This article seeks to explore existing conceptualisations of emotional capital in educational research, and to undertake a critical analysis of these conceptualisations, including a reflection on my own explorations of teachers' and students' emotional practices. Drawing from Bourdieu's work, I offer a theoretical discussion of how emotional capital as a conceptual tool suggests a historically situated analysis of the often unrecognised mechanisms and emotion norms serving to maintain certain 'affective economies'. This point is made in reference to a brief discussion (...) of my ongoing ethnographic work over the last ten years. I conclude the article with outlining some new possibilities of theorising the potentiality and usefulness of the concept of emotional capital in the field of educational research. (shrink)

The present essay discusses the value of citizenship as shared fate in sites of ethnic conflict and analyzes its implications for citizenship education in light of three issues: first, the requirements of affective relationality in the notion of citizenship-as-shared fate; second, the tensions between the values of human rights and shared fate in sites of ethnic conflict; and third, the ways in which citizenship education might overcome these tensions without falling into the trap of psychologization and instrumentalization, but rather focusing (...) on providing opportunities for social and school practices that manifest shared fate and compassion in critical ways. It is argued that what teachers and schools should try to do is to make practices of shared fate and compassion possible through creating conditions for children and young people to experience what it means to enact such practices in sites of ethnic conflict. It is also suggested that teachers and schools in sites of ethnic conflict cannot produce ‘new’ citizens on the basis of any values, no matter how ‘noble’ these values may be. The most that can be done is to help children and young people to critically reflect upon the conditions under which people in sites of ethnic conflict can act on the basis of shared fate and compassion and provide support so that these possibilities can become realistic. (shrink)

Abstract In the last few decades, a growing number of commentators have questioned the appropriateness of the 'justice view' of ethics as a suitable approach in health care ethics, and most certainly in nursing. Essentially, in their ethical deliberations, it is argued that nurses do not readily adopt the high degree of impartiality and objectivity that is associated with a justice view; instead their moral practices are more accurately reflected through the use of alternative approaches such as relational or care-based (...) ethics. Yet, it has also been argued that this viewpoint does not necessarily 'do justice' to the broader moral responsibilities of nurses towards humanity in general, i.e. to the wider socio-cultural and socio-political issues in society, and to the concept of social justice in particular. This criticism has triggered a much closer examination of relational and care-based ethics in nursing at levels beyond individual responsiveness within relationships and brought into the spotlight the need for a more ethically refined nursing response to an increasingly complex set of socio-cultural inequalities. This article explores a relational ethic within nursing practices with contemporary ideas regarding social justice. In particular, it is argued that the synergy between the two actually produces an ethic that is capable of not only challenging the continuing predominance of justice-based ethics within health care, but of replacing it. Subsequently, in the discussion that follows, it is suggested that a combined social justice and relational care-based approach, as a social ethic, should guide the moral deliberations and actions of nurses. It is maintained that such an approach is not only possible, but crucial if nurses are to realize their full potential as ethical agents for individual and social good. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. (shrink)

Pencak Silat is a martial art, performance practice and system of body cultivation prevalent throughout much of Indonesia and the Malay-speaking world. This article compares different modalities of the practice and pedagogy of Sundanese Pencak Silat in West Java with more recent attempts to standardize practice at a national level under the auspices of the Indonesian Pencak Silat Association. Drawing on David Sudnow’s seminal account of learning how to play jazz piano, it is suggested that learning how to improvise is (...) a highly structured process that proceeds from the mastery of certain generic principles from which are generated potentially unbounded repertoires of habitual response. In the institutionalized instruction that is propagated by IPSI generative potential is subjugated to the desire to achieve homogeneity in practice. Aspects of Pencak Silat as it is taught nationally under the auspices of IPSI are examined in relation to the notion of spectacle. In conclusion, it is argued that the limits of the Nationalist project become self-evident as the dynamic potential of the body in Sundanese Pencak Silat is subsumed in an attempt to achieve fixity of the symbolic order. (shrink)

Straddling the divide between universalism and relativism, agonistic reason as construed by Foucault and Castoriadis dismisses universal foundations without becoming context-bound or inescapably subjectivist. It is propelled by a strong commitment to freedom and it draws flexibly on available resources and its creative potentials in order to vindicate its conditional claims. This provides a hyper-critical and liberating mode of critical reason which delves into the underlying norms of agency in order to open them up to question and to enhance free (...) self-direction. The argument that is put forward, then, is threefold. Firstly, Castoriadis’ accent on ontological reflection, the imaginative disclosure of new figures and the global intent of critique contrasts with Foucault’s account of agonistic reason and yields a more robust version of critical rationality. Secondly, this form of reflective agonism can effectively address fundamental challenges and reason across contexts, tackling moral and other issues that arise from cultural innovation and exchange. Lastly, agonistic reason need not, and should not, call upon absolute principles on any level in order to uphold its own values and do justice to its radical others. (shrink)

This article brings to light discourses that constituted the education of Asian-American children in California in the second half of the nineteenth century. Guided by Foucaultian ideas and critical race theory, I analyze California public school laws, speeches of a governor-elect and a superintendent, and a report of the board of supervisors, from the 1860s to the 1880s. During this targeted period, the images and narratives of Asian-American children were inscribed with racism. Racializing politics rendered them to be disqualified from (...) attending public schools. Segregated schooling for them was legally ordered and therefore unquestioned. It was a discursive practice implemented on their bodies by dint of a mechanism of a spatial division. This article reveals the shifting dominancy of discourses regarding Asian-American children. Rather than accepting the given historical facts, I intend to reread historical texts in order to rethink the education of Asian-American children through a Foucaultian encounter with critical race theory. Acknowledging different interpretations of the past events is a way of rethinking them and interrogating the history through the revelation of different histories in the education for Asian-American children. (shrink)