Traumatic Allegories

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwige Tamalet Talbayev
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Social Compact ◽  
Political Concept ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Individual Memory ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
Complex Forms

Taking as a starting point Ranjana Khanna’s political concept of melancholic remembrance as the choice avenue towards a more democratic Algeria, this chapter offers a critique of dominant readings of Mokeddem’s transnational framework in light of Deleuzian deterritorialization. It argues that the fluctuations of her novel N’Zid’s “post-traumatic” allegorical mode of expression (Ross Chambers) tear the seemingly clear-cut opposition between rooted and nomadic subjects. In turn, they reveal more complex forms of identity which, if they do not sacrifice the singular in the name of the collective, do not sacrifice the collective in the name of the singular. Both exceeding the nation and actively laying claim to it, this model of mobility elaborates a Mediterranean framework of social interactions intent on reclaiming and preserving the diversity of the Algerian collective in a melancholic mode. The chapter demonstrates how this empowered form of singularity navigates the meanders of collective and individual memory to undo many years of forced oblivion. A remodeling of Mokeddem’s Deleuzian desert nomadism, her Mediterranean trope emerges as a strategic transnational channel of opposition to narrow definitions of collective identity and spawns a new social compact in the wake of the Algerian Black Decade.

scholarly journals Rhetoric, Dialectic and Logic: The Wild-Goose Chase for an Essential Distinction

2014 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 152
Author(s):  
Charlotte Jørgensen
Keyword(s):  
Essential Difference ◽  
Recent Contribution ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Wild Goose

Taking Blair’s recent contribution to the debate about the triad as its starting point, the article discusses and challenges attempts to reduce the intricate relationship between rhetoric, dialectic and logic to a trichotomy with watertight compartments or to separate them with a single clear-cut criterion. I argue that efforts to pinpoint an essential difference, among the various typical differences partly grounded in disciplinary traditions, obscure the complexities within the fields. As a consequence, crosscutting properties of the fields as well as the possibilities for theoretical bridging between them are neglected.

Epistemology, social inquiry and quantum theory

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-242
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Monk-Turner
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Social World ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Modern Physics

PurposeThis work examines assumptions of positivism and the traditional scientific method.Design/methodology/approachInsights from quantum mechanics are explored especially as they relate to method, measurement and what is knowable. An argument is made that how social scientists, particularly sociologists, understand the nature of “reality out there” and describe the social world may be challenged by quantum ideas. The benefits of utilized mixed methods, considering quantum insights, cannot be overstated.FindingsIt is the proposition of this work that insights from modern physics alter the understanding of the world “out there.” Wheeler suggested that the most profound implication from modern physics is that “there is no out there” (1982; see also Baggott, 1992). Grappling with how modern physics may alter understanding in the social sciences will be difficult; however, that does not mean the task should not be undertaken (see Goswami, 1993). A starting point for the social sciences may be relinquishing an old mechanistic science that depends on the establishment of an objective, empirically based, verifiable reality. Mechanistic science demands “one true reality – a clear-cut reality on which everyone can agree…. Mechanistic science is by definition reductionistic…it has had to try to reduce complexity to oversimplification and process to statis. This creates an illusionary world…that has little or nothing to do with the complexity of the process of the reality of creation as we know, experience, and participate in it” (Goswami, 1993, pp. 64, 66).Research limitations/implicationsMany physicists have popularized quantum ideas for others interested in contemplating the implications of modern physics. Because of the difficulty in conceiving of quantum ideas, the meaning of the quantum in popular culture is far removed from the parent discipline. Thus, the culture has been shaped by the rhetoric and ideas surrounding the basic quantum mathematical formulas. And, over time, as quantum ideas have come to be part of the popular culture, even the link to the popularized literature in physics is lost. Rather, quantum ideas may be viewed as cultural formations that take on a life of their own.Practical implicationsThe work allows a critique of positivist method and provides insight on how to frame qualitative methodology in a new way.Social implicationsThe work utilizes popularized ideas in quantum theory: the preeminent theory that describes all matter. Little work in sociology utilizes this perspective in understanding research methods.Originality/valueQuantum insights have rarely been explored in highlighting limitations in positivism. The current work aims to build on quantum insights and how these may help us better understand the social world around us.

Questioning health security: Insecurity and domination in world politics

2014 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 939-960 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOÃO NUNES
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Health Problems ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social

AbstractIt has become common to speak of health security, but the meaning of the latter is often taken for granted. Existing engagements with this notion have been constrained by an excessive focus on national security and on the securitising efforts of elites. This has led to an increasingly sceptical outlook on the potentialities of security for making sense of, and helping to tackle, health problems. Inspired by the idea of security as emancipation, this article reconsiders the notion of health security. It takes as its starting point the concrete insecurities experienced by individuals, and engages with them by way of an analytical framework centred on the notion of domination. Domination deepens analysis by connecting individual experiences of insecurity, the social interactions through which these are given meaning, and the structures that make them possible. Domination also broadens the remit of analysis, shedding light on the multifaceted nature of insecurity. The analytical benefits of this framework are demonstrated by two examples: HIV/AIDS; and water and sanitation. The lens of domination is also shown to bring benefits for the political engagement with global health problems.

