scholarly journals Scrivere di Islam

Author(s):  
Simone Brioni ◽  
Shirin Ramzanali Fazel

Scrivere di Islam. Raccontare la diaspora (Writing About Islam. Narrating a Diaspora) is a meditation on our multireligious, multicultural, and multilingual reality. It is the result of a personal and collaborative exploration of the necessity to rethink national culture and identity in a more diverse, inclusive, and anti-racist way. The central part of this volume – both symbolically and physically – includes Shirin Ramzanali Fazel’s reflections on the discrimination of Muslims, and especially Muslim women, in Italy and the UK. Looking at school textbooks, newspapers, TV programs, and sharing her own personal experience, this section invites us to change the way Muslim immigrants are narrated in scholarly research and news reports. Most importantly, this section urges us to consider minorities not just as ‘topics’ of cultural analysis, but as audiences and cultural agents. Following Shirin’s invitation to question prevailing modes of representations of immigrants, the volume continues with a dialogue between the co-authors and discusses how collaboration can be a way to avoid reproducing a ‘colonial model’ of knowledge production, in which the white male scholar takes as object of analysis the work of an African female writer. The last chapter also asserts that immigration literature cannot be approached with the same expectations and questions readers would have when reading ‘canonised’ texts. A new critical terminology is needed in order to understand the innovative linguistic choices and narrative forms that immigrant writers have invented in order to describe a reality that has lacked representation or which has frequently been misrepresented, especially in the discourse around the contemporary Muslim diaspora.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madelon North ◽  
Emily Jane Kothe ◽  
Anna Klas ◽  
Mathew Ling

Veganism is an increasingly popular lifestyle within Western societies, including Australia. However, there appears to be a positivist approach to defining veganism in the literature. This has implications for measurement and coherence of the research literature. This exploratory study assessed preference rankings for definitions of veganism used by vegan advocacy groups across an Australian convenience sample of three dietary groups (vegan = 230, omnivore = 117, vegetarian = 43). Participants were also asked to explain their ranking order in an open-ended question. Most vegans selected the UK definition as their first preference, omnivores underwent five rounds of preference reallocation before the Irish definition was selected, and vegetarians underwent four rounds before the UK definition was selected. A reflexive thematic analysis of participant explanations for their rankings identified four themes: (1) Diet vs. lifestyle, (2) Absolutism, (3) Social justice, and (4) Animal justice. These four themes represent how participants had differing perceptions of veganism according to their personal experience and understanding of the term. It appears participants took less of an absolutist approach to the definition and how individuals conceptualise veganism may be more dynamic than first expected. This will be important when researchers are considering how we are defining veganism in future studies to maintain consistency in the field.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 597-612
Author(s):  
Daniel Trottier

This article offers an exploratory account of press coverage of digitally mediated vigilantism. It considers how the UK press renders these events visible in a sustained and meaningful way. News reports and editorials add visibility to these events, and also make them more tangible when integrating content from social media platforms. In doing so, this coverage directs attention to a range of social actors, who may be perceived as responsible for these kinds of developments. In considering how other social actors are presented in relation to digital vigilantism, this study focusses on press accounts of those either initiating or being targeted by online denunciations, and also on a broader and often amorphous range of spectators to such events, often referred to as ‘internet mobs’. Relatedly, this article explores how specific practices related to digital vigilantism such as denunciation are expressed in press coverage, as well as coverage of motivations by the public to either participate or facilitate such practices. Reflecting on how the press represent mediated denunciation will illustrate not only how tabloids and broadsheets frame such practices, but also how they take advantage of connective and data-generating affordances associated with social platforms.


