimination and de- condition was depicted through a spair, a literature of revenge writ- series of polarised categories such ten by the descendents of slaves as passivity, victimhood, shame, or a literature of remorse written abuse and pathology. Similarly, au- by descendents of masters. Be- tobiographical slave narratives have cause this literature serves histor- dominated our contemporary under- ical truth it yellows into polemic or standing and memories of what life pathos (Walcott 2006, 371). was like for a slave and despite the fact that some of the most popular With its memory dominated by and widely disseminated slavery a grand narrative of ‘pathos’, is it texts contain recurrent themes of surprising that slavery is consid- whippings, lynchings, mutilation and ered somewhat of a taboo subject death alongside the highly charged which remains an uncomfortable emotional responses of shame and tale for both blacks and whites liv- anger, this action of ‘witness’ to the ing in Britain today? (Gilroy 1993b; testimonies of slavery claims to fa- Woods 2010). Moreover, should it cilitate acknowledgement, recovery shock us that it is only as recently and self-transformation (Feldman as 2008 that slavery history lessons and Laub 1992). were made compulsory in British These scenes of slavery, which schools?2 Fanon made quite clear are often all too horrific to digest, his feelings about slavery in his reproduce a series of tyrannical mem- mark, ‘slavery? It was no longer even ories that govern its narrative as a mentioned, that unpleasant memo- dominant discourse and crystallise ry…I forgot it all’ (Fanon 1967, 115) potent emotions into essentialist ac- and certainly, for Hartman (2008) Walker: The Future of Slavery 159 the terror of slavery often meant et al (2004) have allowed us to ask that ‘remembering warred with the questions as to why the memory of will to forget’ (Hartman 2008, 16). slavery is represented as a one di- According to Friedrich Nietzsche, mensional, pathological experience. this trope of ‘active forgetting’ forms That slavery was traumatic is un- an integral part of remembrance by derstood and I do not wish here to creating a ‘clean slate’ from which dilute the memory and importance to transform and diminish feelings of the trauma experienced by the of anger and revenge (Nietzsche in: millions of Africans who lived and Galloway 2006). Yet, something is died throughout the time of slav- very wrong if post-slavery genera- ery. However, in their book Cultural tions actively choose to blindly dis- Trauma and Collective Identity the associate from slavery due to the authors argue that trauma is in fact very unpleasantness of its memory, a socially constructed phenomenon, especially if we pay heed to Paul not ‘naturally existing’, but altogeth- Gilroy’s (2012) warning that ‘So er created, mediated and historically much of the crises in contemporary produced (Alexander et al 2004, 2). multiculturalism depends…on the This line of thinking runs counter to ability to look at the past and to be the common sense ideas of trauma comfortable with that past’ (Gilroy theory which posits the ‘event’ and 2012). What is acutely evident here the remembrance of the event as is that the memory of slavery com- the authentic trauma inducing stim- municates its force as a trauma and ulus. pathology inducing site and it is in Alexander et al (2004) explains this way that its legacy seems to that fundamentally, events do not have ‘swung decidedly toward de- create cultural trauma. Dominant spair’ (Brown 2009, 1235). My con- narratives of slavery are not pro- cern therefore is that if slavery is duced by the collective group but doomed to such a polarised inter- by social agents or ‘carrier groups’ pretation across national discourses who maintain their own political and representations, what then is at and personal interests (Alexander stake for contemporary black politi- et al 2004). We have already seen cal lives if our history and collective how slavery’s memory can be dis- identity is rooted in the horrors and seminated through a narrative of traumas of the past? In other words, terror and pathology to garner both must we continue to be ‘united in psychological and political support, terror?’ (Hall 1997) yet it is also filtered through bodies such as the mass media, entertain- Whose Trauma is it Anyway? ment, religious groups and state New ideas about cultural trauma institutions who all have their own pioneered by theorists Alexander personal interests with regard to the 160 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 way in which slavery is represented the unequal status of black people (Alexander et al 2004). These are in housing, employment and educa- the agents of the ‘trauma process’ tion (Gilroy 1993a) and the dispro- that create the channels through portionate number of black men in which trauma is injected into the UK prisons and mental institutions collective cultural psyche and who (Fernando 2002). Theorist Hartman decide what to include in slavery’s (2002) argues that these uneasy memory (Alexander et al, 2004). feelings associated with feeling ex- My concern is what happens when cluded from society are usually our one’s cultural memory is colonised first trigger to remembrance: in this way? And how do these nar- if slavery persists as an issue in ratives affect our relationship with political life…it is not because the past, present and future? In her it is an antiquarian obsession of paper Collective Remembering and bygone days or the burden of a the Importance of Forgetting, Anne too-long memory but because Galloway (2006) warns of the dan- black lives are still imperilled and ger inherent in having others control devalued by a racial calculus and the way we remember since ‘without a political arithmetic that were en- being able to decide what we can trenched centuries ago (Hartman remember and forget we are effec- 2002, 6) tively left without hope of becoming different people or creating different Her analysis alludes to the force worlds’ (Galloway 2006, 1). of racism that is ‘clearly entangled Trauma theory’s focus on the with an older racial discourse’ (Gilroy event becomes even more problem- 1993b, 7), as well as regimes and atic when we consider that there is a forms of ‘social death’ in the pres- distinction to be made between the ent. Thus, even if one seeks to dis- ‘event’ of slavery and the ‘legacy of associate entirely from their slave slavery’ as an ongoing process that past, the anxieties bound up with has transmuted into a living social belonging, exclusion and feeling like condition. The reality is that in spite an outsider are nonetheless at the of slavery having been abolished heart of slavery and are character- over 150 years ago, many of its istic tropes of New World disaporic ideologies still remain within institu- identities (Hartman 2002). However, tions and practices throughout the popular accounts of trauma do not diaspora (Mama 1995). For exam- consider the emerging field of the ple, attitudes and beliefs about race, psychopolitical that enables us to inferiority and superiority are argu- consider the mechanisms of rac- ably as embedded today as they ism and the raced subject’s relation- were during the time of slavery giv- ship with the Eurocentric fantasies en the plethora of studies revealing of the social symbolic - a Lacanian Walker: The Future of Slavery 161 idea that describes the symbolic event of slavery, but the strength in forces which interrupt the individu- which its effects linger residually into al’s sense of self identity by working the present that renders its memory its ideologies and fantasies into the traumatic (Eyerman 2004). psyche3. We find therefore that it is the Algerian psychiatrist Fanon strain of modern racism in contem- (1967) was one of the first to ex- porary lives that colours much of plore psychological trauma and what we choose to focus on and the black man’s relationship with how we choose to feel when ap- the ‘gaze’ of the symbolic. In Black proaching remembrance of slavery Skin White Masks, Fanon introduc- (Hartman 2002). We might for ex- es us to the power of Eurocentric ample, feel empathy towards the fantasies of superiority embedded slaves and anger at the white slave within a still ongoing colonial sys- masters, but in an act of double vi- tem, through which he says, ‘I dis- sion motivated by fantasy, we inad- covered my Blackness, my ethnic vertently activate the trauma of our characteristics; and I was battered own lives: down by tom-toms, cannibalism, We imaginatively witness the intellectual deficiency fetishism, ra- crimes of the past and cry for cial defects, slave ships…’ (Fanon those victimized—the enslaved, 1967, 112). Fanon demonstrates the ravaged, and the slaughtered. that colonial fantasies create sym- And the obliterative assimilation bolic links between the slaves of the of empathy enables us to cry for past and the excluded ‘minorities’ in ourselves, too. As we remember the new world who live antagonis- those ancestors ….we can’t but tically in relation to the social sym- think of our own dishonored and bolic. Thus, for Fanon it is the ongo- devalued lives and the unrealized ing ‘colonial situation’ and the white aspirations and the broken prom- man’s fantasy of superiority that is ises of abolition…The intransi- the root cause of the black man’s gence of our seemingly eternal cultural trauma. Clearly, due to the second-class status propels us ongoing traumatic effects of racism, to make….unshakable explana- domination and exclusion, there are tory narratives, and sites of injury no ‘flashbacks’ of the atrocity, from (Hartman 2002, 767). which trauma theory’s post-survivor holocaust generation are said Remembrance in this context to suffer, since, there is simply ‘no serves as an outlet for feelings time to make it unconscious’ owing of revenge and victimization and to the ‘racial drama’ (or trauma) be- therefore creates a ‘masochistic ating ‘played out in the open’ (Fanon tachment’ to slave victims of abuse 1967, 150). It is therefore not the (Hartman 2002, 8). British Arts and 162 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

Heritage Consultant, Baroness Lola ‘abuses of ritualised commemora- Young (2007) also claims that focus- tion’ and therefore, ‘an opportunity ing on victimhood might ‘masquer- for the abuse of memory’ (Ricoeur ade as a source of comfort’ through 1999, 9). which to deviate from our own con- By taking into account the unique temporary circumstances as the experience of post-slavery black modern victims of racism. This act communities and the way in which of voyeurism and over-identification slavery’s memory impacts on histo- with the slaves is the ‘darker side’ ry, subjectivity and the psyche, what of empathy and has little to do with becomes apparent is that there is honouring their memory.4 Instead, a need to ‘decolonise trauma’ see- our own desires and fears linked to ing as its strong link to Holocaust racism take centre stage. Studies has meant the exclusion of Similarly, over-identification with other groups whose spatial, tem- the illusion of white superiority also poral and symbolic relationship to acts as a mediating force in slavery’s atrocities of the past exist outside of memory; a trope which theorists ar- the current model (Rothberg 2008). gue continues to permeate the re- In the case of post slavery individu- membrance of slavery in the UK als, the psychopolitical framework of today (Young 2007, Woods 2010). racism and the symbolic fantasies This abolitionist’s narrative, recog- of white superiority are already de- nised as a celebration of white tri- signed as a system of knowledges umph and superiority is what Gilroy through which all narratives pertain- (2005) describes as a type of ‘post- ing to the black self and the Other colonial melancholia’ - an aftermath are filtered. The central argument of empire which has caused the west therefore contends that contempo- to hang on fiercely to stories of their rary ideas around cultural trauma own triumph while excluding others. and memory should not focus solely It is this pathologic force which ru- on celebrating memory as contes- minates insidiously underneath the tatory or subversive of established abolitionist narrative, where heroes grand narratives, but must also are white and deemed to be acting be concerned with deconstructing autonomously while black protago- the ‘regimes’ of memories and the nists are ignored and their agency frameworks within which they are disavowed. This systemic violence5, positioned (Radstone 2005). woven deep within the fabric of the Black theorists and writers who social symbolic injects its trauma engage with the creation of new inducing fantasies into the memory sites within which to communicate of slavery through highly seduc- with slavery warn that its memory is tive and polarised stories. Ricoeur ‘in more danger now than 30 years (1999) describes this exercise as ago’ (Morrison in: Gilroy 1993, 178) Walker: The Future of Slavery 163 and in need of an emancipatory vi- ing in the fields of relational psycho- sion that is not solely premised on analysis and feminist theory where recovery and mourning (Hartman the questions, ‘who are you?’ and 2002). Gilroy (1993b) argues that ‘can I know you without my own slavery should be seen from the projections and fantasies getting in slaves’ point of view and suggests a the way?’ are foundational themes certain ethics by advocating the im- (Benjamin 1998; Pedwell 2002; portance of recognising that slaves Butler 2005). Moving towards ethi- had a conscience. Perhaps most in- cal remembrance of slavery within teresting is Toni Morrison’s proposal this paradigm is to be acutely aware that we must ‘re-inhabit’ the slaves that one can not really know what in order to make ethical rather than slavery was like for the slaves, in- traumatic connections with ances- stead, we must become mindful of tors (Morrison in: Gilroy 1993). In our ‘invariable and partial blindness’ light of this vantage point, the cen- about ourselves and others and ex- tral question that this paper asks ercise ‘a certain patience with oth- is can we move towards ethical re- ers that would suspend the demand membrance of slavery and remem- that they be self same at every mo- ber this event in a way that is non- ment’ (Butler 2005, 42). When we pathological, productive and useful position the slaves solely within a for contemporary lives? framework of suffering and victimhood we ask that they are the same Slaves, Strangers and Aliens person in every scene of slavery. An Attempting to apply ethics to the ethical mode of remembrance how- memory of slavery means that we ever, is rooted in acknowledging the must re-consider what we think we ambiguity of slave subjectivity and already know about slavery. Ideas strives to connect with the ‘stranger’ concerning the interplay of ethics, or ‘alien’ Other (Benjamin 1998). history and memory have been well In her post-Hegelian analysis, debated across the academy by Butler also reminds us that Others historians such as Hayden White, are not transparent, but display an Dominick LaCapra, and Nancy. F. ‘opacity’ which indicates that we can Partner6 who have argued against not know all aspects of ourselves simple notions of historical ac- or the Other since there are always counts underpinned by ideologi- shadows and spaces which we are cal interests, advocating instead unable to penetrate (Butler 2005). ways in which to use the past as This willingness to ‘experience the an on-going dialogue for the future very limits of knowing’ means that generations (LaCapra 1985). This we refrain from condemning the deconstruction of history based on slaves to a singular and vertical ethics lends itself well to new think- subjectivity based on responses to 164 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 terror and instead excavate for the in order to be born in the future, her ‘pre-history’ or an alternative slave account also opens up a new type of consciousness. This ethical exer- dialogue with the past that enables cise allows a post-historical slave us to witness the opacity of our links to emerge into the future, one who to the slave masters. displays multiple selves and subject Instead of entertaining the polar- positions that ‘interrupts the story’ of ized subject positions and vertical the memory we have taken so far as narratives that dominate the mem- fact (Butler 2005, 78). When cultural ory of slavery, ethical remembrance memory is linked to identity in this recoils from the desire to legitimate way it reinforces the ‘use-value’ of one’s own projections and releases memory and creates a space where memory from its epistemological remembrance can become psycho- prison: logically and politically resourceful By not pursuing satisfaction and in the future (Kansteiner 2002, 184). letting the question remain open In this ethical turn, the memory of even enduring, we let the other slavery exists as a ‘living intellectual live since life must be understood resource’ revealing that modernity as precisely that which exceeds does not involve an ‘absolute break any account we must try to give with the past’ but is merely disillu- it. If letting the other live is part sioned by its own rigid concept of of any ethical definition of recog- temporality (Gilroy 1993b, 39). nition then this version of recogni- Octavia Butler’s (2004) neo-slave tion will be based less on knowl- narrative7 Kindred for example, uses edge than on an apprehension of the concept of time travel to allude epistemic limits (Butler 2005, 43). to the slippery nature of memory and its deep connection to contem- Suspending our own sense of porary life. The protagonist of the ‘what it is to be a slave’ means there novel is Dana, a modern African is ‘vision rather than voyeurism’ American woman who inexplica- (Williams in Doss 2010, 276) which bly travels back and forth through enables us to welcome subjec- time and is able to relive the past tivities ‘beyond recognition’ (Oliver as a slave. In one scene, her arm 2001, 85). Doing the ethical work is cut off in her slave life and she means making honest connections returns to the present with her arm with these alien Others and requires still severed. Butler claims that this that we excavate otherwise un- might be a metaphor for our ‘disfig- known aspects of slave conscious- ured heritage’ or the fact that ‘slav- ness in order to expand subject po- ery didn’t leave people quite whole’ sitions which are currently limited by (Butler in: Crossley, 276). Given that a tragic language. Dana must save her white ancestor Walker: The Future of Slavery 165

Are We Dead Yet? er, she was often ignored by early To argue that there is more to the white historians who dismissed her popular conception of slaves as vic- as an ‘old hagg’ or ‘obeah’ woman tims who experienced social death (possessor of evil magic powers) within the abusive regime of transat- (Gotlieb 2000, xvi). Yet, despite lantic slavery is not to say that these these negative descriptors, Nanny subjectivities did not exist. When presents an interesting image of an considering the institution of slavery African woman in the time of slavery we can quite confidently rely on the who cultivated an exceptional army assumption that it did indeed de- and used psychological as well as stroy the self-hood and the lives of military force against the English millions of Africans. Scholar Vincent despite not owning sophisticated Brown (2009) however, has criticised weapons (Gotlieb 2000). As an oral Orlando Patterson’s (1982) seminal tale, her story speaks to post-slavery book Slavery and Social Death for generations through its representa- positioning the slave as a subject tion of a figure whose gender defy- without agency and maintains that ing acts challenged the patriarchal those who managed to dislocate fantasies of the Eurocentric imagi- from the nightmare of plantation life nary and as such ‘the study of her ‘were not in fact the living dead’, but experiences might change the lives ‘the mothers of gasping new societ- of people living under paternalistic, ies’ (Brown 2009, 1241). racist, classist and gender based The Jamaican Maroons were one oppression’ (Gotlieb 2000, 84). such disparate group of Africans The label of ‘social death’ is re- who managed to band together and jected here on the grounds that it is flee the Jamaican plantations in or- a narrative which is positioned from der to create a new mode of living the vantage point of a European under their own rule. These ‘run- hegemonic ideology. Against the aways’ were in fact ‘ferocious fight- social symbolic and its gaze, black ers and master strategists’, building slaves were indeed regarded as towns and military bases which en- non-humans since their lives were abled them to fight and successfully stunted, diminished and deemed win the war against the British army less valuable in comparison to the after 200 years of battle (Gotlieb Europeans. However, Fanon’s 2000,16). In addition, the story of (1967) assertion that ‘not only must the Windward Jamaican Maroons the black man be black; he must be disrupts the phallocentricism in- black in relation to the white man’ herent within the story of the slave (Fanon 1967, 110) helps us to un- ‘hero’ by the very revelation that derstand that this classification can their leader, ‘Queen Nanny’ was a only have meaning relative to the woman (Gotlieb 2000). As a lead- symbolic which represents the alive- 166 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 ness of whiteness against the back- hegemonic discourse which ne- drop of the dead black slave (Dyer gated them, but also, due to their 1997). Butler (2005) makes it clear unique circumstances, were forced that the ‘death’ one suffers relative to create new modes of communi- to the social symbolic is imbued with cation which would include a myriad the fantasy that having constructed of African cultures, languages and the Other and interpellated her into creeds (Gottlieb 2000). This cre- ‘life’, one now holds the sovereignty ative and resistive energy of slave of determining the subject’s right to subjectivity not only disrupts the live or die: colonial paradigm of socially dead this death, if it is a death, is only slaves, but also implies the ethical the death of a certain kind of sub- tropes of creation, renewal and mu- ject, one that was never possible tual recognition. to begin with, the death of the fan- In contrast, the passive slave tasy of impossible mastery, and proved to feature heavily in the so a loss of what one never had, 2007 bicentenary commemorations in other words it is a necessary causing journalist Toyin Agbetu to grief (Butler 2005, 65). interrupt the official speeches and exclaim that it had turned into a The point to make here is that al- discourse of freedom engineered though the concept of social death mostly by whites with stories of black has proved useful for theorists to de- agency excluded8. Young’s argu- scribe the metaphysical experience ment that ‘one of the damaging side of those who live antagonistically effects of the focus on white peo- in relation to the social symbolic, it ple’s role in abolition is that Africans is nevertheless a colonial narrative are represented as being passive in within which the slaves are confined the face of oppression’, appears to to a one dimensional story of ter- echo the behaviour in the UK today ror. In keeping with Gilroy’s (1993b) given that a recent research poll re- argument that the memory of slav- veals that the black vote turnout is ery must be constructed from the significantly lower than for the white slaves’ point of view, we might in- majority electorate and that forty stead concentrate, not on the way in percent of second generation ‘immi- which the slaves are figured within grants’ believe that voting ‘doesn’t the European social imaginary, but matter’.9 Yet, Gilroy (1993a) argues on how they negotiated their own that this political passivity may not ideas about self and identity. We simply be a self fulfilling prophecy, might therefore find some value in but might allude to the ‘lived contra- studying a group like the Maroons diction’ of being black and English who not only managed to create an which affects one’s confidence about autonomous world outside of the whether opinions will be validated in Walker: The Future of Slavery 167 a society that, at its core, still holds of global relation through remem- on to the fantasy of European supe- brance, French postcolonial theo- riority (Gilroy 1993a). Without con- rists have drawn upon their experi- sidering the slaves’ capacity for sur- ences of Caribbean Creole cultures vival and their fundamental role in which are hybridised nations con- overthrowing the European regime sisting of a myriad of racial mixes. of slavery, we limit the use–value Given that the concept of hybridity of the memory and risk becoming (a practice that allows for the giving overly attached to singular slave and receiving of different cultural subjectivities seeped in death and forms amongst diverse groups)10 passivity. The Maroons story how- leads to collective relation, it is a ever, enables slave consciousness useful metaphor and interpretive tool to rise above the mire of slavery’s for understanding the dynamic of abject victims and establishes an ‘entering into relation with the world ethical relation with our ancestors (Glissant 1996). In this context, the who lived and survived in the time concept of hybridity is used to de- of slavery. scribe a global framework where one is able to conceive of ‘a global Mirror memory imagination’ across heterogeneous Having applied modes of ethical groups and nations (Glissant 1996). thinking to the memory of slavery This ethical turn towards global re- by unearthing the hidden regimes membrance encourages the peda- inherent in its remembrance and gogical ideal that there are moral in turn using these insights as a lessons to be gained from what we counter-narrative in debates within might call the mirroring of memories. the field of trauma theory, we move This practice attempts to locate the towards reflection on how to place commonalities within each trauma slavery’s memory within the context narrative and succeeds in mirroring of the wider world and other cultural the Other’s pain to establish some atrocities. This step is important as form of global healing and acknowl- it illuminates the relational theory edgement (Smelser 2004). that we are constituted through oth- Yet, the challenge remains as to ers and therefore suggests that the whether a move towards global his- memory of slavery is itself a prod- torical consciousness is a concept uct of ‘Other’ protagonists. Young that has arisen prematurely consid- (2007) argues that this ethical move ering that local communities are still would be of value to black people unable to settle their differences and since they might find that they are accept different forms of cultural ex- not ‘wholly determined by a history pression.11 In his book The Black of enslavement’ (Young 2007). Atlantic, Gilroy (1993b) has already To undertake the ethical mission explored the possibility of blacks 168 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 and Jews finding a common voice, sues such as exploitation, racism yet he severely overestimates the and abuse of human rights. In an capacity for the global holding of ethical turn, we might consider in- the dynamic space of fetishized stead the plight of the eleven thou- wounds, distorted fantasies and sand Sudanese men and women fictional truths that are all linked to who have been abducted to work as traumatic memories across cultures. slaves for Arab militiamen. Francis Certainly in the UK, any attempt for Bok (2003) is one survivor of this blacks and whites to remember slav- contemporary regime who details ery together is already tempered by being captured and living for ten deep racial divisions within society years as a slave in his book, Escape and with cultural memories heavily from Slavery. invested with the tropes of commu- Glissant’s proposal for the cre- nity, unity and belonging, a global ation of memorial centers in every historical consciousness, as advo- nation, dedicated to the memory cated by Edouard Glissant (1996) of slavery seems rather ambitious runs the risk of atrocities collapsing when we consider that slavery’s into each other and disarticulating memory is not static and bound, but them from space, time and context. a multi-layered, unfixed entity and It also remains to be seen whether highly contingent upon the narra- such groups are ready to give up tives through which it comes to life. the only space where they might Consequently, Sztompka (2000) feel free to reflect on self, identity, maintains that ‘traumatizing events culture and history without judge- may be qualitatively quite opposite ment from Others. for various groups: destructive and For Walcott (2006), the tendency disruptive for some, beneficial and to establish a rigid classification of welcomed for some, ignored and what constitutes as trauma and for neutral for others’ (Sztompka 2000, whom, proves redundant when one 459). We find his argument clearly considers, ‘who in the new world demonstrated in Hartman’s (2008) doesn’t have a horror of the past, account of her visit to the slavehold- whether his ancestor was torturer ing castles where she encounters or victim? Who in the depth of con- Ghanaians who were confused as science is not silently screaming for to why ‘something that happened pardon or for revenge?’ (Walcott so long ago could hurt us’, choos- 2006, 371). Walcott implies that all ing instead to remember slavery as humanity is in some way trauma- a time of opportunity rather than a tised by their own social or political tale of woe and suffering (Hartman circumstances and that the spirit 2008, 75): of remembering together could be In Ghana slavery wasn’t a rally- better located in modern global is- ing cry against the crimes of the Walker: The Future of Slavery 169

