Seven theses on critical empathy: a methodological framework for ‘unsavory’ populations

2021 ◽  
pp. 146879412110195
Author(s):  
Alexis de Coning
Keyword(s):  
Close Contact ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Methodological Challenges ◽  
Emotional Dimensions ◽  
Qualitative Literature

Qualitative researchers of ‘unsavory’ populations experience a complex range of emotions as they sustain close contact with people and communities that are deemed reprehensible, dangerous, or toxic. Empathy, in particular, raises ethical and methodological challenges for scholars who must build rapport with people who may perpetuate racism, sexism, xenophobia, and so on. Drawing on existing qualitative literature and ethnographic fieldwork, I propose critical empathy as a methodological framework to account for the difficult and sometimes problematic emotional dimensions of research on ‘unsavory’ populations. Instead of trying to resolve the tensions between empathy and critique, critical empathy compels us to grapple with these tensions and make them apparent in our work.

scholarly journals Measuring Nation States’ Deliberativeness: Systematic Challenges, Methodological Pitfalls, and Strategies for Upscaling the Measurement of Deliberation

2020 ◽  
pp. 003232171989081
Author(s):  
Dannica Fleuß ◽  
Karoline Helbig
Keyword(s):  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
Meso Level ◽  
Valid Measurement ◽  
Democratic Quality ◽  
Methodological Challenges ◽  
Nation States

A theoretically reflected and empirically valid measurement of nation states’ democratic quality must include an assessment of polities’ deliberativeness. This article examines the assessment of deliberativeness suggested by two sophisticated contemporary measurements of democratic quality, that is, the Democracy Barometer and the Varieties of Democracy-project. We feature two sets of challenges, each measurement of deliberativeness must meet: First, it must address the methodological challenges arising in the course of conceptualizing, operationalizing, and aggregating complex concepts (see Munck and Verkuilen, 2002). Second, attempts to measure nation states’ deliberativeness are confronted with specific conceptual and systematic challenges which we derive from recent deliberative democracy scholarship. We argue that both Democracy Barometer and Varieties of Democracy-project provide highly sophisticated assessments of democratic quality, but ultimately fail to capture nation states “deliberativeness” in a theoretically reflected and methodologically sound manner. We examine the methodological, pragmatic, and systematic reasons for these shortcomings. The crucial task for measurements of nation states’ deliberativeness consists in providing a conceptual approach and methodological framework for “upscaling” existing meso-level measurements (such as the DQI). The concluding section presents conceptual and methodological strategies that can enable researchers to meet these challenges and to provide a theoretically grounded and empirically valid measurement of nation states’ deliberativeness.

scholarly journals Constructive realism: advantages of ontology and methodology

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 ◽  
pp. 04009
Author(s):  
Andrey Tcytcarev ◽  
Ruslan Bazhenov ◽  
Elena Amineva ◽  
Aleksander Pronin
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Radical Constructivism ◽  
Constructive Realism ◽  
Methodological Challenges ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
Modern Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Worldview

This article attempts to reveal and analyse the advantages of constructive realism as a methodological framework of contemporary science. Comparing realism and constructivism as two divergent positions in epistemology in their extreme forms, we mention their downsides. These are the epistemological component for extreme realism and the ontological component for radical constructivism. We indicate that the concept of our study is characterized with the best balance of ontology and gnoseology and it allows overcoming ontological and epistemological difficulties associated with constructivism and realism correspondingly. We conclude that constructive realism may facilitate the development of the scientific worldview pertinent to modern knowledge and ready to respond the inherent methodological challenges that science faces.

The Affective Ambiguity of Solidarity: Resonance Within Anti-Deportation Protest in the German Radical Left

2020 ◽  
pp. 089692052093266
Author(s):  
Sonja Moghaddari
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
Political Opinion ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Social ◽  
Emotional Dimensions ◽  
Radical Left

Solidarity is a key concept in the literature on humanitarianism and social movements. Public discourse, too, promotes solidarity as a consistent feeling of belonging and empowerment. However, despite its popularity in the social sciences, there is little evidence about the phenomenological experiences underlying the concept. This article aims at moving beyond ethical considerations that underlie the boundaries between more conventional and contentious forms of civil engagement in examining the affective and emotional dimensions of solidarity. Building on long-term ethnographic fieldwork within deportation protest in Germany, I draw on cultural approaches to social movements and on the anthropology of affect in order to analyse resonance in four affective encounters. I argue that rather than communicating a political opinion, solidarity represents an attitude with which people explain their engagement in certain forms of affective and emotional exchange which are often just as ambiguous, challenging and contradictory as they are comforting and exciting.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Elana D. Buch
Keyword(s):  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Care Policy ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Meanings ◽  
And Gender

This chapter introduces a contextual, theoretical, and methodological framework for analyzing contemporary care work. Building on long-standing feminist critiques, Buch advances the concept of generative labor to analyze the social meanings and effects of daily care practices. The introduction examines the role of independence as a foundational value driving care policy and practice. It argues that paid care work generates independent persons by capitalizing on racial, class, and gender inequality. The introduction also describes the ethnographic fieldwork upon which the book is based.