Author(s):  
Geoffrey Boyd

At its core, academic knowledge production is predicated on Western notions of knowledge historically grounded in a Euro-American, White, male worldview. As a component of academic knowledge production, scholarly publishing shares the same basis of Whiteness. It excludes knowledge that doesn’t conform to White, Western notions of knowledge, forces conformity to (and therefore reinforcement of) a Western standard of writing/knowledge, and leads to a reverence of peer-reviewed literature as the only sound source of knowledge. As a tool of scholarly publishing and the editorial process, blind peer review, though perhaps well-intentioned, is fraught with problems, especially for BIPOC researchers and writers, because it fails in its intended purpose to drastically reduce or eliminate bias and racism in the peer review and editorial processes; shields peer reviewers and editors against accusations of bias, racism, or conflicts of interest; and robs BIPOC, and particularly Indigenous, writers and researchers from having the opportunity to develop relationships with those that are reviewing and publishing their work.


Author(s):  
Iain MacLaren

Whilst much of the rhetoric of current educational policy champions creativity and innovation, structural reforms and new management practices in higher education run counter to the known conditions under which creativity flourishes. As a review of recent literature suggests, surveillance, performativity, the end of tenure and rising levels of workplace stress are all closing off the space for real creative endeavour, characterised as it is by risk-taking, collaborative exploration and autonomy. Innovation, as conceived in this policy context (i.e., that of the UK and Ireland), is narrow in scope and leaves little room for critical re-examination of the nature of education itself or radical reconceptions of curriculum, raising the question as to whether such are more likely to arise extra mural , from new forms of organisation.


2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare Jackson

This article presents a conversation analytic examination of a telephone call in which a teenage girl updates her friend about developments in a relationship. The telling is in three phases, from initial reluctance, through first kiss to first sexual contact. Drawing on the notion of lower and upper bounded tellability, I analyse the talk for what is constructed as tellable and as taboo. Eminently tellable, the kiss is a directly named activity, details are sought, and it is assessed in a delighted way. In contrast, the sexual activity is not named and instead is referred to as ‘stuff’. The details of ‘stuff’ are not pursued, and the activity is assessed with (playful) disapproval. The telling speaks to normative gendered sexual expectations for teenage girls in the UK. In talking about personal experience of sexual conduct but without talking in any detail, these speakers position themselves as morally respectable.


Author(s):  
Reginald O’Neill

Face to face dental care in the UK was largely suspended from March until June and beyond is very limited still in many cases. Both NHS and Private dental services in the four nations of the United Kingdom aligned with the government in lockdown and dental emergencies could be accessed face to face in specific urgent centres only (UDC’s). Return to dental practice has been challenging for the profession with a lack of clarity from regulators and a gulf between financial support of private practice (almost none) and National Health practice (at 100% of their contact value pre-COVID). Dramatic changes to the provision of dental care are likely to persist and the COVID crisis may precipitate significant change to both private and NHS dental services.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-144
Author(s):  
Niu Mengdi ◽  

The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of publications by Western media and Chinese media during the period of the unrest and protests caused by an amendment to the “Fugitive Offenders Ordinance” in Hong Kong in the summer of 2019. The relevance is explained by the fact that in the summer of 2019, Hong Kong immediately became the center of attention of the world community and the press. The innovation lies in comparative analysis of Chinese and Western media texts in the aspect of tolerance. The purpose of the study is to identify the reporting frames on Hong Kong protests in different countries (China, the USA, the UK) and analyze their characteristics. The author’s attention is focused on the problem of tolerance / intolerance in the discussing of events in Hong Kong by Western and Chinese media. Content analysis, frame analysis and the method of comparative studies are used in this article. Content analysis of the news reports from The Washington Post, People’s Daily and the BBC website from July to August 2019 was conducted to clarify their tones and directions, as well as the meaning of the metaphors used by journalists. The frame analysis is to identify differences in event assessments, information sources, theme settings, report objects, main subjects and event definitions in the analyzed media. The language features in texts were also compared.By results of the study, we see clear ideological bias and tendentiousness in reports from the Western media, and also the inability to have a tolerant vision. The Chinese media also strongly show peculiarities of ideology and obvious propagandistic tendency. The dogmatism of propagandistic thoughts interferes with objective perception of the situation. Conclusions: mass medias holding different positions, “choosing” and “constructing” social realities in their news reports, painting different pictures and choosing their own perspectives to reflect attitude of the authority towards participants in the movements. In this way, they take completely irreconcilable positions. Keywords: Hong Kong, protest, assessment, reportage, tolerance/intolerance


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 424-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Middleton ◽  
◽  
Richard Milne ◽  
Heidi Howard ◽  
Emilia Niemiec ◽  
...  

