scholarly journals Riotous Epistemology: Open Referentiality and Reconfigured Temporalities in AK Thompson’s Black Bloc, White Riot

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-84
Author(s):  
Robert Carley

This paper suggests that AK Thompson’s text be viewed through the twin lenses of what I describe as “open referentiality” and “reconfigured temporalities” in order to broadly understand the pedagogical and epistemological contributions of his work. I argue that Thompson’s work, at the pedagogical level, provides several reference points through which readers are invited to consider how theories, concepts, and the traditions that they are embedded in can be reinterpreted in the context of contemporary forms of social struggle, protest, demonstrations, and direct action. I connect the pedagogical aspects of Thompson’s work to their epistemological underpinnings arguing that Thompson’s work produces a phenomenology of thought and action that, taken in consort with his pedagogical invitation to reconsider aspects of radical and critical traditions, provides a riot in the epistemological frameworks that settle or partition (radical and critical) traditions of thought. I explore this idea by discussing how Black Bloc White Riot provided a means for me to rethink the contributions of Antonio Gramsci to contemporary social movement studies. [Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: [email protected] Website: http://www.transformativestudies.org ©2021 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.] KEYWORDS: AK Thompson, Black Bloc White Riot, Critical Theory, Radical Theory, Direct Action, Antonio Gramsci.

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-62
Author(s):  
Claryn Spies

While black bloc has been persistently misunderstood and maligned by the mainstream media and leftist intellectuals alike, rereading this tactic as an aesthetic practice opens new and more interesting methods of appraisal. This paper considers three ways of reading black bloc: first, how participation in a black bloc can be an ontologically transformative experience for its participants; second, how property destruction associated with black blocs can have transformative effects on its spectators; and third, how black bloc is particularly well-suited to what Jacques Rancière calls the redistribution of the sensible. These accounts provide alternative lenses through which black bloc can be brought into focus, and suggest that the bloc’s lack of concrete demands or fixed membership, its fleeting temporality, and its refusal to either identify itself with a particular party or class, or to engage with “politics as usual”—the very things that frustrate its critics—can be read as its greatest strengths. In entertaining a multiplicity of ways of seeing black blocs, we may loosen ourselves from the prevailing criticisms that eschew nontraditional forms of demonstrations, and shift the horizon of what we find to be politically possible. [Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: [email protected] Website: http://www.transformativestudies.org ©2021 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.] KEYWORDS: Aesthetics, Direct Action, Anonymity, Subjectivity, Jacques Rancière.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Michel

BACKGROUND Background: Online forward triage tools (OFTT) or symptom checkers are being widely used during this COVID-19 pandemic. The effects and utility of such tools however, have not been widely assessed. OBJECTIVE Objective: To assess the effects (quantitatively) and the utility (qualitatively) of a COVID-19 OFTT in a pandemic context, exploring patient perspectives as well as eliciting recommendations for tool improvement. METHODS Methods: We employed a mixed-method sequential explanatory study design. Quantitative data of all users of the OFTT between March 2nd, 2020 and May 12th, 2020 were collected. A follow-up survey of people who consented to participation was conducted. Secondly, qualitative data was collected through key informant interviews (n=19) to explain the quantitative findings, as well as explore tool utility, user experience and elicit recommendations. RESULTS Results: An estimate of the effects, (quantitatively) and the utility (qualitatively) of a COVID-19 OFTT in a pandemic context, and recommendations for tool improvement. In the study period, 6,272 users consulted our OFTT; 560 participants consented to a follow-up survey and provided a valid e-mail address. 176 (31.4%) participants returned a complete follow-up questionnaire. 85.2% followed the recommendations given. 41.5% reported that their fear was allayed after using tool and 41.1% would have contacted the GP or visited a hospital had the tool not existed. Qualitatively, seven overarching themes emerged namely i) accessibility of tool, ii) user-friendliness of tool, iii) utility of tool as an information source, iv) utility of tool in allaying fear and anxiety, v) utility of tool in decision making (test or not to test), vi) utility of tool in reducing the potential for onward transmissions (preventing cross infection) and vii) utility of tool in reducing health system burden. CONCLUSIONS Conclusion: Our findings demonstrated that a COVID-19 OFTT does not only reduce the health system burden, but can also serve as an information source, reduce anxiety and fear, reduce cross infections and facilitate decision making (to test or not to test). Further studies are needed to assess the transferability of these COVID-19 OFTT findings to other contexts as the second wave sweeps across Europe.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-78
Author(s):  
Frank Cranmer

