Snap‐shots of live theatre: the use of photography to research governance in operating room nursing The use of photography is an underreported method of research in the nursing literature. This paper explores its use in an ethnographic research project, the fieldwork of which was undertaken by the first author. The aim was to examine the governance of operating room nursing in the clinical setting and the theoretical orientation was the work of Michel Foucault. The focus of this paper is on (...) how photography was used as a means of data generation. To establish some context we begin by drawing on writers from sociology and anthropology to provide an overview of the status of vision and visual research methods in contemporary social research. We then move to a brief discussion of the uses of photography in social research and the limitations imposed by ethical considerations of its use in clinical nursing settings. As well, the process and approach involved in this research project, and issues of analysis are discussed. Three ‘snap‐shots’ of operating room nursing, taken by participants, are presented. Each is analysed in terms of its contributions to the research process as well as its substantive contribution to the theoretical framework and the research aims. (shrink)

This paper explores the analytical relevance of Foucault's notion of biopower in the context of regulating and managing non-human lives and populations, specifically those animals that are the focus of livestock breeding based on genetic techniques. The concept of biopower is seen as offering theoretical possibilities precisely because it is concerned with the regulation of life and of populations. The paper approaches the task of testing the 'analytic mettle' of biopower through an analysis of four policy documents concerned with farm (...) animal genetics: the UK's National Scrapie Plan (2003); the UK National Action Plan on Farm Animal Genetic Resources (2006); the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Committee's report on Animals and Biotechnology (2002); and the Farm Animal Welfare Council's report on the Welfare Implications of Animal Breeding and Breeding Technologies in Commercial Agriculture (2004). Of interest is whether and how the four policy case studies articulate a form of biopower in relation to human-livestock animal relations in the context of genetic approaches to livestock breeding, and how biopower is variably expressed in relation to the different policy issues addressed. In concluding, the paper considers the overall applicability and relevance of biopower in the context of regulating animal lives within livestock breeding, highlighting both possibilities and limitations, and offers suggestions for taking forward research on livestock populations from a neo-Foucaultian perspective. (shrink)

Children’s exposure to the marketing of energy-dense nutrient-poor (EDNP) foods is a public health concern and marketing investment is known to be shifting to non-broadcast media, such as the Internet. This paper examines the perceptions of parents and children on ethical aspects of food marketing to which children are exposed. The research used qualitative methods with parent-child (aged between 8–13 years), from South Australia. Thirteen parent-child pairs participated in this research. Ethical concerns raised by parents and children included, the marketing (...) of EDNP foods, pester power and family conflict and the use of powerful techniques via the Internet. Their views on rights and responsibilities represented a complex mixture of idealistic and pragmatic positions. They appeared to be caught within the tensions of problematizing unhealthy food marketing to children, both as a social problem and as an individual problem. Their dilemmas are not dissimilar to the broader policy debate in Australia on the matter of food marketing to children. The stale-mate on statutory regulations to protect children from exposure to EDNP food marketing could be advanced by stronger use of ethical arguments to protect children from harmful exploitation and to protect parents from forces that undermine their authority. (shrink)

This paper examines ethics in organizations in relation to the subjectivity of managers. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault we seek to theorize ethics in terms of the meaning of being a manager who is an active ethical subject. Such a manager is so in relation to the organizational structures and norms that govern the conduct of ethics. Our approach locates ethics in the relation between individual morality and organizationally prescribed principles assumed to guide personal action. In this way (...) we see ethics as a practice that is powerfully intertwined in an individual’s freedom to make choices about what to do and who to be, and the organizational context in which those choices are situated, framed and governed. (shrink)

This paper examines ethics in organizations in relation to the subjectivity of managers. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault we seek to theorize ethics in terms of the meaning of being a manager who is an active ethical subject. Such a manager is so in relation to the organizational structures and norms that govern the conduct of ethics. Our approach locates ethics in the relation between individual morality and organizationally prescribed principles assumed to guide personal action. In this way (...) we see ethics as a practice that is powerfully intertwined in an individual’s freedom to make choices about what to do and who to be, and the organizational context in which those choices are situated, framed and governed. (shrink)

