It is Time for Philosophy to Return to the City

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-216
Author(s):  
Donatella Di Cesare ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Critical Distance ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Critical Reasoning ◽  
The City

Philosophy has been a subversive practice since the time of Socrates. Recognizing no authority other than the persuasiveness of dialectics, philosophy designated a thinking beyond the boundaries of the city: an estranging conception, an elsewhere of thought. It is from this critical distance that philosophy derived its political vocation. In the era of global capitalism, however, philosophy has become institutionalized and lost its subversive potential. To this end, philosophy has accepted that it should no longer pose too many questions, especially the ones which are most fundamental, resulting in a dearth of in-depth public questioning, and the slumber of critical reasoning. Hence, philosophy needs to rediscover its political vocation in order to reawaken consciences and to once again embrace that theoretical and practical commitment which never accepts anything without critical reflection. By doing so, it will be possible to restore philosophy to its original role as a guiding light for the community.

Cities of Refuge, Rebel Cities, and the City to Come

2019 ◽  
pp. 253-271
Author(s):  
Giovanna Borradori
Keyword(s):  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Symbolic Capital ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
The Political ◽  
Shared Experience ◽  
The Core ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
Urban Contexts ◽  
To Come ◽  
The City

As the processes of globalization transform cities into nodes of accumulation of financial and symbolic capital, it is fair to assume that urban contexts have never been more vulnerable to the systemic imperatives of the market. It is thus surprising that cities continue to be the site where the deepest social and political transformations come to the surface. What, then, preserves the city as a space of dissent? The claim of this chapter is that a critical reflection on the political agency of Northern and Southern cities has to start from asking what it means today to occupy the pavement of their streets. The argument explored here is that, in this age of molecular neoliberal encroachment and restructuring, it is a certain experience of dispossession, rather than the quest for identification and recognition, that makes the city the core of a shared experience of refuge and resistance.

A critical reflection on my learning and its integration into my professional practice

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-75
Author(s):  
Sally Cartwright
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Brain Tumour ◽  
Professional Practice ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Educational Practice ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Professional Educators ◽  
Relevant Today ◽  
The University ◽  
The City

This paper, ‘A critical reflection on my learning and its integration into my professional practice’, was successfully submitted for a Master’s programme at the University of Bath (UK) in 2010, whilst Sally was working full-time as a teacher in a large secondary school in an English town 10 miles from the city of Bath. Sally died of a brain tumour in 2013. By making her writings public she offered the knowledge she created as a gift to the development of the educational knowledge-base of professional educators. While the detail of practice, procedures, policies and regulations change, the learning she offers is as relevant today as it was then. Teachers continue to experience tensions, as Sally did, in trying to be true to their values and improve the educational experience of their students in contexts dominated by economic rationalism. Sally’s account will particularly resonate with teachers who are committed as professional educators to struggling to develop their professional knowledge and contribute to evolving, rather than revolving, educational practice that contributes to the flourishing of their students.

scholarly journals ARTE E DELÍRIO: INTERSECÇÃO ENTRE ARTE, POLÍTICA E ECONOMIA NO AMAZONAS

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (9) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Howardinne Queiroz Leão
Keyword(s):  
Personal Experience ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Identity Representation ◽  
The University ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City ◽  
A Current

ResumoO presente artigo visa discutir, a partir do livro Arte e delírio - reflexões sobre a cultura no Amazonas, escrito em 1985, pelo Diretório Universitário da Universidade do Amazonas (UA), pilares importantes que geraram uma reflexão acerca do pensamento artístico no Amazonas. O livro é composto por cinco ensaios, e cada escritor correspondeu a sua verve: Antônio Paulo Graça discutiu a literatura no Amazonas pela dialética da dependência; Aldísio Filgueiras retratou a relação entre a literatura e poder; Narciso Lobo propôs um diálogo sobre representação de identidade através do filme de Bodanzky, Iracema - uma transa amazônica; Bosco Ladislau promoveu uma reflexão sobre o desenvolvimento da pintura no Amazonas; e finalmente Dori Carvalho, por meio de sua experiência pessoal, encetou uma discussão sobre o teatro na cidade de Manaus. Artistas da geração de oitenta, mobilizados pelas ações da UNE, propõem uma reflexão crítica, sobretudo, aos artistas amazônicos, de como resistir diante de um painel histórico cercado por heranças colonialistas. Ainda, por meio de outros pensadores, pretende-se acrescentar a discussão, na medida do possível, um olhar atual de alguns dos temas levantados pelos autores.AbstractThis article aims to discuss, from the book Arte e delírio - reflections on culture in Amazonas, written in 1985, by the University Directory of the University of Amazonas (UA), important pillars that generated a reflection about artistic thought in Amazonas. The book consists of five essays, and each writer corresponded to his own verve: Antônio Paulo Graça discussed literature in Amazonas through the dialectic of dependency; Aldísio Filgueiras portrayed the relationship between literature and power; Narciso Lobo proposed a dialogue on identity representation through Bodanzky’s film, Iracema - an Amazonian sex; Bosco Ladislau promoted a reflection on the development of painting in Amazonas; and finally Dori Carvalho, through her personal experience, started a discussion about theater in the city of Manaus. Artists of the eighty generation, mobilized by the actions of the UNE, propose a critical reflection, above all, to Amazonian artists, of how to resist before a historic panel surrounded by colonialist inheritances. Still, through other thinkers, it is intended to add the discussion, as far as possible, a current look at some of the themes raised by the authors.

