scholarly journals Global Transformation Towards Sustainability—Clusters of Current Scholarly Discourse

Author(s):  
Ariel Macaspac Hernandez

AbstractStudying global transformation towards sustainability is a colossal task. The difficulties in determining the scope, boundaries and levels of the analysis have ramifications for the conceptual value of attempts to understand global transformation towards sustainability. Because of the plurality of possible entry points as well as the complexity of various issues involved, providing an overview of the academic debate, if one can speak of a single debate on global transformation towards sustainability, is highly challenging.

Derrida Today ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Morris

Over the past thirty years, academic debate over pornography in the discourses of feminism and cultural studies has foundered on questions of the performative and of the word's definition. In the polylogue of Droit de regards, pornography is defined as la mise en vente that is taking place in the act of exegesis in progress. (Wills's idiomatic English translation includes an ‘it’ that is absent in the French original). The definition in Droit de regards alludes to the word's etymology (writing by or about prostitutes) but leaves the referent of the ‘sale’ suspended. Pornography as la mise en vente boldly restates the necessary iterability of the sign and anticipates two of Derrida's late arguments: that there is no ‘the’ body and that performatives may be powerless. Deriving a definition of pornography from a truncated etymology exemplifies the prosthesis of origin and challenges other critical discourses to explain how pornography can be understood as anything more than ‘putting (it) up for sale’.


Author(s):  
Laurence A. Rickels

This chapter focuses on the unmournable nature of animal death, turning to Heidegger, Freud and Melanie Klein (as advocates of both successful and unsuccessful mourning, first and second deaths) as entry points for an analysis of Emilie Deleuze’s 2003 film, Mister V. The film tracks the changes in relationality incurred when the eponymous psychotic horse escapes and tests not only the boundaries of the film’s diegesis but also its own discursive fabulation. Here man, as majority figure, is not an option for becoming. Man must be divested of his majoritarian status before he can become other. In this regard, ‘becoming-animal’ is the missing link between man and ‘becoming multiple’, so that the metamorphosis necessarily entails a ‘loss’ as initiation so that we can enter the substitutive order of becoming-other. This is not necessarily incompatible with Freud. Indeed, the two main trajectories of the latter’s thought: 1) totemic identification and 2) castration (as an initiation into the ‘management’ of loss or lack) also separate out as tendencies of unmourning and ‘successful mourning’, of first and second deaths, respectively. Both are compatible with the anti-Oedipal momentum of Deleuze and Guattari’s schizoanalysis.


Author(s):  
John Mckiernan-González

This article discusses the impact of George J. Sánchez’s keynote address “Working at the Crossroads” in making collaborative cross-border projects more academically legitimate in American studies and associated disciplines. The keynote and his ongoing administrative labor model the power of public collaborative work to shift research narratives. “Working at the Crossroads” demonstrated how historians can be involved—as historians—in a variety of social movements, and pointed to the ways these interactions can, and maybe should, shape research trajectories. It provided a key blueprint and key examples for doing historically informed Latina/o studies scholarship with people working outside the university. Judging by the success of Sánchez’s work with Boyle Heights and East LA, projects need to establish multiple entry points, reward participants at all levels, and connect people across generations.I then discuss how I sought to emulate George Sánchez’s proposals in my own work through partnering with labor organizations, developing biographical public art projects with students, and archiving social and cultural histories. His keynote address made a back-and-forth movement between home communities and academic labor seem easy and professionally rewarding as well as politically necessary, especially in public universities. 


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Jodie Eichler-Levine

In this article I analyze how Americans draw upon the authority of both ancient, so-called “hidden” texts and the authority of scholarly discourse, even overtly fictional scholarly discourse, in their imaginings of the “re-discovered” figure of Mary Magdalene. Reading recent treatments of Mary Magdalene provides me with an entrance onto three topics: how Americans see and use the past, how Americans understand knowledge itself, and how Americans construct “religion” and “spirituality.” I do so through close studies of contemporary websites of communities that focus on Mary Magdalene, as well as examinations of relevant books, historical novels, reader reviews, and comic books. Focusing on Mary Magdalene alongside tropes of wisdom also uncovers the gendered dynamics at play in constructions of antiquity, knowledge, and religious accessibility.


