Post Structuralist Theory

This paper examines debate in applied linguistics stemming from disputes surrounding its nature, scope and relationship with theoretical linguistics and English language teaching. The paper inspects radical ideas on applied linguistics and the discipline's connection with linguistics and English language teaching, through an examination of conflicting definitions and contemporary research interests. Set against the theoretical frames of post-modernist and post structuralist perspectives, the discipline of applied linguistics presents a wide spectrum of perceptions and models, ranging from the restricted to the open field. The current crisis of identity and boundary between applied linguistics and English language teaching is traced to historical and conceptual premises. The historical development of the field and the main changes affecting its focus are correlated with the global spread of English and the ensuing concerns. The conceptual premise is addressed with respect to the changes in the linguistic theory. The position adopted in this paper is that applied linguistics is not an extension of English language teaching. Applied linguistics incorporates English language teaching or language in the classroom perspective and with the same clarity and precision offers through disciplined and methodological enquiry a macro frame that incorporates all aspects of language in communication. The paper concludes with the proposition of two frames in applied linguistics, each with specific concerns and possibilities: a macro applied linguistic frame which considers applications of language within the large area of interdisciplinary language-related studies, and a micro applied linguistic frame which considers pedagogic and educational concerns and is reserved for ELT.

FROM THE BACK COVER: What is the essential nature of meaning? . . . . . This book answers by examining interpretive theories from the past and present. It finds that an historical struggle with meaning has been underway since the Reformation, a struggle that reaches crisis proportions in the 20th century. On the one hand, this crisis is mollified by Heidegger's hermeneutical phenomenology, which argues that we are always already in a meaningful relationship to the objects of the world. On the other hand, this crisis is exacerbated when phenomenology, structuralism, and aesthetic theory directly make meaning into an object of study. . . . . . . . . These historical developments culminate with the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, whose non-hermeneutical phenomenology delimits a cause of meaning said to be closely linked to the core of subjectivity. Intriguingly, Lacan's work reveals meaning to be sexual in nature. By integrating his notion of sexual difference with his work in discourse theory and topology, this book demonstrates how the subject's struggle with meaning can be suspended.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GENERAL DESCRIPTION: Broadly speaking, the majority of books on Jacques Lacan focus on the earlier periods of his career. They also tend to target the psychoanalytic clinical community, or else discuss his work in various political, social, and cultural contexts. But in almost all cases these books refrain from a detailed exegesis of his actual texts. They instead prefer to comment on his theoretical apparatus as a whole before turning to its practical implications. . . . . . This book positions itself against this grain. Firstly, it closely analyzes some half-dozen key Lacanian texts. This analysis is organized under a single thematic – the question of meaning – in order to advance the reader's understanding of the trajectory of Lacan's thought across his entire career, as well as to promote the book's thesis that the field of meaning can be suspended. Accordingly, an initial chapter takes up the hermeneutical tradition from Flacius onward. This is then supplemented by a chapter which surveys phenomenological, structuralist and aesthetic theories of meaning and their differing methods of textual analysis. Together these two chapters provide a unique context for the sustained analysis of Lacan's texts which begins in the third chapter, an analysis that forms the bulk of the book's content. This contextualization potentially widens the book's appeal to any scholar wishing to explore his relationship to those textual objects he interacts with on a daily basis. And because this book assumes the reader has little to no familiarity with Lacan, the reader will find patient explanations of the basics of his theories before slowly being led up to the more difficult theories of his late years. Again the argument is that Lacan has something to offer all scholars. His work is not just reserved for psychoanalysts. . . . . . It is with his late theories that the serious student of Lacan will find the book's most original contribution. For in the fourth chapter a detailed account is provided of how Lacan derived his infamous formulae of sexuation from Aristotelian logic. These formulae are then extensively discussed against the backdrop of interpretive theory and textual analysis, showing how these formulae capture much more than just the difference between the sexes. Strikingly, this difference is also found to run through meaning itself, something the final chapter aims to demonstrate. It does this by amalgamating three key components of late-Lacan: sexuation, discourse theory and his use of topological spaces. This amalgamation is a first in the literature. But this amalgamation is not just useful in demonstrating the book's thesis. It further suggests how seemingly divergent aspects of late-Lacanian theory can be made to work together.

