Jana Bacevic
Biographic Data
| ID | 194222 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jana Bacevic |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jana |
| FAMILY NAME | Bacevic |
| SIGNATURE | BACEVIC J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Durham University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1801-5222 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 66 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
No Such Thing as Free Speech? Performativity, Free Speech, and Academic Freedom in the UK
The relationship between academic freedom and freedom of speech features prominently in public and political discussions concerning the role of universities in Western liberal democracies. Recently, these debates have attracted increased attention, owing in part to media framing of a ‘free speech crisis’, especially in UK and US universities. One type of response is to regulate academic expression through legislation, such as the UK’s 2023 Higher…
What is social science if not critical
This short article represents a contribution to the debate on the motion "Social science is explanation, or it is nothing." While in the format of parliamentary debating the contribution would fall on the side of the opposition, I will not be arguing against explanation as such. The work of explaining is in no way oppositional to or mutually exclusive with critique. Instead, my contribution will revolve around two arguments: one is that both crit…
Liberal fatalism, Covid 19 and the politics of impossibility
How liberal governments manage knowledge, ignorance, prediction and uncertainty has attracted increased attention across the social sciences. In this paper, we analyse the strategy and rhetoric of the UK government during the COVID-19 pandemic, with particular attention to the first half of 2020. We see the initial UK policy response – as well as its later legitimation – as a form of ‘politics of impossibility’, effecting political change through…
Encountering Berlant part one
In Part 1 of 'Encountering Berlant', we encounter the promise and provocation of Lauren Berlant's work. In 1000-word contributions, geographers and others stay with what Berlant's thought offers contemporary human geography. They amplify an encounter with their work, demonstrating how a concept, idea, or style disrupts something, opens up a new possibility, or simply invites thinking otherwise. The encounters range across the incredible body of w…
Epistemic injustice and epistemic positioning
This article introduces the concept of epistemic positioning to theorize the relationship between identity-based epistemic judgements and the reproduction of social inequalities, including those of gender and ethnicity/race, in the academia. Acts of epistemic positioning entail the evaluation of knowledge claims based on the speaker's stated or inferred identity. These judgements serve to limit the scope of the knowledge claim, making it more lik…
No such thing as sociological excuses? Performativity, rationality and social scientific expertise in late liberalism
This article examines a frequent assumption of sociological accounts of knowledge: the idea that knowledge acts. The performativity of knowledge claims is here analysed through the prism of 'sociological excuses': the idea that sociological explanations can act as 'excuses' for otherwise unacceptable behaviour. The article builds on Austin's distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary effects to discuss the relationship between sociologi…
Unthinking knowledge production
The past years have witnessed a growing awareness of the role of institutions of knowledge production in reproducing the global climate crisis, from research funded by fossil fuel companies to the role of mainstream economics in fuelling the idea of growth. This essay argues that rethinking knowledge production for post-carbon futures requires engaging with the co-determination of modes of knowing and modes of governing. The ways in which knowled…
With or without U? Assemblage theory and (de)territorialising the university
Contemporary changes in the domain of knowledge production are usually seen as posing significant challenges to ‘the University’. This paper argues against the framing of the university as an ideal-type, and considers epistemic gains from treating universities as assemblages (e.g. DeLanda, M. 2016. Assemblage Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press) of different functions, actors and relations. It contrasts this with the concept of ‘unbundl…
The moral economy of open access
Digital technologies have made access to and profit from scientific publications hotly contested issues. Debates over open access (OA), however, rarely extend from questions of distribution to questions of how OA is transforming the politics of academic knowledge production. This article argues that the movement towards OA rests on a relatively stable moral episteme that positions different actors involved in the economy of OA (authors, publisher…
Masters or servants? Power and discourse in Serbian higher education reform
