Transnational Co-production of Knowledge: The Standardisation of Typhoon Warning Codes in the Far East, 1900–1939

The why and the how of knowledge production are examined in the case of the transnational cooperation between the directors of observatories in the Far East who drew up unified typhoon-warning codes in the period 1900–1939. The why is prompted by the socioeconomic interests of the local chambers of commerce and international telegraphic companies, although this urge has the favourable wind of Far Eastern meteorologists’ ideology of voluntarist internationalism. The how entails the persistent pursuit of consensus (on ends rather than means) in international meetings where non-binding resolutions on codes and procedures are adopted. The outcome is the co-production of standardised knowledge, that is, the development of a series of processes and practices that co-produce both knowledge and ideas about the social order in a force field characterised by negotiations and power struggles.

The Role of Resources in the Success or Failure of Diverse Teams: Resource Scarcity Activates Negative Performance-Detracting Resource Dynamics in Social Category Diverse Teams

Increasing the social category diversity of work teams is top of mind for many organizations. However, such efforts may not always be sufficiently resourced, given the numerous resource demands facing organizations. In this paper, we offer a novel take on the relationship between social category diversity and team performance, seeking to understand the role resources may play in both altering and explaining the performance dynamics of diverse teams. Specifically, our resource framework explains how the effects of social category diversity on team performance can be explained by intrateam resource cognitions and behaviors and are dependent on team resource availability. We propose that in the face of scarcity in a focal resource (i.e., budget), diverse (but not homogenous) teams generalize this scarcity perception to fear that all resources (i.e., staff, time, etc.) are scarce, prompting performance-detracting power struggles over resources within the team. We find support for our model in three multimethod team-level studies, including two laboratory studies of interacting teams and a field study of work teams in research and development firms. Our resource framework provides a new lens to study the success or failure of diverse teams by illuminating a previously overlooked danger in diverse teams (negative resource cognitions (scarcity spillover bias) and behaviors (intrateam power struggles)), which offers enhanced explanatory power over prior explanations. This resource framework for the study of team diversity also yields insight into how to remove the roadblocks that may occur in diverse teams, highlighting the necessity of resource sufficiency for the success of diverse teams.

Power Struggles in the Implementation of Gender Equality Policies: The Politics of Resistance and Counter-resistance in Universities

This article develops an analytical framework to study the power struggles between status quo and gender equality actors underpinning the implementation of gender equality policies. While resistance to gender equality policies in different institutions has received considerable scholarly attention, examining this struggle in light of a multifaceted concept of power that encompasses both domination and individual and collective empowerment, we argue, offers a more accurate account of the possibilities of a feminist politics of implementation. Our analytical framework also accounts for the factors that enable resistance by dominant actors and counter-resistance by gender equality actors and the informal rules that are being upheld or challenged, respectively. Applying our framework to the study of Spanish universities, we identify both the forms and types of resistance that hinder gender reform efforts in higher education institutions and the counter-action strategies that seek to drive implementation forward and achieve institutional change.

The Subtle Dynamics of Power Struggles in Tunisia: Local media since the Arab Uprisings

This article contributes to the analysis of local media and democratic transformation in Tunisia since the Arab Uprisings. It aims to assess the extent to which pluralism, freedom of expression, and participation—central tenets of democratisation—are evident at the local level. Tunisian local media, unlike the national media, is relatively free of governmental control. Local media is also decentralised. It is this autonomy from the government which makes the analysis of local media fundamentally important for understanding politics in Tunisia. While national media is linked to the most powerful elements in the country, the diversity of voices within the media at the local level provides an opportunity to grasp the grievances, struggles, and agency of people in Tunisia, especially the most marginalised communities. This article will detail the changes in the media landscape, especially for local media, in Tunisia and connect our analysis of local media to better understand the Tunisia that has developed between dictatorship and democracy and the extent that the fledgling Tunisian democracy can withstand its most recent test.

Discourse Analysis Uncovers Compulsory Altruism and Power Paradoxes for Family Caregivers of Those with Dementia

Rural female family caregivers are under-represented, under-reported, and under-studied in rural caregiving and Alzheimer's disease-related dementias (ADRD) research. Caregivers' power struggles are often invisible and unknown. These constructs have social, policy, and practice implications for both family caregivers and their care recipients with ADRD. The purpose of this study was to explore how Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA) elucidates rural female family caregivers' acquisition of caregiving roles for those with ADRD. FDA focuses on power structures and relationships in society as expressed through language and practices that affect marginalized groups. Textual data for this secondary analysis consisted of 157 pages of interview transcripts with 10 rural female caregivers. The systematic discourse analysis elucidated two socially constructed power and relationship structures. Compulsory altruism described complex socially constructed caregiving and gender role expectations, grounded in reciprocity, duty, and filial piety. A power paradox occurred when filial piety, duty, and reciprocity were in direct opposition to the caregivers' beliefs and value systems. In this sample, the subsequent sense of ambiguity about violating personhood and autonomy delayed black and white caregivers' responses to intervene with family members with ADRD. These delays resulted in near misses from wandering, driving-related accidents, cooking-related fires, financial exploitation by other family members, mistreatment that involved both caregiving dyad partners, and one tragic incident of a parent's death resulting from wandering-related exposure to elements. FDA was a valuable qualitative approach to elucidate family caregivers' power struggles that were previously invisible and unknown. These findings have broad implications for clinicians and researchers.

Wardship

In the first decades of the thirteenth century, Popes Innocent III and Honorius III found themselves bound to support the succession of three young kings—Henry III of England, James I of Aragon, and Frederick II of Sicily. Although a supposed feudal right of wardship has often been supposed to have motivated the popes, actually, papal letters changed and altered their justifications for papal solicitude depending on the circumstances of the time. In practice, papal involvement in these royal minorities was reactive: the pope replied to petitions he received. Consequently, papal mandates and instructions were often variable and even contradictory. Papal instructions—rather than being a medium for a centralized papal will to be expressed—were more often the means through which local power struggles were fought.