This study seeks to establish the continuity and discontinuity of mental representation systems such as totem systems... it also demonstrates the metaphorical existential nature of the mentality of hunters - current gatherers.... The Thought precede in this vision of its functioning both analog and logical,,  two forms of setting in motion of it - this part of the real of everyday life from a common psychic base, what Claude Levi- Strauss called the diy of the Spirit and which I would partially pair with the pre-cognitive stage in children. From this foundation of the Spirit human reflection would develop in both its analog and logical form. These two forms of Thought are articulated according to the universal laws of the fulfillment of human language.  ! Analog thinking is also more conducive to developing reasoning of a magical or metaphorical type..!

ITALIANO
Ogni struttura, dunque anche ogni istituzione, è abitata da una «casella vuota», uno spazio mobile e mai colmabile che ne mette in movimento gli elementi e ne regola la dinamica destituente/istituente. Questa idea – che trova una delle sue tante formulazioni, forse la più celebre, nel testo sullo Strutturalismo di Deleuze – è l’esito di un lungo e fecondo tragitto. Il percorso coincide, almeno nelle sue svolte più significative, con quello della scuola sociologica francese che, da Durkheim, attraverso Mauss, giunge sino all’antropologia di Lévi-Strauss. E trova nella nozione di "mana" un vero e proprio paradigma.
ENGLISH
Every structure, therefore also every institution, is inhabited by an "empty box", a mobile space that can never be filled, which sets the elements in motion. This idea – which finds one of its many for-mulations, perhaps the most famous, in Deleuze's Structuralism – is the outcome of a long and fruit-ful path, from Durkheim, through Mauss, to the anthropology of Lévi-Strauss. To understand its genesis and follow its evolutionary path, it is necessary to focus attention on Marcel Mauss’s work and on his way of thinking about institutions.

The United States government’s preventive counterterrorism strategy is no secret. As the U.S. government adopted a no-tolerance policy to apprehending the 9/11 terrorists, a fear-stricken public watched images of nefarious, dark-skinned, and bearded Muslims flash across millions of television screens. The message was, if there had ever been any doubt, that the 9/11 attacks confirmed Muslims and Arabs are inherently violent and intent on destroying the American way of life. Heightened scrutiny of these communities was thus perceived as not only warranted, but a rational response to an existential threat to the country.

Ten years later, the 9/11 terrorist attacks appear to have succeeded in transforming the American way of life for the worse. In our hasty passage of the expansive PATRIOT Act, our fears gave way to the government’s demand for unfettered discretion to preserve national security at the expense of civil liberties for all Americans. As a consequence, America has come to resemble a police state where government surveillance extends into almost every aspect of life.

This article focuses on three of the most powerful components of the counterterrorism preventive paradigm and the significant risks they pose to the civil rights and civil liberties of the communities most targeted by the policies - Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians. The current preventative paradigm for countering terrorism risks infringing on First Amendment protected activities and misdirects limited law enforcement resources away from criminal activity. In addition to wasting limited resources, religious and racial profiling erodes trust between law enforcement and Muslim communities. To the extent constructive relations between communities and law enforcement bolsters public safety, the government has an interest in curtailing arbitrary and overreaching counterterrorism enforcement.

