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- Convenors:
-
Anthony Howarth
(University of Oxford)
Freya Hope (University of Oxford)
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- Formats:
- Panel Roundtable
- Stream:
- Politics and Power
- Sessions:
- Thursday 24 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
This panel aims to conceptually, theoretically, and ethnographically examine cases where conformity in one social sphere is perceived as rule-breaking in another.
Long Abstract:
Since Emile Durkheim's foundational work, we have come to think of social life as being shaped by rules and norms, either through conformity or transgression. Indeed, membership of many social groups does, to a major degree, involve adhering to its rules. However, in some cases, abiding by such internal rules may involve transgressing the moral, legal, and/or cultural rules of the wider society in which these groups live. Therefore, this panel aims to conceptually, theoretically, and ethnographically examine cases where conformity in one social sphere is perceived as rule-breaking in another.
It invites papers that explore how rule-breaking within and between marginal and dominant groups shapes power relations, ordinary lives, and each other's social norms, while extending dichotomies such as structure/agency, mainstream/marginal, and power/resistance. Questions for consideration include, but are not limited to: How is rule-breaking mediated by groups for whom practices, such as those pertaining to economy, kinship, land use, conflict resolution, and child-rearing, differ from those of the mainstream? What new vocabularies can be deployed to conceptualise this kind of rule-breaking and adherence? In what ways are transgressions world-making? What kinds of sanctions exist for transgressors, why are these in place, and how are they mediated?
In particular, this panel seeks to address topics relating to the operations of power, boundary making/breaking, and transgressions of the mainstream as norms for the marginal, in the context of Gypsies, Travellers, and Roma, anarchists/societies against states, indigenous people, and subcultural groups. However, we also welcome papers that extend this scope.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 24 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
By linking the case study of a project fraud at a German university with international discussions on academic feudalism, I argue that the institutions and routines set up to secure compliance serve as useful Potemkin villages covering and strengthening premodern habits in postmodern institutions.
Paper long abstract:
Working in academia holds a variety of challenges for beginners and experts. Some of them are widespread in similar working cultures such as third-party-funding, temporary working contracts ranging from a few months to some years, bouncing from employed to freelance status and back with gaps in social security and income, discontinuous work on long-time research and publication projects. An important additive for employees at universitites and research institutions is the rule of good scientific practise. After impressive cases of scientific misconduct found their way into the non-academic public, institutions and rules for compliance procedures have been set up lately. The codes of conduct and the commissions to investigate fraud and other academic misbehaviour prove to be powerful resources to the institutions and those actors protecting them from bad reputation. They serve not as tools to resolve the officially addressed problem of broken rules in academia but on the contrary, reenforce it, as Sara Ahmed in her work on complaint at British universities points out (Ahmed forthcoming). It is up to discussion whether the notion "academic feudalism" (Ulrich 2016, Holligan 2011) supports a better understanding of the phenomena here presented, and whether social practises based on non-academic rules, that is: proposed by courts and social movements, are more appropriate tools to guarantee academic rules. The empirical material for this paper is based on my experiences in a third-party-funded research project where I reported severe irregularities according to the guidelines of my employer.
Paper short abstract:
New Travellers formed as a mobile alternative community in the UK in the 1970s and 80s. After developing their own norms and practices, which were inversions of those of mainstream society, their lifestyle was criminalised forcing most into housing. How do they now negotiate these opposing rules?
Paper long abstract:
Work on New Travellers, a mobile alternative community formed during the 1970s and 80s in the UK, describes them as being from all sectors of society. However, after coming together they quickly developed group norms and practices. Despite this, as their paramount values are based around freedom, from the state and any other kind of external limitations, part of adhering to their group norms also included transgressing them.
This kind of inversion of rules also extended to how they transformed the norms and practices of mainstream society to often do the opposite. For example, the ideal of cleanliness was converted to dirtiness, work ethic to anti-work, consumerism to owning nothing of value. Coming from a modern, individualistic society, New Travellers purposefully based their lifestyle around communal living, including (to varying degrees) cooking, eating, and childrearing. This attracted negative attention from media, the state and much of mainstream society; with the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 being implemented purposefully to stop their lifestyle.
Since then, many New Travellers moved abroad where rules were less stringent, moved into housing or onto private land, or died early deaths. However, thousands of people still identify as being part of the group, and though scattered in geographical space, still interact together in online space. Considering this, how do New Travellers now living apart from their community negotiate adhering to the rules of mainstream society and New Traveller norms, values and practices, where these are, by definition, opposite to those of the wider society?
Paper short abstract:
Through the narratives of European truck drivers, their fleet managers and Norwegian road side inspectors I explore the bending and breaking of safety related rules in the heavy goods transport sector.
Paper long abstract:
The bending and breaking of safety related rules in the heavy goods transport sector is well known in the public conversation about traffic safety, but so far no comprehensive effort has been made to explain the scope of the behaviour. The intentional bending and breaking of safety realted rules and regulation by actors in the European road based commercial goods transport sector is also a significant but understudied phenomenon in the trans-disciplinary safety science literature. Especially ethnographic studies based on participant observation with the goals of producing context sensitive holistic sociocultural descriptions are almost absent. One reason for this might be that the transdisciplinary Safety science is reliant on systems modelling and having ethnographic descriptions can be found to be muddying the waters and challenging models rather than contributing to what is seen as the overall goal of building safer societies. Through the use of several sources I chart possibilities for, the performance of, and the consequences following the bending of rules though the entire transport chain from consignor to consignee.
Paper short abstract:
For some visitors to Granadan heritage sites, sharing historical narratives present as much of an economic, social and cultural threat to the state as graffiti taggers and unhoused people. In giving everyday meaning space, these groups’ violations of heritage norms invoke similar coercive responses.
Paper long abstract:
The practices of groups such as graffiti taggers (or grafiteros) and unhoused cave-dwelling people (or okupas) in Granada, Spain, around publicly-accessed heritage structures are often characterised by mainstream groups as disrespecting the cultural value of the site, and as being more socially transgressive than practices of visitors to paid-entry heritage sites like the Alhambra – the Moorish castle. For some visitors, however, sharing alternative historical narratives can present as much of an economic and cultural threat to the state as grafiteros and okupas. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at the Alhambra and in the Moorish neighbourhood of the Albaicin, I compare how the everyday practices of these three subaltern groups give meaning to historical spaces in the present and allow for social and cultural expression of the groups. In the process, they also expose hegemonic narratives about the past and about heritage; the expected social behaviours and visual aesthetics of mainstream groups; and the valuing of heritage over the living conditions of vulnerable groups. Response to this rule-breaking, whether it be tagging political commentary on an 11th century Almohad arch; building a cave-house close to a 14th century Nazarid city wall; or refusing to cease sharing alternative historical narratives to a group of friends, can end up involving law enforcement and possible detention or incarceration. Installation of security cameras and continuous monitoring of behaviour has become common. Nonetheless, these violations of social and cultural norms and rules continue, as they necessarily shape the lives and present-day memory of these groups.