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This study investigates a historical event that occurred during the Indonesian Revolution as depicted in Indonesian historical films and argues that these films not only attempt to depict the past but also use the past as a means of social commentary, teaching moral insight, and historical reinforcement. The historical films selected are The Long March (Darah dan Do’a) (1950) and Mereka Kembali (1972). Both films deal with the Long March event experienced by the troops of the Siliwangi Division in 1948. These troops were previously assigned to infiltrate Yogyakarta and its surrounding areas. They were instructed to march back to their original base in West Java as a part of the military strategies to confront the Dutch during the Indonesian Revolution, also known as the Indonesian War of Independence. This event became known as the Long March of the Siliwangi Division. This study examines not only the representation of the past or the texts of the films but also the production process, which includes the motivations of the filmmakers and the public reception when the films were screened for the public at the time—in 1950 and 1972, respectively. This approach provides a broader and richer dimension, valuable insights into the behind-the-scenes process of making the selected historical films, and essential information about the public reception of the films. From the production point of view, there are two main reasons for making these historical films: personal reason and social engagement. Further, the military also plays a vital role in these historical film productions. From the historical representation aspect, these two films depict the events of the Long March of the Siliwangi Division as a journey full of various obstacles and difficulties, such as harsh terrain, lack of food, battles against the Dutch, and internal disputes with fellow Indonesians: Darul Islam. From the reception aspect, the audience’s point of view, these films provide several representations that meet their expectations about the Long March of the Siliwangi Division. However, the audience disagrees with some of the other representations. Finally, the study revealed that historical films are potential vehicles for telling, interpreting, entertaining, legitimating and preserving the past. In addition, this study has a vital implication for reopening the tradition of Indonesian film studies and reigniting attention to old films.
This paper studies the intergenerational effects of parental unemployment on students’ post-secondary transitions. Besides estimating the average treatment effect of parental unemployment on transition outcomes, we identify the economic, psychological or other intra-familial mechanisms that might explain any adverse impact of parental unemployment. Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and propensity score matching estimators we find that paternal unemployment has an adverse impact on the likelihood of entering tertiary education, whereas maternal unemployment does not. We also find that the magnitude of the effect depends on the duration of unemployment. Even though we are unable to fully account for the underlying mechanisms, our mediation analysis suggests that the effect of paternal unemployment is not due to the loss of income, but relates to the negative consequences of unemployment for intra-familial well-being and students’ declining optimism about their academic prospects.
Refugee reception in Germany is a primarily municipal task that relies heavily on neighborhood-based volunteering. This paper asserts that there are fundamental spatial mismatches between municipal policies and neighborhood-based approaches that place additional burden on all of the stakeholders involved. Drawing from the case of Frankfurt-Rödelheim, which is a socially and ethnically mixed neighborhood in Frankfurt am Main, I show how the way the municipality accommodates refugees disregards the politically embraced work of neighborhood-based volunteers and how the ideal of neighborhood-based inclusion creates a spatial fetish that fails the living reality of the refugees. The findings are based on my ethnographic fieldwork as volunteer in a neighborhood-based welcome initiative.
This review analyses the aesthetic engagement with Nazi atrocities during WWII and belonging in post-war Germany as presented in Nora Krug’s graphic novel Heimat: A German Family Album. The authors employ Marianne Hirsch’s concept of ‘postmemory’ as an analytical tool that helps them locate the complex historical and emotional contexts from which this graphic novel receives its impulses. The concrete scenes from the novel are presented and subsequently related to the field of memory and postmemory scholarship. Wider critical debates on how aesthetic articulations of past atrocities influence the next generations of ‘victims’ and ‘perpetrators’ are examined, to ask: What does it mean to inhabit memories of ghostly narratives about perpetrators and how does it form a feeling of post-home?
By the latter half of the twentieth century, a documented, substantial quantitative increase had occurred in the total number of Christian political organizations operating in Washington, D.C. with the sole purpose of influencing Congress and the administration through direct lobbying. This study seeks to understand what were the contributing historical factors that influenced the rise of Christian Lobby Organizations (CLOs), resulting in their normalization in American society?