The aggressive use of “material support to terrorism” is the fall back against individuals that the government cannot prove are engaged in terrorism. Indeed, the charges are found in most “terrorism-related” cases where a government informant plays a leading role in the attempted plot. The far-reaching and devastating effects of broadly interpreted material support laws on American Muslim charities and Muslim donors, as well as the broader American nonprofit sector, effectively criminalize otherwise legitimate charitable giving, peace building, and human rights advocacy. As a result, religious freedom rights are chilled as Muslims are deterred from practicing their faith fully from fear of inviting unwanted government scrutiny. In addition to calling for more judicious enforcement of material support laws not based on political ideology or religious belief, this paper argues for the need for a specific intent requirement in the law as a means of ensuring innocent but unpopular individuals are not targeted for prosecution.

The most recent and troubling developments in the preventive paradigm – the racial subtext of homegrown terrorism as a “Muslims only” club. The current debate about homegrown terrorism facilitates selective and arbitrary enforcement of counterterrorism laws against Muslims, while many non-Muslims commit or attempt to commit deadly acts of terror undetected. Notwithstanding the rise in terrorism by militias and right wing extremists, law enforcement has developed counterterrorism strategies based on essentialist stereotypes of terrorists as religious Muslims. Some Congressional leaders have followed suit by calling for more aggressive scrutiny of mosques, Muslim community organizations, and Muslim student groups. Furthermore, they seek to deputize Muslim religious leaders to spy on their congregations with little regard for the broad, adverse implications on religious freedom for all Americans. The article concludes by calling for smarter, more efficient policies that focus on criminal activity rather than false stereotypes that stigmatize entire communities as suspicious and disloyal.

To the extent that Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians are the “miner’s canary” in forecasting the post-9/11 loss of civil rights and liberties for all Americans, their experiences demonstrate America’s downward progression away from the Founding Fathers’ vision of a society where individuals can speak, assemble, and practice their faith free of government intervention or persecution.

The relationship between the United States and its northern neighbor Canada has generally been seen as a symbiotic one, both economically and ideologically. Recently, with the events in the Middle East, and President George W. Bush's fixations thereof, Canada's differences have come to light as the country democratically refused to participate in the military action. Marc Ouellette, in the following article, traces the contours of this political difference -- a very different democracy -- exposing the fixations of a country with a solution for its apparent political invisibility.

This dissertation analyses the philosopher Gilles Deleuze as his work might be imported into the social sciences. I articulate a series of themes from his work in order to contextualize the construction of an entirely new and empirically-based social science data model. The new quantitative model does not rely explicitly upon older methods of correlation or statistical regression. The new model generates its own non-linear number line via the structure inherent in Pascal's triangle. Through an analysis of self-similarity, the model constructs a mathematical shorthand via elliptical curves. This model also allows for data manipulation via a triangulation or parallax methodology. After explicating the model, I then pin both the model and underlying Deleuzian theory back to canonical debates and themes in the social sciences. Some of the theories and theorists encountered are: structuralism/post-structuralism, structure and agency in the sociology of culture, rationalization and modernity, Freud, Lacan, Saussure, and more.

This text would be an operating manual in form of a open lexicon, a tool for anyone who wants to deal with teaching (and of course research) in the field of arts. Is a result of  a 8 years PhD research (2005-2013) at  the Planetary Collegium CAiiA, Center Advanced inquiries integrative Arts, School of Art, Faculty of Arts , University of Plymouth under the direction and supervision of professor, artist and visionary thinker Roy Ascott. The thesis, titled Outline of a Subversive Technopoetic for a Libertarian Pedartgogy, explores the relationships between knowledge and knowing in our contemporary 21st century. The start resides in the hypothesis that technics have tertiarised memory (Stiegler B., 1994), that knowledge is always founded on an ontological pessimism (Queneau R., 1933, Lyotard F., 1979) and on a perpetual process of the generation of meaning (Gadda C., 1923-29, Foucault M., 1966). Knowledge is always and inevitably linked to the technics with which it is passed on. Pedagogy becomes a questioning of the object of knowledge, which transmutes into a definition of the ways it can be visualised.  This research then, setting out from a pessimistic position in relation to knowledge and truth, amplifies them to infinite possible forms and therefore causes a dual shift of philosophy towards art and of pedagogy towards hermeneutics. The methodology consisted of description of a territory in a cartography of meaning, seen as the relation between intuition and the way in which practices as knowledge and arts form meaningful remnants.
F. Monico, 2013

This introductory chapter outlines object, methodology, and significance of my PhD dissertation. Titled 'Unsettling Human Rights Custom', the study is the result of a research project carried out at SOAS under the supervision of Kevin Jon Heller, Scott Newton, Fareda Banda, and Yoriko Otomo.

