scholarly journals Governing Death: Organizing End-of-life Situations

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Astrid Le Theule ◽  
Caroline Lambert ◽  
Jérémy Morales

This paper examines the organization of death. Through an ethnographic study, we examine how a geriatrics department guides the end of life. Drawing on Agamben, we show that organizations that are dedicated to life, but regularly confronted with death, develop dispositifs (mechanisms, technologies, practices and relationships) to turn biopolitics (power over life) into thanatopolitics (a regime of death). We also show how the inherently political meaning of life disrupts such government of death. The inclusion of political life in a regime of death disrupts organizational practices that find themselves facing fundamental questions of what makes a life worth living, who can decide not to prolong life, and based on which criteria.

Societies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Carla Filomena Silva ◽  
P. David Howe

This paper illuminates the potential of diversely embodied sporting cultures to challenge ableism, the ideology of ability. Ableism constructs the able body as conditional to a life worth living, thus devaluing all those perceived as ‘dis’-abled. This hegemonic ideology develops into a ‘logic of practice’ through a cultural appropriation of body’s lived complexity, by reducing it to symbolic dichotomies (able/disabled). The path to challenge ableism is then to restore body’s complexity, by turning attention toward its lived embodied existence. Drawing upon an ethnographic study of a sitting volleyball (SV) community, we condense multiple data sources into a sensuous creative non-fiction vignette to translate the physical embodied culture of the sport. In exploring SV physicality through the ethnographic vignette, it is our intention to activate the readers’ own embodiment when interpreting and co-creating this text. By placing the reader in the lived reality of playing SV, we hope that the potential of this physical culture to destabilize engrained ableist premises becomes apparent. Ultimately, our goal is to promote a shift from ableism towards an appreciation and celebration of differently able bodies. This cultural shift is crucial for long lasting social empowerment for people with disabilities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 898-911
Author(s):  
Tyas Martika Anggriana Et al.

Meaning is the main element needed to achieve happiness; including the meaning of life. In many studies, meaning of life is defined in terms of purpose, significance, or a multifaceted construct. One of the empirical reviews that is still necessitated in the study of meaning of life is the one which focuses on significance. This article attempts to provide answers to this question according to the perspective of the local wisdom of the Samin tribe as a part of the Javanese tribe. The Samin tribe is the name presented to the community that adheres to a doctrine in regards to “laku” or behavior that is believed to be taught by Samin Surosentiko. In other words, they are also known as “Sedulur Sikep”. Historically it can be traced that their presence was closely related to the passive resistance to the Dutch colonial government that colonized Indonesia around the 19th century. For the Samin tribe, there are no colonial laws. Instead, there are only laws of action, speech and necessity, which include not committing crimes, not arguing, not fighting, not having jealousy, not coveting or stealing, and not lying or slandering. The Samin tribe teaches these values to their generation because they believe that if they behave and act based on these values, they will live happily. The technique used is referred to as “kanda/pitutur” or giving advice by giving examples. This study used a qualitative approach in the form of phenomenology to understand the personal dimensions of the subject’s subjective experience on the meaning of the values of kanda/pitutur of sedulur sikep. The data were collected through in-depth interviews and observations on the Samin people. The data were analyzed in three stages, which were phenomenological reduction, eidetic reduction, and transcendental reduction. The results of this study provide a description of the reasons that make life worth living; as a transformation of the significance of meaning of life. The cognitive dimension as an evaluative component is related to self-acceptance, self-control, productive attitudes, autonomy, and positive relationships and harmonization with fellow living beings. In addition, there are also the affective and motivational dimensions shown.


Ars Aeterna ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-28
Author(s):  
Mária Hricková

Abstract The paper examines the protected values in Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel Gilead (2004). The aim of the study is to show the significance of three major values, namely faith, family and education. It also attempts to suggest how complexly these values interrelate and eventually represent the central tenets of the life worth living.


Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1127
Author(s):  
Alison Small ◽  
Andrew David Fisher ◽  
Caroline Lee ◽  
Ian Colditz

Increasing societal and customer pressure to provide animals with ‘a life worth living’ continues to apply pressure on livestock production industries to alleviate pain associated with husbandry practices, injury and illness. Over the past 15–20 years, there has been considerable research effort to understand and develop mitigation strategies for painful husbandry procedures in sheep, leading to the successful launch of analgesic approaches specific to sheep in a number of countries. However, even with multi-modal approaches to analgesia, using both local anaesthetic and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID), pain is not obliterated, and the challenge of pain mitigation and phasing out of painful husbandry practices remains. It is timely to review and reflect on progress to date in order to strategically focus on the most important challenges, and the avenues which offer the greatest potential to be incorporated into industry practice in a process of continuous improvement. A structured, systematic literature search was carried out, incorporating peer-reviewed scientific literature in the period 2000–2019. An enormous volume of research is underway, testament to the fact that we have not solved the pain and analgesia challenge for any species, including our own. This review has highlighted a number of potential areas for further research.


1998 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Gertrude Reif Hughes ◽  
Hazel Barnes

2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-133
Author(s):  
Karol Bujnowski

Nowadays more often people are asking about the meaning of life. It is a fundamental question that every human being faces. Man is asking whether life is worth living, what to do to make our life meaningful?A human being, among many needs, has the need for discovering the sense of life, the need comes from the very core of human existence as placed in time and connected with the phenomenon of passing away. Discovering the sense of life leads to the experience of happiness, joy, and to inner life lived much more to the full. Showing the meaning of life and helping to find that meaning are very important functions of religion. Due to it, a man is able to live one’s life, ambitions, goals, joyful moments as well as his or her suffering in the light of deeper understanding. Religion is the one that can often bring the richest and deepest answers to the question of the two meanings: the meaning of life and the world.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (10) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Hyma Santhosh

Woman and nature can be considered the best creations of god. Both together keep the earth alive and balanced through the process of creation. The male dominated practices have destroyed the nature as well as women. This paper deals with the different aspects of Eco-feminism through the novel Surfacing by Margaret Atwood. The narrator’s quest to the wilderness of Canada in search for her father which leads to a quest of self-discovery in the lap of nature becomes the major focus of this paper. The unknown protagonist becomes a representative of the entire female community. The realization that women are just an object to be conquered and violated by men is what leads to the ‘surfacing’ of the protagonist. In complete harmony with nature excluding clothes, language, food etc. the protagonist goes crazy which gives her more happiness that with her other relationships. The paper also tries to analyse the close relationship between women and nature and how the virgin nature and woman are destroyed by the invasion of the male community. Repressed gender roles, submissiveness, self-realization through nature and the challenges faced by women that are presented. The concept of women and nature as both victims of the male dominated society is also emphasized. This novel is the perfect literary example of an Eco-feminist work that portrays the destruction of women and nature even in the minutest episodes in the novel. Nature is a treasure-house of many myths that lay hidden in the beliefs, rights and rituals of the aboriginals which are passed from one generation to another. In the same manner women also are the sustainer's of many myths that the male society has made upon her. The mother i.e. both woman and nature is examined here.In a vast country like Canada,nature comprises to its majority through its wilderness.This wilderness hides many priceless virtues and knowledge that can be learnt only in complete harmony with nature.Surfacing is not just the journey of a woman but it is the quest that the female gender thrives for.This paper combines the theories of eco-criticism, eco-feminism and to analyse the novel Surfacing into a biological whole that merges nature, man and the beliefs of man that make existence meaningful and life worth living. In an era of rapid industrialization and materialism, it is necessary to go on a quest back to nature and learn how life was easier in the lap of nature. Great writers like Shakespeare,Chaucer and Wordsworth were able to carve out such master pieces only because of their relationship with the purest and virgin nature which is the greatest teacher for mankind of all times.


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