scholarly journals Grassroots Innovation for Human Development

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 26-39
Author(s):  
Alejandra Boni ◽  
Monique Leivas ◽  
Teresa De La Fuente ◽  
Sergio Belda-Miquel
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Diffusion Of Innovations ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Contextual Knowledge ◽  
Grassroots Innovation ◽  
Grassroots Innovations ◽  
Audiovisual Work ◽  
The City

Can digital technologies serve to highlight and strengthen the work of social organizations that promote human development? This is the question the authors want to answer in this article, in which they analyse an eight-month participatory video (PV) process, promoted by a group of university researchers and conducted in collaboration with two grassroots innovations (GI) in the city of Valencia (Spain): the Fuel Poverty Group and Sólar Dómada. The innovative component of PV is situated in two areas: firstly, as an action research methodology, the PV process enables people's participation, with the aim of generating learning, agency and contextual knowledge from the participants; secondly, the innovation is found in the product, the video itself. The video narratives can be used to disseminate the practices of the GIs and offer a space for critical reflection on the structural constraints that may hamper the diffusion of innovations. Furthermore, the audiovisual work itself has its own agency and has the potential to create opportunities for advocacy and contribute towards removing barriers that limit human development.

Black Media Matters

2015 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 8-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Beckman
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Political Protest ◽  
Toni Cade Bambara ◽  
Police Violence ◽  
Residential Neighborhood ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
Black Media ◽  
The Military ◽  
The City

On May 13, 1985, the City of Philadelphia bombed the home of the radical black organization MOVE that was founded by John Africa in 1972. The military-style attack killed 11 occupants of the house, including 5 children, and destroyed almost two square blocks of a residential neighborhood, rendering 250 men, women and children homeless. In the midst of both contemporary protests responding to excessive police violence against African Americans and the military’s use of drone airpower, “Black Media Matters” returns our attention to the 1987 documentary, The Bombing of Osage Avenue, produced and directed by Louis Massiah, written and narrated by Toni Cade Bambara. Drawing on the archives of both Massiah and Bambara, this essay explores the film as a model of a media response to black political protest, death and suffering that resists spectacularization and oversimplification, and instead fosters historical awareness and critical reflection.

Asking, We Walk

2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 31-48
Author(s):  
Thea Quiray Tagle ◽  
Lorraine Affourtit ◽  
Mirna Boyadjian ◽  
Margaretha Haughwout ◽  
Beverly Naidus ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
National Liberation ◽  
Activist Art ◽  
Las Casas ◽  
Ongoing Work ◽  
Embodied Experiences ◽  
Vantage Points ◽  
The City

Written collectively by six femme and queer scholars and artists, this piece is both a critical reflection and creative intervention into art residencies and Zapaturismo (political tourism) in Chiapas, Mexico. Drawing upon our embodied experiences of moving through the Lacandon jungle as part of a well-intentioned yet colonial-minded arts residency, we ruminate on the ethics, practices, and failures of solidarity between North American feminists, people of color, and queer people with Indigenous communities in Mexico under siege. We ask: what are we really searching for when we seek out the Zapatistas, and why participate in “activist art” residencies staged in the Global South? Each section of the article is a collaboratively written vignette that offers multiple vantage points to analyze our individual and collective experiences at the residency that occurred within and between three places in Chiapas: the city of San Cristobal de las Casas, a rural Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional or EZLN) caracol, and at a cooperative on the Tonalá shore. Utilizing personal and poetic reflections along with scholarly and political frames, we summon lessons gleaned that will continue to impact our ongoing work with our respective places and communities. To truly listen to the Zapatistas, we conclude, we must take very seriously their messages to our group given in a moment of crisis, to work from our own locations and to transform our own understanding and ethics of care and collectivity.

scholarly journals The promise of digital humanities pedagogy: Decolonizing a diverse classroom in Ghana

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kajsa Hallberg Adu
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
New York ◽  
Digital Humanities ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Knowledge Society ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
Critical Reasoning ◽  
Social Growth ◽  
Diverse Classroom ◽  
Diverse Classrooms

