Vivienne Anderson

An Exploration of Social Investment Discourses in the Oil and Gas Sector

The oil and gas (O&G) sector is the leading sector in developing social investments worldwide. O&G companies, mainly multinationals, collectively spend amounts that surpass US

Future teachers debate charter schools on Facebook: analysing their political subjectivities

500 million per year on social programmes. O&G social investment programmes range from building schools to developing fish-farming initiatives. How O&G social investment is conceptualised may determine its failure or success in alleviating poverty and promoting human development in host countries. In this chapter, I report on an on-going doctoral study aimed at exploring the social investment discourses revealed in O&G experts’ discussion about O&G social investment, and the possible impact of these discourses on local communities. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Theoretically, I drew on post-structural and critical theoretical perspectives as a basis for ‘reading’ the participants’ narratives and guidelines documents. Preliminary findings reveal four main discourses of social investment, which I describe as working on, working around, working for and working with communities. However, multiple discourses emerged in most participants’ accounts, resulting in apparent tensions and contradictions. In this paper, I argue that O&G social investment may be most effective in assisting host communities if framed in relation to working with discourses. I identify a need for further research that explores how the discourses identified in the guidelines and interviews actually impact social investment on the ground.

Appraisal of the Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure in the New Zealand dental educational environment

ABSTRACT We argue that Garrett and Segall’s concepts of ‘doing school’ and ‘pushing back’ are valuable tools for analysing pre-service teachers’ political views of neoliberal education reforms such as the introduction of charter schools. We extend Garrett and Segall’s conceptualization by hybridizing ‘doing school’ and ‘pushing back’ in order to move beyond a simplistic celebration of student resistance, which often overlooks forms of resistance that are compliant with the status quo, in this case the neoliberal status quo. We analyse participants’ political views as they emerged in a debate about charter schools in New Zealand. Garrett and Segall’s concepts, in conjunction with poststructuralist theories of subjectivity, are deployed as analytical tools for understanding the complexity of students’ political subjectivities in a debate conducted on a Facebook page set up for that purpose.