west or the evils of white men; to (Radstone 2007). the contrary, it shattered any illu- .Glissant’s (1996) hope that one sions of humanity of sentiment in day all atrocities will be integrated the black world and exposed the into the global psyche is flawed if he fragility and precariousness of the rushes towards the ideal of mutual grand collective ‘we’ that had yet understanding without considering to be actualised (Hartman 2008, in what form, within which narratives 75). and according to whose story these memories are to be interpreted. Quite simply, ‘there is no common Despite its limitations, Glissant’s vi- idea of slavery’ and therefore no sion of relationality, which is rooted diasporic unity that can be claimed in respect for the Other and one’s through its remembrance (Hartman continuing ambiguity, is central 2008, 73). The problem with estab- to the practice of ethical remem- lishing new voices outside of the he- brance, yet if the mission to en- gemonic narrative of slavery is close- courage global remembrance of all ly linked to what Gilroy (1993b) calls atrocities serves as his utopian ideal the ‘Americocentricity’ of black politi- for the future, exploring the possibil- cal lives which is an invented frame- ity of blacks and whites in Britain rework driven by the political interests membering slavery together might of the Diaspora through which the be a more practical place to start memory of slavery is disseminated (see also McCusker 2009). and filtered. We can argue therefore that choices about what we White Trauma remember, how we remember and Gilroy (1993a) has argued exten- for whom are controlled by a regime sively that blacks and whites have which establishes its own ‘meta- always been in a symbiotic relation physical notions of what it means to with one another despite the racial be black’ (Gilroy 1993b). The hege- fractures embedded within modern monic discourse of an Americanized society. Many theorists and writers version of the memory of slavery such as Toni Morrison, Caryl Phillips therefore presents another a set of and Fred D’Aguiar have also allud- knowledges at work which serve to ed to the importance of integrating colonise the spaces through which whites into the memory of slavery other representations, images, ar- beyond the dichotomy of master ticulations and narratives of slavery and slave so as to disrupt the tra- can emerge. Trauma theory fails to ditional narrative of ‘good vs. evil’ acknowledge the heterogeneity of and create the possibility for a new cultural groups and therefore limits encounter with the ‘perpetrator’. the expression of alternative voices In The Pagan Coast for example, and discourses of slavery’s memory Phillips explores the torment of a 170 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 slave master who displays ambiva- stand that denying the importance lent feelings towards the slave trade of the perpetrator in slavery’s mem- and wishes to ‘divest himself of the ory only serves to reify its role of ter- burden…of being a slave owner’, ror and forecloses the possibility of developing like his father before him discovering new subjectivities and an ‘aversion to the system which counter-narratives of the white ex- has allowed his fortunes to multiply’ perience. The basic argument here (Phillips in: Low 1998, 133). In this is that slavery is about the white ex- case, the inescapable thrust of capi- perience too, however, in popular talism appears as the insidious evil representations of slavery the em- which distorts the white psyche, a phasis tends to fall on the traumatic trope often missed in popular slav- life of the black slave while the white ery texts. master remains as a ghostly figure Nevertheless, the difficulty of embodying the darker side of hu- imagining another side to the white manity. Might it be possible to gain perpetrator of slavery should not be a more ethical means of relating to underestimated since for black peo- the white mistresses and masters ple living in its aftermath, the haunt- who lived in the time of slavery if ing of anger and bitter emotions to- they were also allowed the space to wards cruel white masters can not exhibit their own opacity? be given up easily, nor can the un- In the poem Visions of the conscious distortions and fantasies Daughters of Albion, poet William towards those masters be wiped out Blake (2008), himself deeply op- overnight. Butler (2005) however, posed to slavery and committed to its warns of the ethical violence inher- abolition, exposes the psychic state ent in denying the Other to become of Bromion, a white slaveholder, part of one’s own consciousness who rapes Oothoon, a white woman. and states: Rather than concentrate on the pow- If we forget that we are related to erless black female slave, Blake’s those whom we condemn, even narrative points to the deep seated those we must condemn, then patriarchal fantasies at the heart we lose the chance to be ethi- of slavery. For Bromion, Oothoon cally educated or ‘addressed’ by is like a country to be conquered, a consideration of who they are such that he proceeds to ‘rent her and what their personhood says with his thunders’ and claims her as about the range of human possi- if property, declaring that ‘the soft bility that exists, even to prepare American planes are mine and mine ourselves for or against such pos- thy north and south’ (Blake 2008, sibilities (Butler 2005, 45). 46). The tropes of power and domination, conquest and owning people Butler’s thesis helps us to under- as property, which are at the heart Walker: The Future of Slavery 171 of a colonialist mindset, are found to and domination. be underpinned by a patriarchal ide- Despite the possible benefits ology. Thus, by inverting the popular that may be accrued by reconnect- discourse, Blake demonstrates that ing with the perpetrator in slavery’s there is more to the story of slav- memory, for Fanon (1967), this ery such as questions about class, utopian ideal of mutual recognition the treatment of white women and is believed to be foreclosed by the white male ‘rage’, which are often white Other who he argues denies overshadowed by the penetration of any link with the black man and his racial politics. extreme ‘otherness’. This of course Morrison elaborates further to presents major obstacles to the idea argue that white people, who found of creating a third space for mutu- themselves having to assume the al recognition. In some support of role of the master in the time of slav- this view, Rosi Braidotti adds that ery, were also victims of a perverse European identity must wake up ideology: from its ‘lily-white…purity’ and ‘uni- Slavery broke the world in half, versalistic fantasy’ and commit itself it broke it in everyway. It broke to the postcolonial turn that seeks Europe. It made them into some- to ‘expose whiteness as a political thing else, it made them slave issue’ (Braidotti, 19).12 Ethical re- masters, it made them crazy. You membrance desires that we liber- can’t do that for hundreds of years ate our historical consciousness by and it not take a toll. They had to ‘remembering oneself-as-another’ demonize not just the slaves but (Kearney 2003, 27) and from this themselves. (Morrison in: Gilroy deeply ethical position we are able 1993, 178) to ‘release the historical past into a different, freer, future’ (Kearney To talk of the legacy of slavery 2003, 27). Perhaps this ethical move is also to talk of ‘white trauma’ and towards exposing the ambiguity and to realise that they too were trau- opacity of the white experience dur- matised by an event that they have ing slavery marks the embryonic ‘trapped emotionally’ such that its stages of lifting its silence and es- memory becomes a ‘secret that no tablishing its memory as a founda- one can discuss’ (Leary in Talvai tional and highly relevant part of 2002). To remember ethically then British history. means to ‘make trauma strange’ and acknowledge that everyone im- * * * plicated in slavery was traumatised Having interrogated the scene of and constrained by the ideologies of slavery by applying ethical thinking, the enlightenment, capitalism and the main conclusion to arise is that the European thirst for adventure memory can indeed be moulded, 172 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 manipulated and controlled to engi- does not dominate the memory of neer feelings of trauma, vengeance, slavery or the black experience in shame and ambivalence and as general. Theorising the future of such, there is no memory of slavery slavery is a vital practice as it allows that has not been mediated. Setting us think about other modes of re- out to understand whether the black covery which can help to eradicate experience can be communicated the cycle of trauma from spiralling through a narrative other than ter- onward across successive genera- ror, employing ethics and the con- tions. Given that ‘trauma is created cept of opacity has allowed us to in our present and reinvented for the contemplate how we might move future’ (Waugh 2006, 506), we have away from an event based history a moral duty to be continually critical to one which provides lessons and of slavery’s popular representations examples for contemporary lives. in the public domain and to scrutinize By practising ethical remembrance who or what is controlling its story. of slavery we are able to arrive at One day we will become ancestors useful resources, guides and tools for future generations and we there- to influence the creation of subjec- fore have an ethical responsibility to tivity which helps to lead us out of create multiple narratives of slavery a traumatic past offering new routes that can also be positioned within to the future (Ricoeur 1999). the context of agency, life and new The goal is not to obliterate the visions of self. narrative of terror and trauma in slavery’s memory since it is a testament Endnotes to the injustices and cruelty that the 1See http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/ slaves endured. Rather, we seek to slavery/online-exhibition/we-were- simply break its hold and contribute strong/ to the ethical mission that allows for 2 the creation of other spaces, chan- See Andrea Lipsett (2008). http:// www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/ nels and routes of remembrance to aug/26/slavery.schools emerge that reflect the precarity of black identities across the diaspora 3 For an interesting analysis of how the and their relationships to slavery. social symbolic influences subjectivity What becomes apparent is that do- see Jacques Lacan. 1977. ‘The Mirror ing the ethical work is not easy; in- Stage as Formative of the Function of stead it requires an enormous com- the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic mitment to the challenges present Experience ‘ in Jacques Lacan. Ecrits: in the process of undoing the self A Selection: 1-6. and the Other. Yet, we must do the 4 ethical work to ensure that the mas- This notion of a ‘darker side’ to empathy is inspired by the work of Susannah ter narrative of terror and pathology Radstone (2007) who states that ‘criti- Walker: The Future of Slavery 173 cal ‘empathy’ is not without its darker 10 See Homi Bhabha (1994) The aspects’ (Radstone 2007, 23). For ad- Location of Culture. ditional reflections on critical empathy, see also Gwendolyn’s interview with 11 For a recent example, see Matthew Carolyn Pedwell (2012) (http://femi- Taylor (2012) http://www.guardian. nisting.com/2012/05/22/the-academic- co.uk/world/2012/mar/09/far-right- feminist-goes-global-a-conversation- hardcore-armed-conflict. with-carolyn-pedwell/). 12 See Rosi Braidotti ‘The Return of the 5 For Slavoj Žižek (2005), when we look Master Narratives.’ http://www.e-quali- to the political landscape we find that ty.nl/assets/e-quality/publicaties/2003/ ‘there is a hidden violence, a political e-quality.final.rosi%20braidotti.pdf. violence that is unlike the subjective violence we are familiar with’ (Žižek References 2005). He argues that aggression and Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2004. Toward violence are found in the underbelly of a Theory of Cultural Trauma. In the social, it is a political organism that Jeffrey C. Alexander ed. Cultural breathes life into its subjects and there- Trauma and Collective Identity, fore is itself the cause of the subjec- Berkeley and London: University tive violence that is visible. See Slavoj of California Press: 1-30. Žižek. 2005. Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. Benjamin, Jessica. 1998. Shadow of the Other, Intersubjectivity and 6 See Metahistory by Hayden White Gender in Psychoanalysis. New (1975), History and Criticism by Dominic York: Routledge. LaCapra (1987) and ‘Historicity in an age of Reality-Fictions’ by Nancy F Bhabha, Homi. 1994. The Location of Partner (1995). Culture. London and New York: Routledge. 7 In an attempt to establish new ways in which to remember slavery, neo- Blake, William. 2008. Visions of the slave narratives use the imagination to Daughters of Albion. In David V. fashion an alternative slavery text by Erdman ed. The Complete Po- reconstructing past realities through re- etry and Prose of William Blake, visioning and imagination. Berkeley and London: University of California Press: 45-59. 8 See David Smith (2007) http://www. guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/mar/27/race. Bok, Francis and Edward Tivnan. 2003. world1. Escape from Slavery: The True Story of My Ten Years in Captiv- 9 See Roger Mortimore and Kully Kaur- ity and My Journey to Freedom Ballagan (2005) http://www.ipsos-mori. in America. New York: St Martin’s com/Assets/Docs/ArchivePublications/ Press. ethnic-minority-voters-and-non-voters. pdf Braidotti, Rosi. The Return of the 174 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

Master Narratives: 0-29. http:// Eyerman, Ron. 2004. Cultural Trauma: www.e-quality.nl/assets/e-quality/ Slavery and the Formation of Af- publicaties/2003/e-quality.final. rican American Identity. In Jeffrey rosi%20braidotti.pdf (accessed 6 C. Alexander ed. Cultural Trauma July 2012). and Collective Identity. Berkeley and London: University of Califor- Braidotti, Rosi. 2006. Affirming the Af- nia Press: 60-111. firmative: On Nomadic Affectiv- ity. Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Fanon, Frantz. 1967. Black Skin, White Emerging Knowledge 11-12. Masks. London: Pluto Press.

Brown, Vincent. 2009. Social Death Feldman, Shosana and Dori Laub. and Political Life in the Study of 1992. Testimony: Crises of Wit- Slavery. The American Historical nessing in Literature, Psycho- Review Vol. 114, (5): 1231-1249 analyses and History. London and New York: Routledge. Butler, Judith. 2005. Giving an account of oneself, New York: Fordham Fernando, Suman. 2002. Mental University Press. Health, Race and Culture. Basing- stoke: Palgrave. Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies that matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. Freud, Sigmund. 2003. Beyond the London and New York: Routledge. Pleasure Principle and Other Writ- ings. London: Penguin UK. Butler, Octavia. 2004. Kindred. Yipsi- lanti MI: Beacon Press. Galloway, Anne. 2006. Collective remembering and the importance Caruth, Cathy. 1991. Unclaimed Expe- of forgetting: a critical design rience: Trauma and the Possibility challenge. http://www.purselip- of History. Yale French Studies: squarejaw.org/papers/galloway_ Literature and the Ethical Ques- chi2006.pdf (accessed 6 July tion 79: 181-192. 2012).

Crossley, Robert. Reader’s Guide: 265- Gilroy, Paul. 1993a. Small Acts: 287. http://www.beacon.org/client/ Thoughts on the Politics of Black pdfs/8369_rg.pdf (accessed 6 Cultures. London: Serpent’s Tail. July 2012). Doss, Erika. 2010. Memorial Mania, Gilroy, Paul. 1993b. The Black Atlantic: Public Feeling in America. Chi- Modernity and Double Conscious- cago and London: University of ness. Cambridge: Harvard Uni- Chicago Press. versity Press.

Dyer, Richard. 1997. White. London Gilroy, Paul. 2000. Against Race: Imag- and New York: Routledge. ining Political Culture Beyond the Colour Line, Cambridge: Harvard Walker: The Future of Slavery 175

University Press. Mother: A Journey Along the At- lantic Slave Route. New York. Far- Gilroy, Paul. 2005. Postcolonial Melan- rar, Straus and Giroux. cholia. New York: Columbia Uni- versity Press. hooks, bell. 2003. Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem. London Gilroy, Paul. 2012. London Riots: A and New York: Simon & Schuster. Conversation between Rosi Braid- otti and Paul Gilroy. http://www. Kansteiner, Wulf. 2002. Finding Mean- rosibraidotti.com/index.php/press/ ing in Memory: Methodological videos/london-riots-conversation- Critique of Collective Memory rosi-gilroy (accessed 6 July 2012). Studies. History and Theory 41: 179-197. Glissant, Edouard (transl. Michael Dash). 1996. Caribbean Dis- Keizer, Arlene R. 2004. Black Subjects: course: Selected Essays. Char- Identity Formation in the Contem- lottesville: University Press of Vir- porary Narrative of Slavery, New ginia. York: Cornell University Press.

Gottlieb, Karla. 2000. The Mother of Kearney. Richard. 2003. Narrative and Us All: a History of Queen Nanny. the Ethics of remembrance. In Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. James Phillips and James Morley eds. Imagination and Its Patholo- Gwendolyn. 2012. The Academic gies. Cambridge: MIT Press: 51- Feminist Goes Global. A Con- 65. versation with Carolyn Pedwell. Feministing, http://feministing. Lacan, Jacques. 1977. The Mir- com/2012/05/22/the-academic- ror Stage as Formative of the feminist-goes-global-a-conver- Function of the I as Revealed in sation-with-carolyn-pedwell/ (ac- Psychoanalytic Experience. In cessed 9 July 2012). Jacques Lacan, Ecrits: A Selec- tion. London: Tavistock: 1-6. Hall, Stuart. 1997. The Local and the Global: Globalisation and Ethnic- Laplanche, Jean. 1999. Essays on Oth- ity. In Anne McClintock et al (eds). erness. London and New York: Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Na- Routledge. tion, and Postcolonial Perspec- tives. London and Minneapolis: LaCapra, Dominick. 1987. The Cheese University of Minnesota Press. and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Twentieth-Century Historian. In Hartman, Saidiya. 2002. The Time of Dominick LaCapra. History and Slavery. South Atlantic Quarterly Criticism. New York: Cornell Uni- Fall 101 (4): 757-777. versity Press: 45-70.

Hartman, Saidiya. 2008. Lose Your LaCapra, Dominick. 1987. History and 176 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

Criticism. New York: Cornell Uni- don: Vintage Classics. versity Press. Mortimore, Roger and Kully Kaur-Balla- Leary, Joy Degruy. 2005. Post Trau- gan. 2005. Ethnic Minority Voters matic Slavery Syndrome: Ameri- and Non-Voters at the 2005 Brit- ca’s Legacy of Injury and Healing, ish General Election. Ipsos Mori Uptone Press. Social Research Institute. http:// www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/ Lipsett, Andrea. 2008. Slavery History Docs/Archive/Publications/ethnic- Lessons to be Compulsory. The minority-voters-and-non-voters. Guardian (online). http://www. pdf (accessed 9 July 2012). guardian.co.uk/education/2008/ aug/26/slavery.schools (accessed Oliver, Kelly. 2001. Witnessing: Beyond 6 July 2012). Recognition. Minneapolis: Univer- sity of Minnesota Press Low, Gail. 1998. ‘A Chorus of Common Memory’: Slavery and Redemp- Patterson Orlando. 1982. Slavery and tion in Caryl Phillip’s Cambridge Social Death: A Comparative and Crossing the River. Research Study. Cambridge, Mass, and in African Literatures. 29 (4): 122- London: Harvard University Press. 141. Parker, Ian. 1997. Psychoanalytic Cul- McCusker, Maeve. 2009. On Slav- ture: Psychoanalytic Discourse in ery, Césaire, and Relating to the Western Society, Thousand Oaks: World: An Interview with Patrick SAGE Publications Ltd. Chamoiseau. Small Axe Number 30 13 (3): 74-83. Partner, Nancy F. 1995. Historicity in an age of Reality-Fictions. In Frank Mama, Amina. 1995. Beyond the Ankersmit and Hans Kellner. A Masks: Race, Gender and Sub- New Philosophy of History. Chi- jectivity. London and New York: cago and London: University of Routledge. Chicago Press: 21-39.

Miller, Nancy K. 2010. Portraits of Grief: Pedwell Carolyn. 2002. Seeing the Self Telling Details and the Testimony in the ‘Other’ and the ‘Other’ in the of Trauma. In Ann Keniston and Self: (Inter-subjective) Reflexivity Jeanne Follansbee Quinn. Litera- – A Methodology for Represent- ture After 9/11. London and New ing ‘Others’. In Feminist Episte- York: Routledge. mologies Collective ed. Marginal Research: Reflections on Loca- Mintz, Sidney W. 1974. Caribbean tion and Representation. London Transformations. New York: Co- School of Economics Gender In- lumbia University Press. stitute: 71-81.

Morrison, Toni. 2010. Beloved. Lon- Radstone, Susannah. 2005. Memory Walker: The Future of Slavery 177

cultures: Memory, Subjectivity, core ‘willing to prepare for armed and Recognition. New Brunswick, conflict. The Guardian - (on New Jersey: Transaction Publish- line). http://www.guardian.co.uk/ ers. world/2012/mar/09/far-right-hardcore-armed-conflict (accessed 6 Radstone, Susannah. 2007. Trauma July 2012). Theory: Contexts Politics, Ethics. Paragraph 30 (1): 9-29. Thomas, Courtney. 2005. History as moral commentary: Ideology and Ricoeur, Paul. 1999. Memory and For- the Ethical Responsibilities of Re- getting. In Richard Kearney and membrance. Nebula. 1 (3): 179- Mark Dooley. Questioning Ethics: 196. Contemporary Debates in Phi- losophy. London and New York: Tyne and Wear Archives and Museum. Routledge: 5-11. We Were Strong: Life on the Plan- tations. http://www.twmuseums. Rothberg, Michael. 2008. Decolonis- org.uk/slavery/online-exhibition/ ing Trauma Studies: A response. we-were-strong/ (accessed 6 July Studies in the novel. 40 (1&2): 2012). 224-234. Walcott, Derek. 2006. The Muse of Smelser, Neil J. 2004. Psychologi- History. In Bill Ashcroft, Gareth cal Trauma and Cultural Trauma. Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. The In Jeffrey C. Alexander. Cultural Postcolonial Studies Reader, Lon- Trauma and Collective Identity. don and New York: Routledge: Berkeley and London: University 370-374. of California Press: 31-59. Walvin, James. 2000. Making The Smith, David. 2007. You, the Queen, Black Atlantic: Britain and the Af- should be ashamed! The Guard- rican Diaspora, London: Cassell. ian (online). http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/mar/27/race. Waugh, Patricia. 2006. Literary Theory world1 (accessed 6 July 2012). and Criticism: An Oxford Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sztompka, Piotr. 2000. Cultural Trau- ma: The other face of social White, Hayden V. 1975. Metahistory: change. European Journal of So- The Historical Imagination in Nine- cial Theory 3 (4): 449-466. teenth Century Europe. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Talvi, Silja J.A. 2002. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome (Interview with Wood, Marcus. 2003. The Poetry of Joy Degruy Leary). http://www.in- Slavery: an Anglo-American An- thesetimes.com/article/2523/ (ac- thology, 1764-1865, Oxford: Ox- cessed 6 July 2012). ford University Press. Taylor, Matthew. 2012. Far right hard- 178 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

Young, Lola. 2007. The Truth in Chains. The Guardian (online). http:// www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/ mar/15/race.past (accessed 6 July 2012).

Žižek, Slavoj. 2005. Violence: Six Side- ways Reflections. London: Profile Books. (De/con)structing Political Narratives: Hannah Arendt and Jacques Derrida on Crafting a Positive Politics

Caitlin Boland

In 1961 the notorious organizer and facilitator of Nazi death camps, Adolf Eichmann, was tried in Jerusalem for war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated during the Second World War. He was found guilty after weeks of often gruesome testimony and in 1962 he was hanged. Hannah Arendt—a Jew who had escaped the Holocaust by fleeing to America—attended his trial. Although the detail and accuracy of her reporting on the trial was widely applauded, the analysis she included throughout her book Eichmann in Jerusalem outraged many who previously had praised her. That Eichmann organized the day-today logistics of the Holocaust Arendt never disputed. That he was responsible for the Holocaust or that his death was somehow retributively just she found not only implausible but counterproductive. Arendt forced her readers to think: are legal and illegal the same as right and wrong? Should they be the same? Can we make them the same? In this article I weave Arendt’s questions and answers about law and politics in with those of Jacques Derrida—a thinker who also cared a great deal about political meaning and responsibility. Derrida’s theory of deconstruction revealed political meaning in stories and poetry, in songs and speeches, in language itself. Taking an interdisciplinary approach I argue that together, Arendt and Derrida shed new light on the significance of political narratives, the importance of remembrance—linguistic, historical, political—and the tragic yet hopeful nature of responsibility.