A series of events concerning the reform of higher education in Serbia, revolved around whether students who graduated prior to the formal adoption of the Bologna Process should be given the title of Masters, instead of Bachelors. It quickly became a matter of public contestation between different actors, resulting in a student protest that developed into a critique of the ‘neoliberal’ reform of higher education. This article analyses the sequenc…
Conceptualising the Romantic Relationship
This paper approaches the phenomenon of the "romantic relationship" as understood within some of the most prominent paradigms in the social sciences. These interpretative frameworks are then applied to the model of the romantic relationship acquired during my own research on the concepts of romantic relationships among young professionals in Belgrade, Serbia. I argue that none of the presented frameworks can be solely relied upon to explain the p…
Legends of Students’ “Clever Answers”
This paper represents an analysis of a group of urban legends from US universities, gathered from a number of web sites and in certain cases compared with corresponding analogies in Serbia. These legends concentrate around the motif of «clever answers», in which students use witty or otherwise unconventional means to solve problems or answer questions during exams or other forms of knowledge examination, and usually end up being rewarded for thei…
Valentine's day as the 8th March of transitional Serbia
In this text, I examine the phenomenon of sudden occurrence and spreading of the symbols, products and practices related to St. Valentine's Day, in Belgrade, Serbia. Though this custom had never been a part of Serbian festivities, neither "traditional" nor modern, this year it was aggressively marketed in the capital. In order to understand this phenomenon, I look at a similar holiday from the not-sodistant socialist past: Women's Day, or March 8…
From Public Place to Market-Place
In this text, I summarize and present contemporary voices of critique of education, that come from anthropology and some related disciplines. Contemporary critique of education attempts to demonstrate how educational practice is linked with global political and economic power. The focus in this text has been on these critiques as forms of resistance to neoliberalization and commoditization of education, trends that are now prevalent in America an…
Honour and Shame
This text draws a parallel between a "guilt complex" in postcolonial and postmodern anthropology, and certain similar tendencies in analyses of the history of Serbian ethnology. Since ethnology and anthropology in Serbia have developed in different circumstances and have exerted a decidedly lesser influence on general policy than American or British anthropology, I claim there is no object…
Anthropology, tourism and transition
Anthropological research of tourism in Serbia has usually followed a somewhat simplified concept according to which theory translates into application or practice; that is, anthropology offers conclusions to be later applied in tourism development. The domain of anthropological expertise in this matter was traditionally considered to be "popular" or folk culture, or rather its use in tourism. However, I claim that anthropology of tourism offers a…
Religious and civic education
This paper attempts to re-interpret an element of the educational reform carried out since the end of 2000 by the Serbian Government and its Ministry of Education and Sports, namely, the introduction of two new subjects: Religious Education and Civic Education, to primary and secondary schools curricula. Based on similar analyses in educational and political anthropology, this element is viewed as a strategy of political legitimating of the regim…
Epistemic injustice and epistemic positioning
This article introduces the concept of epistemic positioning to theorize the relationship between identity-based epistemic judgements and the reproduction of social inequalities, including those of gender and ethnicity/race, in the academia. Acts of epistemic positioning entail the evaluation of knowledge claims based on the speaker's stated or inferred identity. These judgements serve to limit the scope of the knowledge claim, making it more lik…
With or without U? Assemblage theory and (de)territorialising the university
Contemporary changes in the domain of knowledge production are usually seen as posing significant challenges to ‘the University’. This paper argues against the framing of the university as an ideal-type, and considers epistemic gains from treating universities as assemblages (e.g. DeLanda, M. 2016. Assemblage Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press) of different functions, actors and relations. It contrasts this with the concept of ‘unbundl…
The moral economy of open access
Digital technologies have made access to and profit from scientific publications hotly contested issues. Debates over open access (OA), however, rarely extend from questions of distribution to questions of how OA is transforming the politics of academic knowledge production. This article argues that the movement towards OA rests on a relatively stable moral episteme that positions different actors involved in the economy of OA (authors, publisher…
Unthinking knowledge production
