Sociology

Neoliberal processes have been wrought on the body, and have formed an effective oppression against 'deviant' bodies that do not, or cannot, maintain the idealised, heterosexual and able-bodied, neoliberal figure. By engaging with feminist, queer, and crip theoretical framings of the body, and the impact of neoliberal governmentality on non-normative sexuality, I find varied sites where queer, crip, or crip-queer bodies can challenge dominant discourses of heteronormativity and compulsory able-bodiedness. These challenges are crucial to creating counter-publics and counter-discourses to undermine the neoliberal-neoconservative complex. Exploring theorisings of the body and agency further, I look toward a crip/queer alterity, suggesting areas for further research, collaborating with postcolonial theories to examine the neoliberal body in globalised contexts. Introduction By understanding the body as a site of oppression, it may also be conceived as a site of resistance. This article explores how Foucauldian notions of governmentality have regulated the non-normative body, and have sought to manage and normalise 'deviant' populations. Neoliberalism has become a hegemonic frame within Western democracies, seeking to control and regulate populations through processes of governmentality (Harvey, 2005). These processes have been wrought on the body, and have formed an effective oppression against bodies that do not, or cannot, maintain the idealised, heterosexual and able-bodied, neoliberal figure (Phipps, 2014). This article begins by exploring the relationship between neoliberalism and the body. I then go on to analyse the ways that queer and/or crip bodies are managed and regulated by neoliberal imperatives, and explore some avenues and opportunities for resistance to the corporeal regulation, namely through dissident sexuality. These challenges are crucial to creating counter-publics and counter-discourses to undermine the neoliberal-neoconservative complex. Bringing these conversations back to the theoretical discourse, this article then elaborates on a crip/queer alterity, and the possibilities imaginable through more intersectional analyses, suggesting areas for further research collaborating with postcolonial theories to examine the neoliberal body in a globalised context.

Katalin Halasz looks at the impact of the profound political, economic and social changes that have swept across Europe. She argues that there is a new wave of racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia that has propped up the extreme and radical right on the margins of politics, but also increasingly in the mainstream. She focuses on the worrying implications of the growing escalation in violence against Roma in South and Central-eastern Europe, and the chilling call for a ‘decisive solution to the Roma problem’ in Hungary, which openly embraces anti-Gypsysm.

"The venue for the 2013 BSA conference was the grandly mysterious Connaught Rooms, owned by the Freemasons, complete with masonic stars on door handles and secret entrances into the Masonic Lodge next door. Off the record, in adjacent rooms and (almost) concealed interventions to the conference, Engaging Tactics showcased a sound performance and video screenings that searched for ways to talk about and engage with those bodies and lives that keep or are kept away from public.

'Freemasons' was screened as a visual wallpaper, composed of an animated gif projected in loop, intertwining the space, time and histories of the Grand Connaught Rooms."