AbstractPublic acceptance is critical for sharing of genomic data at scale. This paper examines how acceptance of data sharing pertains to the perceived similarities and differences between DNA and other forms of personal data. It explores the perceptions of representative publics from the USA, Canada, the UK and Australia (n = 8967) towards the donation of DNA and health data. Fifty-two percent of this public held ‘exceptionalist’ views about genetics (i.e., believed DNA is different or ‘special’ compared to other types of medical information). This group was more likely to be familiar with or have had personal experience with genomics and to perceive DNA information as having personal as well as clinical and scientific value. Those with personal experience with genetics and genetic exceptionalist views were nearly six times more likely to be willing to donate their anonymous DNA and medical information for research than other respondents. Perceived harms from re-identification did not appear to dissuade publics from being willing to participate in research. The interplay between exceptionalist views about genetics and the personal, scientific and clinical value attributed to data would be a valuable focus for future research.


2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (5) ◽  
pp. 576-590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janne Tienari

Autoethnography is about studying a community through the author’s personal experience. I offer my autoethnography of moving from a Finnish-speaking business school to a Swedish-speaking one in Helsinki, Finland. This is my story as a Finnish speaker who works in English, develops a sense of lack and guilt for not contributing in Swedish, and enacts an identity of an outsider in his community. My ambivalent identity work as a privileged yet increasingly anxious white male professor elucidates connections between identity, language, and power, and it may enable me to see glimpses of what those who are truly marginalized and excluded experience. I argue that academic identity is based on language, and once that foundation is shaken, it can trigger self-reflection that helps to show how language is inevitably tied in with complex power relations in organizations. I offer my story as an invitation to discuss how we learn to deal with the complexity of identity work and language. My story lays bare how autoethnographies by the privileged, too, can be useful if they show the vulnerability we all experience in contemporary universities.


2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Waldo Rocha Flores ◽  
Hannes Holm ◽  
Marcus Nohlberg ◽  
Mathias Ekstedt

Purpose – The purpose of the study was twofold: to investigate the correlation between a sample of personal psychological and demographic factors and resistance to phishing; and to investigate if national culture moderates the strength of these correlations. Design/methodology/approach – To measure potential determinants, a survey was distributed to 2,099 employees of nine organizations in Sweden, USA and India. Then, the authors conducted unannounced phishing exercises, in which a phishing attack targeted the same sample. Findings – Intention to resist social engineering, general information security awareness, formal IS training and computer experience were identified to have a positive significant correlation to phishing resilience. Furthermore, the results showed that the correlation between phishing determinants and employees’ observed that phishing behavior differs between Swedish, US and Indian employees in 6 out of 15 cases. Research limitations/implications – The identified determinants had, even though not strong, a significant positive correlation. This suggests that more work needs to be done to more fully understand determinants of phishing. The study assumes that culture effects apply to all individuals in a nation. However, differences based on cultures might exist based on firm characteristics within a country. The Swedish sample is dominating, while only 40 responses from Indian employees were collected. This unequal size of samples suggests that conclusions based on the results from the cultural analysis should be drawn cautiously. A natural continuation of the research is therefore to further explore the generalizability of the findings by collecting data from other nations with similar cultures as Sweden, USA and India. Originality/value – Using direct observations of employees’ security behaviors has rarely been used in previous research. Furthermore, analyzing potential differences in theoretical models based on national culture is an understudied topic in the behavioral information security field. This paper addresses both these issues.


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