Il presente file, titolo: Republicanismvs Geopoliticvs Fontes Origenes et Via, contiene testi e link di Massimo Morigi sull’estetizzazione della politica e sul ‘Repubblicanesimo geopolitico’. Il ‘Repubblicanesimo Geopolitico’ è una dottrina politologica e filosofico-politica elaborata negli ultimi anni dall’ autore  in cui i sette paper copia-incollati nelle  pagine di questo file costituiscono l’elaborazione storico-filosofica che ha portato all’elaborazione finale del ‘Repubblicanesimo Geopolitico’,  di cui si potrà prendere visione cliccando nei link posti nella parte finale del file al termine dei sette paper copia-incollati nel file. In questi precedenti paper era stato messo a fuoco, fra le altre cose,  un nuovo tipo di repubblicanesimo profondamente debitore delle suggestioni dell’estetizzazione della politica, con le sue luci delle avanguardie artistiche e con le sue terribili ombre dei regimi totalitari, così come si era manifestata nel corso del Novecento (il numero della nota a piè di pagina che all’inizio di ogni nuovo paper non riparte da 1 ma aggiunge 1 all’ultimo numero di nota del precedente paper pur essendo dovuto ad un automatismo del copia-incolla è, se vogliamo, anche un accidente altamente simbolico del filo rosso, fra riflessioni sul repubblicanesimo e sulla estetizzazione della politica, che attraversa tutti questi interventi). Il ‘Repubblicanesimo Geopolitico’ raccoglie queste suggestioni ed intende innestarle nel tronco della tradizione realista della Geopolitica. Un realismo politico quello del ‘Repubblicanesimo geopolitico’ che però, rinnovato dalla scuola costruttivista delle relazioni internazionali (Alexander Wendt), pone in primo piano una spazialità non solo geografica  ma anche di natura mentale, rappresentativa e culturale (in fondo la moderna noopolitik non è che una riscrittura postmoderna dell’estetizzazione della politica novecentesca)  e che, proprio perché strettamente vincolato in senso machiavelliano all’effettualità, rifiuta con irrisione tutte le ingenue, quando non interessate, visioni  liberal-neopositivistiche alla Popper e si riallaccia direttamente ai grandi pensatori dialettici Hegel e Marx (da questo punto di vista, il ‘Repubblicanesimo geopolitico’ si distacca drasticamente da tutte le vulgate neomarxiste: in primo luogo perché integralmente dialettico, in secondo luogo perché non cerca surrogati salvifici alla classe operaia ma individua, sulla scia di Gianfranco La Grassa, negli agenti strategici interni ed internazionali gli autentici operatori dell’evoluzione delle società capitalistiche – ma a differenza della versione lagrassiana del marxismo, il ‘Repubblicanesimo geopolitico’ si tiene ben stretta, ed intende sviluppare, la visione dialettica hegelo-marxiana della realtà). Possiamo così affermare che generare una profonda dialettica fra realismo politico e le mai sopite pulsioni verso l’estetizzazione della politica (impresa alla quale fu dedicata la vita del più grande rappresentante della filosofia politica del Novecento, Hannah Arendt, alla quale però fece sempre velo la sua formazione kantiana) sia il compito che si prefigge il ‘Repubblicanesimo Geopolitico’. Un repubblicanesimo, quello geopolitico, che ha pertanto definitivamente abbandonato una visione della libertà intesa come non dominio che ha segnato – ed estenuato – le ormai  vecchie ed attardate  vulgate del neorepubblicaneismo e che è invece fermamente indirizzato alla realizzazione di una autentica, profonda ed intima Vita Activa.

