scholarly journals Exploring ambivalent oxygen machine–people–world relations through the lens of postphenomenology

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 426-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Wainwright
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Oxygen Therapy ◽  
Heart Diseases ◽  
Health Technology ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
The Political ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Relationship

Technologies for medicinal oxygen delivery at home are increasingly part of the global health technology landscape in the face of rising rates of chronic lung and heart diseases. From the mere notion of harvesting and privatizing oxygen from the atmosphere to its status as both dangerous and therapeutic, and finally to its capacity to both extend and limit life, oxygen as therapy materializes its status as an ambivalent object in global health. This analysis of ethnographic material from Uruguay and South Africa on the experience of home oxygen therapy is guided by philosopher Don Ihde’s postphenomenology – a pragmatic philosophical approach for analysing the relationships between humans and technologies. Participants related to their oxygen devices as limiting-enablers, as markers of illness and measures of recovery, and as precious and limited resources. Oxygen was materialized in many forms, each with their own characteristics shaping the ‘amplification/reduction’ character of the relationship as well as the degree to which the devices became ‘transparent’ to their users. Ihde’s four types of human–technology relations – embodiment, hermeneutic, alterity and background relations – are at play in the multistability of oxygen. Importantly, the lack of technological ‘transparency’, in Ihde’s sense of the term, reflects not only the materiality of oxygen but inequality too. While postphenomenology adds a productive material and technological flavour to phenomenology, the author argues that a critical postphenomenology is needed to engage with the political-economy of human–oxygen technology relations.

Strategy and the Surge

The Last Card ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 296-313
Author(s):  
Joshua Rovner
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Military Action ◽  
Strategic Effect ◽  
Practical Strategy ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Subsequent Rise

This chapter studies the relationship between strategy and the surge. Strategy is the bridge that links military operations and political objectives in war. A practical strategy describes those objectives and explains how military action will achieve them. The chapter disputes the idea that the surge constituted a new US strategy in Iraq. Instead, it can be considered as a “decision to put strategy on hold.” The surge, the chapter argues, encouraged a perverse strategic effect—by obscuring the political objectives of the war, it undercut efforts to forge competent and self-reliant governance in Iraq and contributed to the breakdown of the Iraqi state in the face of the subsequent rise of the Islamic State.

“We are all republicans”: Political Articulation and the Production of Nationhood in France's Face Veil Debate

2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 938-967 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Laxer
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Boundaries ◽  
The Face ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractIn July 2010, following a year-long nationwide debate over Islamic veiling, the French government passed a law prohibiting facial coverings in all public spaces. Prior research attributes this and other restrictive laws to France's republican secular tradition. This article takes a different approach. Building on literature that sees electoral politics as a site for articulating, rather than merely reflecting, social identities, I argue that the 2010 ban arose in significant part out of political parties’ struggles to demarcate the boundaries of legitimate politics in the face of an ultra-right electoral threat. Specifically, I show that in seeking to prevent the ultra-right National Front party from monopolizing the religious signs issue, France's major right and left parties agreed to portray republicanism as requiring the exclusion of face veiling from public space. Because it was forged in conflict, however, the consensus thus generated is highly fractured and unstable. It conceals ongoing conflict, both between and within political parties, over the precise meaning(s) of French republican nationhood. The findings thus underscore the relationship between boundary-drawing in the political sphere and the process of demarcating the cultural and political boundaries of nationhood in contexts of immigrant diversity.