Keywords: Narrativity, Deconstruction, Plurality, Tesponsibility, Positive Politics

’…yes I said yes I will Yes.’ hope in the word ‘yes,’ and main- ~closing line of James Joyce’s Ulysses taining the backward glance of ‘said,’ the forward-looking, promise- Introduction making of ‘will,’ and the present ur- Embracing the affirmation and the gency of ‘Yes,’ I seek a revitalization

Graduate Journal of Social Science July 2012, Vol. 9, Issue 2 © 2012 by Graduate Journal of Social Science. All Rights Reserved. ISSN: 1572-3763 Boland: (De/con)structing Political Narratives 180 of a positive conception of politics. ogy, Arendt’s use of narratives was Positive politics, as opposed to neg- an attempt to gain understanding ative politics, sees in plurality com- from experience. Since humans munity, not relativism; sees in judg- never have lost the capacity for ment thought, not power; and sees storytelling, Arendt’s approach be- in responsibility hope, not blame. comes especially useful when all And revitalization is key: re (again), other categories of understanding— vita (life), -ization (noun formed objectivity, positivist social science, from a verb, suffix for the condi- rational explanations, cause and tion, act, or process (Warriner 1982, effect discourse, etc.—have failed. 25)). Just as a verb may generate a Paying equal attention to stories, noun, action generates responsibil- but with a finer attention to detail, ity. Thus with a rebirth (re-concep- Derrida articulated a process of de- tion) of a positive politics comes a construction that allows a reader re-affirmation of political responsi- to discover internal contradictions, bility. In this article, I will initiate a conflicts, and complexities in words dialog between Hannah Arendt and and language which undermine the Jacques Derrida that will begin such stability of a text. Derrida intended a revitalization of politics. Essential to illuminate the internal contradic- to a positive politics, though, are tions within words and texts—within what Derrida called ‘specters’—the language itself—but his goal was unpredictable, the irreversible, the loftier than the demonstration of ab- incomprehensible, the impossible, surdity. Derrida placed the burden the undecidable, the unforgivable, of decision-making and responsibil- the dead. ity on the shoulders of political ac- Arendt and Derrida generated tors by denying them recourse to a wealth of critical literature in the linguistic ambiguity. If political texts fields of political theory, philosophy, contain irreconcilable internal com- comparative literature, epistemol- plexities and contradictions, then ogy, metaphysics, intellectual his- political actors, for the sake of prac- tory, and international relations. This tical existence in our world, must article primarily focuses on Arendt’s decide which meanings to favor. narrative method and Derrida’s de- And of course, they must also bear construction, although I will touch the responsibility for their decision. upon many other concepts found Together, Arendt and Derrida shed in their work. Arendt was one of the new light on the significance of po- first political theorists to use- sto litical narratives, the importance of ries as a means of understanding remembrance—linguistic, historical, events; a methodology now termed political—and the tragic yet hopeful ‘the narrative approach.’ Though nature of responsibility. she rarely spoke of her methodol- The theoretical and interpretive 181 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 approaches I will take in this article Arendt’s narrativity are interrelated. I will use the theo- Arendt loved to attribute the fol- ries of narrativity and deconstruction lowing quote to Isak Dinesen and and the interpretive methods of dia- she cited it often: ‘All sorrows can log and interdisciplinarity to investi- be borne if you put them into a story gate Arendt, Derrida, and their con- or tell a story about them’ (Arendt tributions to political theory. I chose 1998, 175). Although she never de- a dialogical interpretive approach in scribed her methodology in a sin- order to generate new understand- gle word, Arendt’s use of stories in ings of narrativity and deconstruc- political theory came to be known tion that are much harder to see as ‘narrativity’ or ‘the narrative ap- when each approach is considered proach.’ In her own words, ‘when- alone. Finally, when putting two the- ever an event occurs that is great oretical methods in dialog with each enough to illuminate its own past, other, unsurprisingly, interdisciplin- history comes into being. Only then arity results. Establishing an inter- does the chaotic maze of past hap- disciplinary interpretive approach penings emerge as a story which allows me to escape the confines of can be told, because it has a be- what predominantly is considered ginning and an end’ (Arendt 1954, ‘political’ in order to show the ways 319). Listening to, telling, and retell- in which language, literature, and ing these stories formed the basis of history are political. Arendt’s approach to politics. This line of investigation may have Simply put, Arendt’s narrative several important implications for approach seeks understanding the politics of futurity. First, it advo- through experience. In The Origins cates a shift away from quantitative, of Totalitarianism (1969), Arendt theoretically uncritical approaches began her inquiry wondering, ‘how to political problem solving. Second, is this possible?’ and ‘how do we it highlights the necessity of interdis- move on?’ rather than ‘what caused ciplinary study to political thinking, or what explains totalitarianism?’ especially the inclusion of history The Third Reich gave birth to the and literature. Third, this paper em- political concept of totalitarianism— phasizes the often overlooked role before then it was an impossibility. of language and narrative in pres- Arendt recognized this, and spent ervation and disremembering, pro- the majority of her book trying to duction and destruction, inclusion understand totalitarianism and learn and exclusion. And fourth, it uses from it. But, as she described it in binaries, dualities, multiplicities, het- her essay ‘Understanding & Politics’ erogeneities, paradoxes, and plu- (1954), ‘understanding, as distin- ralities to grow our understanding of guished from having correct infor- political meaning and responsibility. mation and scientific knowledge, is Boland: (De/con)structing Political Narratives 182 a complicated process which never Jewish side of the story distorted produces unequivocal results. It the truth, even the Jewish truth’ (Ar- is an unending activity by which, endt 2006, 12). Arendt’s controver- in constant change and variation, sial but incisive point—that victims we come to terms with and recon- cannot tell the whole story on their cile ourselves to reality, that is, try own—reinforces her call for plural- to be at home in the world’ (Arendt ity and understanding. As she kept 1954, 307-8). Arendt found that by reminding her readers, this was no increasing the number of stories to ordinary trial, and conventional wis- which she exposed herself—by lis- dom and standard procedure no lon- tening to and telling stories of Nazis, ger sufficed.1 In a more sympathetic Holocaust survivors, soldiers, diplo- passage about the prosecution, she mats, pacifists—she deepened her commented that they faced an un- understanding of the event under precedented dilemma in prosecut- consideration. ing Eichmann because they ‘[were] The example that best illus- unable to understand a mass mur- trates her narrative approach—the derer who had never killed’ (Arendt short work, Eichmann in Jerusalem 2006, 215). Eichmann’s role in the (2006)—also generated the great- Holocaust presented an enormous est controversy. Arendt attended challenge to international law, to Adolf Eichmann’s 1961 trial in Je- psychological understanding, and rusalem and her ‘report on the ba- to moral judgment, not because nality of evil,’ shocked many of her he was the first to commit or even fellow Jews. In addition to faulting condone genocide but because the many Jewish authorities for collabo- totalitarian system shattered ‘our rating with the Nazis—she argued categories of thought and stan- they had the choice of nonpartici- dards of judgment’ (Arendt 1954, pation, even if outright resistance 318). How does one try a man for was impossible—Arendt chastised murder who has never killed? How the prosecution for their handling of does one legitimately punish a man the trial. The parade of witnesses who obediently followed the laws of who came to testify about their ex- his country? How does one classify periences in concentration camps as evil a man who radiates medi- offended Arendt not because she ocrity? These questions cannot be objected to the Jewish survivors answered until one has an under- having a chance to tell their stories standing of totalitarianism, an un- but because only certain Jews were derstanding gained by the pursuit of allowed to testify. ‘In this respect,’ as many perspectives as possible. she wrote, ‘perhaps even more sig- Then and only then can we begin to nificantly than in others, the deliber- judge those involved. ate attempt at the trial to tell only the To engage in politics is to experi- 183 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 ence, to think, to understand, and to not be definable, but as a ‘happen- judge. What disgusted Arendt most ing,’ it is understandable. about Eichmann was his inability Derrida, like Arendt, consistently to do any of these. ‘The longer one reminds his readers that, ‘in lan- listened to him,’ she observed, ‘the guage there are only differences’ more obvious it became that his (Derrida 1968, 10-11). Words only inability to speak was closely con- convey meaning to readers or lis- nected with an inability to think, teners because they are distinct, namely, to think from the standpoint they differ from other words. For ex- of somebody else’ (Arendt 2006, ample, when a reader encounters 12). Telling his story allowed Arendt the word ‘rational,’ he or she only to understand him and to hold him knows its meaning (significance) responsible. because of the non-presence of ‘ir- rational,’ which is presently absent Derrida’s deconstruction but always already there. To rep- Deconstruction, like narrativity, resent this absence of presence in begins with the assumption of plural- a text and to remind the reader of ity, multiplicity, and otherness. Der- the differences that were being as- rida showed first with literature and sumed, Derrida often would use then with metaphysical, philosophi- strikethroughs, writing the word cal, and political texts that whether ‘rational’ as ‘(ir)rational.’ This unre- it is in the form of a novel, an essay, strained, even playful, way of using or a declaration of independence, language infuriated(s) many schol- language never can be reduced to ars. Critics—including many ana- a singular, original, and ‘true’ mean- lytic philosophers, John Searle2, for ing. Words on a page do not refer to example—accuse him of contribut- (signify) a form or logos (truth) that is ing nothing but absurdity, of dem- prior to the text; searching for what onstrating endless difference, of is prior to the text (context) originally making light of moral, political, and led Derrida to the process (happen- ethical problems by playing with lan- ing) of deconstruction. Precisely guage. But Derrida’s insistence on because Derrida calls into question linguistic plurality had wide-ranging the idea of a single, prior, and ab- implications. ‘[Deconstruction],’ he solute meaning of a word, provid- argued, ‘is not opposed to ethics ing a definition of ‘deconstruction’ is and politics, but is their condition: both impossible and counterproduc- on the one hand, it is the condition tive (Derrida 1985, 4). Like all other of history, of process, strategy, de- words though, ‘deconstruction’ has lay, postponement, mediation, and, contextual substitutes: dismantling, on the other hand, because there is desedimentation, destabilization, an absolute difference or an irreduc- undecidability. Deconstruction may ible heterogeneity, there is the urge Boland: (De/con)structing Political Narratives 184 to act and respond immediately and mean the same thing, who com- to face political and ethical respon- bined multiple meanings into a sibilities’ (Derrida 1999, 77). This single word, who emphasized the urge to act is the political side of de- absence of presence as much as construction. presence, who insisted on the im- The key to understanding the po- portance of undecidability, can be litical implications of deconstruction credited with forcing responsibility. is the subtle distinction between un- But more powerfully than an ethicist decidability and indeterminacy. Der- with moral guidelines, a politician rida’s critics accuse him of the latter, with a bureaucratic program, or an claiming that he promotes relativity international relations scholar with of meaning and thereby destroys a predictive or prescriptive theory, the possibility of decision-making. Derrida shows us that decisions ‘But undecidability is not indetermi- are both impossible and imperative. nacy,’ he responds, ‘undecidabil- While acknowledging the undecid- ity is the competition between two ability facing our political leaders, determined possibilities or options, we still must hold them responsible two determined duties. There is no for the decisions they make. Words indeterminacy at all’ (Derrida 1999, are not signifiers of truth and politics 79). In other words, not knowing the is not programmed decision-mak- right answer is a necessary condi- ing—undecidability and deconstruction of decision-making. ‘Far from tion shine a critical light on those de- opposing undecidability to decision,’ cision-makers who otherwise would he continues, ‘I would argue that hide behind linguistic, moral, and there would be no decision, in the political ambiguities. strong sense of the word, in ethics, in politics, no decision, and thus no There is nothing outside the text’ responsibility, without the experi- ‘There is nothing outside the text,’ ence of some undecidability’ (Der- Derrida famously commented (Der- rida 1999, 66). rida 1988, 136): Double gestures pervade Derri- ‘The phrase which for some has da’s work—‘respect and disrespect, been a sort of slogan, in general fidelity and violation, preservation so badly understood, of decon- and emancipation, description and struction…means nothing else: transformation,’ absence and pres- there is nothing outside context. ence, undecidability and decision, In this form, which says exactly playfulness and deadly serious- the same thing, the formula would ness (Royle 2003, 32). Perhaps it doubtless have been less shock- is difficult to see how someone who ing. I am not certain that it would refused to be bound by methodol- have provided more to think ogy, who chose multiple words to about,’ (Derrida 1988, 136). 185 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