Spiritual Care: Minimizing the Vulnerability of Parents Whose Children With Cancer Face the End of Life

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-115
Author(s):  
Cheryl L. Petersen
Keyword(s):  
End Of Life ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Spiritual Care ◽  
Continuing Bonds ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Search For Meaning ◽  
Children With Cancer ◽  
Bereaved Parents ◽  
Qualitative Literature ◽  
Support Plan

There is a distinct lack of literature related to the spiritual care of parents whose children with cancer are at the end of life. This has led to a dearth in evidence about how nurses may intervene with spiritual care interventions to best support these vulnerable parents. The purpose of this scoping review was to examine the evidence regarding the value of spirituality/spiritual care in minimizing the vulnerability of parents whose children were diagnosed with cancer and who faced the end of life. The Arksey and O’Malley methodological framework guided the analysis of the reviewed quantitative and qualitative literature. Spirituality and spiritual care provided bereaved parents and parents of children with cancer with necessary support and enhanced coping to allow them to better deal with this devastating experience. Spirituality and spiritual care instilled hope, assisted in the search for meaning and purpose, and guided parents to develop continuing bonds with their child. Through skillful communication, pediatric oncology nurses may guide parents of children who face the end of life to strengthen relationships that offer support, plan activities that provide opportunities for hope and connection, and identify sources of meaning in their experiences.

Decolonising Museums: South-Asian Perspectives

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-218
Author(s):  
VALENTINA GAMBERI
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Biological Process ◽  
Direct Consequence ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
The West ◽  
External Reality ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Doctoral Research ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The University

AbstractThis study adopts an osmotic ethnography in order to decolonise the museum as an intellectual institution that was born in the West and informed by a logic of command (arkheion). As in the biological process of osmosis, characterised by an equilibrium between the inner and the outer that shapes its own distinctiveness through its symbiosis, the museum constitutes itself as a space intertwined with external reality. This is particularly true in the case of South Asian museum artefacts: because of the concept ofdarśan(the sensuous relationship between the worshipper and the deity's material embodiment) curators have faced the challenge of coming to terms with visitors’ responses, from colonial to post-colonial times. A direct consequence of this challenge is represented by the reconstructions of religious spaces—shrines, altars, temples—that should evoke the so-called “original context” and be in consonance with local forms of material engagement.By adopting eco-phenomenology as its methodological framework, this article examines colonial sources, in particular the works of Thomas Hendley (1847–1917) and Fanny Parks (1794–1875), and compares them to the ethnographic fieldwork undertaken by the author at the Oriental Museum of the University of Durham in November 2014, as part of doctoral research.

Ultrastructure of Liver in Lactosyl Ceramidosis

1971 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 312-313
Author(s):  
Z. Hruban ◽  
J. R. Esterly ◽  
G. Dawson ◽  
A. O. Stein
Keyword(s):  
Connective Tissue ◽  
Liver Biopsy ◽  
Osmium Tetroxide ◽  
Close Contact ◽  
Multivesicular Bodies ◽  
Bile Canaliculi ◽  
Dense Bodies ◽  
Marginal Plates ◽  
Membranous Material ◽  
Perichromatin Granules

Samples of a surgical liver biopsy from a patient with lactosyl ceramidosis were fixed in paraformaldehyde and postfixed in osmium tetroxide. Hepatocytes (Figs. 1, 2) contained 0.4 to 2.1 μ inclusions (LCI) limited by a single membrane containing lucid matrix and short segments of curved, lamellated and circular membranous material (Fig. 3). Numerous LCI in large connective tissue cells were up to 11 μ in diameter (Fig. 2). Heterogeneous dense bodies (“lysosomes”) were few and irregularly distributed. Rough cisternae were dilated and contained smooth vesicles and surface invaginations. Close contact with mitochondria was rare. Stacks were small and rare. Vesicular rough reticulum and glycogen rosettes were abundant. Smooth vesicular reticulum was moderately abundant. Mitochondria were round with few cristae and rare matrical granules. Golgi complex was seen rarely (Fig. 1). Microbodies with marginal plates were usual. Multivesicular bodies were very rare. Neutral lipid was rare. Nucleoli were small and perichromatin granules were large. Small bile canaliculi had few microvilli (Fig. 1).

Electron microscopy study of shock synthesis of silicides

1993 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 1162-1163
Author(s):  
Kenneth S. Vecchio
Keyword(s):  
Shock Wave ◽  
Plastic Deformation ◽  
Close Contact ◽  
Microscopy Study ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Electron Microscopy Study ◽  
Powder Materials ◽  
Porous Powder ◽  
Wave Effects ◽  
Wave Passage

Shock-induced reactions (or shock synthesis) have been studied since the 1960’s but are still poorly understood, partly due to the fact that the reaction kinetics are very fast making experimental analysis of the reaction difficult. Shock synthesis is closely related to combustion synthesis, and occurs in the same systems that undergo exothermic gasless combustion reactions. The thermite reaction (Fe2O3 + 2Al -> 2Fe + Al2O3) is prototypical of this class of reactions. The effects of shock-wave passage through porous (powder) materials are complex, because intense and non-uniform plastic deformation is coupled with the shock-wave effects. Thus, the particle interiors experience primarily the effects of shock waves, while the surfaces undergo intense plastic deformation which can often result in interfacial melting. Shock synthesis of compounds from powders is triggered by the extraordinarily high energy deposition rate at the surfaces of the powders, forcing them in close contact, activating them by introducing defects, and heating them close to or even above their melting temperatures.

Exploring the Socio-emotional Dimensions of Gifted Adolescents

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Dittrick-Nathan ◽  
Shayna Brody Whitehouse ◽  
Marcy Willard ◽  
Kirsten Brown ◽  
Lesa Schirmacher
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Dimensions ◽  
Gifted Adolescents
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