scholarly journals THE IRFANI CONCEPT IN SUFISM AND ITS RELATION TO ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-256
Author(s):  
Ariani Barroroh Baried ◽  
Mulawarman Hannase
Keyword(s):  
Human Soul ◽  
Islamic Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
Library Research ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Talking about Sufism cannot be separated from 'Irfan' knowledge; both are interrelated; it can also say that 'Irfan', and 'Irfan' are Sufism. The level of ma'rifat is a jargon that many Sufis generally pursue. There are many ways to achieve this, each Sufi has his way, including First, Riyadhah (self-surrender, accepting sincerely and gracefully for all that the Creator has), Second, Tafakkur (tafakkur to strengthen belief in the greatness and power of Allah, then become an attitude that always motivates individuals, to actively dhikr and worship Allah swt.), Third, Tazkiyat An-Nafs (the process of purifying the human soul. The process of purification of the soul in the framework of Sufism can be done through the face of takhalli and tahalli). Then when Sufism meets philosophy, can the two synergize with each other? While the science of Sufism talks about the heart while talking about reason or ratio. Because the author wants to release the relationship between Sufism (Irfan) Islamic philosophy, this research is in the form of library research or referred to as library research which is carried out by reviewing various literature, both from the latest journals, book texts, scientific articles, the results of other people's research, as well as other sources related to Irfani Sufism and Islamic philosophy. The results of the conclusion that their studies of the soul in a philosophical approach provided many precious contributions to the perfection of studying Sufism in the Islamic world. An understanding of the soul and spirit itself is essential in Sufism. Later developed philosophical analyses of the soul and spirit in Sufism.

scholarly journals Interrogating the Constitutional Requisites for Legislative Oversight in the Promotion of Accountability and Good Governance in South Africa and Nigeria

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-59
Author(s):  
Omololu Fagbadebo
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Dominant Party ◽  
The People ◽  
Legislative Oversight ◽  
The Face ◽  
Legislative Activities

This article interrogates the effectiveness of the requisites for constitutional provisions in respect of the promotion of accountability and good governance in South Africa and Nigeria. The article notes that the drafters of the Constitutions of the two countries made sufficient provisions for the regulation and control of the executive and legislative activities in a manner that could guarantee effective service delivery. These constitutional provisions, in line with the practices of their respective governing systems of the two countries, empower the legislature to hold the executive accountable. The article discovers that the lawmakers in the two countries lacked the capacity to harness the provisions for intended purposes. Using the elite theory for its analysis, the article argues that legislative oversight in South Africa and Nigeria is not as effective as envisaged in the constitutional provisions envisaged. This weakness has given rise to the worsening governance crises in the two countries in spite of their abundant economic and human resources. The article opines that the institutional structures of the political systems of the two countries, especially the dominant party phenomenon, coupled with the personal disposition of the political elites incapacitate the effective exercise of the oversight powers of legislatures in the two countries. The article, therefore, submits that the people of the two countries have to devise another means of holding their leaders accountable in the face of collaboration between the executive and the legislature to perpetuate impunity in the public space. Independent agencies should be more active in the exposure of unethical behaviours of the political elites, while the judiciary should be more independent in the dispensation of justice.

Laughing at power: Humor, transgression, and the politics of refusal in Palestine

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-404
Author(s):  
Lisa Bhungalia
Keyword(s):  
Power Relations ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Productive Work ◽  
The Face ◽  
New Space ◽  
The Relationship

This article examines the political and productive work of humor under conditions of precarity, war, and occupation. Drawing on the case of Palestine but making links to other contexts of violence and war, it explores the transgressive power of humor to destabilize existing power relations and established hierarchies by calling into question the norms and “rationalities” that underpin our social world. Palestine’s laughter in particular, it contends, constitutes a mode and practice of refusal to normalize conditions of subjugation. Accordingly, this article explores how humor, as wielded on the part of subjugated populations, constitutes a different kind of political grammar that cannot be adequately captured by the language of resistance. To laugh in the face of power is not to say: “I oppose you”—rather it is to assert: “your power has no authority over me.” It is to refuse that power authorizing force. As such, this article maintains that closer inspection of the relationship between humor, laughter, and power carves out new space for a working theory of the political, one wherein power is not opposed but disavowed. This disavowal, I argue, is also productive: it is to assert that other political orders and possibilities exist.

scholarly journals Linguistic citizenship

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 406-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quentin E. Williams ◽  
Christopher Stroud
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Face ◽  
Linguistic Citizenship ◽  
Linguistic Practices

A major challenge facing South Africa is that of reconstructing a meaningful and inclusive notion of citizenship in the aftermath of its apartheid past and in the face of narratives of divisiveness that reach back from this past and continue to reverberate in the present. Many of the problems confronting South African social transformation are similar to the rest of the postcolonial world that continues to wrestle with the inherited colonial divide between citizen and subject. In this article, we explore how engagement with diversity and marginalization is taking place across a range of non-institutional and informal political arenas. Here, we elaborate on an approach towards the linguistic practices of the political everyday in terms of a notion of linguistic citizenship and by way of conclusion argue that the contradictions and turmoils of contemporary South Africa require further serious deliberation around alternative notions of citizenship and their semiotics.

