This study examines the alleged organisation of violence by Coca Cola through a field-study conducted in a village in India. It draws on the works of Judith Butler to show how subaltern groups are derealised and made into ungrievable lives through specific, yet recurrent, practices that keep violence unchecked. Many participants attempt to resist derealisation through protest activities that showcase their vulnerability. However, the firm appropriates their claims to vulnerability through a paternalistic discourse that justifies intensified violence and derealisation. This research offers insights into accumulation through derealisation and on the effects of resistance to it.

How is collective remembering inhibited by organizational changes which were not intended to manipulate it? And how does collective forgetting affect workers’ power and sense of identity? We rely on an ethnographic study of a charitable organization that went through recent organizational changes to study two processes constitutive of collective forgetting. The first process consists in the past becoming unusable because once-useful memories lost their practical usefulness for participants’ new activities. The second process consists in the past becoming uprooted because the social relations through which memories used to be shared had changed beyond recognition. Our findings provide insights into the organizational processes through which memories cease to circulate. They also help understand the complex relations between memory, power relations and participants’ sense of identity.

The endangered loggerhead sea-turtle (Caretta caretta) nests on the shores of the Mediterranean, but faces threats to its existence from a variety of sources. Answering the question of how this species can survive is complex as it involves examining the relationships between the turtle, its natural environment, local tourists, property developers, conservation organisations, governments and lawmakers. We argue that actor-network theory (ANT) provides a powerful methodology for tracing these relations and identifying crucial actors which enable the survival of this animal. Using a rich ethnography and drawing on insights from 116 interviews, we trace three actor-networks that highlight factors important to the survival of the species. Yet, we also highlight the conceptual difficulties that result from using an ANT ontology for understanding socio-ecological interactions and argue that these may be ameliorated by embedding the ANT methodology within a critical realist (CR) ontology. We argue that this engagement between CR and ANT offers researchers a powerful method for understanding relations between socio-ecological actors whilst overcoming some of the theoretical difficulties of ANT.

This paper re-examines the import of Rawls's theory of justice for private sector institutions in the face of the decline of the welfare state. The argument is based on a Rawlsian conception of justice as the establishment of a basic structure of society that guarantees a fair distribution of primary goods. We propose that the decline of the welfare state witnessed in Western countries over the past forty years prompts a reassessment of the boundaries of the basic structure in order to include additional corporate institutions. A discussion centered on the primary good of self-respect, but extensible to power and prerogatives as well as income and wealth, examines how the legislator should intervene in private sector institutions to counterbalance any unfairness that results from the decline of the welfare state.