Making ‘text’ and ‘context’ synon- her own thinking: ymous was Derrida’s way of dem- Like a pearl diver who descends onstrating that texts are more than to the bottom of the sea, not to ex- words on a page—they are carriers cavate the bottom and bring it to of meaning, producers of history, light but to pry loose the rich and promise makers, liars, tricksters, the strange […] What guides this specters. ‘There is nothing outside thinking is the conviction that al- the text’ means one need not look though the living is subject to the elsewhere for answers, that decon- ruin of time, the process of decay struction is ever-present and ever- is at the same time a process of occurring. Arendt’s phrase for a very crystallization, that in the depth similar process was ‘pearl diving.’ of the sea, into which sinks and Although the Arendtian understand- is dissolved what once was alive, ing of ‘pearl diving’ is more of an ac- some things ‘suffer a sea-change’ tion than the doer-less happening of and survive in new crystallized deconstruction, both terms signify forms and shapes that remain im- a process of generating (that is, of mune to the elements […] (Benja- gathering or uncovering) meaning in min 1968, 50-1). texts. The idea that history is more a Pearl diving record of pearl diving than of ‘true’ In her introduction to Walter Ben- chronological events has a Foucaul- jamin’s Illuminations (1968), Arendt dian and even a Nietzschean ring to quoted the following passage from it.3 Although her attention to mean- Act I Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s The ing stood opposed to much of Ni- Tempest: etzsche’s nihilism and her insistence Full fathom five thy father lies, on plurality contradicted his theory Of his bones are coral made, of the Übermensch4 (see Arendt Those are pearls that were his eyes 1998, 190), Arendt most certainly Nothing of him that doth fade would have agreed with his oft-cited But doth suffer a sea-change dictum that ‘there are no facts.’ One Into something rich and strange of the aphorisms in his book, The (Benjamin 1968, 38). Will to Power (1968), hints at this process of pearl diving: ‘Interpreta- She adopted the image of the tion,’ the introduction of meaning— pearl, of something that once was not ‘explanation’ (in most cases a alive but now waits to be raised, new interpretation over an old inter- examined, and cherished, as a pretation that has become incom- metaphor for her approach to po- prehensible, that is now itself only a litical theory. The way she described sign). There are no facts, everything Benjamin’s work—his ability to think is in flux, incomprehensible, elusive; poetically—also aptly characterizes Boland: (De/con)structing Political Narratives 186 what is relatively most enduring This narrative approach to history is—our opinions’ (Nietzsche 1968, and politics, an approach designed 327). Arendt understood history in both to inform and to instruct, is con- precisely this way—as a process of troversial among political theorists interpretation, not explanation. His- because Arendt refused to feign tory only comes about when a diver neutrality.5 Her readers always knew explores the depths, raises certain her views on any given subject. As pearls, and leaves others behind. Lisa Disch insightfully remarks in Arendt’s propensity for pearl div- her article on Arendt’s methodol- ing, for selecting and examining ogy, ‘storytelling signals [Arendt’s] pieces of history, for favoring certain resistance against the dictate that stories over others, for discussing the political thinker must withdraw limited aspects of political culture, to a vantage point beyond the so- for engaging parts of texts but al- cial world in order to understand its most never the whole, became the relations of power and adjudicate central concern of many of her crit- its conflicts of interest’ (Disch 1993, ics. In an article about Arendt’s con- 668). Arendt was not interested in troversial approach to history, Judith ‘objectivity’ as it typically is under- Shklar made the observation that stood. In fact, she sought a redefi- Arendt’s method was more than a nition of the concept altogether. In personal preference, that it carried reply to colleagues who accused important political ramifications: her of sentimentality, moralizing, [Arendt] became convinced that and failing to be objective, Arendt the notion of history as an inevi- argued that her narrative approach table process contributed materi- to history was truer to the nature of ally to the mentality of totalitarian events and thus, in a sense, more leaders…It is therefore hardly as- ‘objective’ than traditional political tonishing that she resorted to so theory. ‘In this sense,’ she writes, ‘I different a way of considering the think that a description of the [con- past. It is selective, dwelling only centration] camps as hell on earth on those moments that have a is more ‘objective,’ that is, more ad- constructive present bearing, and equate to their essence than state- it emphasizes the avoidable in ments of a purely sociological or contrast to the inevitable (Shklar psychological nature.’ And she went 1977, 87). further, claiming that, ‘to describe the concentration camps sine ira is Her goal, it seems, was to tell the not to be ‘objective,’ but to condone tragic stories of history as if they them’ (Arendt 1953, 79). Arendt’s might have been otherwise and to redefinition of objectivity resembles ask us to think about our futures in her emphasis on understanding non-inevitable terms. over explanation, on interpretation 187 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 over the gathering of ‘facts.’ Her events that interested her. In order failure to be ‘objective’ in the usual to understand Eichmann’s role in the sense of the word is the true power Final Solution, Arendt concentrated of the narrative approach. on his mediocrity and his obedience In a 2006 article in Atlantic Month- instead of on his moral deprav- ly, E. L. Doctorow surveyed vari- ity and political power (see Arendt ous pieces of Western literature— 2006). In her section on Dinesen in Homer’s Iliad, Melville’s Moby Dick, Men in Dark Times (1968), Arendt Shakespeare’s Richard III, and Tol- praised the wisdom of Dinesen’s stoy’s War and Peace, among oth- storytelling instead of the accuracy ers—with an eye to the question in of her reporting on a story that hap- his subtitle: ‘Who would give up the pened to be true (see Arendt 1968, Iliad for the ‘real’ historical record?’. 95-109). Even in her criticisms of The section on War and Peace illus- Karl Marx, Arendt focused more trates the fiction of history, the truth on the problems with his storytell- of fiction, and the political dimension ing and his interpretations of history of narrativity. After summarizing Tol- than on the ‘fact’ that his utopic vi- stoy’s physical description of Napo- sion did not turn out as planned (see leon, Doctorow notes that: Arendt 1998, 159-165). The current The issue here is not the accuracy that runs through all of her work, of Tolstoy’s description—it seems whether she is writing about history, not that far off from nonfictive ac- politics, or literature, is the desire to counts—but its selectivity: other capture and record stories that give things that could be said of the meaning, to polish and preserve man are not said. We are meant these pearls. to understand the incongruity of a warring imperator in the body of a The force of fiction fat little Frenchman. Tolstoy’s Na- The manner in which Derrida poleon could be a powdered bou- approached the problem of objectiv- levardier putting a pinch of snuff ity bears a striking resemblance to up his nose—and that is the point. Arendt’s approach: both discussed The consequences of such a dis- objectivity in a larger section on parity of form and content can be Benjamin and both used the ex- counted in dead soldiers strewn ample of the Holocaust to illustrate across the European continent the dangers in the perceived neu- (Doctorow 2006, 88-9). trality of objectivity. In his lecture Force of Law: The ‘Mystical Foun- Doctorow’s point about Tolstoy’s dations of Authority’ (1989), Derrida treatment of Napoleon applies deconstructs the idea of legal au- equally well to Arendt’s treatment thority, highlighting the paradox that of the many historical people and enforceability requires force. ‘How Boland: (De/con)structing Political Narratives 188 are we to distinguish,’ he asks, ‘be- tions leads to a sense of normalcy. tween the force of law of a legitimate ‘[O]ne cannot think the uniqueness power and the supposedly originary of an event like the final solution, as violence that must have established extreme point of mythic and repre- this authority and that could not it- sentational violence, within its own self have been authorized by any system,’ Derrida argued. ‘One must anterior legitimacy, so that, in this try to think beginning with its other, initial moment, it is neither legal nor that is to say, starting from what it illegal—or, others would quickly say, tried to exclude and to destroy, to ex- neither just or unjust?’ (Derrida 1989, terminate radically, from that which 6). Such seemingly simple ques- haunted it at once from without and tions rock the foundation of Western within (Derrida 1989, 59-60).’ legal authority. Derrida continues The mythological scale of the his line of questioning and eventu- violence of the Holocaust and the ally demonstrates that law is not jus- attempt to exterminate the ‘other’— tice, that law is deconstructable but this attack on plurality also deeply justice is not, that deconstruction offended Arendt—generated in Der- is justice. By disassociating justice rida a desire to demonstrate that and law Derrida challenged legal law is not and cannot be conflated authority and by demonstrating that with justice. Deconstructing law and deconstruction is ever-occurring, he objectivity allowed Derrida to chal- shattered the guise of objectivity. lenge the sense of normalcy that In praising novelists over histo- inevitably arises when such crimes rians, E. L. Doctorow commented are tried in the usual manner: that, ‘to be conclusively objective [Nazi Germany] kept the archive is to have no cultural identity, to ex- of its destruction […] with a ter- ist in such existential solitude as to rifying legal, bureaucratic, statist have, in fact, no place in the world’ objectivity and paradoxically pro- (Doctorow 2006, 92). Arendt clearly duced a system in which its logic, agreed with this statement, but as the logic of objectivity made possi- far as Derrida was concerned, she ble the invalidation and therefore did not take her critique of objectiv- the effacement of testimony and ity far enough. In her report on Eich- responsibilities, the neutralization mann’s trial, Arendt sought to un- of the singularity of the final solu- derstand the accused in the context tion…even ‘normalize[d]’ it as an of Nazi law and political culture. But act of war (Derrida 1989, 60). Derrida saw a danger in Arendt’s approach, the danger that limiting the Thus, the best weapon against context in which Eichmann can be the normalization of such violence judged and attempting to be ‘objec- is not law, but literature.6 tive’ in one’s assessment of his ac- Barbara Leckie explores Der- 189 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 rida’s use of literature as a method ments in his article on the history of legal critique in her extraordinary of fiction, E. L. Doctorow asserted article, ‘The Force of Law and Liter- that, ‘the novelist hopes to lie his ature’ (1995). Literature, as Derrida way to a greater truth than is pos- understands it, ‘carries a ‘revealing sible with factual reportage’ (Doc- power’ with respect to language; it torow 2006, 92). Although reading shares certain similarities with the Derrida’s Force of Law (1989) high- law, ‘but at a certain point it can also lights some potential problems with exceed them, interrogate them, ‘fic- Arendt’s reporting of the Eichmann tionalize’ them’’ (Leckie 1995, 118). trial, her narrative style, her free use Literature’s ability to ‘fictionalize’ the of ‘nonobjective’ commentary, and law, to deconstruct it, to challenge most importantly, her rendering of its authority and objectivity, leads an alternative, fictitious verdict re- to a blurring of the disciplinary lines inforces Derrida’s challenge to le- and a reemphasis on the narrativity gal authority. After two hundred and of politics. ‘Not only does literature seventy-seven pages of ‘factual’ re- simultaneously depend on and in- porting on Eichmann’s trial, Arendt terrogate laws,’ Leckie writes: concluded the epilogue with the ...but the law—the continual sub- verdict she wished the court would ject of narratives—can only be have handed down: understood as self-contradicto- Just as you supported and carry, lacking in pure essence, and ried out a policy of not wanting to structurally related to what Der- share the earth with the Jewish rida terms différance or, in its people and the people of a num- metaphysical sense, ‘literature’. ber of other nations—as though The disciplinary integrity of both you and your superiors had any law and literature, then, are both right to determine who should and thoroughly ‘contaminated’ at the should not inhabit the world—we outset (Leckie 1995, 116). find that no one, that is, no member of the human race, can be ex- Derrida insisted on the ‘contami- pected to want to share the earth nation’ of disciplines in order to le- with you. This is the reason, and gitimate literature as a method of the only reason, you must hang legal critique. In this way, literature (Arendt 2006, 279). transcends history, politics, and law, because literature acknowledges This alternative verdict—whether its own fictive qualities and it can one agrees with Arendt or not—un- reveal the fictive qualities of those dermines the legitimacy of the actu- disciplines that cling so futilely to the al verdict by revealing its inadequa- guise of objectivity. cies. Eichmann was condemned to In one of the most insightful com- death on shaky legal precedent and Boland: (De/con)structing Political Narratives 190 in a country with no real authority to Disch 1993, 673)—was the Nazis’ try him, yet his execution was hailed attempt to force disremembering. by many as a triumph of interna- Examples of such negation and tional law. Arendt touched upon the willful forgetting abound. In Vic- ‘true’ reason for our abhorrence of tor Hugo’s Les Misérables (1862), Eichmann’s actions in her fictitious Jean Valjean is referred to as pris- verdict, and through Derrida we can oner number 24601 so that even he acknowledge her verdict as a valid loses the sense of his own worth. legal critique. Looming over Arlington Cemetery in Washington, D.C. is the Tomb of the What’s in a name? Unknown Soldier, famous because Returning to the metaphor of his identity is unknown, because he the pearl diver, Arendt once com- will not be forced to join his commented that, ‘there is no more ef- rades buried under row after row of fective way to break the spell of tra- white crosses until a name can be dition than to cut out the ‘rich and etched on his tombstone. The folly strange,’ coral and pearls, from what in Romeo’s plan to marry Juliet with- had been handed down in one solid out his family’s consent consists pre- piece’ (Benjamin 1968, 40). Cutting cisely in their failure to understand out the ‘rich and strange’ is what Ar- the implications of Juliet’s question, endt and Derrida sought to do, each ‘what’s in a name?’ (Romeo & Ju- in their own way. But in addition to liet, Act II Scene 2). Memory is in a the construction and destruction of name. History is in a name. Politics political narratives, Arendt and Der- is in a name. Together Arendt and rida jointly passed to posterity an un- Derrida taught us where to begin derstanding of the role of language our search for political meaning: in in preservation and disremember- language, in stories, in names. ing. One of the most disturbing elements of the Holocaust, for Der- To think is to judge: tracing politi- rida, was the systematic destruction cal responsibility of names. ‘[W]hat the [Nazis] tried Over the centuries, the to exterminate,’ he writes, ‘was not search for meaning has consumed only human lives by the millions, many influential thinkers and - gen natural lives, but also a demand for erated a multitude of schools of justice; and also names: and first of thought. From various forms of reli- all the possibility of giving, inscrib- gion and spirituality, to hedonism, ex- ing, calling and recalling the name’ istentialism, and nihilism, ‘meaning’ (Derrida 1989, 60). has maintained its central place in Destroying the record of their vic- Western thought, even in the works tims’ names—what Arendt referred of those who deny its existence or to as negating their humanity (see importance. Eschewing both singu- 191 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 lar and eternal meaning, Arendt and perspective, and combating the fear Derrida found a way to speak about of the other. A careful analysis of Ar- meaning without advocating one. endt’s writings on plurality reveals For Arendt, finding meaning was this three-step process toward the not a quest for an unchanging truth generation of meaning and the as- but rather the pursuit of understand- sumption of political responsibility. ing and acceptance. Similarly, Der- First, Arendt insists that pro- rida believed that the exposure of ductive and memorable public ac- infinite meanings was a necessary tions begin with an acknowledge- precondition for decision-making ment that ‘not one man, but men, and responsibility. Although faulting inhabit the earth’ (Arendt 1998, the Jewish leadership for their role 234). In a thinly veiled attack on the in the Holocaust seems incredibly Nietzschean Übermensch, Arendt insensitive and deconstructing the argues that: Western canon may appear to dis- The popular belief in a ‘strong credit it, both endeavors require a man’ who, isolated against oth- good deal more thought than politi- ers, owes his strength to his being cal correctness otherwise would de- alone is either sheer superstition, mand. In the preface to The Human based on the delusion that we can Condition, Arendt articulated her ‘make’ something in the realm of most fundamental motive for con- human affairs…or it is conscious ducting political theory the way she despair of all action, political and did: ‘What I propose, therefore, is non-political, coupled with the uto- very simple: it is nothing more than pian hope that it may be possible to think what we are doing’ (Arendt to treat men as one treats other 1998, 5). Although they offended ‘material’ (Arendt 1998, 188). many along the way, Arendt and Derrida certainly made us think what A man may fabricate some- we are doing. Thinking, as they un- thing—a chair, a sword, a novel— derstood it, leads to judgment, and in isolation, but he never can act responsibility must follow. in isolation. The existence of other people—the initial and superficial The politics of plurality definition of plurality—is what allows Plurality, ‘acting and speaking to- for speech and action, and thus for gether,’ is the very condition of poli- politics, and thus for meaning and tics. But for Arendt, plurality signifies remembrance. more than the existence of a multi- The second step toward the tude of people. Plurality is an active generation of meaning and respon- force. It requires accepting that we sibility in Arendt’s political thought do not inhabit the earth alone, com- is the ability to think from another’s mitting to thinking from another’s perspective. In one of the most un- Boland: (De/con)structing Political Narratives 192 forgiving passages in all her works, whatever happens to come to pass Arendt describes what she consid- or to attract attention, regardless of ers Eichmann’s ultimate failing: results and specific content, could ‘bragging is a common vice,’ she this activity be among the condi- wrote, ‘and a more specific, and also tions that make men abstain from more decisive, flaw in Eichmann’s evil-doing or even actually ‘condi- character was his almost total inabil- tion’ them against it?’ (Arendt 1978, ity ever to look at anything from the 5). Her resounding conclusion was, other fellow’s point of view’ (Arendt ‘yes.’ The ability and the commit- 2006, 47-8). The concluding sen- ment to think for one’s self—which tence of her report on Eichmann’s also encompasses a commitment to trial garnered instant fame because think from someone else’s perspec- it ran counter to the most common tive—precludes the performance of assumptions about evil. The lesson evil actions. A self-reflective person Eichmann taught her as he was led has no one to blame but him or her- to the gallows was ‘the lesson of the self; thought is the crucial ingredient fearsome, word-and-thought-defy- in responsibility. ing banality of evil’ (Arendt 2006, The third and final obligation 252). Eichmann’s greatest sin, ac- of plurality is not to fear the ‘other’ cording to Arendt, was the sin of re- but to seek enrichment in multiple fusing to think.7 Over a decade after perspectives. With this understand- the publication of Eichmann in Jeru- ing of plurality comes meaning, for salem in 1963, the association be- ‘the inexhaustible richness of hu- tween evil actions and thoughtless- man discourse is infinitely more ness still fascinated her. Recalling significant and meaningful than Eichmann’s demeanor, she noted any One Truth could ever be’ (Topf that, ‘the deeds were monstrous, 1978, 363). But this obligation does but the doer…was quite ordinary, not require magnanimity or empathy commonplace, and neither demonic so much as an acceptance of real- nor monstrous…[his] only notable ity. As Arendt noted, ‘the language characteristic…was not stupidity but of the Romans, perhaps the most thoughtlessness’ (Arendt 1978, 4). political people we have known, This observation led to her investi- used the words ‘to live’ and ‘to be gation of how we think and ultimate- among men’ (inter homines esse) or ly to the series of lectures she gave ‘to die’ and ‘to cease to be among entitled The Life of the Mind (1978). men’ (inter homines esse desinere) In the introduction to the published as synonyms’ (Arendt 1998, 8). The version, she told her readers that ‘other’ need not be the enemy; his the impetus for this project was the or her existence is a necessary con- question: ‘Could the activity of think- dition for the generation of meaning. ing as such, the habit of examining This insistence on the multiplicity of 193 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 meaning is also where the thought declare war against a noun?—these of Arendt and of Derrida most close- acts of violence are allowed to occur ly overlap. relatively unregulated by the ‘rules In a recent article in the Ger- of war.’ Torture can be used as long man Law Journal, Elisabeth Weber as the victims of torture are labeled makes a brief but compelling argu- ‘enemy combatants’ and not ‘pris- ment that, ‘deconstruction is justice oners of war.’ In fact, torture is not since it calls for an untiring, in prin- torture anymore—it is ‘enhanced in- ciple infinite, because never ‘fin- terrogation.’ Attacks on civilians can ished,’ analysis of the philosophical be forgiven as accidents instead heritage and its juridicopolitical sys- of prosecuted as war crimes. And tems, an analysis that is inseparable most importantly, by fighting a con- from an equally infinite responsibil- cept and not a people or a nation, ity’ (Weber 2005, 184). She shows the West can continue to view itself that the dominant power—as Derri- as unequivocally ‘right’ and virtuous. da defined it, ‘the one that manages The phrase ‘war on terror’ is both to impose and, thus, to legitimate, descriptive and deceptive; it serves indeed to legalize (for it is always to justify the dominant powers but it a question of law) on a national or is also haunted by those it seeks to world stage, the terminology and silence. Only by understanding the thus the interpretation that best suits plurality of meanings and intentions it in a given situation’ (Weber 2005, embedded within this phrase can we 183)—is always in danger of being begin to assign responsibility to our challenged by deconstruction, a po- political leaders. The slogan used sition she holds in direct contradic- by Big Brother in George Orwell’s tion to many of Derrida’s critics who dystopic novel 1984 (1949) sum- see deconstruction as nothing more marizes the power of ‘doublespeak’ than ‘an aestheticizing apolitical and best of all: ‘War is peace. Freedom ahistorical exercise’ (Weber 2005, is slavery. Ignorance is strength.’ In 179). For example: the dominant Orwell’s novel, the government un- international powers, the United derstood the power of language and States of America and its Western sought to change reality through European allies, have employed the language—but phrases like ‘war on term ‘war on terror’ to characterize terror’ demonstrate that his story, in their military actions in the Middle many ways, is true. Deconstruction East. These military actions are a is justice because it uses the plural- war in the sense that they are orga- ity of language not to distort reality, nized, state-sponsored acts of vio- but to reveal it. lence, but since the United States Congress has refused to declare war—and besides, how does one Boland: (De/con)structing Political Narratives 194

The hope of responsibility judge is a calculating machine, As the previous section outlined, which happens, and we will not plurality, in the sense in which Ar- say that he is just, free, and re- endt and Derrida spoke of it, is a sponsible (Derrida 1989, 23). necessary condition of responsibility. To understand why this allows The strongest indication of Ar- for a positive conception of poli- endt’s agreement with Derrida’s tics, though, one must understand assessment of justice and respon- that Arendt and Derrida raised the sibility is her report on Adolf Eich- threshold for what counts as ‘re- mann. The fact that Eichmann was sponsibility.’ They did not mean to convicted, tried, found guilty, and equate blame or guilt or even causa- hanged for his role in the Final Solu- tion with responsibility. Responsibil- tion did not, in Arendt’s eyes, prove ity—in typical Derridian fashion—is his responsibility. By her descrip- a double gesture of acceptance and tion, Eichmann was a man ‘who refusal, of action and abstention, of never made a decision on his own, promising and forgiving, of remem- who was extremely careful always bering and forgetting, of seeking to be ‘covered’ by orders, who… others’ perspectives and relying on did not even like to volunteer sug- one’s own judgment. Responsibility gestions and always required ‘direc- is understanding the past and think- tives’’ (Arendt 2006, 94). He was ing and judging in the present, with not a monster, but a clown, not evil, hope for the future. but thoughtless (Arendt 2006, 54). If Derrida’s disassociation of law this pathetic character can be held and justice resulted in a challenge responsible for the Holocaust, if his to legal authority and an accom- death is somehow retributively just, panying increase in political re- then we as a society mean very lit- sponsibility. By undermining the tle by the words ‘responsibility’ and ‘justness’ of law, Derrida denied ‘justice.’ Certainly Derrida and Ar- politicians recourse to the law endt demanded more. when trying to determine a just A haunting sense of tragedy in- course of action. That something evitably accompanies any discus- is legal or illegal says nothing sion of justice and responsibility, for about whether it is right or wrong: these concepts take on their true Each case is other, each deci- significance in dark times. Arendt sion is different and requires an spoke of the tragic heroes of Greek absolutely unique interpretation, lore, the quest for immortality that which no existing, coded rule can plagues mortal beings, and the pre- or ought to guarantee absolutely. ventability of so many human atroci- At least, if the rule guarantees it ties. ‘She elevated politics and po- in no uncertain terms, so that the litical action to the level of epic and 195 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 tragedy,’ noted Sheldon Wolin, ‘not paradox of tragedy but in seeming- in order to exonerate actors from ly paralyzing indecision, although their misdeeds or to glorify a partic- the unpredictability of action which ular nation, but to impose a demand forms a central part of Arendt’s work upon those who presumed to de- makes its appearance in Derrida’s cide great public matters and upon as well. Political actors are faced those who presumed to theorize with impossible decisions every day, about political actors and actions’ impossible because their outcomes (Wolin 1977, 91). Much is at stake are unknown and unknowable. The in discussions of the political and greatest threat Derrida sensed in only a grave and seemingly tragic modern politics was the drive for sin- tone would suffice. But the tone of gularity and simplicity. Rules, plans, Arendt’s writing stood in sharp con- programs, bureaucracies, operate trast to the hope she held for natal- on the assumption of decidability: if ity, change, and action. A religious x happens, we will respond with y. metaphor is not inappropriate here: ‘The privilege granted to unity, to to- she sought remembrance and rec- tality, to organic ensembles, to com- onciliation in the hope of a brighter munity as a homogenized whole— future.8 By seeking out the exclud- this is a danger for responsibility, ed, the disregarded, the forgotten, for decision, for ethics, for politics,’ the disremembered, the erased, the Derrida explained in an interview dead, Arendt adds to the number of (Derrida 1997, 13). True decision stories, experiences, and perspec- making depends on the uncertainty tives that can be considered in future of the outcome. political debates. And in so doing In addition to their similar discus- she forces decision-makers either sions of language, narrativity, and to silence her as well or to think. plurality, Arendt and Derrida share Thinking necessitates judgment, two more fundamental similarities: and she based her assessment of both convey an urgent mandate to the quality of political judgments on think and both are fundamentally the politician’s ability to think from hopeful because of their willingness another’s perspective. In a paradox to embrace that which is so often that Arendt understood no less than considered frightening in politics, Derrida, hope for the future only the ‘other.’ In an example that brings arises from an understanding of the to mind Arendt’s discussion about tragedy of the past, and responsibil- her methodology of ‘pearl diving’ ity is only possible because humans as an attempt to avoid totalitarian have an ever-present capacity for thinking, Derrida spoke of plurality failure. within contemporary debates over In contrast to Arendt, the hopeful- the politics of identity: ness in Derrida’s work lies not in the We often insist nowadays on cul- Boland: (De/con)structing Political Narratives 196

tural identity—for instance, na- narrative approach to political theo- tional identity, linguistic identity, ry and Derrida’s articulation of de- and so on. Sometimes the strug- construction could tell us about the gles under the banner of cultural importance of political narratives. identity, national identity, linguis- In support of my conclusions, the tic identity, are noble fights. But United States Congress has been at the same time the people who debating various ways to cope with fight for their identity must pay the crushing weight of America’s attention to the fact that identity debt. Among the possible solutions is not the self-identity of a thing, are tax increases. But the narrative this glass for instance, this micro- about the American middle-class is phone, but implies a difference so powerful and so pervasive that within identity. […] Once you take even the most progressive Senators into account this inner and other have agreed to a discourse about difference, then you pay attention taxes that assigns those households to the other and you understand making up to $250,000 a year the that fighting for your own identity label ‘middle-class,’ which exempts is not exclusive of another iden- them from tax increases. And this at tity, is open to another identity. a time when the average annual in- And this prevents totalitarianism, come in America has declined to just nationalism, egocentrism, and so over $40,000 (Social Security On- on (Derrida 1997, 13-4). line 2010). Cloaked in the rhetoric of the working middle-class, the lightly- In other words, plurality is inher- taxed high-wage earners in America ent in any cultural identity. Against have succeeded (with ample help the singularity so often imposed by from Congress) in steering the de- power, narrativity gathers this plu- bate toward which social programs ralism and deconstruction exposes should be cut in order to reign in the it. Arendt’s approach can be sum- deficit. The longer some politicians marized as remembrance and rec- further the narrative about middle- onciliation, Derrida’s as deconstruc- class millionaires, and the longer tion and decision, but both rely on their opponents accept these terms the plurality of experience, the mul- of debate without questioning the tiplicity of meaning, the urgency of narrative and linguistic framework, thinking, the necessity of judging, the more powerful this narrative and the hopefulness of responsibil- (and its beneficiaries) becomes. But ity. the debate about the American tax code is only one example of many A story is only the beginning found on the nightly news. Clever In this article I set out to ex- phrases like ‘the war on terror,’ ‘pro- plore what a joint reading of Arendt’s life,’ ‘The Freedom to Farm Act,’ and 197 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

‘the Death Tax’ all give witness to Arendt sought understanding the sophisticated way in which gov- from experience, reconciliation from ernments and politicians have used remembrance, and hope from trag- language to frame debates and al- edy. Her work on plurality serves as ter (that is, create a new) reality. But a beautiful reminder that we do not luckily for those who oppose political inhabit the earth alone—the ‘other’ ‘double-speak,’ in these debates, is necessary not only for politics one can fight fire with fire. One of but for meaning and even for real- the most potent antidotes to political ity. ‘Only the experience of sharing power is a people’s innate ability to a common human world with others tell a story. who look at it from different perspec- Today, Tolstoy is remembered as tives can enable us to see reality in one of the greatest supporters of the the round and to develop a shared Russian peasants. Charles Dickens common sense,’ she wrote, ‘With- has been honored with a similar po- out it, we are each driven back on sition in support of the working poor our own subjective experience, in in Victorian England, as has Virginia which only our feelings, wants, and Woolf of pre-suffrage women, Hugo desires have reality’ (Arendt, 1998, of revolutionaries in nineteenth- xvii). Her narrative approach was century France and Foucault of one of the first political theories to revolutionaries in twentieth-century see in stories the true seed of resis- France. It is no accident that writ- tance and change. But those who ers, novelists, thinkers, storytellers, would use Arendt’s theories to legiti- theorists of language and history, mate nontraditional forms of politics outlive most contemporary politi- must also accept her demanding cians in the cultural memory of suc- call for inclusion, understanding, cessive generations. We remember and responsibility. Irish ballads may these great men and women in part be used to fight British dominance, because their stories took on lives but they may not be used to exclude of their own. As Arendt said, ‘even Protestants or gypsies from partici- though stories are the inevitable pation in Irish society. Stories of the results of action, it is not the actor Holocaust may be told by survivors but the storyteller who perceives to their children in order to preserve and ‘makes’ the story’ (Arendt 1998, the memories and begin reconcili- 192). Therein lies the true potential ation, but they may not be told to of the political theory of Arendt and exonerate the Jewish people from Derrida: their stories have outlived violence done toward the Palestin- them and they have left us with the ians. Arendt’s narrative approach at theoretical tools to craft a positive once widens the field of traditional politics. political theory and raises the standard for political participation and Boland: (De/con)structing Political Narratives 198 responsibility. the assumption found in most reli- Coupled with the more playful but gions that man is not omniscient or equally serious Derrida, Arendt’s omnipotent. We do not and cannot work takes on an urgency and a know what will come, we are subject hopefulness that are necessary if a to the threefold frustration of action, positive revitalization of politics is to we must exist in a world inhabited be effected. No text was sacred for by others, but still we must act. To- Derrida - that is, no text was beyond gether Arendt and Derrida help to his critical analysis and the ever-de- dispel the fear of the other, the fear stabilizing effect of deconstruction. of decision, and the fear of action The Declaration of Independence, while demanding thought, plurality, the Laws of Plato, and the Hebrew and responsibility. Bible were as likely to be the fo- Reading Joyce’s Ulysses (2007) cus of his radical approach as the first awakened in Derrida his fasci- in-themselves-radical works of Hei- nation with the playfulness and the degger, Kafka, or Joyce. Whether endless possibilities of language. In he was writing about literature, phi- many ways, Joyce was the literary losophy, or international relations, frontrunner of deconstruction and Derrida’s recurring emphasis on he faced as much outrage over his linguistic plurality and undecidabil- alleged irreverence as Derrida did. ity made his subjects political. That Joyce rewrote the standard Catho- words differ from themselves; that lic sign of the cross, ‘In the name of the intention of the author matters the Father and of the Son and of the less than the contextual interpreta- Holy Spirit. Amen.’ to read: ‘In the tion, that the outcome of a decision name of the former and of the lat- cannot be known beforehand in or- ter and of their holocaust. Allmen’ der for a decision to take place - all (Joyce 2007, 419). Sacrilegious these conditions add to a sense of perhaps, but the beauty in Joyce’s urgency about political decisions rendition is its prayer to and for hu- and demand responsibility for those manity. We remember the past, we decisions. Deconstruction is justice hope for the future, and we present- because justice cannot be decon- ly call on all men. Embedded within structed - it is the only thing immune Arendt’s narrative approach and to the destabilization of language. Derrida’s deconstruction is a similar It is the only standard by which we call. In a time when politics so often may judge right and wrong; it is the is characterized by wealth, power, foundation of ethics, politics, and war, fear, and division, Arendt and morality. But in a sense, decon- Derrida are hopeful without being struction assumes the fundamen- naïve. They demand action as well tal premise of a Western tradition as responsibility. They revitalize a that it simultaneously deconstructs: sense of community that rightfully 199 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 belongs in the heart of politics. And turn out to be silly or trivial’ (Searle they say both to those who have 1982). He also opined that, ‘Authors and to that which has been lost, for- who are concerned with discovering gotten, or silenced, ‘yes I said yes I the truth are concerned with evidence will Yes’ (Joyce 2007, 806). and reasons, with consistency and in- consistency, with logical consequences, explanatory adequacy, verification Endnotes 1 and testability. But all of this is part of Adolf Eichmann was a high-ranking the apparatus of the very “logo-centri- member of the Nazi party in Germany cism” that deconstruction seeks to un- during the Second World War. He was dermine’ (Searle 1982). tasked with running the day-to-day operations of the Holocaust – literally 3 Michel Foucault, heavily influenced making sure the trains ran on time. by the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, After the fall of the Third Reich, Eich- problematized the Western approach mann escaped to Argentina where he to history. Instead of recounting past eluded the famed Nazi-hunters until his events with an air of inevitability, Fou- capture by Israeli intelligence agents cault preferred what he termed the ‘ge- in 1960. He was taken to Jerusalem nealogical approach.’ He would take a and tried and convicted for war crimes historical happening, like the rise of the and crimes against humanity. In 1962 Western penal system, and trace its or- he was hanged. His case presented igins in the social and political thought unique difficulties for the prosecution of the society out of which such an in- because although he organized the stitution arose. His goal was to demon- Nazi death camps, Eichmann never strate that many of the developments personally killed anyone. He also care- we understand to be rational, inevitable fully followed German law at the time, and progressive are, in fact, none of so prosecutors could not charge him these. His approach to historiography with breaking any laws. Additionally, is similar to Arendt’s in that they both there were many who questioned Is- seek to dispel the notion that a single, rael’s authority to try a German citizen. chronological, and comprehensive his- See Eichmann in Jerusalem (2006) for tory exists or can be created. Arendt’s discussions of the problems and complexities of this trial. 4 Nietzsche introduced his idea of the