Workplace bullying is a significant issue confronting the nursing profession. Bullying in nursing is frequently described in terms of ‘oppressed group’ behaviour or ‘horizontal violence’. It is proposed that the use of ‘oppressed group’ behaviour theory has fostered only a partial understanding of the phenomenon in nursing. It is suggested that the continued use of ‘oppressed group’ behaviour as the major means for understanding bullying in nursing places a flawed emphasis on bullying as a phenomenon that exists only among nurses, (...) rather than considering it within the broader organisational context. The work of Foucault and the ‘circuits of power’ model proposed by Clegg are used to provide an alternative understanding of the operation of power within organisations and therefore another way to conceive bullying in the nursing workforce. (shrink)

Dress serves as a discursive daily practice of gender, and this article explains the dress practices of Bosnian Muslim refugee women living in Vermont. These dress practices tend toward elaborate, carefully cultivated styles for hair, makeup, and dress. Based on participant observation, in-depth interviews, and secondary historical sources, the authors seek to explain the meanings and practice of these dress practices. They argue that gendered dress practices reflect agentic processes that are situated within the flow of time and are rooted (...) in relational processes that occur at the macrostructural level of history and nation and at the micro world of social interaction and lived experience. (shrink)

The introduction of digital games and simulations into science museums has prompted excitement about a new "post-museum" pedagogy emphasizing egalitarianism, interactivity, and personalized approaches to learning. However, many post-museums of science, this article aims to show, enact rhetorical performances that lead visitors to narrowly targeted answers and hide the authority of the expert in a play of tactile and affective activities, thus operating in opposition to many of the basic ideals of the post-museum. The Brain and Cognition Exhibit at the (...) Hong Kong Science Museum serves as a case study for how a post-museum exhibit, through embracing interactivity and visitor-centered tasks, becomes a site where science is tested on and performed through visitors' bodies such that institutional prescriptions are applied. Visitors are not merely encouraged at this exhibit to learn about the brain through doing but are trained to see functional and dysfunctional brains and to then diagnose themselves and their children by playing games and taking brain-measurement tests. As a result, the interactive engagement of the exhibit creates a new space of public medicalization. Reflections and suggestions are offered at the end of the article. (shrink)

As the second part of a research agenda addressing the idea and meaning of Sustainable Development, this paper responds to the challenges set in the first paper. Using a Foucaudian perspective, we uncover and highlight the importance of discourse in the development of societal context which could lead to the radical change in our epistemological thought necessary for Sustainable Development to reach its potential. By developing an argument for an epistemological change, we suggest that business organizations have an ethical responsibility (...) towards revaluating Sustainable Development, leading to a discourse based on an integrated inclusive process of celebrating diversity in all its forms. The paper goes on to explore the argument for such a change. This exploration is based on three issues: the notion of over simplification in the promotion of development; the idea of an imbalance in the interaction of business and government operating in the larger context of society; and the notion of increasing responsibility with increasing influence in terms of the business organization within society. Having established the argument for an ethical choice by business organizations, we then reflect on how such a change could be incorporated into an organization. (shrink)

In the past 20, years the impact of progressive educational theories have become influential in nurse education particularly in relation to partnership and empowerment between lecturers and students and the development of student autonomy. The introduction of these progressive theories was in response to the criticisms that nurse education was characterized by hierarchical and asymmetrical power relationships between lecturers and students that encouraged rote learning and stifled student autonomy. This article explores how the work of Michel Foucault can be mobilized (...) to think about autonomy in three different yet overlapping ways: as a historical event; as a discursive practice; and as part of an overall strategy to produce a specific student subject position. The implications for educational practice are that, rather than a site where students are empowered, nurse education is both a factory and a laboratory where new subjectivities are continually being constructed. This suggests that empowering practices and disciplinary practices uneasily co‐exist. Critical reflection needs to be directed not only at structural dimensions of power but also on ourselves as students and lecturers by asking a Foucauldian question: How are you interested in autonomy? (shrink)

The paper examines the contribution of the French philosopher Michel Foucault to the subject of ethics in organizations. The paper combines an analysis of Foucault’s work on discipline and control, with an examination of his later work on the ethical subject and technologies of the self. Our paper argues that the work of the later Foucault provides an important contribution to business ethics theory, practice and pedagogy. We discuss how it offers an alternative avenue to traditional normative ethical theory that (...) both converges and diverges with other extant alternatives. By situating ethics as practices of the self, and bydemonstrating the conditions under which freedom in organizations can be exercised, Foucault’s ethics attempt to connect an understanding and critique of power with a personal project of self. He therefore provides a theory of subjectivity that potentially informs a reshaping of contemporary virtue ethics theory, value-based management, and business ethics teaching. (shrink)

