scholarly journals The ‘New Urban Science’: towards the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary pursuit of sustainable transformations

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Karvonen ◽  
Vladimir Cvetkovic ◽  
Pawel Herman ◽  
Karl Johansson ◽  
Hedvig Kjellström ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Data Analytics ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
First Century ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
Scientific Knowledge Production ◽  
Urban Science

AbstractDigitalisation is an increasingly important driver of urban development. The ‘New Urban Science’ is one particular approach to urban digitalisation that promises new ways of knowing and managing cities more effectively. Proponents of the New Urban Science emphasise urban data analytics and modelling as a means to develop novel insights on how cities function. However, there are multiple opportunities to broaden and deepen these practices through collaborations between the natural and social sciences as well as with public authorities, private companies, and civil society. In this article, we summarise the history and critiques of urban science and then call for a New Urban Science that embraces interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to scientific knowledge production and application. We argue that such an expanded version of the New Urban Science can be used to develop urban transformative capacity and achieve ecologically resilient, economically prosperous, and socially robust cities of the twenty-first century.

scholarly journals Critical Disability Studies at the Edge of Global Development: Why Do We Need to Engage with Southern Theory?

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuan Thuy Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Disability Studies ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Global South ◽  
Global Development ◽  
Disabled People ◽  
Critical Disability Studies ◽  
Indigenous Ways Of Knowing

This paper examines critical disability studies through the lens of Southern theory–a theoretical perspective on the process of knowledge production in social sciences which embodies intellectual projects from the global South (Connell, 2007). Building on Helen Meekosha’s question on decolonizing disability (2011), I critique the domination of Northern disability studies by proposing an engagement with Southern theory. My argument is three-fold: First, the use of Southern theory enables us to interrogate the domination of Northern epistemologies in Southern contexts; second, this theory unveils how colonialism has continued to manifest itself through the knowledge practices which have made the experiences of disabled people in the global South invisible; and finally, situated within the context of global development, this theory enables critical disability studies to act as a project of decolonization that engages with Indigenous ways of knowing about disability experiences. 

Active Coeliac: Disassembling Gluten and Coeliac Disease

Somatechnics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 188-205
Author(s):  
Sofia Varino
Keyword(s):  
Coeliac Disease ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Food Additive ◽  
Gluten Free ◽  
Biomedical Knowledge ◽  
Dietary Practices ◽  
Object A ◽  
Scientific Knowledge Production ◽  
New Materialisms

This article follows the trajectories of gluten in the context of Coeliac disease as a gastrointestinal condition managed by lifelong adherence to a gluten-free diet. Oriented by the concept of gluten as an actant (Latour), I engage in an analysis of gluten as a participant in volatile relations of consumption, contact, and contamination across coeliac eating. I ask questions about biomedical knowledge production in the context of everyday dietary practices alongside two current scientific research projects developing gluten-degrading enzymes and gluten-free wheat crops. Following the new materialisms of theorists like Elizabeth A. Wilson, Jane Bennett, Donna Haraway and Bruno Latour, I approach gluten as an alloy, an impure object, a hybrid assemblage with self-organizing and disorganizing capacity, not entirely peptide chain nor food additive, not only allergen but also the chewy, sticky substance that gives pizza dough its elastic, malleable consistency. Tracing the trajectories of gluten, this article is a case study of the tricky, slippery capacity of matter to participate in processes of scientific knowledge production.

A Problem of Long - Term Digital Preservation: Difference in Humanities and Natural Sciences

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 183-195
Author(s):  
Elena Macevičiūtė
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Digital Preservation ◽  
Dynamic Activity ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
Time Line ◽  
Digital Documents ◽  
Whole Process ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Technological Science

The article deals with the requirements and needs for long-term digital preservation in different areas of scholarly work. The concept of long-term digital preservation is introduced by comparing it to digitization and archiving concepts and defined with the emphasis on dynamic activity within a certain time line. The structure of digital preservation is presented with regard to the elements of the activity as understood in Activity Theory. The life-cycle of digitization processes forms the basis of the main processing of preserved data in preservation archival system.The author draws on the differences between humanities and social sciences on one hand and natural and technological science on the other. The empirical data characterizing the needs for digital preservation within different areas of scholarship are presented and show the difference in approaches to long-term digital preservation, as well as differences in selecting the items and implementing the projects of digital preservation. Institutions and organizations can also develop different understanding of preservation requirements for digital documents and other objects.The final part of the paper is devoted to some general problems pertaining to the longterm digital preservation with the emphasis of the responsibility for the whole process of safe-guarding the cultural and scholarly heritage for the re-use of the posterior generations. It is suggested that the longevity of the libraries in comparison with much shorter life-span of private companies strengthens the claim of memory institutions to playing the central role in the long-term digital preservation.