2 ‘Übermensch,’ often translated into John Searle wrote a series of pieces English as the ‘Superman,’ in his book in The New York Review of Books criti- Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-5). Al- cizing Derrida and deconstruction for, though the Übermensch was in many among other things, ‘the low level of ways the embodiment of Nietzschean philosophical argumentation, the de- nihilism and the personification of - Ni liberate obscurantism of the prose, the etzsche’s belief that man could be the wildly exaggerated claims, and the con- creator of his own meaning and his own stant striving to give the appearance of morality (replacing the need for a God), profundity by making claims that seem the idea often is used to describe an paradoxical, but under analysis often idealized individualist—someone who Boland: (De/con)structing Political Narratives 200 depends solely on himself for success normalisation of violence: federal law in and happiness. Arendt’s explanation of America makes lynching African Ameri- human speech, human action, and the cans illegal but Harper Lee’s portrayal importance of plurality stands in sharp of Atticus Finch and Tom Robinson in contrast to the idea that a man can do To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) makes the or make anything of lasting value on his reader feel deeply why it is wrong. own. vii Arendt believed Eichmann’s thought- 5 Unlike so many social scientists, Ar- lessness to be his greatest sin be- endt did not believe that in order to cause, under a totalitarian regime, his analyze and pass judgment upon po- thoughts were the only element in his litical happenings, one somehow must life that could have been free. Although be above the political fray. She thought his actions were monstrous, Arendt that traditional social scientific virtues does not fault him for them primarily. like neutrality, objectivity, and data-driv- Even Nazi Germany could not monitor en factuality were not only impossible or control a man’s private thoughts. By to achieve but dangerous to pursue. In refusing to think for himself, Eichmann fact, the only people who can pretend placed his moral agency in the hands of to be distant, neutral, and objective are Nazi Germany. those who fundamentally are unaffect- ed by the political questions at stake. 8 I believe the distinction between a Arendt believed that although her po- utopic vision of politics and a positive or litical philosophy was informed by her optimistic view of politics is crucial. The experiences as a woman, as a refugee, former has come to represent an ideas a Jew, etc., the richness of perspec- alized, perfected, almost Heaven-like tive that each of those lenses provides community of peace and happiness. is much more valuable than the ram- Arendt certainly had hope for the future blings of someone who claims to have of human communities, but her entire no ties, no biases, and no defining ex- political theory was based on an under- periences. standing and an acceptance of human plurality. As long as humans experience 6 I have focused on the political power the world differently, have different as- of literature in this article for two rea- pirations, and pursue different goals, sons. First, literature does what social discord is inevitable. Arendt would not science cannot: it allows for multiple, have trivialized the enormity of the po- equally valid meanings. Second, litera- litical problems we face by suggesting ture, unlike art or music or other forms of that perfection is attainable. But that expression, is a means of communicat- concession did not dampen her hope ing through words and language. The that a better future is possible. fact that politics and literature both rely on the medium of language to convey References meaning enables literature to be used Arendt, Hannah. 1953. The Origins of to critique the political on its own terms. Totalitarianism. Review of Politics Simple anecdotal evidence reveals the 15 (1): 76-84. power of literature to work against the 201 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

Arendt, Hannah. 1954. Understanding Japanese Friend. 10 July 1983. & Politics. Essays in Understand- Warwick, UK: Parousia Press. ing 1930-1954: 307-327. Derrida, Jacques. 1999. Hospitality, Arendt, Hannah. 2006. Eichmann in Justice and Responsibility: A Dia- Jerusalem. Penguin Classics. logue with. In Richard Kearney New York, NY: Penguin Group. and Mark Dooley eds. Question- ing Ethics: Contemporary De- Arendt, Hannah. 1968. Men in Dark bates in Philosophy. London and Times. New York, NY: Harcourt, New York: Routledge: 65-83. Brace & World, Inc. Derrida, Jacques. 1998. Limited Inc. Arendt, Hannah. 1968. Origins of To- Evanston, IL: Northwestern Uni- talitarianism. New York, NY: Har- versity Press. court, Inc. Disch, Lisa T. 1993. More Truth Than Arendt, Hannah. 1998. The Human Fact. Political Theory. 21 (4): 665- Condition. 2nd Ed. Chicago, IL: 694. The University of Chicago Press. Doctorow, E. L. 2006. Notes on the Arendt, Hannah. 1978. The Life of the History of Fiction. Atlantic Monthly Mind. New York, NY: Harcourt, (Fiction Issue): 88-92. Inc. Joyce, James. 2007. Ulysses. Elec- Benjamin, Walter (ed. Hannah Arendt). tronic Classics Series: The Penn- 1968. Illuminations. New York, sylvania State University Press. NY: Schocken Books. Leckie, Barbara. 1995. The Force of Derrida, Jacques (transl. by George Law and Literature. Mosaic 28 (3): Collins). 1997. Politics of Friend- 109-136. ship. London, UK. National Average Wage Index (US Derrida, Jacques. 27 June 1968. Dif- Government). 29 Oct 2010. Social férance (lecture). Société français Security Online. http://www.ssa. de philosophie. Sorbonne, Paris, gov/oact/cola/AWI.html (accessed France. 2 Aug, 2011).

Derrida, Jacques (transl. by Mary Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1968. The Will to Quaintance). 1989. Force of Law. Power. New York, NY: Random Deconstruction and the Possibility House, Inc. of Justice. New York, NY: Cardozo Law School. Royle, Nicholas. 2003. Jacques Der- rida. New York, NY: Routledge. Derrida, Jacques (ed. Ed Wood and Bernasconi). 1983. Letter to a Searle, John, and Louis Mackey. Boland: (De/con)structing Political Narratives 202

1984. An Exchange on Decon- struction. The New York Review of Books. http://www.nybooks. com/articles/archives/1984/ feb/02/an- exchange-on- deconstruction/?pagination=false (accessed 30 April, 2012).

Shklar, Judith N. 1977. Rethinking the Past. Social Research. 44 (1): 80- 90.

Topf, Mel A. 1978. Hannah Arendt. Col- lege English. 40 (4): 353-363.

Warriner, John E. 1982. English Gram- mar and Composition. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanov- ich, Inc.

Weber, Elisabeth. 2005. Deconstruc- tion is Justice. German Law Jour- nal 6 (1): 179-184.

Wolin, Sheldon S. 1977. Hannah Arendt and the Ordinance of Time. Social Research. 44 (1): 91-105. Towards Narrative Futuring in Psychology: Becoming Resilient by Imagining the Future

Anneke Sools & Jan Hein Mooren

In this article we develop a narrative psychological approach to futuring (imagining the future). We explore how this approach addresses the question of how people can become resilient in order to anticipate (social) crisis and change. Firstly, we bring to the fore how futuring takes shape in psychological theories. We argue that the linear-causal temporal perspective underlying the classical theories developed by Alfred Adler and Albert Bandura is insufficient to deal with the increasing speed and complexity of social change. The more complex temporal approaches of Frederick Towne Melges and Thomas Lombardo seem better suited for the purpose at hand. Secondly, we complement our search for a psychological theory of futuring by exploring the role a narrative approach can play in understanding and enhancing resilience. We illustrate the potential of a narrative approach to futuring with an example of on-going research into the relationship between narrative futuring and well- being at the life-story lab at Twente University, the Netherlands. We conclude with a reflection on methodological and epistemological issues of thepro- posed narrative psychological approach.

Keywords: Narrative psychology, future imagination, resilience, non-linear time, letters

Introduction psychologists we are interested in In this article, we develop a nar- the complex interplay between the rative psychological approach to fu- macro-processes (for instance glo- turing (imagining the future) to ad- balization), the meso-processes (or- dress the question of how people ganization-level, local government), can become resilient in order to an- and micro-processes at the individ- ticipate (social) crisis and change. ual level (social relations, daily inter- While crisis and change are argu- actions). Societies and international ably characteristic for the ‘condition relations seem to change at an ev- humaine’, specific to our contem- er-increasing speed, dragging along porary era is a crisis as a result of in this turmoil individuals who have serious challenges facing human- to face increasing complexity in ity on an ecological, economic, cul- their daily lives while they also might tural, social and political level. As face a loss of adequate frames of

Graduate Journal of Social Science July 2012, Vol. 9, Issue 2 © 2012 by Graduate Journal of Social Science. All Rights Reserved. ISSN: 1572-3763 204 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 meaning and practical guidelines. of the river of time is speeding up’ Postmodern philosophers such as (Lombardo 2006, 36). Jean-François Lyotard (1979) refer It has been argued that our world to this last development as the ‘loss is not only speeding up, but becom- of Grand Récits.’ Lyotard used this ing larger and consequently more expression to indicate the inade- complex too, thanks to technologi- quacy of all-encompassing religious cal advancements, modern com- beliefs, as well as ideologies like the munication devices, and worldwide belief in the Enlightenment, social- economic, political and social con- ism, etcetera. Ernst T. Bohlmeijer nections. Stewart for instance, an (2007) describes the psychological evolutionary thinker, argues that consequences of living in a post- mankind moved from adapting modern time as a two-edged sword, to local and immediate concerns e.g. increased freedom to shape our (the here and now) to adapting to identities, and at the same time in- changes in an expanding space- creased pressure to deal with life on time frame (Stewart in: Lombardo our own. 2006, 30). This enlargement of One of the most distinctive char- space for meaning and action is acteristics of our current social cri- considered an effect of globaliza- sis is perhaps the speed with which tion. Globalization might be a very our world changes. Future con- abstract notion, but its influence is sciousness psychologist Thomas felt through varying real local effects Lombardo1 presents a dramatic out- (e.g. Kennedy 2010; Eriksen 2007; look where ‘humanity is in a battle Savage et al. 2005). In describing over the future. Our minds are in globalization as a process, anthro- a battle over what to believe and pologists Tine Davids and Francien what to do’ (Lombardo 2006, 37). Th. M. Van Driel (2005) do not refer Perhaps more than his descrip- to unification processes such as the tion of specific crises (such as an global interconnectedness of eco- impending ecological disaster, a nomic and ecological systems, but global economic crisis, and the so- emphasise local differences in how called postmodern crisis in which everyday lives are shaped by global the promise of progression of mo- processes. Particularly interesting dernity is questioned), his tempo- from a psychological perspective ral approach of crisis is particularly is their description of how men and worth mentioning. Lombardo holds women in local settings act under that ‘time is compressing – more the influence of global processes. and more is happening in a day – in This is not an easy accomplishment a week - in a year. One could say considering that the authors charac- that the future is coming at us more terize globalization metaphorically rapidly than ever before – the flow as an ‘ever-changing landscape of Sools and Mooren: Towards Narrative Futuring 205 on-going flows and moving struc- ple regarding the extent to which tures, shifting borders and different they are or feel vulnerable - in the perspectives’ (Davids and Van Driel sense of being exposed to the pre- 2005). cariousness of life (Butler 2004). From a psychological perspec- These differences could be due to tive, we consider resilience as one subjective (experiential) varieties or important way of negotiating so- to objective (due to socioeconomic) cial change. The concept of resil- circumstances. The experience of ience was developed in response loss of the Grand Récits, as well as to deficiency models in health care the extent to which people are ca- and health promotion (Bohlmeijer pable of imagining the future, fur- 2012; Westerhof & Bohlmeijer 2011; ther impinges on the capacity and Westerhof and Keyes, 2008; Sools need for resilience. We assume that 2010). Resilience encompasses not these three dimensions (differences only the ability to ‘bounce back’ from in precariousness, in loss of stories adverse experiences, but also the to make sense of their lives, and in ability to navigate to resources that imaginative capacity) interact with enhance well-being (Liebenberg each other, but not necessarily in a and Ungar 2009; Ungar and Lerner predictive, stable way. In this article, 2008). we bring these dimensions together Resilience has largely been stud- by combining insights from psycho- ied in relation to times of personal logical temporal theories on futuring transition. However, it can also be with narrative psychological theo- a useful concept to study the way ries. Narrative psychology takes people at an individual level deal storytelling as root metaphor for with collective transitions brought human thought and action (Sarbin about by globalization processes, 1986). We consequently explore cultural changes and technical rev- narrative futuring, e.g. imagining the olutions (like the introduction of the future through storytelling, in terms home-computer). Then resilience of its capacity to address the ques- is not merely an inherent individual tion of becoming resilient to antici- trait, but rather emerges in dynam- pate crisis and change. ic interaction with the environment To more concretely explore the (Tusaie & Dyer 2004; Jacelon 1997; question of what a narrative psycho- Olsson et al 2003). Moreover, there logical approach has to offer when might be differences in the extent to addressing the question of becom- which people need, want and can ing resilient to an uncertain, com- be resilient. plex, dynamic future, we take as an These differences might depend example on-going research at the on individual variation as well as life-story lab. This lab was founded structural inequalities between peo- at Twente University in January 2012 206 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 by psychologists Ernst Bohlmeijer, in which the future is explicitly ad- Gerben Westerhof and Anneke dressed, without suggesting com- Sools. The life-story lab is the Dutch pleteness. In the second part of the expert centre in the area of narrative article, we explore the possible role psychology and mental health pro- of the narrative approach in under- motion. The lab engages in a critical standing and enhancing resilience. project to counterbalance current We illustrate the potential of the complaint and deficiency-oriented narrative approach to futuring with approaches in mental health care an example of the letters from the with an approach focused on resil- future project at the life-story lab. ience and well-being. Whereas the Finally, we conclude with a reflec- first approach tends to rely on stan- tion on methodological and episte- dardized procedures, the second mological issues of the proposed approach is aimed at reinstating a narrative psychological approach. person-oriented approach with eye for difference (see www.utwente.nl/ lifestorylab). At the lab we do funda- Theories of futuring in psychol- mental and applied research, using ogy mixed-methods derived from both In this section, we first describe approaches, to study the relation- linear temporal theories on futuring ship between stories (storytelling in psychology, and then more com- and writing) and well-being. One plex theories of futuring. We con- of the studies in the lab, the letters clude this brief literature review by from the future project, serves as an exploring how futuring can play a example in this article. We consider role in enhancing resilience. these letters prospective reflective tools, and study if and how they can Linear future time be used to promote health and re- Futuring (imagining the future) is silience. a capacity that defines who we are Becoming more resilient in an- as human beings. It forms an im- ticipating the complexity, the speed portant part of psychological func- and the dynamics characteristic of tioning. Although he himself did not social crisis and change processes formulate a theory about the future, such as globalization, implies pay- Abraham Maslow (1968) certainly ing attention to the future. The fu- had a point when he remarked that ture, however, is not an explicit part ‘no theory of psychology will ever be of the concept of resilience. To un- complete which does not centrally derstand how futuring might play a incorporate the concept that man role in building up resilience in an- has his future within him, dynami- ticipating crisis and change, we turn cally active at this present moment’ first to some psychological theories (Maslow 1968, 15). Indeed, a host Sools and Mooren: Towards Narrative Futuring 207 of psychological phenomena pre- be described as the conscious wish supposes the continuation of exis- for something to obtain or to do, in tence in time yet to come. Concepts combination with the determina- like psychological development and tion to act according to this wish. education, for instance, are empty What we want, then, always lies notions without the prospect of time before us, even when our longing ahead of us, as is the case with re- is coloured by nostalgic overtones. lated concepts such as identity and Nevertheless the future does not self-actualization. Erik Erikson’s come into the picture in, for instance, concept of identity, defined as the Roberto Assagioli’s (1974) research subjective experience of sameness into the act of will. Philosophical is- and continuity over the life-span sues of debate are whether the will presupposes future time (Erikson exists (as Assagioli forcefully states; 1968). The same applies to self- see Assagioli 1974, 7) and what is actualization, defined as the pro- its nature. A central question here cess of developing one’s abilities, is to what extent we are capable of in order to realize one’s potential, consciously determining our actions one’s not yet actualized capabilities in order to shape our own future. (Maslow 1968, 191 ff). Emotions like Also the subject of extensive debate hope, anxiety, despair, or desire and is the connection between the will emotion-related states like expecta- and the concept of man as a rational tion, boredom, stress or nostalgia being, capable – if strong enough – only make sense in the context of to wilfully create his future. time moving on. In cognitive psy- However few, in some psycho- chology the study of choosing, plan- logical theories futuring is part of ning, forethought, goal-directed be- the concepts and the future explic- haviour and self-regulation, as well itly has its place. One of the early as control-theories would not exist personality theorists who gave when no future was implied. Without the future its due is Alfred Adler too much exaggeration, one could (1947), the founder of Individual say that the future is always and ev- Psychology. ‘Individual’ is used here erywhere. to express the fact that the human It should be mentioned, however, being is indivisible as well as unique’ that more often than not the tempo- (Ellenberger 1970). Adler states as ral dimension of these phenomena, one of the axioms of his system of especially concerning the future, is thought (inspired by his experience neglected or not made explicit. As as an internist with ‘organ inferiority’ an example we can refer to theories and compensatory processes) that of the will. The will, considered one psychic life is future-directed and te- of the basic functions of the psyche leological: it is striving toward a goal (like thinking, feeling, etcetera), can (‘Zielstrebigkeit im Seelenleben’; 208 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

