scholarly journals Canon Fodder and the Intimacy of Dialogues

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Freeden Blume Oeur
Keyword(s):  
Toni Morrison ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Feminist Methodology ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
The Face

Michael Burawoy’s 2021 essay, “Decolonizing Sociology: The Significance of W.E.B. Du Bois,” forges dialogues between the scholar denied and established theorists with the aim of reconstructing the sociological canon. My commentary situates the author’s essay and his own Du Boisian turn in a long career dedicated to reflexive science and recomposing theory. I reflect on the seemingly innocuous notion of a dialogue itself: its implications for sociological theory and practice, and how it supports decolonial efforts. Thinking with Toni Morrison, Hazel Carby, Lisa Lowe, and others, I offer a sketch of a decolonial methodology—what I call a Du Boisian shadowplay—that brings into view the intimate dimensions of imperialism. Ultimately, such a feminist methodology reconstructs dialogues that reflect on researcher standpoints and nested imperial histories; and in the face of today’s social crises, nurtures dialogues that are animated by an ethic of love.

scholarly journals The Governance of Covid-19: Anthropogenic Risk, Evolutionary Learning, and the Future of the Social State

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-594
Author(s):  
Simon Deakin ◽  
Gaofeng Meng
Keyword(s):  
Theory And Practice ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
External Shocks ◽  
Feedback Effects ◽  
International Agencies ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Face ◽  
Anthropogenic Risks ◽  
Industrialised Countries

Abstract We consider the implications of the Covid-19 crisis for the theory and practice of governance. We define ‘governance’ as the process through which, in the case of a given entity or polity, resources are allocated, decisions made and policies implemented, with a view to ensuring the effectiveness of its operations in the face of risks in its environment. Core to this, we argue, is the organisation of knowledge through public institutions, including the legal system. Covid-19 poses a particular type of ‘Anthropogenic’ risk, which arises when organised human activity triggers feedback effects from the natural environment. As such it requires the concerted mobilisation of knowledge and a directed response from governments and international agencies. In this context, neoliberal theories and practices, which emphasise the self-adjusting properties of systems of governance in response to external shocks, are going to be put to the test. In states’ varied responses to Covid-19 to date, it is already possible to observe some trends. One of them is the widespread mischaracterisation of the measures taken to address the epidemic at the point of its emergence in the Chinese city of Wuhan in January and February 2020. Public health measures of this kind, rather than constituting a ‘state of exception’ in which legality is set aside, are informed by practices which originated in the welfare or social states of industrialised countries, and which were successful in achieving a ‘mortality revolution’ in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Relearning this history would seem to be essential for the future control of pandemics and other Anthropogenic risks.

The future of the printed book in the era of technological advancement: an imperative for digital innovation and engagement

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rhoydah Nyambane
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
The Body ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Young Generation ◽  
Technological Advancement ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Face ◽  
Book Publishers

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to establish the place of the printed book in the era of technological advancement with the assumption that the print media is facing imminent death in the face of readily available and convenient online information. Also the paper aims to assess how the development of new technologies have affected the production, circulation and readership of the printed book, especially among the young generation. Design/methodology/approach Explanatory study was used with closed-ended approach to collect data from 50 students of the Technical University of Kenya and 5 key informant interviews with selected book publishers in Nairobi. The uses and gratification theory was used to explore the knowledge-seeking behavior among the respondents. Findings Findings showed that more than 80% of the respondents preferred the internet to the printed book, which, according to them, has no future in the face of technological advancement. Book publishers, on the other hand, felt that the printed book has a bright future among specific audiences who are committed to it, and especially those in the rural areas who have no access to the internet. While they agreed that the internet has posed a major challenge to the sales and readership of the printed book significantly, it is helping in marketing the printed book as opposed to killing it. New bookshops in Nairobi and modern libraries in high schools, tertiary institutions and universities demonstrate that the printed book is not dying soon. Research limitations/implications The researcher experienced challenges in data collection as the respondents were busy preparing for final examinations and hence many of them were not willing to spare time to fill the questionnaire. To solve this, the researcher had to spend more time to collect data as opposed to if the students were free and ready to participate in the study without any pressure. Practical implications The findings can be used as a basis for further research to widen the scope that can help bring a wider perspective to the topic. The results can also inform policy guidelines on the topic and also contribute to the body of knowledge. Social implications The topic touches on social phenomena that are affecting a number of young people and their information-seeking habits in the era of digital revolution. The way the young generation seek and use information should be of interest not only to academic staff but also to policymakers. Originality/value The paper is original based on primary data that was collected by the researcher from the respondents. It is backed by secondary data to bridge the gap between theory and practice.