scholarly journals ISLAMISTER OG KLUBLIV I GAZASTRIBEN

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Irving Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Gaza Strip ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modem World ◽  
Sport Activities ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Gaza Strip ◽  
The Relationship

Michael Irving Jensen: Islamists and Club Milieu in the Gaza Strip The article deals with Islamic social institutions in the Gaza Strip. The author considers these institutions as being part of Palestinian civil society. However, the bulk of the article is focused on one aspect of the work that the Islamic social institutions carry out; namely sport activities. The article is based on qualitative interviews, carried out by the author, with young men playing football in an Islamic club (ciosely related to the Hamas movement). Among the questions raised are: Why do young men choose to play football in an Islamic club? What are their perceptions of the political situation in the Gaza Strip? How do they view the relationship between Islam and politics in general? The interviews reveal - not unsurprisingly - that the young Islamists playing football do not equal the stereotype of an Islamist, i.e. a young fanatic with long beard and a wild look in the face. On the contrary, they are young men willing and able to cope with the modem world. From the interviews it is evident that high moral standards, more than anything else, attract these young men. Although further empirical work needs to be done, one could conclude tentatively that a good Islamist can play club football three times a week.

Responses to 'The piety of Afrikaans women'

1995 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 334-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Landman
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Women's Spirituality ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe book The piety of Afrikaans women is placed in the context of the methodological discussion on religion feminism, that is religion feminism as it was discussed in Western Europe in the early 1990s. It is argued that in South Africa the book was not read against this background but as an onslaught on Afrikanerdom and as a liberal effort to alienate metaphysics from spirituality. Three reactions for and against the contents of the book are discussed. The first refers to local nationalism, the second to the political agenda of women's spirituality and the third to the relationship between spirituality and historical criticism.

The Strength of Weak Review: National Courts, Interpretive Canons, and Human Rights Treaties

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 507-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yonatan Lupu ◽  
Pierre-Hugues Verdier ◽  
Mila Versteeg
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Direct Effect ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Courts ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
The Face ◽  
Legal Constraints ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Do So

Abstract Enforcement of international law is often delegated to national courts, creating a space for them to play a part in international judicialization. Under what conditions can they do so? We argue that the answer depends on the relationship between the political and legal constraints national courts face. National courts must be careful to safeguard their independence in the face of potential backlash, but they face constraints in terms of the legal mechanisms available to them when enforcing international law. We focus on the availability of two legal mechanisms: direct effect, under which courts apply treaties directly, setting aside inconsistent domestic laws; and canons of interpretation, under which courts strive to interpret domestic laws in conformity with treaties. We find that the effects of human rights treaty ratification is greater when courts have the canon available to them than it is when courts have direct effect available to them.

scholarly journals Egyptian-Israeli Relations during the Government of Mohamed Morsi (2012-2013)

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (68) ◽  
pp. 213-224
Author(s):  
Ayrat Halitovich Tuhvatullin ◽  
Vitaly Anatolievich Epshteyn ◽  
Pavel Vladimirovich Pichygin ◽  
Alina Petrovna Sultanova
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Muslim Brotherhood ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
State Of Israel

The article highlights the details of the foreign policy of the Arab Republic of Egypt and its impact on the regional security of the state of Israel in between 2012-2013. After the Islamists came to power, they began to dominate expectations that the political force led by Mohamed Morsi would initiate an active anti-Israel policy, however, with active anti-Semitic rhetoric, the "Muslim brotherhood" was able to maintain peaceful relations with Israel. The purpose of this study was to characterize the relationship between M. Morsi's government and the state of Israel during the period 2012 to 2013while revealing the impact of various factors on the preservation of peace in the region, especially in the face of the conflict situation that intensified in neigh boring countries such as Libya and Syria. The main approaches to the study of the problem under consideration were analytical method and content analysis. It is concluded that the article can also contribute to the study of the history of the Middle East within the framework of Arab-Israeli relations against the deterioration of the political situation and the strengthening of religious radicalism in the region.

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