GEOgraphia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (41) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Elson Luciano Silva Pires ◽  
Lucas Labigalini Fuini ◽  
Wilson Bento Figueiredo Filho ◽  
Eugênio Lima Mendes

A palavra governança não é nova. Ela perpassa por diversos períodos da história e assume significados específicos em determinadas épocas e países. Atualmente, o conceito de governança designa todos os procedimentos institucionais das relações de poder e das formas de gestão públicas ou privadas, tanto formais como informais, que regem a ação política dos atores. O objetivo deste artigo é problematizar os fatores explicativos das teorias institucionalistas que tratam a governança territorial como uma condição necessária para estabelecer compromissos entre os atores, com vistas ao desenvolvimento econômico, social e político das metrópoles, das cidades e seus territórios locais e regionais. Enfrentar as lacunas do debate acadêmico e coadunar os conceitos da literatura internacional referente à governança territorial, em especial a de matriz francesa, com a nacional, são um dos principais contributos deste artigo. REVISITING TERRITORIAL GOVERNANCE: INSTITUTIONAL DEVICES, INTERMEDIATE NOTIONS AND REGULATORY LEVELS Abstract The word governance is not new. It goes through different periods of history and takes specific meanings in certain times and countries. Currently, the concept of governance can be defined as institutional procedures of power relations and of public or private forms of management, which can be formal as well as informal, that govern political actions of political actors. The purpose of this article is to analyze the explanatory factors of institutionalist theories that approach territorial governance as a necessary condition to establish compromises among actors, seeking an economic, social, and political development of metropolis, cities, and their regional and local territories. One of the main contribution of this paper is to address the gaps in academic debate, and to relate national Brazilian concepts to international literature concerning territorial governance, in particular the French theoretical framework. Keywords: Institutional forms; territorial governance; modes of regulation. LA GOUVERNANCE TERRITORIALE REVISEE: DISPOSITIFS INSTITUTIONNELS, NOTIONS INTERMÉDIAIRES ET NIVEAUX DE RÉGULATION Resumé Le mot gouvernance n'est pas nouveau. Il traverse diverses périodes de l'histoire et prend des significations spécifiques à certains moments et pays. Actuellement, le concept de gouvernance désigne toutes les procédures institutionnelles de relations de pouvoir et de formes de gestion publiques ou privées, formelles ou informelles, qui régissent l'action politique des acteurs. L'objectif de cet article est de problématiser les facteurs explicatifs des théories institutionnalistes qui traitent la gouvernance territoriale comme une condition nécessaire pour établir des compromis entre les acteurs, en vue du développement économique, social et politique de la métropole, des villes et de leurs territoires locaux et régionaux. Faire face aux lacunes du débat académique en accord avec les concepts de la littérature internationale sur la gouvernance territoriale, notamment la matrice française, avec la matrice nationale, sont l'une des contributions majeures de cet article. Mots-clés: Formes institutionnelles; gouvernance territoriale; modes de régulations


Author(s):  
Patrick Köllner ◽  
Rudra Sil ◽  
Ariel I. Ahram

Two convictions lie at the heart of this volume. First, area studies scholarship remains indispensable for the social sciences, both as a means to expand our fount of observations and as a source of theoretical ideas. Second, this scholarship risks becoming marginalized without more efforts to demonstrate its broader relevance and utility. Comparative Area Studies (CAS) is one such effort, seeking to balance attention to regional and local contextual attributes with use of the comparative method in search of portable causal links and mechanisms. CAS engages scholarly discourse in relevant area studies communities while employing concepts intelligible to social science disciplines. In practice, CAS encourages a distinctive style of small-N analysis, cross-regional contextualized comparison. As the contributions to this volume show, this approach does not subsume or replace area studies scholarship but creates new pathways to “middle range” theoretical arguments of interest to both area studies and the social sciences.


Immiserizing Growth occurs when growth fails to benefit, or harms, those at the bottom. It is not a new concept, appearing such figures as Malthus, Ricardo and Marx. It is also not empirically insignificant, occurring in between 10% and 35% of cases, depending on the data set and the growth and poverty measures used. In spite of this, it has not received its due attention in the academic literature, dominated by the prevailing narrative that ‘growth is good for the poor’. The chapters in this volume aim to arrive at a better understanding of when, why and how growth fails the poor. They combine discussion of mechanisms of Immiserizing Growth with empirical data on trends in growth, poverty and related welfare indicators. In terms of mechanisms, politics and political economy are chosen as useful entry points to explain IG episodes. The disciplinary focus is diverse, drawing on economics, political economy, applied social anthropology, and development studies. A number of methodological approaches are represented including statistical analysis of household survey and cross-country data, detailed ethnographic work and case study analysis drawing on secondary data. Geographical coverage is wide including Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, the People’s Republic of China, Singapore, and South Korea, in addition to cross-country analysis. As the first book-length treatment of Immiserizing Growth in the literature, we believe that this volume constitutes an important step in redirecting attention to this issue.


Author(s):  
Peter Miksza ◽  
Kenneth Elpus

This chapter presents two of the most prominent approaches to the design of descriptive research in music education. Simply creating depictions of music teaching and learning experiences that are organized and illustrative of the variation that can exist in any given setting is a worthwhile scientific endeavor in and of itself. Descriptive research is most typically an exploration of what is, what exists, and/or the status of any given topic of interest. The first section deals with basic steps in observational research designs, and the second section outlines critical features of survey designs. These fundamental research design options are excellent entry points for emerging scholars and when employed imaginatively can yield many benefits for the profession.


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