Adler 1947, 13). He made this ture that is partly formed in the past. premise one of the cornerstones of What drives us is not only what lies his approach, and tied this to a sec- behind us (as in psychoanalysis) but ond fundamental premise. From the in what is ahead of us. This is why philosopher Hans Vaihinger he bor- Adler’s theory is characterized as rowed the concept of ‘fiction’ as well ‘fictional finalism’ (Hall and Lindzey as his contention that fictions have 1970, 121). Circumstances and ad- important psychological, scientific versity may result in the individual and cultural functions. Vaihinger diverging from their ‘Leitlinie’, forc- (1924/1968) stated that ‘without the ing them to seek compensations for imaginary factor neither science nor the activities intended to give them life in its highest form are possible’ the illusion of power. To the ex- (Vaihinger 1924/1968, 44). tent that these compensations are Adler’s ‘goal’, then, is fictional in culturally acceptable and that the nature, and human behaviour is to ‘Zielstrebigkeit’ (goal-directedness) a large extent determined by striv- is not too obsessive in nature, the ing for this goal. It is formed to a individual is, according to Adler, a large extent during early childhood healthy person. Overcompensation, (in the first five years), partly as the in which the compensatory activi- outcome of the interaction between ties dominate the function of the feelings of inferiority and a striving organism at the expense of other to superiority. This results in an un- functions, in the end leads to psy- conscious fictitious norm or ideal, chic problems and pathology (Adler going by the name of ‘Leitlinie’, 1947, ff). In Adlerian theory, every which has to be actualized. ‘Leitlinie’ human being is considered to be is a complicated concept. It is often motivated by its Leitlinie, but there translated in English as ‘lifestyle’. are culturally shaped differences in This generic concept should not the space for individuals to follow or be confused with the sociological diverge from their Leitlinie. concept of lifestyle that designates Forethought, a concept devel- a specific (middle-class) way of liv- oped by Albert Bandura (1986, 19 ing. Lifestyle, in its original sense ff), one of the main advocates of of the word, reasonably captures the social cognitive approach, is an- what Adler had in mind, although other example of explicit theorizing something is lost as well in this about the future in psychology. For translation. ‘Leitlinie’ also means Bandura forethought is not a magic guideline and line of action, while capacity to foretell the future, but at the same time it has motivational ‘the capacity to extrapolate future power. According to Adler, present consequences from known facts’ behaviour is determined by an un- (Bandura 1986, 136). Social cogni- conscious goal, an image of the fu- tive theory explains human function- Sools and Mooren: Towards Narrative Futuring 209 ing not in terms of inner forces (as future events, always a precarious does psychoanalysis) or controlled linkage, of course, becomes less by external stimuli (as does behav- taken-for-granted when variety in iourism). Instead, Bandura sees life cycles increases. In addition, it behaviour, cognitive factors and en- is much more difficult to cognitively vironmental events operating as in- represent a future which is increas- teracting determinants of each other ingly uncertain, complex, and dy- (‘triadic reciprocality’). The concept namic. Moreover, the emphasis on of triadic reciprocality describes the control over one’s future (proven to interaction between individual and be an important cognitive ability for environment in a more complex way enhancing psychological well-be- than Adler’s (1947) largely intrapsy- ing), is challenged when the horizon chic theory. It is unclear, however, of what we desire expands and yet how Bandura’s theory addresses what we can control is diffused by a rapidly changing social environ- the multiple possible life paths, and ment. Do the same regularities ap- by interfering cultural and social pro- ply, that govern healthy psycho- cesses. Finally, the conscious goal logical functioning in dealing with a setting presupposed in Bandura’s relatively stable and simple social concept of forethought is insufficient environment, when ‘the known facts’ in light of recent neuropsychological are dismantled? evidence that our conscious mind is To explore this question in more poorly equipped to deal with complex detail we focus on one of the cog- processes. Unconscious processes nitive abilities central to Bandura’s play a much larger role in process- theory: forethought capability. It is ing complex information (Donald Bandura’s contention that the future 2001, 20; Dijksterhuis 2008), than acquires causal efficacy by being social cognitive psychology takes represented cognitively in the pres- into account.2 So, interestingly, in ent (Bandura 1986, 19). Forethought this respect Adler’s unconscious then, consists of the capacity to reg- Leitlinie might be closer to current ulate one’s actions on the basis of neuropsychological findings than predictors of response consequenc- social cognitive theory. es (Bandura 1986, 205). This is The above differences in theoriz- possible because cues acquire pre- ing futuring in terms of an uncon- dictive value through close observa- scious Leitlinie or of conscious goal tion of outcomes of one’s actions. setting represent different images of In a rapidly changing and complex the human being (conscious versus social environment, it is precisely unconscious agent). Both theories this predictive value that becomes concur, however, in the value they problematic. The causal linkage place on control. The social cogni- between cues in the present and tive theories are exemplary of the 210 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 value placed on predictability and time perspective. Subjective time or reliability in mainstream experimen- sense of time refers to how people tal psychology. Adler’s theory risks a experience time. Sense of time has form of social control, by placing val- three components: duration (long or ue on adaptation to cultural norms. short future time perspective) and How much room is there for people rate (fast or slow pace); succession who do not abide to predictable or (different sequences of events un- culturally accepted behaviour, per- folding); and temporal orientation haps because they face structural (retrospective, prospective, or ori- barriers when trying to realize their ented at the present). These three goals or Leitlinie? In addition, both components of subjective time play theories concur in their reproduction a role in developing an individual- of linear-causal thinking dominant in ized kind of ‘personal inner future’ our Western society, which seems (e.g. how each person is experienc- to us insufficient to deal with rapidly ing his unique future). changing and complex social pro- Melges (1982) relates this per- cesses. Moreover, this view does sonal inner future to psychiatric con- not leave much room for creative ditions: psychosis is characterized future imagination in the sense that by temporal disintegration (incoher- new perspectives are developed ent sense of inner personal future, from multiple, uncertain, unknown the past, present and future are or unknowable facts, which cannot mixed up); depression by spirals of (and need not) be inferred causally hopelessness (the future is blocked from either a Leitlinie or the present. and looks empty and meaningless); neurosis by dread of the future (am- Complex future time bivalent and foreboding sense of in- Frederick Towne Melges’ tempo- ner personal future) (Melges 1982). ral view on psychopathology allows More specifically, Melges describes for a more complex, non-linear way how the development of a sense of of theorizing the future, and for the inner personal future is mediated by inclusion of creative imagination. emotions. For instance, unpleas- Psychiatrist Melges conceptualizes ant emotions accompany a sense futuring as a way of generating fu- of time in which the future time ture possibilities through ‘the pro- perspective is foreshortened (e.g. cess of visualizing future images’ anxiety accompanies the dread (Melges 1982, 38). He complicates of a pending bad future). Pleasant a linear progressive time perspec- emotions accompany slower time tive by making a distinction between sense, in which a longer, open, and objective and subjective time.3. unrestricted time perspective is ex- Objective time refers to clock-time, perienced. During pleasant states which represents a linear-causal there is little need to accomplish Sools and Mooren: Towards Narrative Futuring 211 a goal within a short time span. in which new behaviour, feelings, From the progressive perspectives and thoughts can emerge. Melges of Lombardo (2006) and Erikson developed his temporal perspective (1968) it is argued that the capac- with the treatment and prevention ity to hold a longer time perspective, of mental illness in mind. However, including concern for later genera- his ideas could potentially be trans- tions, is a complex developmental lated to our question regarding the task that comes to the fore later on enhancement of well-being and re- in the adult life-span and later on in silience (both of which are concepts the evolution of humanity. referring to more than the absence Melges’ (1982) concept of futur- of illness) via futuring. ing, influenced by cybernetics, allows for a creative, open way of Futuring and resilience imagining the future through an- Lombardo (2006) notes that there ticipation. According to Melges, are individual differences in the ex- futuring ‘involves expectation, an- tent that people can anticipate mul- ticipation, and imagination, and tiple, possible futures. There are in- specifically refers to the visual- dividual and structural differences in ization of future images’ (Melges the capacity to envision the future. 1982). While forethought implies However, it is also a capacity that linear thought in which current and can be developed. Our imaginative past events result in one outcome, capability is strengthened by using visualization is a form of thinking, it, not unlike exercising our muscles. in which parallel future images, and We expand our mind by enriching it thus a variety of future possibili- with new possibilities. Training imag- ties, are simultaneously produced. inative capacity could serve many This complex cognitive process in- purposes that bear relevance to volves both a more conservative resilience. For instance, increased (expectation) and a creative (imagi- capacity to seeing possibilities and nation) process. Anticipation is ‘the thinking them out facilitates open- process of preparing to respond to mindedness and makes us mentally a future event in advance of its oc- flexible (Lombardo 2006). Mental currence’ (Melges 1982, 20), while flexibility is considered one of the expectation visualises future possi- main criteria for psychological well- bilities based on extrapolation from being (Bohlmeijer 2012; Hermans & past events. Where expectation of Hermans-Janssen 1995). Lombardo what we know results in reproduc- connects the capacity to imagine ing our past, anticipation opens up the future with a supposed need to possibly new and unexpected for certainty. It follows then, that the events. Therefore anticipation is a higher the need for certainty, the less deterministic form of futuring, higher the need and/or relevance 212 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 for imagining the future. This would Aaron Antonovsky (1987), can illus- entail becoming more resourceful in trate our point. Antonovsky investi- times of crisis and change as a form gated why some people after trau- of resilience. An important question matic experiences (of, for instance, for psychologists then, is if and how holocaust survivors) did not develop people with different personal, so- post-traumatic stress disorder and cial, and cultural resources, can be- sometimes even functioned better come more skilled at futuring as one than before the trauma experience. way of developing resilience in the To explain this finding, he developed face of uncertainty. a salutogenic approach (searching Enhancing the anticipatory ca- for the origins of health) as a com- pacity, and future consciousness in plement to dominant pathogenic general, might be even more impor- approaches (focused on the origins tant among people with a low sense of illness). His conclusion was that of certainty. However, the risk of people differ in what he called the this line of reasoning is a separa- ‘sense of coherence’ (SOC), which tion (and consequent stigmatizing) he defined as ‘a global orienta- between those who feel certain or tion that expresses the extent to have certainty in life (and are there- which one has a pervasive, endur- fore more inclined to develop an- ing though dynamic feeling of confi- ticipatory skills) and those who feel dence that: uncertain. A related risk is blaming a) stimuli deriving from one’s in- people for lacking courage to face ternal and external environments uncertainty, without acknowledging in the course of living are struc- existing inequalities in how uncer- tured, predictable, and explicable; tainty is distributed across the popu- b) resources are available to one lation. However, a low sense of cer- to meet the demands posed by tainty does not necessarily go hand these stimuli and; in hand with low objective exposure c) these demands are challenges, to the vulnerabilities of life as the re- worthy of investment and engage- sult, for instance of socio-economic ment’ (Antonovsky, 1987, 19). inequality, job-related health problems, living in a situation of war There is ample evidence that a or being a member of vulnerable high SOC-score is related to bet- groups (such as elderly, migrants, ter health (Bengel, Strittmatter ill people). That being vulnerable is and Willmann 1999; Eriksson and not the same as being a victim is an Lindström 2006), and that high SOC important notion in a resilience ap- scores are found among groups with proach. and without traumatic experiences. Post-traumatic growth theories, One might expect that people with a developed by such researchers as high SOC-score are better at shap- Sools and Mooren: Towards Narrative Futuring 213 ing their futures than people with a expense of others. Becoming resil- low score. In addition, it could be ar- ient through futuring thus not only gued that the resilience to deal with accommodates goals and values uncertainty might actually be great- such as becoming an autonomous er among those exposed to the vul- being, but also values that concern nerability of life, because one has the other and the world as well (cf learned that a sense of uncertainty the concept of generativity; Erikson does not necessarily entail a loss of 1950). a sense of coherence. Our proposal could easily be Greater exposure to the vulner- mistaken for further contributing to ability of life could also result in a moral discourse on individual re- greater recognition of vulnerability sponsibility (Lupton 1995), even of in others. This recognition forms the a responsibility of individuals be- heart of Butler’s (2004) ethical and yond their own lives. However, to political project that she embarked acknowledge the fact that my future upon after 9/11 to formulate an al- is connected to the future of other ternative for an antagonistic percep- people could perhaps, rather than tion of difference in which others are being a burden, be a realisation of perceived as threats. She does not our relational being (Gergen 2009). propose to refrain from political ac- Instead of encouraging people to tion to diminish structural inequali- take the whole world on their shoul- ties, but focuses instead on recog- ders, we propose a more creative nition of our inevitable vulnerability (possibly inspiring and fun) route of as human beings. Butler’s proposal using narrative futuring as an indi- involves rethinking the meaning of vidual and collective instrument for strength and precariousness and, reflection. This can be done, for in- more importantly, rethinking the substance, in group sessions by using ject as relational. Butler makes clear imagination in a process of produc- that she does not argue against the ing shared future narratives about importance of developing autono- environmental, political or social my, but this striving should be com- issues and about collective strate- plemented with a recognition that gies to realize the desired outcomes we are first of all relational beings (Mooren 2011). Personal and group who share vulnerability to the pre- prospective reflection can also be cariousness of life. Her arguments achieved via writing letters from the resonate well with our position that it future. This latter type of prospec- is important to acknowledge that the tive reflection serves as an example concept of resilience should include case in the next paragraph to illus- a self-transcending dimension in or- trate the relevance of a narrative ap- der not to envision the development proach to futuring. of resilience of one person at the 214 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

A narrative approach to futuring of Ricoeur, wrote intricately on tem- in psychology poral orientation and narrative. He The development of a narrative sheds light on how we rewrite our approach in psychology started past from the present, and focuses in the 1980s. Narrative psychol- mainly on retrospective processes ogy takes storytelling as root meta- of identity construction (Freeman phor for human thought and action 1993; 2009). The few times when (Sarbin 1986), for identity construc- he does refer to the future, it is ei- tion (Polkinghorne 1988), and for ther in the negative sense of ‘narra- giving meaning to life (Bruner 1990). tive foreclosure’, indicating the end Storytelling provides a powerful way of story (Freeman, 2000; 2011), or of constructing identity in the face as an empty space that yet has to of social crisis and change because acquire meaning when it becomes of its capacity to create coherence present. ‘So it is that we must often and meaning (Polkinghorne 1988; await the future in order to discern Bohlmeijer 2007). Time plays an im- more fully the meaning and signifi- portant role in narrative psychology, cance of what has gone on in the although the future is seldom explic- past’ (Freeman 2009, 24). As op- itly theorized (Sools 2012; Squire posed to the full meaning and signifi- 2012). Paul Ricoeur (1984) for in- cance that only the past and present stance, who had a huge influence on can acquire, the future appears in narrative psychology, hardly men- bits and pieces, in the form of hints tions the future in his seminal work of what might happen. The empha- on Time and Narrative, and when sis on retrospection and memory he does, it is predominantly in linear in Freeman’s work seems to arise terms. Due to the ‘linear character from his diagnosis of our contempo- of the speech chain ... it follows that rary era, in which our image of the retrospection and anticipation are future is no longer stable and endur- subjected to the same conditions ing. Freeman describes ‘the situa- of temporal linearity’ (Ricoeur 1984, tion in which we find ourselves’ as 75). The future comes to the fore in ‘living in waiting, in anticipation, not Ricoeur’s reference to the condi- quite knowing what is going on now, tional tense4 in narrative, which is much less what the future will bring, used to signal anticipated informa- and relying on hindsight, again tion. In this view, the future remains and again, to discern what mean- a relatively empty notion, because ing there may be’ (Freeman 2009, anticipated information ‘only means 90). He seems uneasy with a pres- that the information is given prema- ent that is an ‘open, indeterminate turely in relation to the moment of its space, largely devoid of meaning’ realization’ (Ricoeur 1984, 74). (Freeman 2009). Freeman sees the Mark Freeman (1993), a student route out of narrative foreclosure not Sools and Mooren: Towards Narrative Futuring 215 so much in projecting ourselves into an uncertain, complex, dynamic fu- the future, but in gaining self-knowl- ture. To explore this assumption edge by telling autobiographical we now take as an example on-go- stories. His psychoanalytical affinity ing research at the life-story lab at here seems to play a role in his con- Twente University. tention that only through hindsight can we come to understand that Letters from the future ‘the present differs from the past In December 2011 the ‘Letters and that it will not be repeated in the from the Future Project’ started at future’ (Freeman 2009, 31). the life-story lab. The goal of the A more positive engagement study was to gain insight into the with the future comes to the fore in function of one particular narra- the concept of narrative imaginative medium - a letter from the fu- tion. This ‘fundamentally inventive ture - by studying the relationship capacity’ (Randall & McKim 2004) between the content, the structure, links ‘the way we imagine our lives’ form and audience of these letters to ‘the way we are going to go on liv- with psychological well-being. In ing our lives.’ It is ‘the genre through contrast to life story interviews (usu- which events become experiences’ ally hours-long oral texts) letters are (Hillman 1975, 146 in: Randall and short, written texts. Because life McKim 2004). According to Martha story interviews are the main data Nussbaum, narrative imagination collection and intervention method (defined as ‘the ability to be an in- in narrative psychology, written let- telligent reader of another person’s ters provide an interesting new story’), enhances the ability ‘to em- medium for research. The letter ex- pathize with others and to put one- ercise is an adaptation from an ex- self in another’s place’ (Nussbaum ercise used in storytelling groups in 1997, 11). The multiple perspectives mental health promotion settings in readers engage with when reading the Netherlands (Bohlmeijer 2007). literature increase empathy. William However, currently there are no em- L. Randall and A. Elizabeth McKim pirical studies into if and how such (2004) translate this literary com- letters function to promote well-be- petence to narrative competence in ing. everyday life, and propose its rele- A practical advantage of using vance for developing practical wis- letters rather than interviews is that dom. Because narrative imagination collecting letters online is much less is par excellence the narrative mode time-consuming than interviews. that deals creatively with an open, However, sufficient narrative com- uncertain future, developing this ca- petence of participants is required. pacity arguably facilitates becoming They have to be willing and able to resilient in a way that fits coping with read, write, and use a computer. In 216 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 the recruitment process and in the Figure 1. Research Design let- instructions we emphasise that no ters from the future project special writing skills are necessary and that all letters are welcome. Nevertheless, we anticipated a lit- 1. Writing the letter eracy bias in our sample. However, there is also evidence in favour of using online tools. An advantage of online self-help programmes for instance is that these programmes 2.Questions about the are available to anyone with ac- letter cess to the internet, which facilitates easy access from home. Not only spatially but also temporally the threshold to participate is lowered, 3. Questionnaire well- because participants can choose being (MHC-SF) a time that fits their daily routines. Moreover, physical presence is no longer necessary, and the internet provides a high degree of ano- nymity that is positively evaluated 4. Biographical informa- (Gerhards et al. 2011). Our actual tion sample of over 600 letters, collected between December 2011 and May 2012, consists of a diverse group of participants: there are both men and women, from lower and higher In the project we invite participants educational backgrounds and so- to donate letters from the future on- cioeconomic status, from different line at the website of the life-story age groups, and at least two na- lab. They follow a four step proce- tionalities (the first phase consists dure (see figure 1). Firstly, they are of Dutch and German5 participants, asked to vividly imagine a particular and the second phase which started situation at a particular moment in in May 2012 targets an international the future, in which something posi- participant group, starting with one tive has been realised. By asking for of the North African “Arab Spring” particulars, we aim to invoke what countries, see www.utwente.nl/lifes- Tom Wengraf (2001) calls ‘particu- torylab). lar incident narratives’. Participants are invited to write a letter to someone in the present from their experience of this particular, positively Sools and Mooren: Towards Narrative Futuring 217 evaluated situation. Secondly, some Example 1. Ironic expression of open questions follow regarding the personal achievement in the near experience of writing the letter, the future motivation for writing and so on. Thirdly, participants are asked to fill 2011, reading behind the computer in my office at the university. out the Mental Health Continuum Honorabel Me Short Form (MHC-SF), a question- Hey Me, cool that I bump into you, the naire measuring psychological, fact is that I want to tell you than I am re- emotional, and social dimensions ally proud of us. The way you nowadays of positive mental health (Lamers respond to your duties, assingments and other responsibilities, not postponing them et al. 2011). Finally, they provide any longer, gives me an intense feeling biographical information regarding of love for you, and thus for myself. I still their gender, age, socio-economic remember well how difficult this was ten background and so on. At the end years ago. You were very talented in avoid- participants are asked for their ining your responsibilities. That came in han- dy for momentary pleasures, but if you had formed consent to use their letter for persisted in it, it would have been a disaster research purposes. The additional for your long term happiness. questions (step 2 t/m 4) are optional So, cool that you became how I wanted as is the option to share their letters to be, we fixed that nicely. by publishing them online (about Greetings (I don’t give you a smacker, no idea how one takes it nowadays, but in one third of the participants agree to 2011 it is still a bit weird to kiss oneself) share their letters online). You, byyyy . The resulting letters show great variety in terms of content (personal and societal themes, different do- Example 2. Utopian manifest of mains of life, more or less fictional), the distant future structure (for instance regressive, A life in and with nature, the year 5000 Dear me of times gone by progressive, and stable plots), form […] The by mankind chosen lifestyle was (formal and informal, length, tone, self-destructive in nature. When this started more or less literary), genre (for to dawn on man, it already was to late: the instance letter, life-review, tutorial, earth became uninhabitable. Only some utopia, testament), audience (di- people survived. Those who did, came together to start a new life. They let nature rected at the present self or others), have her way and soon extensive woods and temporal orientation (for in- emerged, rich with food and animals, and stance long and short horizon, pro- clear waters and clean air. Nowadays man portion of retrospective, prospective and Nature are one. We only eat the old and present-oriented sentences). animals. And what we find in the woods and in the vegetable gardens. We life together. What is mine, also belongs to my neighbour; when my neighbour helps me out, I return the gesture. Everything is ours, but at the same time we don’t have personal 218 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 belongings; stealing therefore, is impos- sonalised context, in which different sible [… }. When I want to shine, it is not to values are brought into relation with outshine others, but to gain respect and it is to be able to better help myself and oth- each other. This characteristic of the ers. We take care of each other and live as letters becomes more pronounced one great family. We believe that when it is the more the letters are written in the right moment and we make an effort to the narrative mode rather than in the come to know each other we can befriend paradigmatic mode (Bruner 1986). everyone. We accept and respect everyone and try to be as little judgmental as is The letters can accordingly be situ- possible. ated on a continuum from more to So, let life find its own way, and in the less narrative (e.g. in highly narra- end everything will be all right. tive letters values are narrated more vividly, concretely and therefore These data provide rich mate- closer to lived experience, whereas rial to study how narrative futuring letters in the paradigmatic mode works. At this point, we would like to typically present values as general, share some preliminary findings, to abstract categories). Thirdly, a func- outline the possible relevance of a tional analysis of the letters shows narrative approach to futuring. that they fulfil a myriad of roles, for Firstly, the narrative instrument instance emotional (e.g. to motivate, we used, e.g. letters from the fu- grieve, process); social (e.g. prom- ture, seems to invite implicit, un- ise, share, express pride, commu- conscious goal setting, in addition nicate); educational (e.g. give and to the more explicit goal setting in receive advice); behavioural (e.g. to most psychological research on this encourage action, guide choices); process (see, for instance, Emmons spiritual-existential (to establish a 1999). The distinction between con- value orientation, belief and hope, scious and unconscious goal-set- to prophesise); autobiographical (to ting thus seems to get blurred. Even look back on one’s imagined life, to when writers at first consciously de- remember and project desired and fine which goals they strive for, and valued life-trajectories). then write their letters, some report Finally, the letters can be cat- that unexpected goals emerge. In egorised according to their stance other words, their own writing sur- towards the future: 1) control, in- prises them, which is an indication volving planned goal-directed be- that they engage in a truly creative haviour, 2) openness, involving an process. Writing thus can be consid- open, welcoming and accepting at- ered a generative and unpredictable titude in anticipation of an unknown process. future, 3) understanding, involving a Secondly, the goals and values hermeneutical enterprise of making appearing in the letters acquire sense of what is to come, and 4) in- meaning in a specific and highly per- trinsic, concerned with future imagi- Sools and Mooren: Towards Narrative Futuring 219 nation for its own sake rather than to The outcome of the prospective achieve some alternate goal. These reflection facilitated by the letter is last two orientations extend the con- a personalized value-orientation. As trol- and prediction oriented way of such it is a projection into the future, theorizing the future in theories of but it is an act of imagination which Adler and Bandura, and the more matters for the here and now. As the open, creative future time in the overview of possible functions indi- theories of Lombardo and Melges. cates, it is a powerful means to or- Taken together, these four orienta- ganize current identity, thought, and tions and the myriad functions can action, and foster prospective con- each be considered a way of antici- sciousness. The psychological func- pating crisis and change. tion of imagining the future, then, is As these functions indicate, the not so much about prediction. It al- letters, as a specific form of narra- lows us to make informed choices tive futuring can be perceived as in the here and now, which might ‘treasury…into which we can enter’ guide us towards a better future (Bruner 1990, 54). Stories ‘can be (Glen 2009), but, more importantly, tried on for psychological size, ac- imagining the future seems to have cepted if they fit, rejected if they an all-over organising and motivat- pinch identity or compete with es- ing effect. As the content of the let- tablished commitments’ (Bruner ters shows, the image of this better 1990, 54). Thus, they provide a way future could entail a nearby future to creatively and concretely explore for an individual person as well as the consequences of future possi- a more distant future involving con- bilities, and gain a lived understand- cerns beyond personal interests. ing of which values we hold dear. An Which one of these images corre- advantage of this process of narra- sponds to high levels of well-being, tive imagination is that it potentially is part of our on-going analysis. It is counters the ethical repercussions important to acknowledge though, mentioned in the introduction to this that our search for ways of enhanc- article: imposing values; fostering ing resilience is not restricted to the relativity; and reinforcing a one-sid- immediate effects on personal well- ed moral obligation. It also provides being, but also on long-term, more a way to evaluate the multiple and sustainable effects on collective alternative possibilities that arise well-being. in the course of futuring. Which fu- The brief overview of possible ture is desirable, and which one is functions outlined here is a first step of more value than another, instead to empirically study if, how, under of being an abstract question, be- what circumstances, for whom and comes a very real and practical one for what purposes narrative futuring in the letters. works. The diversity of the sample 220 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 will additionally be used to gain in- pirical research is if and how peo- sight in patterns of sameness and ple with different personal, social, difference in narrative futuring along and cultural resources can become intersecting axes of identity. more skilled at narrative futuring as one way of developing resilience in Conclusions and discussion the face of uncertainty. In this article, we developed a When engaging in this project of narrative-psychological approach to studying empirically how to enhance futuring in order to address our ques- narrative futuring, some critical re- tion on becoming resilient in the face marks are needed. Not all people of crisis and change. We discussed might want or need to increase their the consequences of experiencing capacity to imagine the future. For crisis and change on the individual some enhancing an already promi- level in terms of vulnerability to the nent skill might result in escapism. precariousness of life. As the sense For others their imaginative capac- of vulnerability increases, the need ity might be very well developed, but for certainty might increase as well. be insufficient or even frustrating in We hypothesised that the higher the the face of structural barriers and need for certainty, the higher the inequalities. Moreover, enhancing need and/or relevance for imagin- narrative futuring runs the risk of re- ing the future. This would entail be- inforcing discourses in which being coming more resourceful in times of happy becomes a moral obligation crisis and change as a form of resil- (Ahmed 2010), and in which people ience. Narrative imagination could are blamed for their illness (Lupton provide a powerful way of becoming 1995; Sontag 1979). These and oth- resilient in this sense. Preliminary er possible negative effects provide results from our letters from the fu- arguments to be critical of the uni- ture project indicate that there are a versalising tendency of especially myriad of functions and stances to- the early psychological theories on ward the future involved in narrative futuring. The goal then should be to futuring. The multitude of functions provide situated knowledge of when and stances - which all on a more and how futuring takes place, and general level perform the function of when and how it can be a way of guiding current thought and action - enhancing resilience. Questions to open up a broad spectrum of resil- explore are, for instance, when nar- ience processes. Because there are rative futuring takes place sponta- differences in the extent to which neously in the course of everyday people need or want certainty, and life, who engages in this process, to the extent to which they have the and how? The overview of possible capacity for narrative futuring, an functions of narrative futuring we important question for future em- described provides further direction Sools and Mooren: Towards Narrative Futuring 221 to study which type of function mat- narrative futuring works. ters and, importantly, also when and Second, we might have to ac- for whom enhancing narrative futur- knowledge what it means for our ing is not desirable or possible. methodologies when we move from Our research into letters from the prediction and control of the future future thus provides a way to sys- as central focus in psychological tematically address the question of research, to a perspective in which how narrative futuring works and the we recognize that choices in the work it does. The turn to a narrative here-and-now change the future approach in psychology, and an in- unfolding. This perspective implies clusion of different stances towards that patterns are not wholly prede- the future, affects the dynamics termined from past to present to of the methodological and episte- future, but that they can change. mological approach in psychology. It also implies that asking people First, a mixture of qualitative and to imagine the future in a research quantitative methods is necessary setting already is an intervention to capture both an idiosyncratic un- that changes current and future af- derstanding, and nomothetic expla- fairs. The role of the researcher thus nation of narrative futuring. This im- has to be taken into account. More plies that our methodologies should specifically, this requires openness not only be mixed-method, but also within psychology towards a revi- interdisciplinary or even transdisci- sion of the still dominant idea of the plinary, involving both hermeneutical neutral observing researcher. A criti- and socio-scientific methodological cal attitude towards developing nar- repertoire. To increase the chances rative futuring is also important; to of success of this ambitious project, make sure that stimulating narrative we follow the dreams of two lead- futuring does not become another ing narrative psychologists, Jerome control mechanism. Understanding S. Bruner and Donald Polkinghorne. the future runs the risk of doing just We infer from Bruner’s (1986, 1990) that, instead of allowing the gift of plea that psychologists and our col- the future to unfold (Squire 2012). leagues in the humanities need to Finally, if our search for proper learn to productively communicate psychological theorizing about the and cooperate with each other. We future has taught us one thing, it is understand Polkinghorne’s (1988) the pervasive emphasis on retro- contribution as a wish to establish spective temporal orientation in psy- a fruitful cooperation between clini- chology. The emphasis on looking cal psychologists (who have a lot of back, as well as the predominance experience with forms of narrative of linear thinking in mainstream psy- futuring in actual practice) and aca- chological theory, could be an indi- demic psychologists who study how cation of the value placed on predict- 222 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 ability and reliability in psychology. and conceptions of time. He notes However, we encountered at least the possibility of a cyclical order- partly the same focus on linearity, ing of time, and timelessness that and on retrospective temporal ori- can be found in some cultural con- entation in narrative psychological texts, in dreams, and in for instance theory. Perhaps the difficulty to dis- Jung’s notion of synchronicity. How tance ourselves from linear temporal these different time conceptions and thinking is due to the pervasiveness experiences relate to psychological of clock time in our Western society. well-being is a research question Even the study of narrative imagi- that Melges left unanswered, per- nation, which in principle involves haps due to his early death. both memory and looking forward, concerns more often imagining the 4 The conditional sense is a gram- past than the future. Whatever its matical construction in the English causes, at this point, we tentatively language. A conditional sentence conclude that, both theoretically and shows that an action is reliant on empirically, the future seems under- something else (there’s a condition). developed in (narrative) psychology. There are three types of condition- als: it’s going to happen - it’s only Endnotes going to happen if something else 1 Lombardo is one of the main rep- happens - it’s never going to happen resentatives of future conscious- (source http://www.learnenglish.de/ ness studies, an interdisciplinary grammar/conditionaltext.htm) field that developed from the 1970s onwards. 5 Respondents were partly recruited among students (and their friends 2 Theories about psychological con- and family) from University of Twen- trol, conceptualized as ‘the abil- te, partly among other populations. ity to cause or influence intended Because of its geographical situa- outcomes by differential respond- tion near Germany, the University ing and results in a sense of effec- hosts a considerable amount of Ger- tiveness desired by the individual man students. This accounts for the person’ (Rodin 1986, 141), share letters in German that we received. his emphasis on prediction and consciously influencing future out- References comes. Adler, Alfred. 1947. Menschenkentniss. Zurich: Rascher Verlag & Cie. 3 In addition, Melges (1982) challenges linear-causal conceptions Ahmed, Sara. 2010. The Promise of and experiences, by referring to Happiness. Durham and London: Duke University Press. cultural varieties in time experience Sools and Mooren: Towards Narrative Futuring 223

