scholarly journals CONSTRUCTING THE DIGITAL SKILLS CRISIS: A CRITICAL CONCEPTUAL HISTORY OF “SKILL”

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zane Cooper ◽  
Lauren E. Bridges ◽  
Julia Ticona
Keyword(s):  
Digital Divide ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Public Speech ◽  
Political Concept ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Digital Skills ◽  
History Of ◽  
Intrinsic Quality

There is a digital skills crisis: the digital skills crisis does not exist. Through a conceptual history of skill––a word, concept, and action––this paper analyzes the historical, cultural, and material constructions of skill and how it has come to influence current discourse around the alleged “digital skills crisis”. Rather than an intrinsic quality to be acquired, we show how skill has been deployed as a political concept to order bodies and processes according to the interests of power and capital. Pushing back against skilled/unskilled dichotomies, we argue skill itself has been used as a technology in the division of labor (Marx, 1990) to maintain patriarchal (Berg, 1994), and colonial hierarchies (Kumar, 2018). This genealogy helps situate how skill is conceptually operationalized alongside technology in contemporary politics. Through a systematic analysis of policy and public speech from four US presidents––from Clinton’s push to bridge the “digital divide” to Trump’s executive order to “combat the skills crisis”––we show how skills discourse is framed as a deficit issue in both democratic and republican administrations. By centering the conceptual roots of skill, this paper attempts to reclaim an understanding of skills as collective social knowledge that are essential to, and not separate from, technology (Veblen, 1914). Through this work, we hope to generate a broader discussion about the normative assumptions which tie the idea of skill to technological progress so we may re-imagine the kinds of collective social knowledge we need to produce a more just and equitable future.

The Enlightenment Turns to China: The International Flow of Concepts and Their Geographic Dispersion

Cultura ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-52
Author(s):  
Chien-shou CHEN
Keyword(s):  
Joint Production ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
International Flow ◽  
Geographic Dispersion ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Modern Chinese History ◽  
Enlightenment Project ◽  
History Of

Abstract This article attempts to strip away the Eurocentrism of the Enlightenment, to reconsider how this concept that originated in Europe was transmitted to China. This is thus an attempt to treat the Enlightenment in terms of its global, worldwide significance. Coming from this perspective, the Enlightenment can be viewed as a history of the exchange and interweaving of concepts, a history of translation and quotation, and thus a history of the joint production of knowledge. We must reconsider the dimensions of both time and space in examining the global Enlightenment project. As a concept, the Enlightenment for the most part has been molded by historical actors acting in local circumstances. It is not a concept shaped and brought into being solely from textual sources originating in Europe. As a concept, the Enlightenment enabled historical actors in specific localities to begin to engage in globalized thinking, and to find a place for their individual circumstances within the global setting. This article follows such a line of thought, to discuss the conceptual history of the Enlightenment in China, giving special emphasis to the processes of formation and translation of this concept within the overall flow of modern Chinese history.

The Nonviolent Struggle for Indian Freedom, 1905-19

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hardiman
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Passive Resistance ◽  
Civil Resistance ◽  
Political Concept ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World ◽  
Moral Stance

Much of the recent surge in writing about the practice of nonviolent forms of resistance has focused on movements that occurred after the end of the Second World War, many of which have been extremely successful. Although the fact that such a method of civil resistance was developed in its modern form by Indians is acknowledged in this writing, there has not until now been an authoritative history of the role of Indians in the evolution of the phenomenon.The book argues that while nonviolence is associated above all with the towering figure of Mahatma Gandhi, 'passive resistance' was already being practiced as a form of civil protest by nationalists in British-ruled India, though there was no principled commitment to nonviolence as such. The emphasis was on efficacy, rather than the ethics of such protest. It was Gandhi, first in South Africa and then in India, who evolved a technique that he called 'satyagraha'. He envisaged this as primarily a moral stance, though it had a highly practical impact. From 1915 onwards, he sought to root his practice in terms of the concept of ahimsa, a Sanskrit term that he translated as ‘nonviolence’. His endeavors saw 'nonviolence' forged as both a new word in the English language, and as a new political concept. This book conveys in vivid detail exactly what such nonviolence entailed, and the formidable difficulties that the pioneers of such resistance encountered in the years 1905-19.

