Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s Notion of Political Adab

This paper extends the emphasis on contingency and context in Islamic ethical traditions into the distinctly modern context of late 19th century Khedival Egypt. I draw attention to the way Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s engagement with Islamic ethical traditions was shaped by his practice in addressing the broad social and political questions of his context to do with nation-building and political journalism. As a bureaucrat and state publicist, he took pre-modern Islamic ethical concepts into the emerging discursive field of the modern state and the public sphere in Egypt. Looking at a series of newspaper articles for the state newspaper, al-Waqāʾiʿ al-miṣriyya, I show how he articulated an ethics of citizenship by defining a modern civic notion of adab that he called “political adab.” He conceived of this adab as the answer to the problem of how a unified nation emerges from the condition of “freedom” by which journalists and the reading public at the time were conceptualizing the politics of the ʿUrābī revolution in late 1881. This was a “freedom” of the public sphere that allowed for free speech and the power of public opinion to shape governance. ‘Political adab’ would be the virtue or situational skill, internalized in each participant in the public sphere, that would regulate this freedom, ensuring that it produces unity rather than anarchy. I argue that adab here enshrined ʿAbduh’s holistic approach to nation-building; Egypt with political rights would be a nation in which the very idea of the nation is comprehensively embedded—through adab—in people’s lives, animating their “souls”. This was a politics conceived not as a self-standing domain, but as growing out of society, becoming thereby an authentic unity and self-regulating “life”. In developing this vision, ʿAbduh was amplifying pre-modern meanings of adab implying wide breadth of knowledge, good taste, and the virtues, labelled in the paper as ‘comprehensivness,’ ‘consensus’ and ‘habitus.’ Keywords: Muḥammad ʿAbduh, Adab, Freedom, Nation, Politics, Egypt

Of British Representational Practices in the Age of Capitalism/Territorialism (1743-1776)

The issue addressed in this essay is how the notion of history was altered by the embedding of commerce into the discursive field of eighteenth-century Britain. Even though current eighteenth-century, and Enlightenment, studies draw attention to historiographic questions challenging traditional modes of periodization, the methods by which we acquire and organize knowledge, or the extent to which accounts of the eighteenth century have been driven by the imperatives of the times, this project argues that one historiographic issue that has been significantly underplayed is a different concept of history produced in eighteenth-century Britain by the fundamental operation of mercantile society, its logic of exchange, and the predominance of trade within it. David Hume and Adam Smith’s historiographic trajectory was obscured (and, ultimately, eliminated) by the scientific or materialist notion of history advanced in nineteenth-century historiography.

On the Issue of Applied Psycholinguistics in Organizational Research

This publication discusses the use of psycholinguistic tools in organizational research. The example of a comprehensive study of managerial culture in a business organization has been considered, the pilot part of which was a problem-targeted survey of respondents among top managers. The respective textual results were reduced to lemmas and their frequency analysis was carried out. The predominant n-grams in the texts were also identified. These categories were used to study and assess the discursive field of managerial culture in the organization. The results of cross-analysis of discourses became the basis for the development of a hypothesis regarding the leadership deficit among the managers of the organization, the causes and consequences of this deficit. The formulated assumptions were confirmed by the results of the main part of the study, which included differential psychological testing and individual interviews with respondents.

The New Right: Conservative student political repertoires and intragroup conflict

This qualitative single-site case study explores how students identifying as conservative position themselves within the discursive field of their campus, how they understand their rhetorical and discursive development in relation to their more liberal peers, and what increasing political polarization means for college campuses. I find that the differences within the conservative student group studied are stronger and more concerning than how they describe differing from their liberal peers, particularly as the conservative student group I analyzed radicalized and became overtly racist and nationalistic. This is worrisome, as my participants noted this was not “a local problem” and mentioned that this was happening at a state and national level. This reality was evidenced by the recent insurrection at the Capitol.

Embattled Excavations. Colonial and Transcultural Constructions of the American Deep Past

American national self-invention is fundamentally entwined with cultural constructions of American “prehistory” – the human presence on the continent since the earliest arrivals at least 16,000 years ago. Embattled Excavations offers exemplary readings of the entanglements between reconstructions of the American deep past and racialist ideologies and legal doctrine, with continental expansionism and Manifest Destiny, and with the epistemic and spiritual crisis about the origins of mankind following nineteenth-century discoveries in the fields of geology and evolutionary biology. It argues, from a decolonial perspective, that popular assumptions about the early history of settlement effectively downplay the length and intensity of the Indigenous presence on the continent. Individual chapters critically investigate modern scientific hypotheses about Pleistocene migrations; they follow in the tracks of imperial and transatlantic adventurers in search of Maya ruins and fossil megafauna; and they triangulate colonial and transcultural reconstructions of the events leading to the formation of Crater Lake (Oregon) with previously ignored Indigenous traditions about the ancient cataclysm. The examples show a deep-seated colonial anxiety about America’s foreign pre-colonial past, evinced by popular archaeology’s nervous silencing of Indigenous knowledge – a condition now subject to revision due to a growing Indigenous presence in the discursive field.