scholarly journals DISSENTING BODY AND ITS CREATIVE RECONTEXTUALISATION IN LITHUANIAN VISUAL ARTS

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-375
Author(s):  
Basia Nikiforova ◽  
Kęstutis Šapoka
Keyword(s):  
Visual Arts ◽  
Visual Art ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
The Body ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Cultural Biography ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Art As Research

The body is an important starting point concept throughout deconstruction, reconstruction and recontextualization of the body’s concept. This change of focus in research that stems from the results to the process of contextualization means that the researcher should engage with texts or images, as they are reflected in the process of cultural development and exchange, through which decontextualization is exhibited. This article deals with the concept of new materialism and endeavors to explain, how discourses come to matter. It examines the issue of how new materialism tackles visual art in innovative ways – through the intersections of artistic practice, art-as-research, and philosophical analysis. Such definitions as Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s “a bodily being”, Julia Kristeva’s “the abjection of the self”, Arjun Appadurai’s “the aesthetics of decontextualization” and “singularized object”, Igor Kopytoff’s “the cultural biography of things”, and Nicholas Thomas’ “entangled objects”, constitute the methodological frameworks of our research. We will analyze such approaches as Hans Belting’s concept of body as a “living medium”, Giorgio Agamben’s view on body as an object of commodification and Jacques Derrida’s “trust in painting”. An attempt to understand body reconceptualization and deconstruction through the categories of new materialism is the most important aim of this article. Karen Barad’s concept of intra-action (that implies a clear-cut subject-object distinction) is crucial to our research, which underlines that bodies have no inherent boundaries and properties and that the analyzed representations are “material-discursive phenomena”. The artworks under consideration will be confronted with a diagnosis that, according to Barad, all bodies come to matter thanks the intra-activity and its performativity. The case studies of Svajonė Stanikienė and Paulius Stanikas, Evaldas Jansas and Eglė Rakauskaitė works show how the image of the body is developed through the processes of their deconstruction and decontextualization.

Conflict spaces

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eranga De Zoysa
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
The Other ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of

Conflict and architecture’s relationship originated from the first rock throw that established space and distance between primordial humans and their aggressors, producing a spatial buffer, which enabled liberation from the evolutionary process (Ritter, 2012). This separation in space was the starting point of discerning the outside (sacred) and the inside (community). The outsider (“the other”), is an increasingly important aspect of societies involved in conflicts; prior, during and in the reconstruction phase. The symbols of memory within a conflict become the focal point, where architecture manifests the history of a place or space. This identity is first deconstructed during the siege, and reconstructed once the territory is pacified. This thesis is an observation of the changes that places and artifacts of memory undergo during a conflict, arguing that architecture is dynamically linked to people; building a foundation for memory, creating a collective identity; an object that is the focus for every conflict.

scholarly journals Changes in the identity of the teaching profession: A study of a teacher union in Sweden from 1990 to 2017

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joakim Krantz ◽  
Lena Fritzén
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Moral Agent ◽  
Group Identification ◽  
Teaching Profession ◽  
Emotional Engagement ◽  
Teacher Union ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Internal Group

AbstractWe analyse changes in the collective identity that Sweden’s largest labour union for teachers had during the period 1990–2017. The study is based on theory about how collective identity is constructed in adaptation and resistance to external categorical dimensions and internal group identification. We identify shifts in relation to how the union employ different aspects on teachers' recognition, emotional engagement, and evaluation. Two clear cut-off points can be identified. The first point, which is clearly related to the impact of political reforms, took place in 2000 and is about increased demands with respect to transparency, legality, equality, efficiency, and attainment results. The second point took place in 2015, a year when Sweden confronted a new set of social challenges. The teaching profession was re-launched as a moral agent and in need of a trust-based steering approach.

Dreaming About One’s Own Children: An Online Survey

2021 ◽  
pp. 027623662110174
Author(s):  
Michael Schredl ◽  
Naiara Cadiñanos Echevarria ◽  
Louise Saint Macary ◽  
Alexandra Francesca Weiss
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Parent Child Relationship ◽  
Continuity Hypothesis ◽  
Emotional Tone ◽  
Child Relationship ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The Way

Social interactions with close persons are very important and one would expect – according to the continuity hypothesis of dreaming – that the dreamer's own children would show up in dreams quite frequently. So far the extent to which dreams include the dreamer’s own children has not been studied systematically. Overall, 1695 persons (960 women, 735 men; age mean: 53.84 ± 13.99 years) completed an online survey that included questions about dreams and waking-life experiences with their children. The findings indicate parents dream about their children in 17% of the remembered dreams, whereas participants without children only dream about having fictive children in the dream in less than 3% of all their recalled dreams. Results indicate that average emotional tone of the dreams with their own children was positive, but dreams might also focus on conflicts and worries as the mean emotional tone within dreams was less positive that the mean estimates of the emotional tone of the waking-life relationship. This first study on the frequency with which a dreamer’s own children appear in their dreams is a starting point to take a closer look at the way the parent-child relationship is reflected in dreams.

