Agency, Injury, and Transgressive Politics in Neoliberal Times

Madhok, Sumi; Shirin, M.

doi:10.1086/662939

Cited by 70 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…43 Feminist scholars have discerned neoliberal agency at play in women-in-development microcredit schemes, adolescent and queer girls' modes of postfeminist self-presentation on social media and girls' and women's various empowerment and entrepreneurship initiatives. 44 It also informs Mshoza's vision of self-fashioning, a vision that assumes a freewheeling subject unaccountable to prior histories and enduring political structures.…”

Section: Beyond Agency As Argumentmentioning

confidence: 97%

Historicising Agency

Thomas¹

2016

Gender & History

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Why has ‘agency’ been such a tenacious concept in historical scholarship on women and gender, and what have been the consequences on this tenacity? This essay tackles these questions and proposes, through a brief examination of the history of skin lighteners in South Africa and beyond, how agency might be pushed in more surprising, more analytically productive directions. Too often agency slips from being a conceptual tool or starting point to a concluding argument. For example, in my subfield of African women's and gender history, statements like ‘African women had agency’ can stand as the impoverished punch lines of empirically rich studies. Consideration of Walter Johnson's 2003 essay ‘On Agency’ highlights the intellectual and political imperatives of 1970s Marxist and feminist social history that placed agency at centre stage. This essay examines why, more than a decade after Johnson's critique, agency endures as a ‘safety’ argument for reasons related to representational politics, research methodologies and the circumscribed imagination of intellectual gatekeepers. It argues that we should move beyond agency as argument by attending to the multiple concerns and desires – some intentional, others not – that animate human actions, including contentious gendered practices, and by examining how different historical actors have themselves understood agency. Agency has a history. By acknowledging and tracing that history, we will be better able to discern the usefulness and limits of agency for our own analyses.

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Section: Beyond Agency As Argumentmentioning

confidence: 97%

Historicising Agency

Thomas¹

2016

Gender & History

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“…There are some things that should remain hidden (Madhok and Rai 2012). Thus, the identities of the participants were protected and it ensured that problems could not be linked with individual households.…”

Section: Ethical Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping Meaning: Critical Cartographies for Participatory Water Management in Taita Hills, Kenya

Hohenthal

Minoia

Pellikka

2016

The Professional Geographer

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Participation of local people is often neglected in natural resource management, which leads to failure to understand the social aspects and historical construction of environmental problems. Participatory mapping can enhance the communication of local spatial knowledge for management processes and challenge the official maps and other spatial representations produced by state authorities and scientists. In this study, we analyze what kind of social meanings can be revealed through a multimethod participatory mapping process focusing on water resources in Taita Hills, Kenya. The participatory mapping clearly complicates the simplified image of the physical science mappings, typically depicting natural water supply, by addressing the impacts of contamination, inadequate infrastructure, poverty, distance to the sources, and restrictions in their uses on people's access to water. Moreover, this shared exercise is able to trigger discussion on issues that cannot always be localized but still contribute to place making. Local historical accounts reveal the social and political drivers of the current water-related problems, making explicit the political ecology dynamics in the area. Key Words: environmental histories, participatory mapping, spatial meaning, Taita Hills, water resource management. 自然资源的管理经常忽略在地人的参与, 并导致无法理解环境问题的社会面向及历史建构。参与式製图能够为管理过程增进在地空间知识的沟通, 并挑战国家机构和科学家所绘製的官方地图及其他空间再现。我们于本研究中聚焦肯亚台达山丘中的水资源管理, 分析透过多重方法参与式製图过程, 能够揭露何种社会意涵。参与式製图透过指出污染、基础建设不足、贫穷、获得资源的距离, 以及使用他人的水资源管道的限制之影响, 明确地复杂化描绘出自然资源供给的一般物理科学製图。再者, 此一共享的活动, 能够引发对无法总是在地化、但却仍对地方打造有所影响的议题进行讨论。地方历史的说明, 揭露了当前与水资源有关的问题的社会及政治驱力, 明确呈现出该地的政治生态动态。关键词: 环境历史, 参与式製图, 空间意涵, 台达山丘, 水资源管理。 La participaci on de la gente de la localidad a menudo no es atendida en el manejo de los recursos naturales, lo cual lleva al fracaso de entender los aspectos sociales y la construcci on hist orica de los problemas ambientales. El mapeo participativo puede robustecer la comunicaci on de conocimiento local para los procesos del manejo y reta los mapas oficiales y otras representaciones espaciales producidas por autoridades estatales y científicos. En este estudio analizamos los tipos de significados sociales que pueden revelarse a trav es un proceso de mapeo participativo de m etodo m ultiple enfocado en los recursos hídricos de Taita Hills, Kenia. El mapeo participativo claramente complica la imagen simplificada de los mapeos de ciencia física, que típicamente representa el suministro de agua, abocando los impactos por contaminaci on, infraestructura inadecuada, distancia a las fuentes y restricciones en sus usos de los accesos de la gente al agua. A un m as, este ejercicio compartido sirve tambi en para instigar la discusi on sobre asuntos que no siempre pueden localizarse, pero que a un así contribuyen a la construcci on de lugar. Los registros hist oricos locales revelan los controles sociales y políticos de los problemas actuales relacionados con agua, haciendo explícita la din amica de la ecología política en el area. Palabras clave: historias ambientales, mapeo partici...

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“…As Madhok and Rai argues, neoliberal formulations of agency individualizes responsibility but fails to recognize the systemic power relations and the structural constraints within which agential subjects seek to act. 70 Promoting women's participation while failing to addess overall power relations "leaves women with new roles to fulfil but no institutional leverage to fulfil them effectively", as El-Bushra pointedly argues. 71 Further, programs that seek to address child malnutrition through engaging, activating and educating mothers make existing gender relations a vehicle for the implementation of humanitarian programs and goals.…”

Section: Child Malnutrition and Women's Participation In The Bangladementioning

confidence: 99%