conceptual tool
Recently Published Documents


TOTAL DOCUMENTS

383
(FIVE YEARS 141)

H-INDEX

26
(FIVE YEARS 3)

2022 ◽  
pp. 218-244
Author(s):  
Kimberly R. Edmondson

Discussing school shootings as current or historical events in social studies classrooms can be a difficult endeavour, as it requires confronting death and making sense of violent human behaviour. This chapter asserts that existential anxiety plays a role in helping us better understand these tragedies. Terror management theory (TMT) accounts for existential anxiety as a driver of human behaviour and can be a powerful conceptual tool to help students and teachers unpack the difficult subject matter of school shootings, as well as provide insight for behavioural responses that may emerge in the classroom in response to these discussions. As a result, TMT contributes a classroom of care that fosters a sense of student agency for which to imagine a preferable future.


Author(s):  
Marie-Laure Basilien-Gainche

Abstract This paper questions state sovereignty at borders, by referencing the contradictions that a border control approach based upon security concerns creates, and the distortions between societies of norms and situations of exception that the European migration and asylum policies generate. Meanwhile, whilst sovereignty should correspond in a legal theory perspective to authority, its expressions manifested in the European borders consists essentially in domination as bare violence is deployed. By investigating the hiatus between how sovereignty ought to be in theory and how it is observed in practice, it is possible to consider that the very sovereignty is diffracted in the thickness of the frontiers (i). This paper explores the methods states develop directly or indirectly in the borders, inside the border zones, basing the analysis on the notion of heterotopia Michel Foucault forged. Such a conceptual tool is deployed in order to underscore how states construct and exploit frontiers as useful margins and establish them as dissolution zones. Three methods – extraction, classification and obliteration – are highlighted that correspond to the main purposes of border surveillance – control, selection and removal – (ii).


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Júlio César da Costa Júnior ◽  
Leandro da Silva Nascimento ◽  
Taciana de Barros Jerônimo ◽  
Jackeline Amantino de Andrade ◽  
Marcos André Mendes Primo ◽  
...  

Purpose This study aims to investigate routines as a conceptual tool to analyze resources management in small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) productive processes. Design/methodology/approach The authors developed a qualitative multiple case study with Brazilian companies in the bakery industry. Data were collected through interviews, on-site observation and documentary analysis. Plus, the authors used business process modeling (BPM) techniques to map the observed routines. Findings The restrictions of SMEs accentuate the improvisation of routines. However, contrary to expected, many of these deviations expand the possibilities of organizational action as they become successful in terms of operational efficiency, which allows these companies to extract performance from ordinary resources and imitable management practices. Practical implications The BPM shows its value to track the allocation of resources in SMEs by recording the evolution of its routines and helping to preserve an operational memory. This finding could be useful to help public agencies to develop accessible management tools to assist small business owners. Originality/value Most of the conceptual tools developed to analyze the resources management are based on the study of large organizations, which may limit the analysis and lead to restricted or mistaken results if used in another context without proper adaptation. The authors apply an objective and representational epistemological lens to organizational routines to adapt it to the pragmatic context of operations management. Also, the authors suggest that better than a resource-based view, the practice-based view is a theoretical approach more compatible with the resource constraints context of SMEs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
João de Deus Vidal ◽  
Peter C. le Roux ◽  
Steven D. Johnson ◽  
Mariska te Beest ◽  
Vincent Ralph Clark

von Humboldt’s tree-line concept has dominated mountain ecology for almost two hundred years, and is considered a key indicator for monitoring change in biome boundaries and biodiversity shifts under climate change. Even though the concept of life zones and elevation gradients are a globally observed phenomenon, they have not been thoroughly explored for many contexts. One such example is the tree-line ecotone, a widely used conceptual tool to track climate change in many regions, which has limited application in the widespread tree-sparse, grassy systems that comprise a third of the world’s mountain systems. Among grasses (Poaceae), temperature is linked to variation in photosynthetic performance and community dominance for C3 and C4 metabolic groups, due to its role in limiting photorespiration in the C3 photosynthesis process. Here, we investigate this community shift in grassland-dominated mountains to demonstrate the role of climate in driving this transition and discuss the potential applications of this tool to mountain ecosystem conservation worldwide. For identifying grass-dominated mountains worldwide, we measured the grass-cover using satellite data. We then compiled Poaceae distribution data for ten grass-dominated mountains spanning from 42°S to 41°N and determined the temperature intervals and elevation ranges at which each genus was found, testing for effects of temperature, precipitation, and latitudinal gradients on the dominance of C3-C4 grasses. Temperature was the main driver of C3 dominance, with the richness of C3 genera tending to surpass the taxonomic dominance of C4 plants along mountain temperature gradients where the annual mean temperature was colder than ca. 14.6°C. Similar patterns were observed in eight out of ten mountains, suggesting that this may constitute an isotherm-driven ecotone. Consequently, this C3-C4 transition offers a promising tool for monitoring climate change impacts in grassy mountains. C3-C4 grass community shifts in response to environmental change will likely have major implications for fire frequency and severity, rangeland productivity and livelihoods, food security, and water budgets in mountain systems. Given the severity of the implications of global change on these social-ecological systems, we propose that a “grass-line” monitoring protocol be developed for global application.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 91
Author(s):  
David Muñoz-Rodríguez