The paper examines the contribution of the French philosopher Michel Foucault to the subject of ethics in organizations. The paper combines an analysis of Foucault’s work on discipline and control, with an examination of his later work on the ethical subject and technologies of the self. Our paper argues that the work of the later Foucault provides an important contribution to business ethics theory, practice and pedagogy. We discuss how it offers an alternative avenue to traditional normative ethical theory that (...) both converges and diverges with other extant alternatives. By situating ethics as practices of the self, and bydemonstrating the conditions under which freedom in organizations can be exercised, Foucault’s ethics attempt to connect an understanding and critique of power with a personal project of self. He therefore provides a theory of subjectivity that potentially informs a reshaping of contemporary virtue ethics theory, value-based management, and business ethics teaching. (shrink)

This paper1 uses concepts of anxiety and Foucauldian governmentality to investigate the ways that the discourses supporting the ban on performance-enhancing drugs in sport have been manipulated and broadened to treat this issue as a public policy and health issue rather than an example of rule violation in sport. Some effects of this expansion include the broadening of drug testing to include testing for recreational drugs, the intrusion of both central governments and scientific experts into the issue and the curtailment (...) of civil liberties for athletes. A further effect has been the perpetration of injustices against athletes under the guise of such injustices being necessary to maintain the integrity of sport. (shrink)

Increasing recognition of adverse events in health care is wide spread. Implementing improved system arrangements, which prevent adverse events taking place rather than focussing on individual culpability is increasingly being recognised as a more effective preventative strategy. But does such a perspective mean individual health practitioners remain accountable for their practice? This article explores the philosophical, psychological and professional contradictions inherent in attempting to understand where the responsibility for our actions lies and concludes by arguing that while the case for (...) the system approach to adverse event reduction is strong, the notion of individual professional culpability needs to be maintained. (shrink)

Luego de estudiar las relaciones de poder en la modernidad, Michel Foucault realizó una conceptualización de la crítica, a la que describió como una actitud de inservidumbre que denuncia al poder por sus efectos de verdad y a la verdad, por sus efectos de poder. Años más tarde, presentó la modernidad como una actitud que busca encontrar los límites que nos han formado como sujetos, para luego atravesarlos. Finalmente, caracterizó el cuidado de sí como una actitud, como una práctica de (...) libertad. En este artículo rastreo las distancias y cercanías entre la actitud crítica, la moderna y la que cuida de sí, para contrastarlas con una actitud que difícilmente puede caracterizarse como una práctica de libertad: el empresario de sí. Esta comparación permite interrogar el potencial de la crítica, la modernidad y el cuidado de sí como prácticas de resistencia o de libertad. (shrink)

In Anglophone educational research in the United States, the name Foucault has been more pointedly celebrated in some subfields such as curriculum studies relative to its more noticeable censorship in subfields such as history of education. This paper illustrates how such differential epistemological politics might be accounted for through reapproaching the challenges to historiography that Histoire de la Folie (Madness and Civilization) raised. Through the formalist lens of performative apophasis, and with attention to the dependencies of discourse that characterize narrative (...) prosthesis, this paper re‐engages the least referenced of Foucault's major histories in the educational field to bring into noticeability other ‘conditions of possibility’—ones that explicate how an apophatic turn might account for divergent reactions to less familiar philosophies of history and/or to ‘alternative’ approaches to documents through which history is now being narrated and critiqued in education and beyond. (shrink)

