Is archaeology conceivable within the degrowth movement?

Since the 1980s, archaeology has been further embedded in a reinforced and accelerating capitalist ideology, namely neo-liberalism. Most archaeologists had no alternative but to adapt to it through concessions to the free-market economy and to the so-called mitigations taking place within development. However, it is now apparent that the ongoing global socio-ecological disaster we are facing cannot be reversed with compromises but rather with a radical engagement against the injunctions of competition and growth. I suggest that we must anticipate the necessary transformations of archaeology in the coming decades, before archaeology becomes a technical avatar of the neo-liberal dogma, or before its complete annihilation for being deemed ‘superfluous’ (Wurst 2019, 171) by the capitalist regime. In this paper, I will use the idea of ‘degrowth’ to propose a new paradigm for archaeology by applying the concepts of civil disobedience, voluntary simplicity, redistribution of means and the ethics of no-growth.

Ecological Aesthetics of Intimate Otherness in Swedish Trans Cinema

This article is an exploration of trans and non-binary representation in independent Swedish film productions. Two award-winning films, Pojktanten (She Male Snails, 2012) and Nånting måste gå sönder (Something Must Break, 2014), created by director Ester Martin Bergsmark (in collaboration with author Eli Levén), will be in focus and discussed through their ecological aesthetics that build on what I call intimate otherness. The two films represent not only a significant debut moment for Swedish trans cinema, but also offer a radical engagement with nature and the unnatural. While Bergsmark’s films incite a vivid aestheticisation of environmental pollution, ranging from items of garbage in the forest to untidyrooms, unwashed clothes, and dirty bathing water, the films’ ecological aesthetics, as I argue, imagine an enchanted space in which the trans body emerges as livable. Historically reduced to an “unnatural” and “contaminated” embodiment, trans bodies in the films form an intimate otherness with non-human objects and landscapes at the urban peripheries, at the margins of normativity and productivity. The films’ ecological aesthetics shift gender non-conformity from “unnatural” into a possibility. These aesthetics, I suggest, unfold into a gender-dissident´ landscape of rebellious and poetic, intimate otherness.

From Lotte Reiniger to Nguyễn Trinh Thi: Examining the Evolution of Non-Western Representation in Artists’ Film and Video

Experimental filmmakers are often celebrated for their radical engagement with both form and content. This article highlights how artists’ film and video have evolved in the past century when it comes to the representation of non-Western communities and their cultures. Employing close textual analysis, it compares Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), Len Lye’s Tusalava (1929) and Free Radicals (1958), and Nguyễn Trinh Thi’s Letters from Panduranga (2015), through a postcolonial lens. Foregrounding how Nguyễn is engaged in the nuances of postcolonial identity in a manner that is not replicated by Reiniger and Lye, it concludes that depictions of non-Western cultures in artists’ film and video have developed in the past century from spaces of exoticization to sites of inclusion and respect.

(Un)Sustainability and Organization Studies: Towards a Radical Engagement

In this essay, we trace the evolution of the field of sustainability in management and organization studies and narrate its epistemological twists and turns. Concerned by the current trajectory that tends to diminish a focus on political concerns, we propose a new research agenda, an ecological case for business, that transforms our paradigmatic orientation in four shifts: (1) altering our epistemological lenses from managerial to critical perspectives; (2) altering our ontological lenses from realist to relational view; (3) changing the way we design and conduct research from discipline-focused to interdisciplinary knowledge; and (4) transforming our scholarly stance from value-neutral to engaged scholarship. We argue that these shifts have capacities to overcome the conceptual limitations of the business case and, more fundamentally, help us question our scholarly positioning to the ongoing socio-ecological crises.

Soundwalks: An experiential path to new sonic art

The diverse practice of soundwalking is approached through its constituent parts (walking and listening) as an ideal ‘way in’ to the appreciation of new sonic art. It is argued that, because it engages the subject in a manner that encourages an aural perception of the environment not only as a physical space but also as a space of social and political tensions, divisions and flows, it can act as an experiential foundation for understanding how sound inflects our thoughts about and our relationships to agencies, human or not, that we interact with. This in turn renders possible modes of listening that are particularly adapted to contemporary forms of sonic art. Furthermore, soundwalking ties in to important contemporary discussions about participation, its potential for radical engagement of audiences and also the various forms of mediation it involves.

Radically engaged social pedagogy On the currency of the work of Teodora and Izydor Gulgowski

Referring to the permanent features of social pedagogy, which are interested in interventions in social relations that fill the public space, the text – in the light of the contemporary equality crisis (along with growing nationalist tendencies, xenophobia development) – presents arguments about the relevance of social pedagogy in a radically engaged trend. The ground for this is found in the Movement of Socially Engaged Pedagogues and the initiating thought of Tadeusz Pilch and the reflection and social-educational practice of Izydor and Teodora Gulgowski, activists who a hundred years ago were reviving folk craftsmanship and spirit at the same time, dealing well with national and local community confrontations at Kashubia. This is an example of social animation, which through the solutions analysed in the text may indicate contemporary inspiring and strengthening representations of the trend of radical engagement in social pedagogy.

Raising queer children and children of queer parents: Children’s political agency, human rights and Hannah Arendt’s concept of ‘parental responsibility'

This article starts from Arendt’s (1959) concept of ‘parental responsibility’ expressed in ‘Reflections on Little Rock’, where the author questioned whether children should be made part of adults’ political fights. Whilst pertinent to the school de-segregation movement for black children in the US in 1950s, Arendt’s provocations are applied here to navigate the tensions between the right to self-determination of the child, the child’s best interests, and parents’ desire to raise their children as they wish in relation to children’s sexual orientation and/or gender identity. The article suggests that a new radical engagement with the notion of ‘children’s political agency’ and a re-articulation of the concept of ‘the best interests of the child’ are required in order to enhance the right of the child to sexual and gender self-determination.

Who are the European youths willing to engage in radicalisation? A multidisciplinary review of their psychological and social profiles

Background:A new model of radicalisation has appeared in Western countries since the 2010s. Radical groups are smaller, less hierarchical and are mainly composed of young, homegrown individuals. The aim of this review is to decipher the profiles of the European adolescents and young adults who have embraced the cause of radical Islamism and to define the role of psychiatry in dealing with this issue.Methods:We performed a systematic search in several databases from January 2010 to July 2017 and reviewed the relevant studies that included European adolescents and/or young adults and presented empirical data.Results:In total, 22 qualitative and quantitative studies were reviewed from various fields and using different methodologies. Psychotic disorders are rare among radicalised youths. However, they show numerous risk factors common with adolescent psychopathologies. We develop a comprehensive three-level model to explain the phenomenon of radicalisation among young Europeans: (1) individual risk factors include psychological vulnerabilities such as early experiences of abandonment, perceived injustice and personal uncertainty; (2) micro-environmental risk factors include family dysfunction and friendships with radicalised individuals; (3) societal risk factors include geopolitical events and societal changes such as Durkheim’s concept of anomie. Some systemic factors are also implicated as there is a specific encounter between recruiters and the individual. The former use sectarian techniques to isolate and dehumanise the latter and to offer him a new societal model.Conclusion:There are many similarities between psychopathological manifestations of adolescence and mechanisms at stake during the radicalisation process. As a consequence, and despite the rarity of psychotic disorders, mental health professionals have a role to play in the treatment and understanding of radical engagement among European youth. Studies with empirical data are limited, and more research should be promoted (in particular in females and in non-Muslim communities) to better understand the phenomenon and to propose recommendations for prevention and treatment.