Abstract Higher education operates in a quickly changing, progressively more globalized, cosmopolitan, and interconnected world (Bauman, 2000, Globalization: The Human Consequences. New York/Chichester: Columbia University Press; Appiah, 2006, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. New York: W.W. Norton & Co; Zuckerman, 2013, Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection. New York: W. W. Norton & Company). At the same time, substantive inequalities between people and places mean that this connectivity and knowledge is unevenly spread (Hallberg Adu, 2014, What is the opposite of a knowledge society? A critical reflection from Ghana. In Amoah, L. (ed.), Impacts of the Knowledge Society on Economic and Social Growth in Africa. IGI Global). For our students, the future leaders of this unequal world, critical reasoning becomes a key skill, and perhaps especially so for students in the Global South. This paper argues that digital humanities (DH) can provide both a theoretical framework for decolonizing the academy and technological solutions to hurdles in this process. The paper argues that assignments, their theoretical underpinnings, and implementation are key to decolonizing higher education. It describes three accessible technology-driven assignments with DH pedagogy created for diverse classrooms at Ashesi University in Ghana and discusses their outcomes.

scholarly journals The politicisation of diversity planning in a global city: Lessons from London

Urban Studies ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 891-916 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Raco ◽  
Jamie Kesten
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Investment ◽  
Urban Politics ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Physical Development ◽  
Global City ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Economic Sectors ◽  
Global Models ◽  
The One ◽  
The City

This paper explores the politics of diversity planning in one of Europe’s most socially and economically divided and globally oriented cities: London. The analysis draws on Latour’s writings on modes of politicisation to examine the processes and practices that shape contemporary urban governance. It uses the example of diversity planning to examine the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of urban politics. It shows that on the one hand diversity is represented in pragmatic, consensual and celebratory terms. Under prevailing conditions of contemporary global capitalism, the ‘what’ of diversity has been politicised into an agenda for labour market-building and the attraction of ‘talented’ individuals and foreign investment. However, at the same time this celebratory rhetoric represents part of a wider effort to deflect political attention away from the socially and economically divisive impacts of global models of economic growth and physical development. There is little discussion of the ways in which planning frameworks, the ‘how’ of diversity policy, are helping to generate new separations in and beyond the city. Moreover, despite claiming that policy is pragmatic and non-ideological, the paper shows how diversity narratives have become an integral part of broader political projects to orientate the city’s economy towards the needs of a relatively small cluster of powerful economic sectors. The paper concludes with reflections on the recent impacts of the vote for Brexit and the election of an openly Muslim London Mayor. It also assesses the broader relevance of a Latourian framework for the analysis of contemporary urban politics.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Urban Question in the Age of the New Urban Crisis: The (Re)Production of the Regime of Flexible Accumulation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff Sternberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Urban Crisis ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
Flexible Accumulation ◽  
Real Estate Prices ◽  
The City

Scholars have recently remarked upon the emergence of what Richard Florida has termed The New Urban Crisis, a global phenomenon whereby cities are being lumped into winners and losers, with inequality rising in the winner cities where real estate prices are pushing out those who most need access to the opportunities hoarded within. In this article, I argue that the new urban crisis is not a crisis of the city per se but is itself a symptom of greater crises occurring at the level of global capitalism. By revisiting Castells’ The Urban Question, I read the new urban crisis as a product of how the urban social structure fits into the reproduction of capitalism on a global scale, arguing that, under the regime of flexible accumulation, the urban social structure is asked to reproduce two distinct circuits of capital accumulation set loose by the transition to post-industrialism: accumulation via production and accumulation via finance. These distinct circuits of accumulation utilize the elements of urban social structures differentially, often at cross purposes. This produces continued crises in the reproduction of capitalism, as well as continually shifting relations between elements of the urban social structure, producing a plurality of urban forms.

scholarly journals Creating meaningful space: Yoga practice transforming bodily habits of 'being-in-the-world'

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 38-42
Author(s):  
Hanna-Leena Ylönen
Keyword(s):  
Buenos Aires ◽  
World View ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Yoga Practice ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Modern Yoga ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The City

Buenos Aires, the city of tango, good meat, and. . . yoga? As in many modern big cities, yoga has become extremely popular during the last decades. It is everywhere; in gyms, book stores, yoga centers, multinational companies, even churches. We have hatha, swasthya, and ashtanga yoga, hot yoga, naked yoga, yoga for pregnant women, and for Catholics; the list is endless. For Dutch anthropologist Peter van der Veer (2007), modern yoga is a product of global modernization, originated in the dialogue between the Indian national movement and the western political, economic, and cultural influences. Yoga has become an item in the wide catalogue of alternative therapies, seen as a physic­al exercise promoting bodily and mental health, a way of life, which does not conflict with western science. For van der Veer this ‘therapeutic world view’ is part of global capitalism. (Van der Veer 2007: 317.)

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