The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development stresses the fundamental role science should play in implementing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals endorsed by the global community. But how can and should researchers respond to this societal demand on science? We argue that answering this question requires systematic engagement with the fundamental normative dimensions of the 2030 Agenda and those of the scientific community—and with the implications these dimensions have for research and practice. We suggest that the production of knowledge relevant to sustainable development entails analytic engagement with norms and values through four tasks. First, to unravel and critically reflect on the ethical values involved in sustainability, values should increasingly become an empirical and theoretical object of sustainability research. Second, to ensure that research on social–ecological systems is related to sustainability values, researchers should reflect on and spell out what sustainability values guide their research, taking into account possible interdependencies, synergies, and trade-offs. Third, to find common ground on what sustainability means for specific situations, scientists should engage in deliberative learning processes with societal actors, with a view to jointly reflecting on existing development visions and creating new, contextualized ones. Fourth, this implies that researchers and scientific disciplines must clarify their own ethical and epistemic values, as this defines accountability and shapes identification of problems, research questions, and results. We believe that ignoring these tasks, whether one is in favor or critical of the 2030 Agenda, will undermine the credibility and relevance of scientific contributions for sustainable development.
Droughts threaten millions of people in Sub-Saharan Africa, leading to famines, water shortages, migration and casualties. Climate change will most probably exacerbate the devastating consequences as exceptional droughts are expected to occur more frequently. Conventional drought risk assessments however, do not provide adequate tools, as they often limit their focus to environmental parameters, ignoring social vulnerabilities. Integrated strategies are required to carry out holistic drought risk assessments that serve to find adapted technological and institutional solutions to ensure water and food security. This will contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals 1 “No Poverty”, 2 “Zero Hunger” and 6 “Clean Water and Sanitation”.
African visionaries
(2019)
In over forty portraits, African writers present extraordinary people from their continent: portraits of the women and men whom they admire, people who have changed and enriched life in Africa. The portraits include inventor, founders of universities, resistance fighters, musicians, environmental activists or writers. African Visionaries is a multi-faceted book, seen through African eyes, on the most impactful people of Africa. Some of the writers contributing to the collection are: Helon Habila, Virginia Phiri, Ellen Banda-Aaku, Véronique Tadjo, Tendai Huchu, Solomon Tsehaye, Patrice Nganang and Sami Tchak.
This paper addresses the phenomenon of climate-induced displacement. I argue that there is scope for an account of asylum as compensation owed to those displaced by the impacts of climate change which needs only to appeal to minimal normative commitments about the requirements of global justice. I demonstrate the possibility of such an approach through an examination of the work of David Miller. Miller is taken as an exemplar of a broadly ‘international libertarian’ approach to global justice, and his work is a useful vehicle for this project because he has an established view about both responsibility for climate change and about the state’s right to exclude would-be immigrants. In the course of the argument, I set out the relevant aspects of Miller’s views, reconstruct an account of responsibility for the harms faced by climate migrants which is consistent with Miller’s views, and demonstrate why such an account yields an obligation to provide asylum as a form of compensation to ‘climate migrants.’
This paper discusses two possible difficulties with Catherine Lu’s powerful analysis of the moral response to our shared history of colonial evil; both of these difficulties stem from the rightful place of shame in that moral response. The first difficulty focuses on efficacy: existing states may be better motivated by shame at the past than by a shared duty to bring about a just future. The second focuses on equity: it is, at the very least, possible that shame over past misdeeds ought to be brought into the conversation about present duties, in a manner more robust than Lu’s analysis allows.
This article analyzes and criticizes the temporal orientation of Catherine Lu’s theory of colonial redress in Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics. Lu argues that colonial historic injustice can, with few exceptions, justify special reparative measures only if these past injustices still contribute to structural injustice in contemporary social relations. Focusing on Indigenous peoples, I argue that the structural injustice approach can and should incorporate further backward looking elements. First, I examine how Lu’s account has backward-looking elements not present in other structural injustice accounts. Second, I suggest how the structural injustice approach could include additional backward-looking features. I presuppose here, with Lu, that all agents connected to an unjust social structure have a forwardlooking political responsibility to reform this structure, regardless of their relation (or lack thereof) to victims or perpetrators of historic injustice. However, I suggest that agents with connections to historic injustice can occupy a social position that makes them differently situated than other agents within that same structure, leading to differences in how these agents should discharge their forward-looking responsibility and differentiated liability for failure to do so. Third, I argue that Lu obscures the importance of rectifying material dispossession. Reparations, pace Lu, can be justified beyond a minimum threshold of disadvantage. Theorists of settler colonialism and Indigenous scholars show how the dispossession of Indigenous land can be seen as a structure that has not yet ended. I conclude by arguing that rectification can be a precondition for genuine reconciliation.