scholarly journals Female Subversion through Sex Work: Transgressive Discourses

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-137
Author(s):  
Marta Olasik
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Female Sex ◽  
Lesbian Studies ◽  
The One

The main objective of this article is to provide a multi-faceted and spatially-sensitive reflection on sex work. Taking as a point of departure subversive feminist politics on the one hand and the much contingent notion of citizenship on the other, I intend to present various forms of prostitution as potentially positive and empowering modes of sexual and emotional auto-creation. Informed by the leading research of the subject, as well as inspired and educated by Australia-based Dr Elizabeth Smith from La Trobe University in Melbourne, who had researched and presented female sex workers as self-caring and subversive subjects who make own choices and derive satisfaction from their occupation, I wish to seek academic justice for all those women (and men or trans people, for that matter) in the sex industry who feel stigmatized by political pressure and ultra-feminist circles across Europe. Translating Dr Smith’s significant research into European (and Polish) social realities would be a valuable contribution to the local discussions on gender and sexuality, and axes they intersect with. More importantly, however, a framework of a conceptual interdisciplinary approach needs to be adopted—one in which a specific queer form of lesbian feminist reflection is combined with human geography, both of which have much to offer to various strands of sociological theory and practice. Therefore, as a queer lesbian scholar based in Poland, I would like to diverge a bit from my usual topic in order to pay an academic and activist tribute to the much neglected strand of sociology of sex work. However, my multi-faceted and interdisciplinary academic activity allows me to combine the matter in question with the field of lesbian studies. Both a female sex worker and a lesbian have been culturally positioned through the lens of what so-called femininity is, without a possibility to establish control over their own subjectivities. Hence, on the one hand the article is going to be an academic re-interpretation of sex work as such, but on the other, methodological possibilities of acknowledging and researching lesbian sex workers will be additionally considered with special attention to feminist epistemologies and praxis. While a sensitivity to a given locality is of utmost importance when dealing with gender and sexuality issues, I would like to suggest a somewhat overall approach to investigating both female empowerment through sex work and lesbian studies inclusive of sex workers. Importantly, the more common understandings of the sex industry need to be de-constructed in order for a diversity of transgressive discourses to emerge.

Aquatic Stewardship Education in Theory and Practice

2007 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Conservation Education ◽  
Federal Aid ◽  
Aquatic Resources ◽  
The Public ◽  
Excise Taxes ◽  
The Face ◽  
Fisheries Conservation ◽  
Sport Fish

<i>Abstract.</i>— In 1950, Congressman John Dingell (Michigan) and Senator Edwin Johnson cosponsored a piece of legislation that changed the face of fisheries conservation. The Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Act (Public Law 81-681), also known as the Dingell- Johnson Act, allowed excise taxes collected on rods, reels, creels, and artificial baits to be placed into a special account for apportionment to the states. In 1984, the Sport Fish Restoration Act was further strengthened by additional legislation that increased available funds and formed the new Aquatic Resources trust fund. The Wallop-Breaux Amendment, in addition to increasing funds for conservation programs and boating access, allowed states to use up to 10% of the states’ annual apportionment on Aquatic Resources Education. Since 1984, states, nongovernmental organizations and industry have developed numerous programs that engage and educate the public on sound conservation issues that protect and enhance the environment for the next generation. This chapter provides an overview of successful, research-based conservation education programs that augment the overall effort to sustain the fisheries of the United States.

