Authority Research Network
  • Home
  • Members
  • Projects
  • News

On the Erosion of Democratic Authority

17/11/2014

0 Comments

 
By Sam Kirwan

As part of work I am doing on the work of Citizens Advice, I was asked to respond to the paper “States of Imagination” by John Clarke and Janet Newman, part of the Kilburn Manifesto. It is a paper that asks questions of the state and community that we have also looked at as part of our research group, and gave an opportunity to expand from advice work to governance and the contemporary logic of neoliberalism. Yet what it led me to think about most was the nature of democratic authority, and so set out below are my current thoughts on what the paper, and our work, can tell us about this concept.

Picture
Photo: Reuters.
What I found interesting about Clarke & Newman's paper is the proposition that to...

Read More
0 Comments

Emergent Authorities and the Experience of Power Retreat

16/11/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
The Authority Research Network spent seven days in Alfriston from November 1st-9th revisiting issues we tackled in the early days of the network, around power, authority, alienation and transcendence.

The readings we discussed included:

Monday - Alienation

  • Marx, "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844"
  • Arendt, Chap. 7 of The Human Condition.
  • Kathi Weeks “Life within and against Work: Affective labor, feminist critique, and post-Fordist politics”.
  • Dyer-Witherford “21st Century Species Being”
  • Stavrides “Contested Urban Rhythms”
  • Lukacs, Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat
  


Read More
1 Comment

What does it mean to be open today?

13/11/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
From The Provisional University:

The Openhere conference/festival starts tomorrow in the Science Gallery, Dublin. The three-day program all looks really interesting – a great line-up of speakers – but perhaps most interesting for us are the talks by Brett Scott on open-source financing and the interview with the Robin Hood Collective who ask:

“Could we bend the financialization of the economy to the advantage of precarious workers? Could we challenge the debt mechanism of control, the command to submit to any work and the limited options we have for financing our living? Could we think of sharing the means of creating money that financial capital has in its use, of putting them to work for us also? Could we think of a relation to money, not as binding us with debt and to capital relations, but as a means of freedom, escape, and increased independence? Could we appropriate the power of money, not only as a means of payment and exchange, but as a power to command the future?”

The Robin Hood Collective are also going to have an ‘office’ on Foster Place from Monday to Thursday next week.

Openhere 14.11-16.11 2014

See here for more details.

1 Comment

New book: Authority, Experience and the Life of Power

11/11/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture

An edited collection of the ARN's work, Authority, Experience and the Life of Power, has just been published by Routledge.

"To understand power you must also grasp the problematic and productive dimensions of authority ... the authors in this volume call on us to work upon those aspects that have been most ignored in the literature and politics of authority. A rich and provocative set of essays"
William E. Connolly, Johns Hopkins University

"An original and inspiring set of reflections that raises important questions and opens up debates on 'positive power', authority, and community"
Kate Nash
, Goldsmiths, University of London

"In the literature on power there has been a tendency to interpret power as domination, thus the opposite of authority. In this important collection of articles the authors challenge this viewpoint, arguing that power and authority structure everyday life in a mutually constitutive manner ... this collection makes a significant contribution to contemporary debates in social theory" Mark Haugaard, National University of Ireland.
0 Comments
    Subscribe to the ARN blog

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    September 2019
    February 2017
    January 2017
    July 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Members
  • Projects
  • News