This thesis investigates how preservice teachers understand ‘challenging behaviour’ and how this knowledge informs their teaching practice. Challenging behaviour is problematised as a knowledge referent and the epistemic tensions that preservice teachers experience in coming to ‘know’ about challenging behaviour are explored. This is an in-depth, qualitative study that focuses on the experiences, knowledge and knowledge-change of five final-year preservice primary teachers before, during and after their final Professional Experience. Data was gathered via interviews, focus groups, concept maps, document analysis (...) and classroom observations. Foucault’s theories of knowledge comprised the theoretical framework of the study and discourse analysis was used for data analysis. Major conclusions reached were threefold. Firstly, this study embraced the ambiguity and complexity of ‘challenging behaviour’ by avoiding the definitional debate and instead identifying and positing three discourses of challenging behaviour. This approach was found helpful in understanding preservice teachers’ knowledge of the topic. Secondly, it was found that the preservice teachers’ knowledge of challenging behaviour was, at best, ‘confused’ insofar as it was rarely discursively consistent. Thirdly, the types of epistemic processes through which the preservice teachers reconstructed their discursively inconsistent knowledge were theorised as either ‘matching’ or ‘squishing’. These epistemic processes were cast as problematic. Both ‘matching’ and ‘squishing’ demonstrated potential to maintain epistemic equilibrium and so limit possibilities for knowledge expansion and reflective practice. Moreover, in the case of ‘squishing’, this epistemic process was found to generate confusions, which were at times unsupportive of pedagogical decision-making. Two major implications of the research concern teacher education. Firstly, because the preservice teachers’ confusions, pedagogical distress and quandaries around challenging behaviour seemed to stem from discursively inconsistent knowledge, there is a call for teacher education programs to more clearly delineate multiple knowledges of challenging behaviour. Secondly, the preservice teachers’ epistemology was characterised by an overwhelming propensity to perceive a theory/practice divide in their professional knowledge. However, for these preservice teachers, there was not such a polarity to be bridged regarding challenging behaviour. Recasting the theory/practice problem in terms of knowledge showed the preservice teachers were doing a good deal of complex epistemological work ‘in the middle’ of theory and practice. Theory was not considered irrelevant, it was mobilised to make specific pedagogical decisions during practicum. However, understandings of these ‘practical theories’ were fraught with the incoherence and confusions associated with the epistemic practice of ‘squishing’. Thus, although the preservice teachers’ knowledge indicated they were ‘working in the middle’ of theory and practice, they were not doing so with great accuracy or effectiveness. It then is necessary to offer preservice teachers more comprehensive tools to work with and understand ‘knowledge’, rather than ‘theory/practice’. (shrink)

Intentional communities are formed by a group of people who have voluntarily chosen to live together for a range of reasons in the creation of a shared lifestyle. They concern practical forms of living that may reflect diverse structures and distinct philosophies. The intentional community literature is both broad and unique in its representation of intentional community living. Intentional communities may also be considered sites that form the basis for resisting mainstream forms of living and representations of subjectivity. Through an (...) active process of self-constitution, participants engaged in communal forms of living may construct different identities and styles of life. Although the term ‘intentional community’ is fairly recent, notions of utopian living have a long history. Forms of utopian living can be found in early biblical times, while Foucault’s domain of ‘ethics’ is also derived from what the intentional community literature considers to be early utopian communities. Despite an extensive literature, very little research explicitly focuses on communal living as a form of ethics as praxis. This may be due to the characterisation of ethics as a form of rules, duties and consequences, rather than ethics as a relationship that a person cultivates with their ‘self’. Foucault’s domain of ethics provides a valuable context to explore whether intentional community living can be theorised as a Foucauldian form of ethics. Although there is contemporary interest in Foucault’s domain of ethics, relatively few texts have sought to use Foucault’s ethical conceptualisation as a qualitative methodology in the context of empirical research. Even fewer studies have drawn on Foucault’s theoretical framework in the context of empirical research on intentional communities. This is despite a number of themes that the literature shares concerning notions of resistance, identity as a form of selfconstitution and the potentially transformative effect of communal living. This research therefore seeks to make a significant contribution to a relatively underresearched and under-theorised area of the literature. Drawing on Foucault’s ethics as a theoretical framework, this thesis explores twenty-eight narratives of participants who live on five rural communities in northern NSW, Australia. Fieldwork was conducted over a nine-month period between 2004 and 2005, with periods of time spent on each community. One community was revisited for the purpose of collecting further empirical data. Foucault’s ethical analysis and Foucauldian constructionism are used in the analysis and interpretation of the interviews that resulted from this fieldwork. Where individual interviews were not undertaken, a document analysis of former empirical research serves to affirm participant observations. Ethical issues concerning confidentiality and representation were addressed through the attendance at communal or ‘tribal’ meetings where required. The findings suggest that intentional community living may be theorised as a Foucauldian form of ethics, with an analysis of the empirical research providing further insight into each of the four aspects of Foucault’s ethics: the ethical substance, the mode of subjection, the self-forming activities and the telos. The findings also indicate that communal, or co-operative, living may reflect the dominant form of ethics for intentional community members by the way it permeates all other aspects of ethics. In this light, it can be said that intentional community living is an ethics as praxis—a truly practical philosophy. The implications of these findings suggest that through their very practice of an ethics, intentional community participants may be ethical, or ‘individualising’, subjects. That is, through notions of personal choice, acts of resistance and the performance of practices on the self that effect transformation, participants may construct both a ‘self’ and ‘styles of life’ that they both like and affirm, thereby positioning themselves differently against mainstream representations of ‘suburbia’. (shrink)