Strengthening and Enriching Audit Practice

2012 ◽  
pp. 97-108
Author(s):  
Peter A. C. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Network Visualization ◽  
Viable System Model ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Visualization Analysis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Network Layers ◽  
The Face ◽  
Viable System

The audit profession has been facing reassessment and repositioning for the past decade. Enquiry has been an integral part of an audit; however, its reliability as a source of audit evidence is questioned. To legitimize enquiry in the face of audit complexity and ensure sufficiency, relevance, and reliability, the introduction of Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM) into theory and practice has been recommended by a number of authors. In this paper, a variant on previous VSM-based audit work is introduced to perfect auditing assessment of accountability and compliance. This variant is termed the “VSM/NVA variant” and is applicable when the VSM model is in use for an audit. This variant is based on application of Network Visualization Analysis (NVA) to a VSM-modeled organization. Using NVA, “decision leaders” can be identified and their socio-technical relevance to VSM systems explored. This paper shows how the concepts of decision leaders and their networks can enrich and clarify practical applications of audit theory and practice. The approach provides an enhanced real-world understanding of how various VSM systems and network layers of an organization coalesce, and how they relate to the aims of the VSM model at micro and macro levels.

The Face of Judgement in Measure for Measure

2019 ◽  
pp. 163-175
Author(s):  
Kevin Curran
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Ethical Relation ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Faculty Psychology ◽  
Affective Quality ◽  
Legal Writing ◽  
Measure For Measure ◽  
The Face

Like a number of other Renaissance comedies and romances, Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure ends with a scene of judgment in which punishment and reward is distributed among a group of characters. Measure for Measure insistently links judgment to the spatial and revelatory dynamics of facing and unmasking. Adducing evidence from two early modern archives – legal writing on the theory and practice of judgment and treatises on physiology and faculty psychology – Kevin Curran addresses two related questions: (1) What can a historical understanding of the face in early modern culture tell us about the phenomenology of judgment in Measure for Measure? And (2) how does Shakespeare’s staging of judgment create a participatory experience in the playhouse grounded in sensation? The essay ultimately argues that the face in Measure for Measure functions as a hinge between the ethical relation of judgment and the ethical relation of theater, one that insists of the embodied and affective quality of both forms of interaction.

scholarly journals Measuring Resilience Potentials: A Pilot Program Using the Resilience Assessment Grid

Safety ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 51
Author(s):  
Karen Klockner ◽  
Peter Meredith
Keyword(s):  
Road Transport ◽  
Safety Performance ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Resilience Engineering ◽  
Operational Safety ◽  
The Face ◽  
System Variability ◽  
System Resilience ◽  
Technical Systems ◽  
Resilience Assessment

Researchers in the resilience engineering space have proposed the notion that organisations operating in complex socio-technical systems cannot ‘be’ resilient but can have the ‘potential for resilient performance’. This theoretical stance also suggests that organisations wanting to enhance their potential for resilience begin by measuring their operational safety performance against four key potentials, these being: the Potential to Anticipate; the Potential to Respond; the Potential to Learn; and the Potential to Monitor. Furthermore, to measure these four key resilience constructs, organisations have been recommended to use a Resilience Assessment Grid (RAG) developed as part of this theory. However, scarce research appears to have been conducted that bridges the theory and practice divide on just how organisations can pragmatically measure their current performance against these four resilience potentials using the RAG. Therefore, this research was interested in undertaking a pilot study using RAG theory in order to examine an organisation’s four resilience potentials, and was conducted within a large road transport organisation in Australia. Results indicated that measuring both the four individual potentials and a combination of the four potentials was possible using a RAG and proved effective in providing a snapshot of operational safety system resilience concepts. Recommendations on how to increase organisational resilience potentials were provided to ensure future safety endeavours would enhance the organisation’s potential to be resilience in the face of system variability and operational demands.