The Charity Commission for England and Wales published an updated list of the questions to be included in the 2018 Annual Return for registered charities. The trustees of charities excepted from registration with the Commission – which include a considerable number of church congregations – are not required to submit an annual return; but an increasing number find that they must do so because when an excepted charity's annual income exceeds £100,000 it loses its excepted status. The previously expressed intention to require every charity trustee to provide an e-mail address has been abandoned; instead, the Commission intends to ask all trustees either to supply an e-mail address or to confirm that they do not have one – which looks very like a welcome climbdown. The Commission's on-line Annual Return Service opened for submissions on 20 August.


1984 ◽  
Vol 166 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patti Lather

This paper examines critical theory, especially the work of Antonio Gramsci, in relation to feminist curricular change efforts in teacher education. It is contended that women's studies is potentially a prime example of curriculum as counter-hegemonic force. Critical theory is taken to task for the male-centeredness of its search for historical actors. The possibilities for fundamental social change that open up when we put women at the center of our transformative aspirations are explored.


2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 750-765 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph W. Sakshaug ◽  
Basha Vicari ◽  
Mick P. Couper

Identifying strategies that maximize participation rates in population-based web surveys is of critical interest to survey researchers. While much of this interest has focused on surveys of persons and households, there is a growing interest in surveys of establishments. However, there is a lack of experimental evidence on strategies for optimizing participation rates in web surveys of establishments. To address this research gap, we conducted a contact mode experiment in which establishments selected to participate in a web survey were randomized to receive the survey invitation with login details and subsequent reminder using a fully crossed sequence of paper and e-mail contacts. We find that a paper invitation followed by a paper reminder achieves the highest response rate and smallest aggregate nonresponse bias across all-possible paper/e-mail contact sequences, but a close runner-up was the e-mail invitation and paper reminder sequence which achieved a similarly high response rate and low aggregate nonresponse bias at about half the per-respondent cost. Following up undeliverable e-mail invitations with supplementary paper contacts yielded further reductions in nonresponse bias and costs. Finally, for establishments without an available e-mail address, we show that enclosing an e-mail address request form with a prenotification letter is not effective from a response rate, nonresponse bias, and cost perspective.


1995 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Barba ◽  
R. Di Giovambattista ◽  
G. Smriglio

he Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica (ING) Seismic Network Database (ISND) includes over 300000 arrivaI times of Italian, Mediterranean and teleseismic earthquakes from 1983 to date. This database is a useful tool for Italian and foreign seismologists ( over 1000 data requests in the first 6 months of this year). Recently (1994) the ING began storing in the ISND, the digital waveforms associated with arri,Tal times and experimen- tally allowed users to retrieve waveforms recorded by the ING acquisition system. In this paper we describe the types of data stored and the interactive and batch procedures available to obtain arrivaI times and/or asso- ciated waveforms. The ISND is reachable via telephone line, P.S.I., Internet and DecNet. Users can read and send to their E-mail address alI selected earthquakes locations, parameters, arrivaI times and associated digital waveforms (in SAC, SUDS or ASCII format). For r;aedium or large amounts of data users can ask to receive data by means of magnetic media (DAT, Video 8, floppy disk).


2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-27
Author(s):  
Larry W. Anenson, Jr. ◽  
Ardith Brunt ◽  
Donna Terbizan ◽  
Bryan Christensen

The purpose of this 38-week, quasi-experimental study was to determine the effectiveness of one weekly e-mail health (e-health) message that utilized the World Health Organization’s seven dimensions of wellness. Employees from a large Midwestern city were recruited and divided into two groups based on their desire to receive additional health information. The participants in each group were then randomly assigned to receive basic or detailed e-health messages. The basic e-health message consisted of an e-mail with health tips for the specific topic; whereas the detailed message included the basic message plus links to games, surveys, and websites to supplement the basic message. Those lacking an e-mail address comprised the control group, and did not receive any e-health messages. A total of 46 employees completed both assessments and comprised the analytic sample. Systolic blood pressure significantly decreased in unmotivated participants receiving the detailed messages (-2.1 mmHg, p=0.04). Across all groups, at-risk participants (blood pressure ? 140/90 mm/Hg or body mass index ? 25 kg/m2) showed greatest improvement with significant drops in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Detailed ehealth messages may be an effective approach to assist employees who are at-risk for chronic disease.


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