Antonovsky, Aaron. 1987. Unravelling versity Press. Englewood Cliffs, the mystery of health. How people New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. manage stress and stay well. San Francisco: Josey-Bass. Butler, Judith. 2004. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Assagioli, Roberto. 1974. The Act of Violence. London: Verso. Will. Baltimore: Penguin Books Inc. Davids, Tine & Francien Th. M. van Dri- el. 2005. The Gender Question in Bandura, Albert. 1986. Social Founda- Globalization. Changing perspec- tions of Thought and Action: A So- tives and practices. Aldershot, cial Cognitive Theory. Englewood Burlington: Ashgate Pub Co. Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Dijksterhuis, A.P. (2008): Het slimme onbewuste. Denken met gevoel. Bengel, Jürgen, Regine Strittmatter [The smart unconsciousness. and Hildegard Willmann. 1999. Thinking with feeling]. Amster- What keeps people healthy? The dam: Bert Bakker. current state of discussion and the relevance of Antonovsky’s saluto- Donald, Merlin. 2001. A mind so rare: genetic model of health. Keulen: The evolution in human con- Federal Centre for Health Educa- sciousness. New York, London: tion. Norton & Co.

Bohlmeijer, Ernst T. 2007. De verhalen Ellenberger, Henri F. 1970 (5th print). die we leven. Narratieve psychol- The Discovery of the Uncon- ogie als methode. [The stories we scious. The History and Evolution live by. Narrative psychology as of Dynamic Psychiatry. New York: method]. Amsterdam: Boom. Basic Books, Inc.

Bohlmeijer, Ernst T. 2012. Eudaimonia. Emmons, Robert A. 1999. The Psychol- Voer voor psychologen. Pleidooi ogy of Ultimate Concern. Motiva- voor een heroriëntatie van de tion and Spirituality in Personality. geestelijke gezondheidszorg. [Eu- New York: The Guilford Press. daimonia. Food for psychologists. Plea for a change of direction in Erikson, Erik. 1950. Childhood and so- mental health care]. Enschede: ciety. New York: W.W, Norton and University of Twente Press. Company.

Bruner, Jerome S. 1986. Actual minds, Erikson, Erik. 1968. Identity, Youth and possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Crisis. New York: W.W, Norton Harvard University Press. and Company.

Bruner, Jerome S. 1990. Acts of Mean- Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. 2007. Glo- ing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni- balization: The Key Concepts. Ox- 224 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

ford: Berg. S., Huibers, M. J. H., & Widder- shoven, G. A. M. (2011). Improv- Eriksson, Monica and Bengt Lindström. ing adherence and effectiveness 2006. Antonovsky’s sense of co- of computerised cognitive behav- herence scale and the relation ioural therapy without support for with health: a systematic review. depression: A qualitative study Journal of Epidemiology & Com- on patient experiences. [Article]. munity Health 60: 376-381. Journal of Affective Disorders, 129(1-3), 117-125. doi: 10.1016/j. Freeman, Mark. 1993. Rewriting the jad.2010.09.012 self: History, memory, narrative. London: Routledge. Glen, Jerome C. 2009. Introduction to the futures research methods se- Freeman, Mark. 2000. When the stories. In Jerome C. Glen ed. Fu- ry’s over: Narrative foreclosure tures research methodology V3.0. and the possibility of self-renewal. Millenium Project. Version 1, CD1. In Molly Andrews, Shelley Day Slater, Corinne Squire and Amal Hall, Calvin Springer and Gardner Lin- Treacher eds. Lines of narrative: dzey. 1970. Theories of Personali- Psychosocial perspectives. To- ty (2nd ed.). New York: John Wiley ronto: Captus University Publica- and Sons. tions: 245-250. Hermans, Hubert J. M. and Els Her- Freeman, Mark. 2009. Hindsight. The mans-Jansen. 1995. Self-narra- Promise and Peril of Looking tives. The construction of mean- Backward. Oxford: Oxford Univer- ing in psychotherapy. New York, sity Press. London: The Guilford Press.

Freeman, Mark. 2011. Narrative fore- Jacelon, Cynthia S. 1997. The trait and closure in later life: possibilities process of resilience. Journal of and limits. In Gary Kenyon, Ernst Advanced Nursing 25: 123-129. Bohlmeijer and William Lowell Randall eds. Storying later life: Kennedy, Paul. 2010. Local Lives and Issues, investigations, and inter- Global Transformations: Towards ventions in narrative gerontology. World Society, Houndmills: Pal- Oxford: Oxford University Press: grave Macmillan. 3-19. Lamers, Sanne M.A., Gerben J. Gergen, Kenneth J. 2009. Relational Westerhof, Ernst T. Bohlmeijer, Being. Beyond Self and Com- Peter M. ten Klooster and Corey munity. Oxford: Oxford University L.M. Keyes. 2011. Evaluating the Press. psychometric properties of the Mental Health Continuum-Short Gerhards, S. A. H., Abma, T. A., Arn- Form (MHC-SF). Journal of Clini- tz, A., de Graaf, L. E., Evers, cal Psychology 67 (1): 99-110. Sools and Mooren: Towards Narrative Futuring 225

Liebenberg, Linda and Michael Ungar. Olsson, Craig A., Lyndal Bond, Jane M. 2009. Researching resilience. To- Burns, Dianne A. Vella-Brodrick & ronto: University of Toronto Press Susan M. Sawyer. 2003. Adoles- Inc. cent resilience: A concept analysis. Journal of Adolescence 26 Lombardo Thomas. 2006. The evolu- (1): 1–11. tion of future consciousness. The nature and historical development Polkinghorne, Donald. 1988. Narrative of the human capacity to think Knowing and the Human Scienc- about the future. Bloomington, es. Albany (NY): State University Milton Keynes: Authorhouse. of New York Press.

Lombardo, Thomas. 2007. The Evo- Randall, William L. and A. Elizabeth lution and Psychology of Future McKim. 2004. Toward a poetics Consciousness. Journal of Future of aging: The links between litera- Studies 12 (1): 1-24. ture and life. Narrative Inquiry 14: 235-260. Lupton, Deborah. 1995. The imperative of health. Public health and the Ricoeur, Paul. 1984. Time and narra- regulated body. London: Sage. tive. Chicago [etc.]: University of Chicago Press, 1984-1988. Lyotard, Jean-François. 1979. La condition postmoderne: rapport sur le Rodin, J. (1986). Health, control, and savoir. Parijs: Minuit. aging. In: Margaret M. Baltes and Paul B. Baltes. The Psychology of Maslow, Abraham H. 1968. Toward a Control and Aging. Hillsdale, New Psychology of Being. New York: Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Asso- D. van Nostrand Company. ciates, Publishers: 139-165.

Melges, Frederick Towne. 1982. Time Sarbin, Theodore R. 1986. Narrative and Inner Future. A Temporal Ap- Psychology: The storied nature proach to Psychiatric Disorders. of human conduct. Praeger: New New York: John Wiley and Sons. York.

Mooren, Jan Hein M. 2011. Verbeeld- Savage, Michael, Gaynor Bagnall and ing en bestaansoriëntatie (Imagi- Brian Longhurst. 2005). Global- nation and orientation towards ization and Belonging: The Sub- existence). Utrecht: Uitgeverij de urbanization of Identity. London: Graaff. Sage.

Nussbaum, Martha Craven. 1997. Sontag, Susan. 1979. Illness as meta- Cultivating humanity. A classical phor. Harmondsworth: Penguin. defence of reform in liberal education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Sools, Anneke. 2012. To see a world in University Press. a grain of sand: Towards future- 226 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

oriented what-if analysis in nar- Westerhof, Gerben J. and Keyes, C. L. rative research. Narrative Works M. (2008). Geestelijke gezondheid (forthcoming). is meer dan de afwezigheid van geestelijke ziekte [Mental health Sools, Anneke. 2010. De ontwikkel- promotion is more than the ab- ing van narratieve competentie. sence of mental illness]. Maand- Bijdrage aan een onderzoeks- blad Geestelijke Volksgezondheid methodologie voor de bestuder- 63 (10): 808-820. ing van gezond leven [The development of narrative competence. Contribution to a research methodology for the study of healthy living]. Den Haag: Albion.

Squire, Corinne. 2012. Narratives and the gift of the future. Narrative Works (forthcoming).

Tusaie, Kathleen and Janyce Dyer. 2004. Resilience: A historical review of the construct. Holistic Nursing Practice 18(1): 3-8.

Ungar, Michael & Lerner, R. Eds. 2008. Research in Human Devel- opment (Special Issue: Resilience and positive development across the life span) 5(3): 135-193.

Vaihinger, Hans. 1924/1968. The Phi- losophy of ‘As If’. A System of the Theoretical and Religious Fictions of Mankind. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Wengraf, Tom. 2001. Qualitative Re- search Interviewing: Biographic Narratives and Semi -structured Methods. London: Sage.

Westerhof, Gerben J. and Ernst T. Bohl- meijer, E.T. 2011. Psychologie van de levenskunst [Psychology of art of living]. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Boom. Allison Kinsey Robb Department of English and American Studies Manchester University

Clare Hemmings. 2011. Why Stories Matter: The Po- litical Grammar of Feminist Theory. Durham and London: Duke University Press. 288 pp. Paperback. ISBN: 9780822349167

In Why Stories Matter (2011) soning that ‘sustain one version of Clare Hemmings follows several history as more true than another, feminist journals (e.g. Signs, Femi- despite the fact that we know that nist Theory, Feminist Review) ar- history is more complicated than the guing that over the past couple of stories we tell about it’ (15-16). decades themes of progress, loss, Why Stories Matter offers a and return have come to dominate well-structured analysis and con- Western feminist theory. This has vincing critique of reoccurring West- demanded not only a rethinking of ern feminist narratives of progress, Western feminist theory, but also loss, and return. To illustrate her the ways in which histories are con- points, Hemmings uses back-to- structed. As Hemmings suggests, back citations from various journal ‘feminist theorists need to pay at- issues, at times using as many as tention to the amenability of our own three or four quotations in a row, to stories, narrative constructs, and expose repeated patterns in West- grammatical forms to discursive ern feminist thought across a mul- uses of gender and feminism we titude of disciplines. Rather than might otherwise wish to disentangle citing the authors of the articles ourselves from if history is not sim- Hemmings instead cites the jour- ply to repeat itself’ (2). In this spirit, nal and year of its publication. This Hemmings’ interest lies not in what nontraditional technique proves ef- she prescribes as a “corrective” sto- fective as it demonstrates the power ry telling or bringing forth that which of institutional production and the has been left out of the Western appropriation of individualized po- feminist archive, but rather a ques- sitions. Hemmings stresses that in tioning of the very politics and rea- ‘citing journal place and time rather

Graduate Journal of Social Science July 2012, Vol. 9, Issue 2 © 2012 by Graduate Journal of Social Science. All Rights Reserved. ISSN: 1572-3763 228 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 than author, I have situated these mation, strategically outlined to de- narratives not only as shared by a construct, move beyond, and move group of individuals, but also as in- forward (35). In Hemmings’ intro- stitutionally resonant…my point is duction she discusses her reason- that our reading and writing of West- ing for not wanting to ‘point out the ern feminist stories locates us insti- errors…and suggest other pasts’ tutionally rather than only in relation (12) primarily because in telling the to individual others’ (134). Hem- past, one is prompted by the posi- mings’ citation tactics alone uncover tion they wish to occupy in the pres- a troubling framework in Western ent. However, should presenting the feminist writing securely positioned past through a position held in the in repetitious narration rendering it- present be examined as negative? self stagnant, commonplace and in In presenting ‘other’ histories, must desperate need of interruption. we assume that there were ‘errors’ The first half of Hemmings’ in the previously told stories of the book addresses narratives of prog- past? Could it be that in revisiting ress, loss, and return dedicating a histories, rereading them, and pro- chapter to each of these themes. viding examples of other histories The Progress narrative, as Hem- that were perhaps overshadowed by mings explains, is most commonly more dominant narratives, we can portrayed as a positive account address the many layers of feminist marking success and accomplish- history and expose the dangers of ment. This, she argues, is typically the teleological narratives/histories relayed in a chronological order that that concern Hemmings? brings the audience from a Western Hemmings’ next chapter, ‘Loss’, feminist past (typically the 1970s) to works in conjunction with her previ- a complex feminist present, one that ous chapter on progress. Both are credits the shifts in Western feminist noted as being the most common thought as opening a new space for stories depicted, as they are mutu- contemplation. Hemmings suggests ally dependent on each other - re- this technique distances itself from covering lost histories yields prog- earlier readings incorporating words ress. However, loss is not merely such as ‘patriarchy’, ‘woman’, ‘fe- about the recovery of other stories, male subordination’, and instead it is also a critique of the progressive focuses on power relations such as narrative; here post-structuralism is gender, race and ethnicity, sexual- held responsible for the de-politici- ity, and class. The story of progress, zation of feminist commitments. In according to Hemmings, is marked this story, ‘feminist academics and by a redemptive underpinning in so a new generation of women have much as it uses a corrective struc- both inherited and contributed to ture to make it a story of transfor- this loss, particularly through their Review: Robb 229 lack of interest in recent feminist Hemmings’ demonstration of re-ci- history and an acceptance of politi- tation results in not only opening up cal individualism’ (4). In this section, other histories, but also recognizes Hemmings does not shy away from the importance of reflective think- voicing her own opinions and con- ing as an exercise to help one ex- cerns on feminism in the academic tract from it alternative modes and arena and the isolation of its gener- methods of institutional and political ational lineage. She concludes, ‘[s] engagement in the present. Con- ubjects of progress and loss narra- fronting recent attempts to reread tives insist on their absolute separa- the subject of Western feminist tion from one another, missing the thought through modes of empathy ways in which they utilize and in- and agency, Hemmings, in her final stantiate a common historiography, chapter ‘Affective Subjects’, argues missing the ways in which that his- that empathy often ‘manages’ rather toriography grounds post-, quasi-, than ‘transforms’ the subject/object or antifeminist claims as well’ (83). relation. Hemmings goes on to ex- Hemming’s final chapter, ‘Re- plain empathy as ‘always marked turn’, acts as a joining of the two by that which cannot be empathized narratives. The return narrative is with and draws that limit as a self- one which aims to remedy both sto- evident boundary for what (and who) ries of progress and loss through can be included in feminism itself’ a current position held in the pres- (197). Taking cues from Gayatri Spi- ent. ‘[R]eturn narratives can thus vak and Julia Kristeva, Hemmings affirm a common present by affirm- discusses shock and horror as pro- ing a shared past’ even if the pre- viding possible ruptures in West- vious narratives were secured and ern feminist narratives of progress, marked through difference (98). loss, and return. However, through The last half of Hemmings’ the analysis of several case studies, Why Stories Matter focuses on Hemmings finds that in confronting practices of citation as a potential horror it reciprocally produces a limit approach to telling common femi- to the subject/object relation. Hem- nist stories differently. Hemmings mings resolves that horror casts out exercises her concept of re-citation the abject and, as a result, reconfig- by offering a re-reading of Monique ures ‘feminist subjectivity as coher- Wittig via Judith Butler’s Gender ent’ and ‘mark[s] others as fully read- Trouble. Hemmings’ ability to re-cite able within its singular temporality’ Butler through Wittig offers an alter- (223). Therefore Hemmings returns native position (not marked in ‘Fou- to recitation as a practice refusing to cauldian’ references) and makes resolve the limitations noted in her available a rich lesbian feminist his- previous critiques. Hemmings con- tory of materialist sexual politics. cludes, ‘judgements that are based 230 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 in the protection of a singular vision of a Western feminist past, present, and future are bound to reproduce rather than challenge’ the amenabil- ities of feminist storytelling (226). It is in this spirit that Hemmings’ Why Stories Matter requests a move towards new subversive and unpredictable narratives, which can be made evident if we simply wish for history not to repeat itself. Clare Hemming’s Why Stories Matter delivers a valuable perspective on how historical feminist writing is received and functions today. For anyone interested in feminist theory, historiography, and the writing of feminism into history, this book should be compulsory reading. Julia Downes, School of Applied Social Sciences, Durham University

Sara Ahmed. 2010. The Promise of Happiness. Dur- ham and London: Duke University Press. 328 pp. Pa- perback. ISBN 9780822347255.