Special section: Is feminism doomed? Feminist praxis in the times of ‘gender ideology’ in Slovakia

2020 ◽  
pp. 135050682097915
Author(s):  
Zuzana Maďarová ◽  
Veronika Valkovičová
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Far Right ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Times ◽  
Feminist Organizing

Thirty years after the Velvet Revolution, Slovak feminist activists look back to the 1990s and early 2000s as the time of exceptional capacity building and knowledge production which was barely sustained in later years. The last decade of feminist organizing has been marked by waning financial resources for civil society organizations, and appropriation of feminist and gender equality agenda by the state, which led to the hollowing out of its content. What is more, strong and pervasive conservative pressure with the aid of ‘gender ideology’ rhetoric has been successful in delegitimizing gender equality policies and is consistently threatening sexual and reproductive rights in the country. Facing such prospects, this article examines newfound alliances and diverse forms of broadly understood feminist praxis, which go beyond institutionalized civil society, but have developed to counter neoconservative and far-right political pressure in Slovakia.

scholarly journals Grand Challenges, Feminist Answers

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 263178772110203
Author(s):  
Yvonne Benschop
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Situated Knowledge ◽  
Feminist Ethics ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Grand Challenges ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Feminist Organization

Feminist organization theories develop knowledge about how organizations and processes of organizing shape and are shaped by gender, in intersection with race, class and other forms of social inequality. The politics of knowledge within management and organization studies tend to marginalize and silence feminist theorizing on organizations, and so the field misses out on the interdisciplinary, sophisticated conceptualizations and reflexive modes of situated knowledge production provided by feminist work. To highlight the contributions of feminist organization theories, I discuss the feminist answers to three of the grand challenges that contemporary organizations face: inequality, technology and climate change. These answers entail a systematic critique of dominant capitalist and patriarchal forms of organizing that perpetuate complex intersectional inequalities. Importantly, feminist theorizing goes beyond mere critique, offering alternative value systems and unorthodox approaches to organizational change, and providing the radically different ways of knowing that are necessary to tackle the grand challenges. The paper develops an aspirational ideal by sketching the contours of how we can organize for intersectional equality, develop emancipatory technologies and enact a feminist ethics of care for the human and the natural world.

scholarly journals Critical Qualitative Inquiry in China Studies: Introduction to the Special Issue

2021 ◽  
pp. 107780042110146
Author(s):  
Ping-Chun Hsiung
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Global Community ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
China Studies

This Special Issue aims to advance critical qualitative inquiry in China studies and contribute to a vibrant, inclusive global community. It builds upon debates and efforts in the behavioral and social sciences among area specialists in two eras: researchers in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the diaspora in the 1980s who sought to sinologize behavioral and social sciences, and sociologists in China in the 2000s who are seeking to indigenize these fields. The Issue takes a two-pronged approach toward advancing critical reflection in knowledge production: (a) it aspires to diminish the current influence of Western and positivistic paradigms on behavioral and social sciences research; (b) it seeks to challenge discursive hegemonic influences to create and sustain space for critical qualitative inquiry. The Issue traverses disciplinary boundaries between history and behavioral and social sciences within China Studies. It opens dialogue with the non-area specialists who are the primary audience of the Qualitative Inquiry.

The Secularity of Empire, the Violence of Critique: Muslims, Race, and Sexuality in the Politics of Knowledge‐Production

Hypatia ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 715-730 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunera Thobani
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
First Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Epistemological Tradition ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Race And Sexuality ◽  
Queer Politics ◽  
Philosophical Project ◽  
Forms Of Violence ◽  
Rare Opportunity

In the volatile conflicts that inaugurated the twenty‐first century, secularism, democracy, and freedom were identified by Western nation‐states as symbolizing their civilizational values, in contrast to the fanaticism, misogyny, and homophobia they attributed to “Islam.” The figure of the Muslim was thus transformed into an existential threat. This paper analyzes an exchange among scholars—Is Critique Secular? Blasphemy, Injury, and Free Speech—that engages these highly contested issues. As such, the text provides a rare opportunity to study how particular significations of the West, its epistemological tradition, and its relation with Islam are contested and negotiated in a critically engaged site during a moment of global crisis. My reading of the text leads me to argue that the stabilization of the epistemic power of the West is presently reliant on a new iteration of its foundational philosophical concepts to suppress counter‐hegemonic narratives that foreground its forms of violence. Further, the terrain for this reshaping of the dominance of this tradition is gender/sexuality, such that queer politics are located at the forefront of the Western politico‐philosophical project. As such, the advancement of this tradition is co‐constitutive with that of the gendered‐sexual subject as emblematic of its highest civilizational values.

Indigenous standpoint theory as a theoretical framework for decolonizing social science health research with American Indian communities

2021 ◽  
pp. 117718012110420
Author(s):  
Genevieve R Cox ◽  
Paula FireMoon ◽  
Michael P Anastario ◽  
Adriann Ricker ◽  
Ramey Escarcega-Growing Thunder ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
American Indian ◽  
American Indians ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Standpoint Theory ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
The Social

Theoretical frameworks rooted in Western knowledge claims utilized for public health research in the social sciences are not inclusive of American Indian communities. Developed by Indigenous researchers, Indigenous standpoint theory builds from and moves beyond Western theoretical frameworks. We argue that using Indigenous standpoint theory in partnership with American Indian communities works to decolonize research related to American Indian health in the social sciences and combats the effects of colonization in three ways. First, Indigenous standpoint theory aids in interpreting how the intersections unique to American Indians including the effects of colonization, tribal and other identities, and cultural context are linked to structural inequalities for American Indian communities. Second, Indigenous standpoint theory integrates Indigenous ways of knowing with Western research orientations and methodologies in a collaborative process that works to decolonize social science research for American Indians. Third, Indigenous standpoint theory promotes direct application of research benefits to American Indian communities.

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