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Ambiguous discourses 3 Ambiguous discourses: indigenous peoples and the development of international law Introduction Discussion of concept and practice on indigenous peoples facilitates responses to the question of whose history is to be recalled from among the infinity available. The retrospective element in the definitions suggests that we should find relevant histories in and beyond the discourses of colonialism; our presumptive universalism suggests that the frame for a search is global.1 The draft Declaration is replete with historical recollection. The
4 Projecting discourse: less than theory, smaller than ideology Units and scale of analysis Studies of political processes have long been geographically-cum-morally spatialised between First World elite nationalism and Third World subaltern social movements. Lila Abu-Lughod (1990) and Sherry Ortner (1995) have described what they term a posture of ‘romance’ towards the latter while Iris Jean-Klein (2001) points up an inverse posture of ‘suspicion’ where the former is concerned. This ‘split posture’ effectively deconstructs First World elite nationalism while co
3396 Producing globalisation 29/9/09 11:15 Page 9 1 Hegemonic discourse communication The aim of this chapter is to offer a theoretical framework for studying and understanding hegemonic discourses and their function and effects. It is suggested that the domination of a hegemonic discourse signifies a complex communication process that directly involves national discursive realities, domestic institutional arrangements and agents/subjects. Therefore what is under scrutiny in this chapter is this communication process itself, in order to illustrate what this
3396 Producing globalisation 29/9/09 11:15 Page 66 3 Globalisation discourse in Greece The study of the materialisation of globalisation discourse in Greece aims to examine the effect that this discourse had in the reproduction of the Greek public discourse and politico-economic system. Some broader contextualisation might be helpful here. It was argued in chapter 2 that 1990 could be considered a turning point for Greek politics. In the same framework it can also be argued that 1996 signified both the consolidation of this turning point and a new
3396 Producing globalisation 29/9/09 11:16 Page 104 4 Globalisation discourse in Ireland As argued in chapter 2 the decade of the 1990s signified a turning point for the Irish political system. The well-established ‘Fianna Fáil versus the rest’ political pattern – which had dominated the Irish political life for approximately fifty years (1948–89) – ceased to define Irish politics and gave way to a ‘new politics of coalitionmaking’ (Mair, 1999). Moreover, the turn from the 1980s to the 1990s witnessed the significant empowerment of the socio-economic role
3396 Producing globalisation 29/9/09 11:16 Page 145 5 Facets of globalisation discourse The aim of this chapter is twofold. First it offers a comparison of the communication of globalisation discourse in Greece and Ireland. Thus it summarises, juxtaposes and compares the main findings of chapters 3 and 4. Second, it analyses how the differences between Greece and Ireland can be explained, and draws some general conclusions on the materialisation of globalisation discourse. Globalisation discourse in Greece and Ireland: a comparison The main political
This book considers how the coverage of Islam and Muslims in the press informs the thoughts and actions of non-Muslims. As media plays an important role in society, analysing its influence(s) on a person’s ideas and conceptualisations of people with another religious persuasion is important. News reports commonly feature stories discussing terrorism, violence, the lack of integration and compatibility, or other unwelcome or irrational behaviour by Muslims and Islam. Yet there is little research on how non-Muslims actually engage with, and are affected by, such reports. To address this gap, a content and discourse analysis of news stories was undertaken; verbal narratives or thoughts and actions of participants were then elicited using interviews and focus groups. The participant accounts point towards the normativity of news stories and their negotiated reception patterns. Individual orientations towards the media as an information source proved to be a significant factor behind the importance of news reports, with individually negotiated personal encounters with Muslims or Islam further affecting the meaning-making process. Participants negotiated media reports to fit their existing outlook on Islam and Muslims. This outlook was constructed through, and simultaneously supported by, news reports about Muslims and Islam. The findings suggest a co-dependency and co-productivity between news reports and participant responses. This research clearly shows that participant responses are (re)productions of local and personal contextuality, where the consequences of socially constructed depictions of Islam and Muslims engage rather than influence individual human thoughts and actions.
1 Discourse, rhetoric and logics The notion common to all the work that I have done since Madness and Civilization is that of problematization, though it must be said that I never isolated this notion sufficiently. But one always finds what is essential after the event; the most general things are those that appear last. It is the ransom and reward for all work in which theoretical questions are elaborated on the basis of a particular empirical field.… Problematization doesn’t mean representation of a pre-existing object, nor the creation by discourse of an
Ideology, interpellation, discourse In Chapter 1 we touched briefly upon some of the issues raised by the study of ‘colonial discourses’. Colonialism was often dependent upon the use of military force and physical coercion, but it could not function without the existence of a set of beliefs that are held to justify the (dis)possession and continuing occupation of other peoples’ lands. These beliefs are encoded in the language which the colonisers speak and to which the colonised peoples are subjected. This results in the circulation of a variety of
3 The legalistic discourse Almost all officials of the European states under consideration, the majority of legal experts and a large proportion of media commentators, both in Europe and the US, eventually engaged in the legalistic discourse. Legalism can be considered as taking a hegemonic position in the debates that surrounded the creation of the ICC and exerted a strong influence on the institutional design of the Court. NGOs had a vital impact on the rise of the legalistic discourse and on the consolidation of its hegemonic position. At the initial stages