I was holding on to a love I knew so long Blame has been placed on my femi- I thought it must be keeping me afloat nist and queer orientations in my Only when I was down, Only when I was drowning. role as a killjoy bent on spoiling the Did I finally feel the hands on my throat happiness of the family dinner table. (The Thermals ‘I Let it Go’ 2009) Ahmed even touches on the hope- less attempts that my ex-girlfriend Ahmed’s book directs us to recog- and I engaged in to make each other nise the role of affect in the discipline (and convince others that we were) of our personal, political and social ‘happy’ to the detriment of my men- orders. Irreverent to the self-help tal health and inevitable exhausting market, The Promise of Happiness, and painful breakup. Ahmed’s main along with (guilty) pleasures of ac- argument that the promise of hap- ademic-activist-popular books (e.g. piness (including its objects, ritu- Halberstam 2011; Easton & Hardy als and trajectory) is located in the 2009; Behrendt & Ruotola-Behrendt production of privilege (in marriage, 2005), zines, superfox treatise, un- family, monogamy, employment, relenting support and mix-cds from money, heterosexuality, gender friends, has provided me with a rich norms and citizenship) resonates resource to help reconfigure a life very well with the everyday life of turned upside down, and engage an this undone queer feminist subject. ocean of bad feeling, failure and un- This book carves out a home happiness. The speech act Ahmed within feminist cultural studies of starts from – “I just want you to be emotion and affect that push for- happy” - has of course been uttered ward an engagement with bad feel- by my parents in a limited acknowl- ings (Nguyen 2010), failure (Halber- edgement of my same-sex partner. stam 2011), shame (Munt 2007), Graduate Journal of Social Science July 2012, Vol. 9, Issue 2 © 2012 by Graduate Journal of Social Science. All Rights Reserved. ISSN: 1572-3763 232 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 and violence (Cvetkovich 2003). ‘affect aliens’ to create life worlds Ahmed turns the situation around around a different set of wants and to understand the promise of hap- needs. piness as a process of concealment Ahmed constructs her cultural that hides inequalities and justifies critique from readings of popular lit- the oppression of ‘others’ under the erature and film includingMrs Dallo- rubric of the ‘good life’. In this argu- way, The Well of Loneliness, Ruby- ment happiness plays a neo-liberal fruit Jungle, Bend it Like Beckham trick, placing responsibility on the and Children of Men. Her ideas con- individual to achieve authentic hap- stitute a theoretical framework for piness and obscures diverse ways an empirical study into the everyday of being. In short; queers, feminists life worlds of queers, feminists and and migrants all threaten to expose migrants. However an empirical in- the unhappiness of the scripts and vestigation of how culture and affect duties of happiness and can only be are used to resist structures and seen as the cause of bad feeling. create different ways of being and Feminists cause sexism. Migrants grassroots life worlds is not realised need to get over racism. Homopho- in Ahmed’s book. Grassroots music- bia no longer exists. Nobody wants making is not included in Ahmed’s to break the illusion of happiness archives despite its use by marginal and those who refuse to play along groups in the creation of resistant and dare to make alternative lives life worlds (e.g. Smith 1997). None- in queer, feminist and migrant life theless Sara Ahmed makes crucial worlds are stigmatised as unhappy, theoretical contributions towards negative and difficult ‘affect aliens’ an understanding of the tensions (Ahmed 2010, 158). Nonetheless it in UK contemporary queer feminist is through engagement with nega- life and activism. Contemporary tive affect experienced by bodies commentators have identified the that refuse to be placed in the social ‘resurgence’ of feminism, the goal order that Ahmed argues we can ex- to ‘normalise’ feminism and a ‘new plore the ‘“feelings of structure” […] generation’ of feminist activists (e.g. how structures get under our skin’ MacKay 2011). These are impor- (Ahmed 2010, 216). In this sense tant interventions in a field that has it is those that have been ‘undone previously focused on the political by suffering’ that Ahmed views as apathy of young women. However, potential ‘agents of ethical transfor- what is often missing from these ac- mation’ (Ahmed 2010, 216). Unhap- counts is an admission that the do- piness is not something that should ing of feminism can be difficult and be simply overcome or eradicated challenging. What happens when but should signal the limits of the the feminist collective or women- promise of happiness and motivate only space fails to be a positive ex- Review: Downes 233 perience? What are the options for same-sex relationships act as gifts those who do not fit in? from straight society that obscure In 1972 Jo Freeman critiqued queer labour, struggle and diverse the white middle-class heterosexual life worlds generated by queer ac- feminine values of feminist groups. tivism. In this sense Ahmed warns This breakdown of feminist organi- against being a ‘happy queer’ to sations across lines of race, class, instead be ‘happily queer’ (Ahmed sexuality, ability and gender is well 2010, 117): happy to be the cause documented. Ahmed’s assertion of unhappiness and discomfort, that ‘feminist consciousness can push the straight lines of happiness thus be thought of as consciousness scripts, be defiant, irreverent and of the violence and power that are make trouble. As activists and aca- concealed under the languages of demics of social movements and civility and love, rather than simply social theory I agree with Ahmed consciousness of gender as a site that we need to engage with what of restriction of possibility’ (Ahmed hurts, what causes us pain, what we 2010, 86) is well placed to interro- have learned to tread quietly around gate the affective bonds and spaces for the sake of maintaining a happy in feminism and other progressive united front. We need to be ready to social movements. For instance, in investigate how happiness makes riot grrrl, moments of ‘girl love’ also some personhoods more valuable reveal failures, ‘affect aliens’ and bad than others and be prepared to feelings. Mimi Thi Nguyen’s work in make trouble and disrupt the lines this area identifies how queers of drawn around our biographies, cul- colour are constructed as problem- tures and lives. atic interruptions to a linear historical narrative of feminism (Nguyen References 2010). This links to Ahmed’s con- Behrendt, Greg and Amiira Ruotola- cept of the ‘melancholic migrant’ Behrendt 2005. It’s Called a (Ahmed 2010, 121) who will not let Breakup Because It’s Broken: A go of racist suffering and pressure Smart Girl’s Breakup Buddy. New York: Harper Element. felt by queers of colour and refuse to take part in a fantasy of forgetting Cvetkovich, Ann 2003. An Archive of racism or comply with a ‘happiness Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality and duty’. Likewise LGBT social move- Lesbian Public Cultures. Durham ments have also invoked positive af- & London: Duke University Press fect as an important counterpoint to shame, guilt and silence suffered as Easton, Dossie and Janet W. Hardy an effect of the violence of straight 2009. The Ethical Slut: A Practi- happiness. Ahmed astutely identical Guide to Polyamory, Open Re- fies how rights and recognition for lationships & Other Adventures. 234 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts

Freeman, Jo. 1972. The Tyranny of Structurelessness. Berkeley Jour- nal of Sociology, 17: 151-65

Halberstam, Judith 2011. The Queer Art of Failure. Durham, NC: Duke University Press

MacKay, Finn 2011. A Movement of their Own: Voices of Young Femi- nist Activists in the London Femi- nist Network. Interface: A Journal for and about Social Movements, 3(2): 152-79

Munt, Sally 2007. Queer Attachments: The Cultural Politics of Shame. Al- dershot: Ashgate.

Nguyen, Mimi Thi 2010. “Aesthetics, Access, Intimacy, or Race, Riot Grrrl, Bad Feelings,” The Mes- sage is in the Music: Hip Hop Feminism, Riot Grrrl, Latina Mu- sic, and More, Sarah Lawrence College, March

Smith, Susan 1997. Beyond Geogra- phy’s Visible Worlds: A Cultural Politics of Music. Progress in Hu- man Geography, 21(4): 502-29 Marianna Szczygielska, Department of Gender Studies, Central European University

Judith Jack Halberstam. 2011. The Queer Art of Failure. Durham and London: Duke University Press. 224 pp. Paperback. ISBN: 9780822350453

Why would anyone devote their of dead white philosophers, she time to a project on failure? Judith provocatively quotes SpongeBob Halberstam has willfully taken the SquarePants and The Sex Pistols. risk of not being taken seriously. From the animated revolt of cartoon Her new book is dedicated to ‘all of characters, through stupid come- history’s losers’ – it brushes the dust dies for adolescent males and Val- from the forgotten archives of those erie Solanas’ anti-male manifesto, who seemingly do not write history. to Yoko Ono and queer artists who Yet the aim of this truly inspiring strive to capture unbecoming, The and thought-provoking publication Queer Art of Failure strikes with an- is not to rescue any alternative vi- ti-heroines and anti-heroes making sions or forms of knowledge from a detour from the conventional, aca- the bottomless pit of oblivion. The demic, proper mode of writing the- Queer Art of Failure celebrates for- ory. Halberstam avoids fetishizing getfulness, spectacular failure and or glorifying the queer rebellion, re- outlawed absurdity. In this sense it sistance and counterhegemony. Al- is rather an anti-archive manifesto though some of the chapters of the that looks for a political alternative in book were available before in other ‘low theory’ and what she calls ‘silly edited volumes such as Queering archives’ (Halberstam 2011, 19). In the Non/human (Giffney and Hird a witty style, Halberstam dismantles 2008) or in articles (Halberstam the overwhelming logic of success 2008), the framework of failure as a that is inevitably linked to the capi- new iteration of the anti-social turn talist mode of production and het- in queer theory proposed by Hal- eronormative hegemony. Instead of berstam forms a very coherent and guiding this journey with a pantheon powerful structure. In each chapter

Graduate Journal of Social Science June 2012, Vol. 9, Issue 2 © 2012 by Graduate Journal of Social Science. All Rights Reserved. ISSN: 1572-3763 236 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 she boldly outlines queer theory’s queerness. In The Queer Art of Fail- relation towards cultural phenom- ure Halberstam goes even further ena that can be easily dismissed as and questions the normativity of the unacademic, childish, insignificant humanness for the purpose of argu- or even as racist and homophobic ing for failure as a truly queer way (e.g. the movie Dude, Where’s my of life. Car?) The first chapter introduces a In a neoliberal system that rests lively menagerie of both animated upon the idea that every individual and blood-and-flesh species that is an architect of his or her own for- in Halberstam’s analysis grace- tune, behind every winner, there is a fully transcend the hetero-familial crowd of losers. From the introduc- schemes of reproductive and pro- tion onwards Halberstam argues ductive imperatives. With creatures that it is exactly this pressure to be like a Hegelian possum from the successful along with the desire animated movie Over the Hedge, to be taken seriously that makes ‘feminist’ chickens from Chicken people stay on well-trodden paths, Run and ‘gay’ penguins from the instead of exploring unknown ter- New York Zoo, Halberstam vividly ritories of alternative knowledges and convincingly shows that larger- and queer strategies of unknow- than-human worlds are not only a ing. She even writes that ‘failing valuable source of critiques of capi- is something queers do and have talism, of the heteronormative order always done exceptionally well’ and of kinship structures, but that (Halberstam 2011, 3). This state- they also offer alternative scenarios ment raises some questions: Why of an anarcho-queer revolt. It might would queers serve as scapegoats? seem counterintuitive or even dan- Can somebody excel at failing and gerous to engage in an argument should we then treat it as a form of that links animals and queerness. success? For Sara Ahmed, to queer Greta Gaard in her article ‘Toward something is to disturb the order of a Queer Ecofeminism’ warns that things (Ahmed 2006, 161). Accord- ‘queers are feminized, animalized, ing to Lauren Berlant and Michael eroticized, and naturalized in a cul- Warner the ‘queer world is a space ture that devalues women, animals, of entrances, exits, unsystematized and sexuality’ (Gaard 1997, 119). lines of acquaintance, projecting ho- However, Halberstam explores this rizons, typifying examples, alternate connection amidst its negative con- routes, blockages, incommensurate notations in order to un-think mod- geographies’ (Berlant and Warner ernist rigid taxidermic taxonomies 2005, 198). In this sense failure and and to re-think queer embodiment the disturbance of heteronormative and social relations. Drawing on teleologies are always inscribed in the work of Donna Haraway she Review: Szczygielska 237 invests in monstrous cyborg uni- forgetfulness as queer strategies ties, and in this way manages to that help to reveal false narratives add ‘queer’ to the Marxist dictionary of heteronormative continuity and (Haraway 1996). In the children’s succession. By using the counter- animation Chicken Run Halbers- example of loopy idiocy in Dude, tam traces Gramscian structures Where’s My Car? Halberstam paints of counterhegemony and Hardt’s a startlingly accurate analysis of the and Negri’s praise of collectivity and messy relationships between amne- technologically enhanced multitude sia, stupidity, masculinity, whiteness (Hardt and Negri 2005). Paradoxi- and temporality. Later she points out cally the rebellious feminist poten- that stupidity and forgetfulness are tial of this animation has already deeply gendered ways of knowing. been acknowledged and taken very While ‘Dudes’ exemplifies male stu- seriously by the Iranian political re- pidity, an amnesiac fish named Dory gime – the documentary Traces of from Finding Nemo represents a fe- Zionism in World Cinema from 2008 male model of queer time, knowl- focuses on Chicken Run as a west- edge, kinship and cooperation. ern tool for smuggling revolutionary In chapter three Halberstam elo- propaganda (IRINN TV). Indeed, quently challenges queer theory’s Halberstam would probably agree rejection of the child figure, criticized that what she calls the ‘Pixarvolt’ as the embodiment of ‘reproduc- genre in kids films is a highly politi- tive futurism’ (Edelman 2004), by cal enterprise, which by privileging recognizing childhood and childish- collective cooperation over selfish ness as queer experiences. Leav- individualism, diverse communities ing the Darwinian motto of winners over untrammeled consumption and aside, she focuses on the ‘not close social bonding over family kinships, enough’ losers of the Olympics pho- poses a threat to both authoritarian tographed by Tracy Moffat, the punk and neoliberal political regimes. Her junkies from Trainspotting, George analysis makes important connec- Brassaï’s social outcasts in 1930s tions between the elements of the Paris, and a butch lesbian from The animation/animality/animism triad. L Word. The failure of this last char- This allows us to imagine what tran- acter, according to Halberstam, le- scending borders between the hu- gitimizes the fabulous lesbian figure man and the nonhuman, reality and of this popular TV series that suc- imagination, life and non-life, ob- cessfully attracts a heteronorma- jects and subjects, might look like. tive gaze. She writes: ‘[d]yke anger, In the second chapter Halber- anticolonial despair, racial rage, stam continues to build the frame- counterhegemonic violence, punk work of failure as a way of life. pugilism—these are the bleak and This time she turns to stupidity and angry territories of the antisocial 238 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 turn; these are the jagged zones multigendered, and full of wild forms within which not only self- shattering of sociality’ (Halberstam 2011, 181) (the opposite of narcissism in a way) other-worldly becomings. but other-shattering occurs’ (Hal- I think that The Queer Art of berstam 2011, 110). Later in chap- Failure is an immensely valuable ter four she proposes that radical resource not only for those new passivity and masochism can form to queer theory, but also for stu- strategies for envisioning difference dents and scholars who are more in lesbian femininity. Refashioning invested in the field. I was pleased victimhood that is beloved by liberal to discover that Halberstam has feminism (which is still invested in managed to create an alternative generational logic of passing down queer archive that is composed of knowledge), Halberstam stands for artists, outcasts, cartoon charac- ‘shadow feminisms’ that through ap- ters, and punks. However, her in- parent passivity and negation resist sightful critique of the gay male ar- the unchoosable choices posed by chive (preferred by queer theorists the capitalist imperative of striv- like Edelman and Bersani) as being ing for happy endings (Halberstam completely western- and male-cen- 2011, 4). tric, although present in her previ- In arguing for what she calls ‘pi- ous article (Halberstam 2008, 152), rate cultures’ Halberstam acknowl- was unfortunately not included in edges that pirates can actually this book. Nevertheless, The Queer be bloodthirsty bandits (Halbers- Art of Failure is a path-breaking tam 2011, 18). It becomes clear in radical project which, thanks to the chapter five where by uncovering engaging and lucid writing style, dark histories of the Nazi past she is an accessible read. Halberstam explores the troubling relationship has chosen a truly queer approach between homosexuality and fas- that does not follow a straight path; cism. This part of queer history is it takes unexpected detours, but at unwanted and unwelcome by the the same time does not shy away ‘pink triangle activism’, because it from troublesome and complicat- does not neatly fit into the narratives ed memories of queer pasts and of the persecution of gay people doesn’t try to please readers with a under the Nazi regime. For Halber- big bang fairy-tale moral in the end. stam it’s a pretext to raise questions Instead we are left with a deeply about the erotics of history and eth- political, anti-capitalist, fleshy proj- ics of complicity. In the last chapter ect that posits queerness within the she comes back to the animated framework of the wacky, hopelessly worlds of posthuman creatures that absurd art of failing spectacularly. often (but not always) offer a promise of ‘antihumanist, antinormative, Review: Szczygielska 239

References IRINN TV. “MEMRI: Iranian TV Docu- Ahmed, Sara. 2006. Queer Phenom- mentary Series Traces Zion- enology: Orientations, Objects, ist Themes in Western Movies: Others. Durham: Duke University ‘Chicken Run’.” MEMRITV - The Press. Middle East Media Research In- stitute. http://www.memritv.org/ Berlant, Lauren, and Michael Warner. clip/en/1787.htm. 2005. Sex in Public. In Michael Warner, ed. Public and Counter- public. New York: Zone Books.

Edelman, Lee. 2004. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. Duke University Press Books.

Gaard, Greta. 1997. Toward a Queer Ecofeminism. Hypatia 12 (1): 114–37.

Giffney, Noreen, and Myra J. Hird. 2008. Queering the Non/human. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Halberstam, Judith. 2008. The Anti-So- cial Turn in Queer Studies. Gradu- ate Journal of Social Science 5 (2): 140-156.

———. 2011. The Queer Art of Failure. Durham, London: Duke University Press.

Haraway, Donna Jeanne. 1996. Gen- der for a Marxist Dictionary: The Sexual Politics of a Word. In Sarah Franklin, ed. The Sociol- ogy of Gender, Cheltenham and Northampton: Edward Elgar Pub- lishers.

Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2005. Multitude: War And Democ- racy In The Age Of Empire. Pen- guin Books. Christian Rojas Gaspar, Department of Sociology, Queen’s University

Jerry Hollingsworth. 2008. Children of the Sun: An Ethnographic Study of the Street Children of Latin America. New Castle: Cambridge Scholars Publish- ing.136 pp. Paperback. ISBN: 9781847184207

of Mexico’ and part two is titled ‘The In Children of the Sun, Jerry Children of Peru.’ Each part begins Hollingsworth, Professor of Sociol- by providing the historical, political, ogy at McMurry University, takes and economic background of each the reader inside the subculture country. This background informa- of ‘street children’ in Cuernavaca, tion provides the reader with an Mexico and Lima, Peru. Street chil- understanding of the structural fac- dren are children up to the age of tors, such as social stratification, eighteen, who are forced to live unemployment and political corrup- and work on the streets as a re- tion that according to Hollingsworth, sult of poverty, migration or familial contribute to the presence of street conflict. They are burdened with a children on Mexican and Peruvian myriad of issues. Many lack access streets. to formal education and adequate Hollingsworth uses the term healthcare, face discrimination, and ‘street children’ to refer to children show a propensity towards drug use in three different situations. Market and victimisation. They are also ex- children labour on the street in order cluded from what conventional so- to supplement their families’ income ciety has defined as childhood (10). and attend school sporadically. They Hollingsworth’s goal is to give an comprise the majority of the street in-depth account of street children’s children population. Homeless lived experiences, and analyse their Street children live on the streets individual characteristics and day- full time and in most cases, have to-day behaviours through a lens of lost contact with their families after subculture, pseudo-adulthood, and running away or being abandoned the importance of play. (11). Hollingsworth introduces a Children of the Sun is a two-part third category, street family children. book. Part one is titled ‘The Children Graduate Journal of Social Science July 2012, Vol. 9, Issue 2 © 2012 by Graduate Journal of Social Science. All Rights Reserved. ISSN: 1572-3763 241 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2

Like homeless street children, street everyday routines. These chapters family children live on the street full shed light on the unique characteris- time, but do so with their families, tics of each group of street children. and are mainly the children of indig- Hollingsworth observes that market enous migrants (11). children are able to form connec- Chapters two (Mexico) and ten tions with adults and other children (Peru) expand on the field methods for protection and business. On the employed. Hollingsworth relies on other hand, Hollingsworth finds that ethnography in order to explore the street family children are too young subculture of street children. Holling- to experience the street on their sworth undertakes two forms of eth- own, so they beg for their survival nographic observation, participant under their mother’s watch. Holling- and non-participant observation, as sworth argues that there is possibly well as one-on-one interviews with a stratification system between mar- the street children. Non-participant ket and street family children, since observation is undertaken in the street families are often indigenous case of Mexico. In contrast, Hol- migrants. Based on the colour of lingsworth assumes the role of a their skin and their appearance, they volunteer with a non-governmental are looked down upon by the market organisation for the first part of the children. Consequently they are un- fieldwork in Peru, to report on chil- able to take advantage of the same dren who live in extreme poverty. He economic opportunities (45). Finally, then returns to the role of an observ- Hollingsworth notes that homeless er, for his analysis of market, family, street children live without any su- and homeless street children. pervision but form connections with Chapters three, four and five re- other children in similar situations for lay Hollingsworth’s narratives and protection and camaraderie. Out of observations of Mexico’s market, the three categories, Hollingsworth family, and homeless street chil- finds that homeless street children dren respectively. Hollingsworth are more likely to engage in delin- presents the children’s stories in quency for their survival. the form of case studies; the case In chapter six, Hollingsworth ex- studies include four market children, plores two behaviours that are most four homeless street children, and common to homeless street chil- three street families. Following each dren: the use of inhalants, and sex- case, Hollingsworth’s assessment ual promiscuity. Having attended a consists of two things: (1) the impor- “huffing party,” Hollingsworth iden- tance of play in the children’s lives, tifies paint thinner and glue as the and (2) the pseudo-adulthood traits drugs of choice for homeless street that the children exhibit, through the children, due to their low cost and way they cope with street life in their the lack of regulations associated Review: Gaspar 242 with their use. Hollingsworth finds children follow people around with that homeless street children rely on their hand extended, without saying inhalants as a mechanism to cope anything, simply looking to make with feelings of sadness, loneliness, eye contact. Eye contact, according and hunger (57). Hollingsworth to Hollingsworth, is meant to cause further notes that during “huffing pity in those passing by, which may parties,” homeless street children lead them to give money to the chil- practise unprotected sex with each dren. other. Sometimes this happens will- In Chapters eleven, twelve and ingly, and other times through force thirteen, Hollingsworth turns to the or coercion. Hollingsworth labels children of Lima, Peru, but unlike this a ‘social event’ that combines the Mexican analysis, his assess- inhalant use and promiscuity, mak- ment of Peru takes a different focus. ing homeless street children more In chapters eleven and twelve, Hol- vulnerable to sexually transmitted lingsworth’s analysis is about chil- diseases (58-59) and heightens dren who live in extreme poverty in their chances of sexual victimisation two different shanty-towns of Lima. by other street children and adults. Hollingsworth notes that the four In chapter seven, Hollingsworth children in this analysis have expe- briefly acknowledges the role of rienced sporadic episodes of street non-governmental organisations, life, as they were members of rural which for years has been to provide migrant families before settling in the street children with education, legal shanty-towns. Hollingsworth’s anal- assistance, and rehabilitation, in an ysis of Peru is similar to his analysis effort to draw them away from street of Mexico, focusing on the children’s life. Hollingsworth further addresses instances of play, pseudo-adulthood the failed attempts of the Mexican traits, and delinquent behaviours. In government to deal with street chil- Chapter thirteen, Hollingsworth re- dren, which have led to controversy turns to the original analysis of mar- over corruption and human rights ket, family and homeless street chil- violations. In Chapter eight Holling- dren in Cusco, Peru. This analysis is sworth outlines some of the strate- short as Hollingsworth only presents gies that market and street family the analysis of one market child, children employ in order to sell their one homeless street child, and one products or beg for money. Holling- street family. Hollingsworth’s con- sworth characterizes market chil- clusions are similar to the Mexican dren as ‘clingy’, due to the persis- cases, but one difference emerges tence and drive they demonstrate in with respect to the market children order to sell their products to people of Peru. According to Hollingsworth, passing by. On the other hand, Hol- Peruvian market children speak lingsworth notes that street family English in order to communicate 243 GJSS Vol 9, Issue 2 with foreigners and better market book could have been longer and their products to tourists. In Chapter provided more in-depth informa- fourteen, Hollingsworth provides a tion about the street children with historical description of ‘basuco’, a direct quotes from their narratives. plant used by Peruvians working in Furthermore, from a methodologi- the fields, which has similar effects cal standpoint, Hollingsworth would to the inhalants used by homeless have benefited from a sample drawn street children in Mexico. According from different areas of Mexico, like to Hollingsworth, Peruvian home- he did in Peru, since the street chil- less street children use basuco for dren of one area are different from similar reasons, and in a similar those from another area. Finally, context as the homeless street chil- this book brings back an age-old dren of Mexico. Basuco helps the debate between ‘spoiling the field’ street children cope with their cur- and ‘fair compensation’ when pay- rent situation, suppress hunger and ing respondents. This occurs when loneliness, and is often used during Hollingsworth obtains participation sexual activity with other street chil- from the mothers of street family dren or with adults. children ‘by paying one to 50 pesos Jerry Hollingsworth’s Children of at the time’ (42). the Sun is a well written and thought With Children of the Sun, Jerry provoking account, as it takes the Hollingsworth makes a contribution reader inside a subculture that has to the literature on street children. become part of the daily landscape Through Hollingsworth’s analysis, of Latin American streets. As quali- it becomes evident that market chil- tative research endeavours to do, dren have the opportunity to develop Hollingsworth gives a ‘voice to the networks, skills, and habits that may voiceless.’ Children of the Sun can help them come off the streets. On be used as a ‘jumping off’ point for the other hand, homeless and street researchers interested in street pop- family children are far more vulner- ulations and ethnographic methods. able. Finally, as long as structural Furthermore, it is written in an ac- poverty continues in Latin America, cessible way to be understood by a lack of education and children rely- non-academic audience. Books that ing on the streets for their survival are geared towards general and ac- will continue to be a common sight. ademic audiences are rare. This perhaps suggests where re- Children of the Sun, however, is search and reforms are needed. not without a few shortcomings. In Children of the Sun belongs on the only 136 pages, Hollingsworth anal- desks of researchers and in univer- yses the subculture of street chil- sity classrooms; it should be read by dren in two different countries, and anyone interested in the results of contrasts them with each other. The structural inequality.