The past years have witnessed a growing awareness of the role of institutions of knowledge production in reproducing the global climate crisis, from research funded by fossil fuel companies to the role of mainstream economics in fuelling the idea of growth. This essay argues that rethinking knowledge production for post-carbon futures requires engaging with the co-determination of modes of knowing and modes of governing. The ways in which knowled…
Encountering Berlant part one
In Part 1 of 'Encountering Berlant', we encounter the promise and provocation of Lauren Berlant's work. In 1000-word contributions, geographers and others stay with what Berlant's thought offers contemporary human geography. They amplify an encounter with their work, demonstrating how a concept, idea, or style disrupts something, opens up a new possibility, or simply invites thinking otherwise. The encounters range across the incredible body of w…
No such thing as sociological excuses? Performativity, rationality and social scientific expertise in late liberalism
This article examines a frequent assumption of sociological accounts of knowledge: the idea that knowledge acts. The performativity of knowledge claims is here analysed through the prism of 'sociological excuses': the idea that sociological explanations can act as 'excuses' for otherwise unacceptable behaviour. The article builds on Austin's distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary effects to discuss the relationship between sociologi…
Liberal fatalism, Covid 19 and the politics of impossibility
How liberal governments manage knowledge, ignorance, prediction and uncertainty has attracted increased attention across the social sciences. In this paper, we analyse the strategy and rhetoric of the UK government during the COVID-19 pandemic, with particular attention to the first half of 2020. We see the initial UK policy response – as well as its later legitimation – as a form of ‘politics of impossibility’, effecting political change through…
Religious and civic education
This paper attempts to re-interpret an element of the educational reform carried out since the end of 2000 by the Serbian Government and its Ministry of Education and Sports, namely, the introduction of two new subjects: Religious Education and Civic Education, to primary and secondary schools curricula. Based on similar analyses in educational and political anthropology, this element is viewed as a strategy of political legitimating of the regim…
From Public Place to Market-Place
In this text, I summarize and present contemporary voices of critique of education, that come from anthropology and some related disciplines. Contemporary critique of education attempts to demonstrate how educational practice is linked with global political and economic power. The focus in this text has been on these critiques as forms of resistance to neoliberalization and commoditization of education, trends that are now prevalent in America an…
Honour and Shame
This text draws a parallel between a "guilt complex" in postcolonial and postmodern anthropology, and certain similar tendencies in analyses of the history of Serbian ethnology. Since ethnology and anthropology in Serbia have developed in different circumstances and have exerted a decidedly lesser influence on general policy than American or British anthropology, I claim there is no object…
Anthropology, tourism and transition
Anthropological research of tourism in Serbia has usually followed a somewhat simplified concept according to which theory translates into application or practice; that is, anthropology offers conclusions to be later applied in tourism development. The domain of anthropological expertise in this matter was traditionally considered to be "popular" or folk culture, or rather its use in tourism. However, I claim that anthropology of tourism offers a…
Legends of Students’ “Clever Answers”
This paper represents an analysis of a group of urban legends from US universities, gathered from a number of web sites and in certain cases compared with corresponding analogies in Serbia. These legends concentrate around the motif of «clever answers», in which students use witty or otherwise unconventional means to solve problems or answer questions during exams or other forms of knowledge examination, and usually end up being rewarded for thei…
Valentine's day as the 8th March of transitional Serbia
In this text, I examine the phenomenon of sudden occurrence and spreading of the symbols, products and practices related to St. Valentine's Day, in Belgrade, Serbia. Though this custom had never been a part of Serbian festivities, neither "traditional" nor modern, this year it was aggressively marketed in the capital. In order to understand this phenomenon, I look at a similar holiday from the not-sodistant socialist past: Women's Day, or March 8…
Conceptualising the Romantic Relationship
This paper approaches the phenomenon of the "romantic relationship" as understood within some of the most prominent paradigms in the social sciences. These interpretative frameworks are then applied to the model of the romantic relationship acquired during my own research on the concepts of romantic relationships among young professionals in Belgrade, Serbia. I argue that none of the presented frameworks can be solely relied upon to explain the p…