Resumen: En el marco del estudio de los discursos gerenciales, se destacan en el presente texto algunas de las aportaciones de Medina-Vicent (2020), especialmente el análisis de los procesos de individualización y despolitización de mensajes que entroncarían con las reivindicaciones del feminismo. En este contexto, se propone la incorporación del concepto foucaultiano de dispositivo para el estudio de los elementos que contribuyen a la difusión de los discursos gerenciales. Este concepto podría ser de utilidad en la investigación empírica, proporcionando una herramienta conceptual para estudiar como un sistema homogéneo de relaciones de saber y poder los distintos elementos que conformarían el dispositivo gerencial. Abstract: Within the framework of the study of managerial discourses, this text highlights some of the contributions of Medina-Vicent (2020), especially the analysis of the processes of individualization and depoliticization of messages that are linked to the claims of feminism. In this context, the incorporation of the Foucauldian concept of dispositif is proposed for the study of the elements that contribute to the diffusion of managerial discourses. This concept could be useful in the empirical analysis, as well as providing a conceptual tool to study the different elements that make up the managerial dispositif as a homogeneous system of knowledge and power relations. Palabras clave: gerencialismo, dispositivo, herramientas disciplinarias. Keywords: managerialism, dispositif, disciplinary instruments.


2021 ◽  
pp. 003802612110561
Author(s):  
Paola Arrigoni

In this article, I explore interstitiality – a concept based on Gil Eyal’s notion of ‘spaces between fields’ – as a potential heuristic lens for observing contemporary elites, applying it to high-ranking figures in the Compagnia San Paolo (CSP). CSP is a banking foundation ( Fondazione di origine bancaria or FOB) that was set up in the 1990s arising from the privatization of the Italian banking sector. After outlining the theoretical underpinnings of interstitiality, I bring the construct to bear on my own empirical work. First, I elucidate what FOBs are and why they may represent a valuable interstitial observatory on a significant segment of power elite. Second, I examine CSP as an emblematic instance of an FOB. Third, I illustrate the main characteristics of CSP’s elites, suggesting that these groups reflect the features of interstitiality insofar as: they merge logics and grammars of justification from different fields; and, given their high degree of mobility across fields, they contribute to disseminating discursive and governmental practices of hybridization. My aim, as advocated for by Mike Savage and Karel Williams, is to enrich the sociological debate on elites by introducing a new conceptual tool.


Multilingua ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hadjer Taibi ◽  
Khawla Badwan

Abstract This study discusses the impact of spatial, temporal and virtual mobility on how mobile individuals talk about language in their world, and how they use language offline and online to communicate over time and across space. We introduce the notion of chronotopic translanguaging to highlight the significance of merging time and place in sociolinguistics. Doing so, we present a rather stretched understanding of time to include references to real time, online compressed time, linguistic ideologies and practices carried over time and challenged in recent times, as well as understanding time as an ecological factor. We interviewed Ekram, an Algerian academic sojourner, and observed her Facebook profile before and after coming to the UK. Our findings suggest that the networked lives of the participant beget fluid translanguaging practices that are constantly (re)negotiated depending to the ecology of interaction. Through entering and existing multiple time-space frames, Ekram found herself reunited with communicative repertoires she has not used for years. She also developed new relationships with other repertoires. This study concludes by emphasising the usefulness of chronotopic translanguaging as a conceptual tool that permits, and accounts for, the time-place influence on how mobile individuals deploy their communicative repertoires.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 113-134
Author(s):  
Delia Chiaro ◽  
Nikita Lobanov

This paper examines occurrences of humour in Twitter-fed celebrity-follower communities. Using a small, one-month sample of the Twitter feeds of 12 British celebrities, we examined political and humorous content of celebrity tweets and the first five responses from their followers. From this preliminary study, we found that the notion of “weirdisation” strongly emerges, together with the new conceptual tool of “shards of humour”.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yusuke Sakurai ◽  
Sae Shimauchi ◽  
Yukiko Shimmi ◽  
Yuki Amaki ◽  
Shingo Hanada ◽  
...  