Using discourse analysis to understand professional music teacher identity

The purpose of this article is to discuss the use of discourse analysis in order to understand music teachers’ professional identities. This is done by elaborating on the theory and methodology of a study on professional identities of music teachers within the Norwegian municipal school of music and performing arts. Theoretical and methodological perspectives, including research design, analysis, results, validity and ethics, are discussed in the article. An argument in favour of discourse analysis is put forward: that it offers focus on the context, complexity and power relations of the field, as well as providing an understanding of how identities are constructed and negotiated. The use of discourse analysis in the study provided analytical tools which challenged taken-for-granted knowledge, discovered binary discursive oppositions, and unmasked power relations. The study found that teachers construct their identities within a contested discursive field where meanings are attached to the work they perform, as well as to the institutions they represent.

“Ibizagate”: Capturing a Political Field in Flux

The “Ibiza affair,” a succession of scandals triggered by undercover recordings of the FPÖ's former head, Heinz-Christian Strache, in compromising discussions with a purported Russian oligarch's niece has profoundly altered Austria's political landscape and public debates. This article offers a historically contextualized analysis of the multiple voices and competing truth claims articulated by diverse actors in the course of the scandal's fallout. Empirically, this discussion offers a systematic analysis of political and media discourses focused on “Ibiza” between May 2019 and June 2020. Conceptually, the argument builds on Michel Foucault's approach outlined in I, Pierre Rivière and its subsequent applications within nationalism studies. This analysis thus examines data through the questions as to who speaks about the event in question, how they do so, what is being claimed and disputed, and which political strategies and trajectories this enables. The competing, partly shifting positions revealed are the following: Strache's initial regret that soon turned to a self-ascribed “victim-cum-martyr” status; the FPÖ's distancing and eventual rupture from its long-standing Bundesparteiobmann; the Kronen Zeitung's attempted ideological repositioning; the ÖVP's need and opportunity to shift its positions vis-à-vis its political competitors; and critical voices calling for far-reaching structural changes. With the full facts behind the scandal still to be established, the (post-Foucauldian) approach applied here captures the contestations, (new) fault lines, and (shifting) political boundaries constitutive of a discursive field in a crisis context.