Massimo Morigi – Ravenna, 8 ottobre 2014

En explorant la notion de « démocratie à venir », l'emphase sera circonscrite à trois angles d'approches. Il s'agira, dans un premier temps, de comprendre la genèse de ce concept en plaçant les réflexions de Derrida au sein de l'ensemble de son oeuvre. Ensuite, nous nous intéresserons à l'aspect politique de sa pensée dans une lecture pratique et programmatique.
Pour conclure et ouvrir d'autres réflexions, nous tenterons d'esquisser les chantiers potentiels d'une pensée du vitalisme démocratique, notamment les liens entre la politique et le vivant.

This qualitative study investigates the relationship between racism and nationalism in two multi-ethnic British neighbourhoods, focusing specifically on the construction of ‘the Muslim’ as a racialised role sign. Through in-depth interviews with 102 ‘white’ and ‘non-white’ participants in Glasgow (Scotland) and Bristol (England) we investigate the extent to which ‘the Muslim’ is being demonised as an oppositional identity in the construction of English and Scottish codes of cultural belonging. We find that whilst Scottishness and Englishness draw on historically founded racialised (e.g. biological, phenotypical) referents of ‘whiteness’ at the level of the ‘multi-ethnic’ neighbourhood, such racialised codes of belonging are undermined in everyday life by hybridised codes: signifiers such as accent, dress, mannerisms and behaviours which destabilise phenotype as a concrete signifier of national belonging. However, those signifiers that contest the racialised referent are themselves reconfigured, such that contemporary signifiers of cultural values (e.g. terrorist, extremist) reinforce, but not completely, the original racialised referent. We conclude that a negative view of ‘the Muslim’ as antithetical to imagined racialised conceptions of nationhood cannot easily be sustained in the Scottish and English ‘multi-ethnic’ neighbourhood. The sign ‘Muslim’ is split such that contemporary significations perpetuate the exclusion of the ‘unhybridised foreign Muslim’.

Mob: 9946775529 The drama stage has witnessed terrible changes overtime. From the ancient epic play to the contemporary multifaceted performances, the audience has confronted but a drastic transformation in it. I have narrowed down matters into one of the groundbreaking Modern plays Hayavadana by Girish Karnad. Hayavadana again is a drama which carries within scope of studies from various perspectives. Here again I narrow down my research to the post-structuralist elements in the play. Post-structuralism is a revolutionary theory sprouted out in the 70's, from Structuralism in the previous decade. It focuses on the breaking of the traditional cults and taboos which were counted as identity of certain units by its parent theory. Undebatabely, Hayavadana is a play which smashes the supposed cults in uncountable manners. Let us examine the drama in the light of post-structuralism. To supplement my paper I intend to take the support of the eminent post structuralist work titled S/Z penned by Roland Barthes. In the essay Barthes makes a study of a novella from a bygone era, though with a very powerful and relevant concept for the Modern 1

"Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar North 2008) continues the franchise's seeming
secondary function of providing an ongoing critique of U.S. foreign and domestic habits and policies. Indeed, with its collection of readily recognizable repurposed icons, Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) elevates its satirical attack on the “post-9/11” sensibilities of the U.S. to roughly equal status with the actual game play. However, in its critique of the contradictory nature of these sensibilities, the game’s satire is equally contradictory. Thus, while the game is fun and frequently funny, the point of the textual play is often overwhelmed by a reliance on reinscribed icons and reversions to ribaldry."