Although there is a pressing demand for international experience for early career researchers (ECRs), the meaning of this experiences arising from their day-to-day work responsibilities is still unclear. Accordingly, using our emic reflections for this autoethnographic study, we—five Japanese ECRs with years of international experiences—collaboratively explored how we made sense of our international experiences, that is, our distinct capital attained from international study and research experiences. We used Identity Trajectory as a conceptual tool to widely capture ECRs’ key experiences and sense-making. Our reflective conversations resulted in five major themes: (1) global personal network, (2) communicative competence, (3) scholarly community culture, (4) scholarly ambition and (5) pedagogical application. We consistently valued our attained capital, but simultaneously recognised dilemmas while engaging in our work. Lack of institutional support was critical, preventing us from using our international experiential capital and further developing as internationally active researchers. This study offers insights for those who may consider an academic career in Japan after returning from international sojourns and for policymakers promoting the internationalisation of Japanese higher education. Studies such as this one also contribute to the exploration of the value of international experiences for researchers in different contexts.


Author(s):  
Дарья Николаевна Дроздова

Рассматриваются способы научного изображения темпоральных явлений на примере чертежей Галилео Галилея, при помощи которых он описывает и исследует равноускоренное движение. Для анализа применяется концептуальная рамка теории изобразительной и неизобразительной репрезентации Грегори Карри. Показано, что в случае научных диаграмм и графиков, представляющих время как одно из измерений пространства, основанием для геометрической изобразимости времени становится полагаемый изоморфизм между временем как континуумом мгновений и линией как континуумом точек. Парадигму такого структурного сопоставления мы находим в математическом мышлении Галилея, наиболее ярко проявляющемся в доказательстве формулы равноускоренного движения, представленном в «Беседах и математических доказательствах». The textbook narrative of the scientific revolution of the 17th century says that the early modern transformation of physics and mechanics was grounded in mathematization, that is, the application of mathematical principles and procedures to physical entities and events. However, such a transformation faces a major obstacle: compared to geometry, mechanics includes an additional dimension, namely, time. When temporality of motion is to be represented geometrically, a question arises on how a temporal succession can be expressed by a static image. The problem of representation of temporal events is not limited to science. In my paper, I apply a conceptual tool elaborated by Gregory Currie for the analysis of temporal representations in art, especially in cinema, to the analysis of scientific diagrams. In his book Image and Mind. Film, Philosophy, and Cognitive Science (1995), Currie distinguishes depictive and nondepictive representations, arguing that depictive representation requires similarity and homomorphism between an object ant its representation. Thus, it seems that any non-temporal image of temporal processes would lack the required similarity and cannot be a depictive representation. However, taking into account explanations given by Galileo Galilei for his famous diagrams of accelerated motion, I argue that the representation of time in scientific diagrams as a geometrical line is grounded in isomorphism between time as a continuous structure and continuous structure of a geometrical line. The main temporal process studied by mechanics is motion. Motion can be represented in two main ways: as a trajectory of a body over some period of time or as a functional relation of various parameters of motion (speed, path, acceleration) versus time. In the latter case, time is usually represented in a diagram as a geometrical line. We can find the origin of this type of representation in the late medieval doctrine of ‘intensio et remissio qualitatum’, intension and remission of qualities, in the context of which first diagrams representing intensity and extension of velocity of nonuniform motion as a changing quality over time were produced (Nicolas Oresme). We can find very similar graphical schemes in Galileo Galilei’s works, especially in Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze (1638). In this work, Galileo announces with all clarity that he considers time to be the same aggregate of temporal moments as a line is an aggregate of points: every moment of time has a corresponding point on the geometrical line. This allows us to establish a homomorphic similarity between temporal duration and spatial (geometrical) extension. Thus, the essential requirement for depictive representation is met. Concluding, I have to point out that the homomorphic relation in this case is established between not real but abstract entities. The visible line itself is a representation of non-visible abstract geometrical line; in the same way, time consisting of non-divisible moments is just an abstract construction which refers to physical of psychological time-duration. However, the established relation between abstract time and abstract geometrical lines is a grounding event of the modern physical science.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document