THE GEOCULTURAL SPACE OF THE ARCTIC: LANDSCAPE VISUALIZATION AND ONTOLOGICAL MODELS OF IMAGINATION

Геокультурное пространство любого региона формируется в результате взаимодействия двух слабо отделимых друг от друга элементов – геокультур, развивающихся на данной территории, и культурных ландшафтов. Полноценное развитие геокультурного пространства предполагает формирование уникальной онтологии воображения, создающей когнитивный «фундамент» для построения соответствующих моделей. Онтологические модели воображения характеризуют возможности расширенной репрезентации и интерпретации культурных ландшафтов какого-либо региона. Визуальность культурного ландшафта представляет собой сложное образование, в котором зрительные реакции и рефлексии оказываются результатом множественного воображения – одновременно и личностного, и группового. Геокультурное пространство Арктики в его визуально-дискурсивном измерении является сложным, поскольку традиция «колониального взгляда» вкупе с тенденцией к анализу постколониальных практик и к деколонизации различных арктических дискурсов создаёт амбивалентное дискурсивное поле актуальных визуальных практик и политик. Экзистенциальная ситуация постэкзотизма, типологически характерная для арктических регионов, является полем онтологизации множественных визуальных практик, закрепляющих ризоматические процедуры геокультурных различений. В результате полевого исследования прибрежных территорий Северо-Восточной Чукотки были выделены наиболее визуально интенсивные ключевые ландшафтные ассамбляжи: 1) морской охоты; 2) традиционных праздников морских охотников; 3) «первозданной» природы. Ландшафтные ассамбляжи репрезентируются теми или иными визуальными диспозитивами. Под визуальными диспозитивами понимаются устойчиво воспроизводящиеся и феноменологически фиксируемые визуальные ландшафтные (геокультурные) образы, характеризующие специфику определённых ландшафтных ассамбляжей. В результате проведённого исследования выделено пять ключевых визуальных диспозитивов, обусловливающих специфические формы воспроизводства и развития как самих геокультур, так и соответствующих культурных ландшафтов данных территорий: 1) диспозитив морских охотников, наиболее пограничный и фрактальный; 2) диспозитив праздников традиционной культуры морских охотников; 3) диспозитив разрушения и руинирования, связанный как с экстремальными природными условиями региона, так и с эпохой советского и постсоветского развития; 4) диспозитив «природного», «первозданного» пространства, связанный с низкой освоенностью территории; и 5) диспозитив мультинатурализма, проявляющийся в особенностях визуальных сред чукотских поселений (сел, поселков городского типа, небольшого города). Эти диспозитивы, переплетаясь и взаимодействуя между собой, создают множественные, постоянно трансформирующиеся ландшафтные ассамбляжи. В рамках представленных визуальных диспозитивов формируются феномены арктического постэкзотизма и внутреннего экзотизма, фиксирующие невозможность возвращения к доколониальной «ландшафтной оптике». The geocultural space of any region is formed as a result of the interaction of two weakly separable elements – geocultures developing in the given territory and cultural landscapes. The full development of a geocultural space involves the formation of a unique ontology of imagination, which creates a cognitive “foundation” for the construction of appropriate models. Ontological models of imagination characterize the possibilities of an expanded representation and interpretation of the cultural landscapes of a region. The visuality of a cultural landscape is a complex formation in which visual reactions and reflections are the result of multiple imaginations – both personal and group. The geocultural space of the Arctic, in its visual-discursive dimension, is complex, since the tradition of the “colonial view”, coupled with the tendencies to analyze postcolonial practices and to decolonize various Arctic discourses, creates an ambivalent discursive field of relevant visual practices and policies. The existential situation of post-exoticism, typologically characteristic of the Arctic regions, is a field of ontologization of multiple visual practices that consolidate rhizomatic procedures of geocultural distinctions. As a result of a field study of the coastal territories of North-Eastern Chukotka, the most visually intensive key landscape assemblages have been identified: 1) sea hunting, 2) traditional holidays of sea hunters, 3) “pristine” nature. Landscape assemblages are represented by various visual dispositives. Visual dispositives are understood as consistently reproducing and phenomenologically fixed visual landscape (geocultural) images that characterize the specifics of certain landscape assemblages. As a result of the study, five key visual dispositives have been identified that determine the specific forms of the reproduction and development of both geo-cultures themselves and the corresponding cultural landscapes of these territories: 1) the dispositive of sea hunters, the most borderline and fractal; 2) the dispositive of holidays of the traditional culture of sea hunters; 3) the dispositive of destruction and ruin associated with both the extreme natural conditions of the region and the era of the Soviet and post-Soviet development; 4) the dispositive of the “natural”, “pristine” space associated with the low development of the territory, and 5) the dispositive of multi-naturalism, manifested in the features of the visual environments of Chukchi settlements (villages, urban-type settlements, small towns). These dispositives, intertwining and interacting, create multiple, constantly transforming landscape assemblages. Within the framework of the presented visual dispositives, the phenomena of Arctic post-exoticism and internal exoticism are formed, which fix the impossibility of returning to the pre-colonial “landscape optics”.

“The Chinese” in Nigeria: Discursive Ethnicities and (Dis)embedded Experiences

In the emerging Africa–China studies, ethnography has been employed to demystify the monolithic Chinese presence in Africa. Drawing on recent concerns about “discourse” in ethnographies of Chinese migrants in Africa, this article recommends the exploration of “discursive ethnicities”: a term coined to frame a conceptualization of ethnicity that, while embedded in migrant experiences, is embodied through discursive practices. Based on inductive analysis of ethnographic fieldwork with Chinese migrants, we propose a framework of discursive ethnicities in the discursive field of “the Chinese” in Nigeria, in which specific subethnicities (Hongkongese, Taiwanese, Fujianese, etc.) emerge, change, or are dismissed, alongside other-ethnicities that are embodied in narrating Nigerians in specific ways as mirrors of Chinese individuals’ self-ethnicities. We also discuss how both embedded and disembedded experiences contribute to embodied discursive Chinese ethnicities. The article concludes that “discursive ethnicities” provides a nonessentialist means of understanding the cognition of ethnicity and discourse in migrant experiences.

Félida, doubled personality, and the ‘normal state’ in late 19th-century French psychology

The case of Félida X and her ‘doubled personality’ served in the last quarter of the 19th century as a proving ground for a distinctively French form of psychology that bore the stamp of physiology, including the comparative term normal state. Debates around Félida’s case provided the occasion for reflection about how that term and its opposites could take their places in the emerging discursive field of psychopathology. This article centres its analysis on Eugène Azam’s 1876–77 study of Félida, and the ways his framing of the case was adopted or critiqued by subsequent researchers. Azam initially deployed the label normal state in a routine manner, in contrast to his use of condition seconde to designate Félida’s other state; this pairing served, I argue, to anchor the scientific legitimacy of Félida’s extraordinary psychological manifestations. Unpacking the conceptual associations of Azam’s use of normal state, we find it marked as qualitatively distinct, temporally fixed, and most of all individualized; this without becoming normative. It was only through responses to and criticism of Azam’s study that there emerged a more generalized sense of normality against which pathological (hysteric) subjects’ comportment could be contrasted. Félida’s case itself constitutes a highly individualized reconfiguration of the concept of a normal state, while the subsequent framing of doubled mental states provides a valuable vantage point from which to consider the articulations between the language of emerging French psychology and its evolving subjects of enquiry.