Agency and Moral Psychology

This chapter articulates a view of Buddhist agency grounded in the theory of dependent origination. It addresses the Augustinian concepts of caused and uncaused actions. It argues that Buddhist conception of agency and moral evaluation are not grounded in this Western theory of freedom of the will, but of participation in a web of dependent origination, resulting in a deterministic action theory. The chapter explores the implications of this determinism, and the problems that arise from it. Also discussed is the distinction between the self and a person, the concept of twofold self-grasping and the duality it creates

"hey architect, ko wai hoki koe?" Decolonising mainstream placemaking in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

<p>The colonising of Aotearoa, New Zealand has meant, for the most part, that decisions determining the past and future of our cultural landscapes are made by distant ‘experts’ within mainstream practices. Around the world, many Indigenous peoples remain resilient in defending their centuries-old knowledge and their inherent right to determine their own lives in the places around them. Although Indigenous placemaking is not new, it remains mostly unexplored and commonly misunderstood in Western theory and practice. As discussions of climate change, spatial and social justice intensify and inundate placemaking agendas, Indigenous placemaking emerges as much more than a box-to-tick, providing an entirely different ontological reality of what placemaking is and has the potential to be. This thesis examines the relationship between mainstream placemaking and contemporary Māori placemaking. It assesses decision-making mechanisms and power structures within mainstream practice, questioning how placemaking kaimahi can better recognise the different aspirations of whānau, hapū and iwi. This thesis sought to capture and highlight the essence of contemporary Māori placemaking in te whare tapu ō Ngāpuhi, the far north of Aotearoa, New Zealand. ĀKAU, a design and architecture firm that works with local taitamariki in Kaikohe provided the centre point and case study for the research. In addition to this, several interviews took place with design kaimahi working within Northland. This research found that the many place-keepers and place-makers of contemporary Māori placemaking create much more than built outcomes. It also highlighted significant opportunities for mainstream practice to transform how its practitioners and processes interact with our communities. This thesis demonstrates how mainstream methods of placemaking and professionals who prioritise rules over people and process, fail to be active treaty partners to contemporary Māori placemaking.</p>

"hey architect, ko wai hoki koe?" Decolonising mainstream placemaking in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

<p>The colonising of Aotearoa, New Zealand has meant, for the most part, that decisions determining the past and future of our cultural landscapes are made by distant ‘experts’ within mainstream practices. Around the world, many Indigenous peoples remain resilient in defending their centuries-old knowledge and their inherent right to determine their own lives in the places around them. Although Indigenous placemaking is not new, it remains mostly unexplored and commonly misunderstood in Western theory and practice. As discussions of climate change, spatial and social justice intensify and inundate placemaking agendas, Indigenous placemaking emerges as much more than a box-to-tick, providing an entirely different ontological reality of what placemaking is and has the potential to be. This thesis examines the relationship between mainstream placemaking and contemporary Māori placemaking. It assesses decision-making mechanisms and power structures within mainstream practice, questioning how placemaking kaimahi can better recognise the different aspirations of whānau, hapū and iwi. This thesis sought to capture and highlight the essence of contemporary Māori placemaking in te whare tapu ō Ngāpuhi, the far north of Aotearoa, New Zealand. ĀKAU, a design and architecture firm that works with local taitamariki in Kaikohe provided the centre point and case study for the research. In addition to this, several interviews took place with design kaimahi working within Northland. This research found that the many place-keepers and place-makers of contemporary Māori placemaking create much more than built outcomes. It also highlighted significant opportunities for mainstream practice to transform how its practitioners and processes interact with our communities. This thesis demonstrates how mainstream methods of placemaking and professionals who prioritise rules over people and process, fail to be active treaty partners to contemporary Māori placemaking.</p>

Localization of social science research in selected academic disciplines in South Korea

Social science contributes to social development when theory and research topic are linked to its social context. However, in practice most social scientists in South Korea tend to explain their social issues and problems through mainstream theoretical perspectives that were primarily developed in the West. This study investigates how much social science research is localized in four selected social science disciplines (sociology, political science, public administration, and education) in South Korea. The study analyzes articles published in one representative domestic journal in each discipline to assess the localization of knowledge production during the last three decades (1988–2017). It was found that the local knowledge-base of Korean social science research is relatively weak though it has been continuously increasing during the last three decades. It was also found that knowledge production in social sciences is reliant on Western theory even though the research topics are locally embedded. In addition, the findings revealed that there are noticeable differences between the applied fields (public administration and education) and the pure fields (sociology and political science). Applied fields of public administration and education are more locally embedded than pure fields of sociology and political science. This study proposes that social science research in South Korea should draw more on indigenous knowledge and be less reliant on Western theory in the future.