Masters or servants? Power and discourse in Serbian higher education reform
A series of events concerning the reform of higher education in Serbia, revolved around whether students who graduated prior to the formal adoption of the Bologna Process should be given the title of Masters, instead of Bachelors. It quickly became a matter of public contestation between different actors, resulting in a student protest that developed into a critique of the ‘neoliberal’ reform of higher education. This article analyses the sequenc…
With or without U? Assemblage theory and (de)territorialising the university
Contemporary changes in the domain of knowledge production are usually seen as posing significant challenges to ‘the University’. This paper argues against the framing of the university as an ideal-type, and considers epistemic gains from treating universities as assemblages (e.g. DeLanda, M. 2016. Assemblage Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press) of different functions, actors and relations. It contrasts this with the concept of ‘unbundl…
The moral economy of open access
Digital technologies have made access to and profit from scientific publications hotly contested issues. Debates over open access (OA), however, rarely extend from questions of distribution to questions of how OA is transforming the politics of academic knowledge production. This article argues that the movement towards OA rests on a relatively stable moral episteme that positions different actors involved in the economy of OA (authors, publisher…
Unthinking knowledge production
The past years have witnessed a growing awareness of the role of institutions of knowledge production in reproducing the global climate crisis, from research funded by fossil fuel companies to the role of mainstream economics in fuelling the idea of growth. This essay argues that rethinking knowledge production for post-carbon futures requires engaging with the co-determination of modes of knowing and modes of governing. The ways in which knowled…
No such thing as sociological excuses? Performativity, rationality and social scientific expertise in late liberalism
This article examines a frequent assumption of sociological accounts of knowledge: the idea that knowledge acts. The performativity of knowledge claims is here analysed through the prism of 'sociological excuses': the idea that sociological explanations can act as 'excuses' for otherwise unacceptable behaviour. The article builds on Austin's distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary effects to discuss the relationship between sociologi…
Encountering Berlant part one
In Part 1 of 'Encountering Berlant', we encounter the promise and provocation of Lauren Berlant's work. In 1000-word contributions, geographers and others stay with what Berlant's thought offers contemporary human geography. They amplify an encounter with their work, demonstrating how a concept, idea, or style disrupts something, opens up a new possibility, or simply invites thinking otherwise. The encounters range across the incredible body of w…
Epistemic injustice and epistemic positioning
This article introduces the concept of epistemic positioning to theorize the relationship between identity-based epistemic judgements and the reproduction of social inequalities, including those of gender and ethnicity/race, in the academia. Acts of epistemic positioning entail the evaluation of knowledge claims based on the speaker's stated or inferred identity. These judgements serve to limit the scope of the knowledge claim, making it more lik…
No Such Thing as Free Speech? Performativity, Free Speech, and Academic Freedom in the UK
The relationship between academic freedom and freedom of speech features prominently in public and political discussions concerning the role of universities in Western liberal democracies. Recently, these debates have attracted increased attention, owing in part to media framing of a ‘free speech crisis’, especially in UK and US universities. One type of response is to regulate academic expression through legislation, such as the UK’s 2023 Higher…
What is social science if not critical
This short article represents a contribution to the debate on the motion "Social science is explanation, or it is nothing." While in the format of parliamentary debating the contribution would fall on the side of the opposition, I will not be arguing against explanation as such. The work of explaining is in no way oppositional to or mutually exclusive with critique. Instead, my contribution will revolve around two arguments: one is that both crit…
Liberal fatalism, Covid 19 and the politics of impossibility
How liberal governments manage knowledge, ignorance, prediction and uncertainty has attracted increased attention across the social sciences. In this paper, we analyse the strategy and rhetoric of the UK government during the COVID-19 pandemic, with particular attention to the first half of 2020. We see the initial UK policy response – as well as its later legitimation – as a form of ‘politics of impossibility’, effecting political change through…
Sociology (13 works) · Political science (10 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Social science (9 works) · Law (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Linguistics (4 works)