This paper deals with the relationship between neoliberalism and communicative language teaching in language-in-education policy. Neoliberalism, or the deregulation of state based on meri-tocracy, or equal competition, gives rise to paradoxical discourses. On the one hand, sociolin-guistic superdiversity shows us the unprecedented mixing and switching of languages by transnational migrants. On the other, language commodification requires us to use standard or monolingual language forms to access high-paying jobs in the global market. Parallel discourses in communicative language teaching pedagogy that distinguish between weak and strong forms also give rise to monolingual and multilingual language practices, respectively. This paper examines how language commodification and sociolinguistic superdiversity relate to the method-related problem of identity, a tension in the literature between the monolingual language practices of weak communicative language teaching, and post-structuralist language learner identities that are delineated by language. By drawing discursive and epistemic links between language commodifi-cation and sociolinguistic superdiversity and weak and strong communicative language teaching, I argue that language commodification emerges as a hegemonic discourse in weak communicative language teaching policy precepts, responsible for the method-related problem of identity. I attribute the discursive hegemony to a positivist epistemic framework that imposes preconceived language structures and identities on post-structuralist language learners in second and foreign language learning through monolingualism. This paper discusses important implications of socio-linguistic superdiversity as a counter-hegemonic discourse in superdiverse communicative language teaching contexts, as well as directions for future research.

IIl presente file, titolo: Republicanismvs Geopoliticvs Fontes Origenes et Via, contiene testi e link di Massimo Morigi sull’estetizzazione della politica e sul ‘Repubblicanesimo geopolitico’. Il ‘Repubblicanesimo Geopolitico’ è una dottrina politologica e filosofico-politica elaborata negli ultimi anni dall’ autore  in cui i sette paper copia-incollati nelle  pagine di questo file costituiscono l’elaborazione storico-filosofica che ha portato all’elaborazione finale del ‘Repubblicanesimo Geopolitico’,  di cui si potrà prendere visione cliccando nei link posti nella parte finale del file al termine dei sette paper copia-incollati nel file. In questi precedenti paper era stato messo a fuoco, fra le altre cose,  un nuovo tipo di repubblicanesimo profondamente debitore delle suggestioni dell’estetizzazione della politica, con le sue luci delle avanguardie artistiche e con le sue terribili ombre dei regimi totalitari, così come si era manifestata nel corso del Novecento (il numero della nota a piè di pagina che all’inizio di ogni nuovo paper non riparte da 1 ma aggiunge 1 all’ultimo numero di nota del precedente paper pur essendo dovuto ad un automatismo del copia-incolla è, se vogliamo, anche un accidente altamente simbolico del filo rosso, fra riflessioni sul repubblicanesimo e sulla estetizzazione della politica, che attraversa tutti questi interventi). Il ‘Repubblicanesimo Geopolitico’ raccoglie queste suggestioni ed intende innestarle nel tronco della tradizione realista della Geopolitica. Un realismo politico quello del ‘Repubblicanesimo geopolitico’ che però, rinnovato dalla scuola costruttivista delle relazioni internazionali (Alexander Wendt), pone in primo piano una spazialità non solo geografica  ma anche di natura mentale, rappresentativa e culturale (in fondo la moderna noopolitik non è che una riscrittura postmoderna dell’estetizzazione della politica novecentesca)  e che, proprio perché strettamente vincolato in senso machiavelliano all’effettualità, rifiuta con irrisione tutte le ingenue, quando non interessate, visioni  liberal-neopositivistiche alla Popper e si riallaccia direttamente ai grandi pensatori dialettici Hegel e Marx (da questo punto di vista, il ‘Repubblicanesimo geopolitico’ si distacca drasticamente da tutte le vulgate neomarxiste: in primo luogo perché integralmente dialettico, in secondo luogo perché non cerca surrogati salvifici alla classe operaia ma individua, sulla scia di Gianfranco La Grassa, negli agenti strategici interni ed internazionali gli autentici operatori dell’evoluzione delle società capitalistiche – ma a differenza della versione lagrassiana del marxismo, il ‘Repubblicanesimo geopolitico’ si tiene ben stretta, ed intende sviluppare, la visione dialettica hegelo-marxiana della realtà). Possiamo così affermare che generare una profonda dialettica fra realismo politico e le mai sopite pulsioni verso l’estetizzazione della politica (impresa alla quale fu dedicata la vita del più grande rappresentante della filosofia politica del Novecento, Hannah Arendt, alla quale però fece sempre velo la sua formazione kantiana) sia il compito che si prefigge il ‘Repubblicanesimo Geopolitico’. Un repubblicanesimo, quello geopolitico, che ha pertanto definitivamente abbandonato una visione della libertà intesa come non dominio che ha segnato – ed estenuato – le ormai  vecchie ed attardate  vulgate del neorepubblicaneismo e che è invece fermamente indirizzato alla realizzazione di una autentica, profonda ed intima Vita Activa.