The decolonial turn: reference lists in PhD theses as markers of theoretical shift/stasis in media and journalism studies at selected South African universities

The supervision and production of a PhD thesis often presents a potentially interesting tension between PhDs as conforming to disciplinary epistemologies and PhDs as breaking epistemological boundaries. No academic discipline has been left untouched by decolonial thinking in the South African university space since the eruption of radicalized student protest movements in 2015. The Rhodes Must Fall student protest movement, which quickly morphed into Fees Must Fall, precipitated a new urgency to decolonize the university curriculum in post-apartheid South Africa. A new interdisciplinary conversation in the humanities and social sciences began to emerge which challenged established orthodoxies in favour of de-Westernizing, decolonizing and re-mooring epistemological and pedagogic practices away from Eurocentrism. Whether and how that theoretical ferment filtered into postgraduate students’ theses, however, remains to be established. This article deploys a decolonial theoretical framework to explore the tension between epistemic conformity and boundary transgressing in journalism studies by analysing reference lists of PhD theses submitted at three South African Universities three years after the protest movement Rhodes Must Fall. With specific focus on media and journalism studies as a discipline, this article argues that the PhD process represents a site for potential epistemic disobedience and disciplinary border-jumping, and for challenging the canonical insularity of Western theory in journalism studies. The findings appear to disconfirm the thesis that decolonial rhetoric has had a material influence so far on the media studies curriculum, as reflected in reference lists of cited works in their dissertations.

A New Page of Literati Painting from Singapore and Malaysia: A Study of Chen Wen Hsi and Chung Chen Sun

In the early twentieth century, Chinese literati painting was embroiled in arguments on the relationship between ancient and modern or east and west. Therefore, the artistic practices of Wu Changshuo, Chen Shizeng, Qi Baishi, Xu Beihong and so on, were in response to this development. However, with the occurrence of World War ii and changes in the post-war situation, literati painting underwent further, new changes in different regions. This article intends to discuss the overseas Chinese painters Chen Wen Hsi and Chung Chen Sun as examples in exploring the new development of literati painting in Singapore and Malaysia in the second half of the twentieth century. Chen Wen Hsi was born in Jieyang County, Guangdong Province in 1906. He studied at Shanghai Fine Arts College and Xinhua Art College. He went to Singapore and held an exhibition in 1948. In 1950, he taught at The Chinese High School, and the following year also began teaching Chinese ink painting at Nanyang Fine Arts College. Chung Chen Sun, a native of Mei County, Guangdong Province, was born in 1935 in Malacca, Malaysia. In 1953, he entered the Department of Art Education of Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, which was founded by Lim Hak Tai. Chung was inspired by predecessors such as Cheong Soo-pien, Chen Wen Hsi and Chen Chong-swee who had pursued the Nanyang style. In 1967, Chung founded the Malaysian Academy of Art. Their styles of painting not only incorporate the Eastern aesthetics and Western theory but also include diverse elements. Their paintings wrote a new page in the history of literati painting during the Cold War era.

Peace in Non-Western Theory

This chapter looks critically into the exhortations in recent peace thinking to accommodate visions of peace outside European modernity, called the West. The discussion problematizes the premise of a radical distinction in cultural terms between the West and the non-West, questioning for each front the notion of a linear cultural transmission from ancient times onward. The binary, the chapter argues, is premised effectively on an oblivion of hybridities, especially in the Mediterranean basin, already before modernity and, later, under modernity, of the virtual recasting of much of what has been out there in the periphery, however named or classified, in the image of modernity. The chapter then considers some of the characteristic oversimplifications in peace research around the theme, which, albeit with a strong anti-ethnocentric posture to begin with, end up largely reproducing the classical Orientalism in its reductionisms.

TRADISI MERANTAU MASYARAKAT MELAYU MENERUSI TEKS TERPILIH KARYA HAMKA

As recorded in selected texts written by Buya Hamka, the nomadic tradition of the Malays is loaded with culture and custom elements. The use of selected texts, namely ‘Merantau Ke Deli’ and ‘Di Bawah Lindungan Ka’bah’, was appropriate for the study. This paper also differs from other research due to applying a Western theory to a localised topic such as the Malays’ nomadic tradition. Overall, this study aimed to identify the nomadic tradition by the Malays through specific Hamka works and analysed factors that triggered that phenomenon by applying the theory of migration or the ‘Push and Pull’ Theory introduced by Everett S. Lee (1966). The researchers utilised a qualitative approach, strengthened by Lee’s theory. The theory suggests four factors – factors found within the place of origin, factors in the destination, obstacles and other personal factors. The study found that the Malay characters in Hamka’s works travelled to leave their origin due to poverty and gender issues. Factors at the destination were the promise of a more comfortable life and receiving higher education. It is hoped that this paper could be beneficial and used by researchers in future. Keywords: nomadic tradition, the Malay community, factors, concepts, Theory of Migration by Everett S. Lee.