scholarly journals Is Applied Ethics Morally Problematic?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Franz
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Interdisciplinary Collaboration ◽  
Applied Ethics ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Ethical Criticism ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Deontological Ethics ◽  
Self Image

AbstractThis paper argues that applied ethics can itself be morally problematic. As illustrated by the case of Peter Singer’s criticism of social practice, morally loaded communication by applied ethicists can lead to protests, backlashes, and aggression. By reviewing the psychological literature on self-image, collective identity, and motivated reasoning three categories of morally problematic consequences of ethical criticism by applied ethicists are identified: serious psychological discomfort, moral backfiring, and hostile conflict. The most worrisome is moral backfiring: psychological research suggests that ethical criticism of people’s central moral convictions can reinforce exactly those attitudes. Therefore, applied ethicists unintentionally can contribute to a consolidation of precisely those social circumstances that they condemn to be unethical. Furthermore, I argue that the normative concerns raised in this paper are not dependent on the commitment to one specific paradigm in moral philosophy. Utilitarianism, Aristotelian virtue ethics, and Rawlsian contractarianism all provide sound reasons to take morally problematic consequences of ethical criticism seriously. Only the case of deontological ethics is less clear-cut. Finally, I point out that the issues raised in this paper provide an excellent opportunity for further interdisciplinary collaboration between applied ethics and social sciences. I also propose strategies for communicating ethics effectively.

scholarly journals Conflict spaces

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eranga De Zoysa
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
The Other ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of

Conflict and architecture’s relationship originated from the first rock throw that established space and distance between primordial humans and their aggressors, producing a spatial buffer, which enabled liberation from the evolutionary process (Ritter, 2012). This separation in space was the starting point of discerning the outside (sacred) and the inside (community). The outsider (“the other”), is an increasingly important aspect of societies involved in conflicts; prior, during and in the reconstruction phase. The symbols of memory within a conflict become the focal point, where architecture manifests the history of a place or space. This identity is first deconstructed during the siege, and reconstructed once the territory is pacified. This thesis is an observation of the changes that places and artifacts of memory undergo during a conflict, arguing that architecture is dynamically linked to people; building a foundation for memory, creating a collective identity; an object that is the focus for every conflict.

scholarly journals Pamćenje hrvatskog društva na primjeru Vukovara – “grada heroja”

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelika Zanki
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
The Past ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The City

Remembering in Croatian society as exemplified by the “hero city” Vukovar The article concerns forms of maintaining memory in Croatian society. Its starting point is the term sites of memory (lieux de mémoire), introduced by Pierre Nora, who defines them as characteristic and symbolic elements that ensure the presence of the past in the present. After the Croatian War of Independence, sites of memory became a foundation for building a new, partly modified Croatian identity. This raises the question about the role the politics of remembering has had in the Croatian collective identity and the purposes for which it has been formed.The analysis is based on the most popular place of memory – the fall of Vukovar. In Croatian consciousness, Vukovar is a “hero city,” a symbol of the valiant fight against the Great Serbian aggressor during the War. Its fall is an important element of the conflict that is still ongoing between Croats and Serbs, both regionally (in the city) and more broadly (throughout Croatia). In her analysis, the author was trying to see the influence of sites of memory not only on the group which created them but in a wider context as well.The more general aim was to study the discourse of memory and attempt to determine, with reference to specific examples, whether the Croats’ collective memory is a factor of integration or conflict. Pamięć społeczeństwa chorwackiego na przykładzie Vukovaru – „miasta-bohatera”Artykuł dotyczy form pamięci w społeczeństwie chorwackim. Punktem wyjścia stało się pojęcie miejsc pamięci, które autor, Pierre Nora, zdefiniował jako charakterystyczne i symboliczne elementy zapewniające obecność przeszłości w teraźniejszości. Po wojnie ojczyźnianej stały się one podstawą do tworzenia się nowej, zmodyfikowanej tożsamości chorwackiej. Rodzi to pytanie – jaką rolę pełni polityka pamięci w chorwackiej tożsamości zbiorowej i dla jakich celów jest formowana.Analiza opiera się na najpopularniejszym miejscu pamięci – upadku Vukovaru. Vukovar jest w świadomości Chorwatów „miastem bohaterem”, symbolem heroicznej walki z wielkoserbskim agresorem podczas wojny. Jest też ważnym elementem wciąż istniejącego konfliktu między Chorwatami i Serbami w perspektywie wąskiej (w mieście) i szerokiej (obie narodowości w Chorwacji).Autorka starała się zauważyć nie tylko wpływ miejsc pamięci na grupę, w której powstały, lecz także ich szerszy kontekst. Celem była analiza problemu pamięci i próba określenia w odniesieniu do konkretnych przykładów, czy chorwacka pamięć zbiorowa jest czynnikiem integracji czy konfliktu.

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