Massimo Morigi – Ravenna, 8 ottobre 2014

Tom Eyers’s Post-Rationalism is an ambitious attempt to elucidate thematic similarities between disparate post-war French philosophies under the general trend he terms ‘Post-Rationalism.’ Focusing on the Cahiers pour l'Analyse, Eyers argues that the seemingly disparate concerns of Marxism and psychoanalysis merged in high-structuralism in accordance with the post-rationalist tendencies initiated by its precedent philosophy of science. This review highlights the implicit challenge which Eyers’s argument presents to the antagonistically partisan way in which all philosophical discourses are organised and offers a new avenue for understanding the synergy between the continental and analytic traditions.

100 Jahre nach Erscheinen von Ferdinand de Saussures »Cours de linguistique générale« (1916) fragt die Konferenz nach den ›Folgen‹ und der Wirkmächtigkeit des Strukturalismus für die Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaften der Gegenwart und Zukunft; thematische Schwerpunkte sind ›Struktur und Zeichen‹, ›Struktur und Erzählung‹ sowie ›Struktur und (digitale) Kultur‹. Die Konferenz setzt dabei dezidiert nicht auf eine (wissenschafts)historische Aufarbeitung mit dem Ziel, eine möglichst differenzierte ›Geschichte des Strukturalismus‹ innerhalb einer Fachdisziplin und/oder eines Landes nachzuzeichnen. Vielmehr soll hier einer interdisziplinären und international geführten Diskussion Raum gegeben werden, in der die Aktualität und Wirkmächtigkeit des ›Strukturalismus‹ als historisch unabgeschlossen gilt. In diesem Sinne ist es Ziel, einen Diskurs zu stiften, der für alle beteiligten Fachdisziplinen und -bereiche ein Desiderat darstellt und für ihr methodologisches Selbstverständnis im 21. Jahrhundert von zentraler Bedeutung ist.

This paper focuses on how revolts against caste-based oppression in India have been made invisible due to conceptual legacies in European social and political theory. Weber’s and Arendt’s conceptualization of Pariah agency is a case in point. Arendt’s main understanding of Pariah agency is individualized and inadequate to study freedom struggles among untouchable castes. This article argues that one not only needs to move away from analyzing individual to collective action, but it is also crucial to foreground how collective mobilization among excluded groups has focused on contingencies that embed a system of domination. Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar’s critique of caste-based domination in India is noteworthy in this regard; he foregrounds how the distinction between “Touchables” and “Untouchables” in the caste system is both embedded and contingent. Focusing on untouchability in India, Ambedkar offers insights into hegemonic analyses of social exclusion, human rights articulations before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and add value to current debates in post-foundational thought and transnational analysis.

Schools are often sites of surveillance for students as behaviours are governed and regulated by gendered norms and sexed expectations. For transgender and gender non-conforming students, school environments can produce anxiety as students are categorized into gender binaries. This article draws from Canadian policy in public schools and higher education, interview data, as well as transgender teen narratives, to analyze gender policing in schools through gender binary washrooms. Building upon prior research and writing on gender binary washrooms.