Identity Work as Ethical Self-Formation: The Case of Two Chinese English-as-Foreign-Language Teachers in the Context of Curriculum Reform

Curriculum reform urges teachers to constantly reflect on existing identities and develop probably whole new identities. Yet, in the wake of the poststructuralist view of identity as a complex matter of the social and the individual, of discourse and practice, and of agency and structure, teacher identity is a process of arguing for themselves and hence ethical and political in nature. Drawing on Foucault’s notion of ethical self-formation and its adoption by Clarke (2009a) “Diagram for Doing Identity Work” in teacher education research, this 2-year-long case study explores how two Chinese English-as-foreign-language (EFL) teachers engaged in identity work in a changing curricular landscape. The analysis of narrative frames and semistructured interviews reveals the relations between the relative stable and the evolving elements of teachers’ identity work, and the essential role of teachers’ ethical agency based on reflective and critical responsiveness to the contextual reality and the dynamic power relations during the reform. The findings argue for the importance of nourishing teachers’ reflective identity work and ethical agency during the turbulence of educational change.

Hope and Creative Work in Conflict Zones: Theoretical Insights from Israel

This article contributes to the theorization of hope in the cultural industries in conflict zones. Although the merits of hope in explicating the behavior of creative workers in cultural production in western countries has won some attention, the literature has fallen short of addressing the impact of conflict on the meaning of hope for minority creative workers in this field. To fill this lacuna, we explore the experience of Palestinian creative workers in Israeli cultural industries, which are very functional in national identity making and branding. Our evidence is helpful in illuminating the temporal dimension of hope, as a resource and a form of passive action that takes place in the present in order to keep the horizon open for a better future, also when this future does not entail a clear referent. It also sheds light on the affinity of hope with ethical agency claiming in the cultural industries.

‘If I could afford an avocado every day’: Income differences and ethical food consumption in a world of abundance

This study explores how ethical food consumption is framed in the accounts of ordinary people living in affluent societies, with a particular focus on income differences. Research on ethical consumption often associates ‘ethical’ with the consumption of certain predefined products. This study leaves the question of the content of ethical consumption open for empirical investigation. Further, instead of focusing only on the moment of purchasing, this study considers how people with different income levels relate to both food consumption and waste. The analysis draws from qualitative interviews with 60 people living in Canada and Finland. The analysis identified the techniques, subjects and norms through which the question ethical food consumption is posed by the informants and how they framed these issues with regard to income. The findings underline that ethical consumption is a socially constructed, contested and even internally contradictory discourse. Differences in income do not only mean differences in the role that money plays in food choices but also in what kind of consumption people consider worth pursuing. Further, differences in income dictate differences in how people are morally positioned vis-à-vis abundance. For people with a higher level of income, moral blame is asserted on wasteful consumption habits. For the people with a low income, in turn, it is ethically condemnable to refuse to rejoice at the abundance around us. The findings indicate that even in a society where the rhetoric of choice is prominent both as a right and as an obligation by which people ought to display ethical agency, the ethics of choice is tied to the resources available for consumption. People with a severely low income occasionally enjoy the trickling down of abundant treats and surprises. However, for them, occasional indulgence causes not only pleasure but also trouble.

Agency in compliance with institutions: The case of professional expert-organizations and politico-ethical agency

As contemporary organizational life is increasingly rule governed, organizational actors, most notably professionals, perform their work by complying with institutional rules, stemming from regulatory bodies external and internal to organizations. This begs a question of the role of agency in compliance with institutions that is largely ignored within organization theory. A weak form of agency in compliance is found in practice theory and practice-driven institutionalism, in terms of actors mindful enactments of institutions on the basis of mastering shared practices for applying institutional rules. These are characterized as first-order practices of compliance with institutions. Extending the Wittgensteinian-inspired philosophical foundation of practice theory, modes of compliance in so-called “hard cases,” where shared practices do not apply as a basis for agreement in following institutional rules, is conceptualized as second-order compliance practices, involving a strong mode of agency. In these cases, the aim is to reach agreement on how rules are to be applied beyond established first-order practices by engaging larger frameworks of shared forms of life and more open and explorative attitudes to move institutions forward for a common good. It is argued that second-order compliance can be understood as a politico-ethical mode of agency in the Kantian tradition, supplementing prevalent notions within organizational institutionalism of agency as primarily political.

Between Luther and Buddhism: Scandinavian Creation Theology and Robophilosophy

The computational turn leads to a robo-philosophy that uses computational and robotic technologies as testbeds for philosophical questions such as the nature of being human. Robo-theology extends these approaches and interests via religious robots that further evoke questions of the mind-body, Creator-creation, and faith-reason relationships. As part of a recent agenda for non-dualistic approaches in robo-theology, Scandinavian Creation Theology (SCT) contributes a more optimistic conception of human nature and correlative non-dualistic accounts that more fully resonate with Eastern approaches. SCT is further fruitful for central issues in robo-theology such as distributed ethical agency and responsibility, love, sex, and trust.

Bridging the Divide between Being and Knowing: In Quest of Care-Ethical Agency

Taking up the theme of this year’s Congress – Bridging communities: Making public knowledge, making knowledge public – our panel’s three essays each examines from three different locations how knowledge and knowledge-making function in the contemporary market/knowledge economy: international education, autobiographical inquiry, and teacher education. The educational vision and commitment that these three distinct pieces share is ethics of care. Problematizing commodification of knowledge and its notion of having knowledge, we make the case for the centrality of being in human and societal living. We then make suggestions for how the being-dimension can be conceptualized and lived. In particular, we argue that caring, being present, self-knowing and human agency are central.

Ethical Agency

This three-year research project represents multidisciplinary research undertaken using a variety of social scientific methods. Together, the different methods used in the project help to develop understandings of Islam on campus. We also explored how emergent ethical concerns about marginalization, discrimination, stigma, consent, and an imperative to protect the vulnerable subject were negotiated through the research process. We challenged, and subjected to critical scrutiny, perspectives apparently driven by suspicion of Muslims as a singular group. We sought to conduct research to explore the possible existence of epistemic wrongs; which reveal the need to give voice to the unheard challenge about whether the campus is a safe place to explore controversial issues. To gain and keep trust of staff and students we developed a multilayered, ethical procedure to protect their identity in the current climate of suspicion.