A test of a cultural model of conflict styles

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min-Sun Kim ◽  
Hye-ryeon Lee ◽  
In Duk Kim ◽  
John E. Hunter
Keyword(s):  
Process Model ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Path Model ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Conflict Styles ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Conflict Situations ◽  
The Face ◽  
Conflict Strategies ◽  
Face Maintenance

The primary aim of this study is to test a process model of cultural conflict styles. Specifically, we propose a theoretical framework for illuminating the relationship between individual-level equivalents of cultural variability dimensions and the face-maintenance dimensions, which, in turn, serve as guiding motives or criteria for selecting conflict strategies. In the model, it was predicted that the greater the individual’s construal of self as independent, the higher the concern for self-face maintenance, which, in turn, leads to the higher preference for forcing (dominating) conflict styles. In a separate path, it was also predicted that the greater the individual’s construal of self as interdependent, the higher the concern for other-face maintenance, which, in turn, leads to the higher preference for nonforcing (obliging, avoiding, integrating, and compromising) conflict styles. Data to test the proposed model were drawn from undergraduates of diverse cultural backgrounds, studying in Hawai‘i. After being presented at random with one of the three conflict situations, participants rated the scales measuring conflict styles, face maintenance dimensions, as well as scales to measure the independent and interdependent dimensions of their self-construals. The theoretical path model was supported by the data except for one path. The implications of the model for theory and practice are discussed.

scholarly journals From Face-to-Face to Paired Oral Proficiency Interviews: The Nut is Yet to be Cracked

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Parviz Birjandi ◽  
Marzieh Bagherkazemi
Keyword(s):  
Communication Skills ◽  
Oral Communication ◽  
Oral Proficiency ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Skilled Performance ◽  
The Face ◽  
Oral Proficiency Interviews ◽  
The Individual

The pressing need for English oral communication skills in multifarious contexts today is compelling impetus behind the large number of studies done on oral proficiency interviewing. Moreover, given the recently articulated concerns with the fairness and social dimension of such interviews, parallel concerns have been raised as to how most fairly to assess the oral communication skills of examinees, and what factors contribute to more skilled performance. This article sketches theory and practice on two rather competing formats of oral proficiency interviewing: face-to-face and paired. In the first place, it reviews the related literature on the alleged disadvantages of the individual format. Then, the pros and cons of the paired format are enumerated. It is discussed that the paired format has indeed met some of the criticisms leveled at individual oral proficiency interviewing. However, exploitation of the paired format as an undisputable alternative to the face-to-face format begs the question.

scholarly journals Existing Mechanisms of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Their Problems Dealing With Non-traditional Security Challenges

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-126
Author(s):  
Xuesong Fan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Regional Cooperation ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Shanghai Cooperation Organization ◽  
New Members ◽  
New Era ◽  
New Model ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
Chinese Rhetoric ◽  
The Face

Central Asia is extremely important for the security of Russia, China and the Eurasian region, both historically and at present. Unconventional security challenges, led by terrorism, extremism and separatism, which in the official Chinese rhetoric and official documents of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are designated as the ‘three forces of evil,’ pose a serious challenge to the security of China, Russia, the countries of Central Asia and Eurasia in general. Over the 20 years of the SCO’s history, proceeding from their ‘Shanghai spirit,’ the participating countries have created unique legislative and organizational mechanisms for a joint strike against the ‘three forces of evil,’ as well as mechanisms for bilateral and multilateral antiterrorist exercises. The most important of these is the Peace Mission joint exercise, which has been regularly held since 2005. These mechanisms of cooperation within the SCO embody the spirit of solidarity, mutual trust and cooperation, reflect the ability of the members of the organization to jointly counter the ‘three forces of evil’ and respond to related problems, and also symbolize the SCO’s determination to protect stability in the region and peace in the world. The organization has made a significant contribution to ensuring security in the region. Nevertheless, in the face of existing problems and new challenges such as potential competition and disagreements within the organization, problems with new members after the expansion of the membership, and also the ineffective functioning of some of the SCO’s security instruments, all SCO members need to strengthen their cooperation and open new ways for organizing the SCO to fulfil well its unique role to ensure security in the territory of SCO states and in Eurasia as a whole. The new model of relations—‘Russian-Chinese relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction entering a new era’—that underlies the SCO gives the organization greater stability. The SCO is a unique organization on the territory of Eurasia and has both implemented an important innovation in the theory and practice of international relations and opened a new model of regional cooperation. Therefore, it can be stated with a high degree of confidence that multilateral cooperation in the field of security will gradually deepen.

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