Crossing the Electronic Divide

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Waksman
Keyword(s):  
Digital Divide ◽  
Critical Reception ◽  
Electric Guitar ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
John Mclaughlin

Guitar synthesizers gained prevalence in the 1980s thanks to the work of guitarists such as Pat Metheny, John McLaughlin, and Allan Holdsworth. This chapter explores how the guitar synthesizer challenged prevailing ideologies of technology, technique, and tone in the guitar community and was ultimately a commercial failure. It traces a brief history of the electric guitar and the synthesizer and their subsequent conjoining. The chapter discusses three cases in detail: Metheny’s use of the Roland GR-300, McLaughlin’s use of the Synclavier II, and Holdsworth’s use of the SynthAxe. The chapter concludes with an examination of the critical reception of the guitar synthesizer and speculates about the future of technological synthesis across the analog/digital divide.

Historical Overview of Qualitative Research in the Social Sciences

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-58
Author(s):  
Svend Brinkmann ◽  
Michael Hviid Jacobsen ◽  
Søren Kristiansen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Social History ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Technological History

Qualitative research does not represent a monolithic, agreed-on approach to research but is a vibrant and contested field with many contradictions and different perspectives. To respect the multivoicedness of qualitative research, this chapter will approach its history in the plural—as a variety of histories. The chapter will work polyvocally and focus on six histories of qualitative research, which are sometimes overlapping, sometimes in conflict, and sometimes even incommensurable. They can be considered articulations of different discourses about the history of the field, which compete for researchers’ attention. The six histories are: (a) the conceptual history of qualitative research, (b) the internal history of qualitative research, (c) the marginalizing history of qualitative research, (d) the repressed history of qualitative research, (e) the social history of qualitative research, and (f) the technological history of qualitative research.

Toward a New Politics? On the Recent Historiography of Human Rights

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
DEVIN O. PENDAS
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Historical Inquiry ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
New Politics ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

When the late Kenneth Cmiel undertook the first systematic analysis of the emerging historiography of human rights in 2004, he surveyed a field that was ‘refreshingly inchoate’. In the ensuing seven years, the scholarship on the history of human rights has burgeoned considerably. Yet one might still reasonably characterise the field overall as inchoate. Like any new subfield of historical inquiry, there is a clear lack of consensus among leading historians of human rights about even the most elementary contours of the subject. What are human rights? When and where did they emerge? How and why did they spread (if, indeed, they spread at all)? Who were the crucial agents in this history? Few historians working in the field seem to agree in their answers to any of these questions.

Tolerance and integrity at Johns Hopkins

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 463-474
Author(s):  
Robert Marc Friedman
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
History Of Physics ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
Great Freedom ◽  
Departmental Culture ◽  
Academic Mentoring ◽  
History Of

The Department of History of Science at Johns Hopkins shaped by Harry Woolf and Robert H. Kargon brought together diverse scholars who nevertheless shared a basic outlook. Historical questions and scholarly craft took precedent over theo-retical or historiographic positioning. At the same time, students were allowed great freedom to explore and develop new perspectives for analyzing science historically. When Russell McCormmach arrived in Baltimore in the fall of 1972, he joined a departmental culture of intellectual tolerance and forthright expres-sion. In paying homage to Russ and the department I illuminate the departmental culture into which Russ entered, Russ's seminars and academic mentoring, and .nally Russ's vision for combining art and scholarship. Russ shared a deep affection for solid conceptual history of physics while supporting our ventures into new historiographic terrain.

Finding a Voice: the Community Dramas of Monticchiello

1991 ◽  
Vol 7 (25) ◽  
pp. 77-96
Author(s):  
Richard Andrews
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Italian Comedy ◽  
Full Study ◽  
History Of ◽  
Complete Survey ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Regular Contact ◽  
The Village

The regular community drama activity of the village of Monticchiello in Italy has been pursued for nearly a quarter of a century, but is still little known abroad. A full study of the phenomenon is as much a study of the community, past and present, as it is a piece of theatrical analysis, in the area where there is a complete interlock between social history and the theatrical activity which a society produces. Since the work and history of the Teatro Povero have too many ramifications for everything to be summarized or even alluded to in one article, Richard Andrews here sets out to introduce the subject to students of theatre ‘by example’ – aiming to dig a single trench into the strata, in order to convey the outlines of the subject, hopefully without damage to the evidence needed for a more complete survey. Richard Andrews is Professor of Italian at Leeds University, having previously taught at Swansea and Kent. For the past fifteen years his research interests have been mainly concentrated on theatrical material, and he is currently preparing a study of sixteenth-century Italian comedy for Cambridge University Press. His regular contact with Monticchiello dates from 1983, and has been supported by a systematic analysis of all the texts produced there since 1967.

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