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- Convenors:
-
Riccardo De Cristano
(University of bologna)
Marc Brightman (Università di Bologna)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- BASE (Bodies, Affects, Senses, Emotions)
- Location:
- Room K-202
- Sessions:
- Thursday 16 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Expressing both moral agency and attribution of blame, and often denoting a position of authority and power, responsibility expresses relational dimensions of ethical subjectivity. We invite papers that explore responsibility in current social and environmental relations.
Long Abstract:
The idea of responsibility has gained currency as a corrective to the excesses and inequities of global capitalism, first as 'corporate social responsibility', and then in 'responsible finance'. It has interested generations of anthropologists, from Max Gluckman's focus on responsibility for misfortune (notably in the context of witchcraft) (1972), to contemporary studies of the relationship between responsibility, risk and accountability (Field 2021), via trenchant critiques of the mystifications of 'corporate social responsibility' (Dolan and Rajak 2016; Smith 2021). The term derives from the Latin 'respondeo': in pre-republican Rome, the pontifex - the highest Roman priest - provided his 'responsum' to citizens asking for legal advice in a ritual procedure contributing to the reproduction of traditional values. A similar reproduction of hierarchies, laws and traditional values may be seen in present day usage of 'responsibility' by political and corporate exercisers of power and authority to legitimise their practices. The idea of responsibility is frequently evoked in political and corporate spheres in relation to climate change and global inequalities, such that, given the link between carbon emissions and wealth accumulation, institutions responsible for global warming assume the responsibility to solve the problem; raising the question of time horizons: blame for past carbon emissions and responsibility towards future generations. Following Laidlaw's (2013) emphasis of the role of institutions and practices in shaping the attribution of responsibility, we invite papers that examine this role ethnographically, on topics such as: climate finance, environmentalism, CSR, medicine, new technologies, inequality.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 16 June, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
Laws and traditional values have shaped men's naming in Norway for 100 years, giving men responsibility for naming the nuclear family. During the same period, ideas of self and demands of gender equality have grown, making men accountable also as individuals, husbands and as fathers of daughters.
Paper long abstract:
In the first Norwegian name law (1923), the practice of men keeping their last names, women taking their husband's last name and children getting the name of their father, became law. The ideal of the nuclear family carrying the man's last name that grew forward in the 1800s among the Norwegian upper classes, now became the rule for everyone. Names had previously described the name of the father (i.e. Larsen, Nilsen, Størksen) and the name of the homestead (i.e. Dahl, Grønstad, Førre), hence changed accordingly. Now, the names should describe the male bloodline. Throughout the revisions of the name law in the 1940-1970s, suggestions to make it easier to use women's names were met with arguments of traditional values and order. In 1980, however, the name law became gender equal, while the practices have not. Norwegian men keep their birth names (over 90 %) to a greater extent than Norwegian women (about 50%). In this paper, I will discuss how men who have kept and men who have changed their last names in marriage with women, understand responsibility and naming. In addition to traditional values, the men mention responsibility towards oneself and continuity of naming identity as well as gender equality in their naming strategies. This suggest that there are multiple sets of values connected to naming and gender, giving men different, and sometimes conflicting norms that they are held accountable against.
Paper short abstract:
Twenty years ago, the Brazilian government redefined the responsibilities of private health insurers. Faced with these laws, health insurers have come up with several ‘solutions’. This paper explores how these solutions pivot around contested responsibilities and definitions of personhood.
Paper long abstract:
Twenty years ago, the Brazilian government redefined the responsibilities that private health insurance providers have towards their clients. New laws and government institutions had to offer better protection against a powerful insurance sector. These laws regulated, among others, premium increases, limited exclusionary clauses, as well as the unilateral cancellation of health insurance policies. Actuaries and other professionals working in the insurance sector argue that these laws are not logical, contradictory, immoral, and therefore undermine the economic principles on which health insurance is premised. Health insurers have come up with several ‘solutions’ that redefine their responsibilities. These solutions, some of them illegal, pivot around a redefinition of personhood, that legally redefines the individual as a collective enterprise. This paper explores the role that personhood plays in the configuration of responsibility. It is based on extensive and ongoing fieldwork among health insurance clients and their family members; interviews with actuaries and other professionals in the health insurance sector; and the analysis of lawsuits against health insurers.
Paper short abstract:
The paper analyses discourses around Covid vaccinations among Russian-speaking people in the Northern part of Germany. I analyze how the feelings of (dis)trust and (ir)responsibility affects people's practices and define their perception of the German healthcare system and covid vaccination program.
Paper long abstract:
There is evidence that Russian-speaking people express a lack of trust in the German government's ability to handle the Covid-19 pandemic.
The goal of the paper is to analyze the social tension and crisis of confidence in the German healthcare system among Russian-speaking people. I propose that in conditions of distrust, individuals develop alternative strategies for achieving predictability, reducing risks, and ensuring access to the necessary resources.
The majority of social researchers are devoted to the solution of the "problem" of distrust. It is rare to encounter a functional analysis of distrust. My objective is to examine whether post-socialist distrust has become part of a rational strategy for adaptation to the lockdown.
I focus on how Russian-speaking people have managed and organised their individual and collective behaviours during the lockdown and post-lockdown restrictions in Germany, affected by the atmosphere of (dis)trust and (ir)responsibility.
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, we would like to discuss elements from a project regarding an uneasy atmosphere at work (dålig stämning in Swedish). We focus on bosses, and shall present how they narrate their positions and responsibilities, and also how they are narrated.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, we would like to discuss elements from a project regarding an uneasy atmosphere at work (dålig stämning in Swedish). We focus on bosses, and shall present how they narrate their positions and responsibilities, and also how they are narrated.
Flat hierarchy is cherished in Sweden. All voices must be heard, decisions shall be transparent, all workers shall be treated equally. In the study that we conducted, we asked people what contrubutes to bad atmosphere at work. Two distinct elements were lifted: lack of being heard and inability to make desicions. These two elements were often attributed simultaneously to superiors.
In our presentation, we shall discuss the elements of responsibility that appear in the narration around superiors in a modern office work.
Paper short abstract:
Based on social media ethnography, the paper focuses on the experienced and narrated responsibilities of researchers in neoliberal university. Twitter posts about the relation between scientific impact and the responsibility of a researcher are analysed in the context of affective practices.
Paper long abstract:
In the Finnish Universities Act (2009), the mission of the universities is defined ‘to promote independent research - -, to provide research-based higher education and to educate students to serve their country and humanity at large’. In the current neoliberal university (e.g. Olsen & Peters 2005), these sublime responsibilities have often become numbers of productivity: numbers of publications, of study credits, of degrees, of external funding etc. These numbers are important in aiming to cost-effective universities in which the societal justification for research comes from its impact. What is considered as impact can vary between disciplines and financers, however.
In my paper, I will discuss the relation between the ways we understand scientific impact and the responsibility of an individual researcher. Doing ethnographic social media analysis and following Finnish Twitter, I analyse the ways the responsibilities of research organisations are visible in the work of an individual academic in the context of neoliberal university: what is the responsibility of a researcher comprised of, and how is it narrated and felt?
The ideas and experiences of researcher’s responsibility narrated in Twitter are analysed in the context of affective practices (Wetherell 2012), focusing on the ways they make researchers attached to or distanced from academia. The case study is based on Finnish material but reflects the global changes within academia.
The paper is part of the Academic Affects project in which we focus on research strategies as affective economy.