Structural alienation: Lu's structural approach to reconciliation from within a relational framework
(2019)
In Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics Catherine Lu argues that structural reconciliation, rather than interactional reconciliation, ought to be the primary normative goal for political reconciliation efforts. I suggest that we might have good reason to want to retain relational approaches – such as that of Linda Radzik – as the primary focus of reconciliatory efforts, but that Lu’s approach is invaluable for identifying the parties who ought to bear responsibility for those efforts in cases of structural injustice. First, I outline Lu’s analysis of reconciliation, where she argues for the normative priority of structural approaches within the global political sphere, and propose that it will be useful to identify whether or not a relational account could instead identify underlying structural injustices. Second, I examine one particular relational account of reconciliation (based on Radzik’s account of atonement) and argue that this type of account brings to light underlying structural injustices of the kind Lu is concerned with. Finally, I identify an issue for relational accounts in identifying relevant responsible parties for reconciliation before returning to Lu’s structural account to address this gap.
This essay presents contributions by Jürgen Habermas and Paulo Freire for the constitution of critical-reflexive subjects and the implications in the teaching-research-extension processes in the field of Organizational Studies. We show that intersubjectivity and dialogicity are conditions for the understanding between subjects and it is precisely through these conditions that the subjects are constituted, in a process that is dialogical, pedagogical and political. Freire and Habermas offer elements to deconstruct dominant instrumental logic and provide the basis for the reconstruction of unprecedented-viable possibilities of ways of organizing and managing. Therefore, this article highlights the importance of Organizational Studies to broaden the focus of teaching-research-extension possibilities and directs them to a communicative and dialogic engagement, beyond the borders of universities. This reconstruction indicates that researchers participate in different public arenas, debate and build public problems, processes of resistance, visibility, and dramatization of problematic issues. Observing the contributions of Freire and Habermas, Organizational Studies as a field cannot be limited to developing a critique, from a distant point of view: it is necessary to co-participate, co-act, co-operate and co-construct with its public.
Nhakanomics: Harvesting Knowledge and Value for Re-generation Through Social Innovation is a radical departure from the commonly held belief that neo-liberal economics from the US and the West is universal, and is the only solution to underdevelopment and poverty throughout the world. Instead, the book teases out and theorises the intellectually rutted terrain of development studies, and neo-liberal economics from a decolonial Pan-Africanist perspective. Following a path of social innovation, with perspectives drawn from social anthropology, economics, and business and management studies Nhakanomics is a unique socio-economic approach applicable in the Global South and in Southern Africa in particular. The study argues that the process and substance of nhakanomics with its pre-emphasis on the relational South provides a robust and holistic approach to social innovation and social transformation grounded in relational networks and meshworks. The central idea is a call to re-GENE-rate society, through local Grounding and Origination, and tapping into local-global Emergent Foundations via a newly global Emancipatory Navigation, while ultimately culminating in global-local transformative Effects in four recursive cycles of re-GENE-rating C(K)umusha, Culture, Communication, and Capital after re-Constituting Africa-the 5Cs. With a novel and radical approach the book is an interrogation of neo-liberal economics in the Global South. As such, this book is remarkably handy to students and practitioners in the fields of economics, development studies, political science, science and technology studies, business management, sociology, transformation studies, and development related non-Governmental Organisations working with grassroots communities.
In June 2016, the Norwegian Programme for Capacity Development in Higher Education and Research for Development (Norhed) hosted a conference on the theme of 'knowledge for development' in an attempt to shift the focus of the programme towards its academic content. This book follows up on that event. The conference highlighted the usefulness of presenting the value of Norhed's different projects to the world, showing how they improve knowledge and expand access to it through co-operation. A wish for more meta-knowledge was also expressed and this gives rise to the following questions: Is this way of co-operating contributing to the growth of independent post-colonial knowledge production in the South, based on analyses of local data and experiences in ways that are relevant to our shared future? Does the growth of academic independence, as well as greater equality, and the ability to develop theories different to those imposed by the better-off parts of the world, give rise to deeper understandings and better explanations? Does it, at least, spread the ability to translate existing methodologies in ways that add meaning to observations of local context and data, and thus enhance the relevance and influence of the academic profession locally and internationally? This book, in its varied contributions, does not provide definite answers to these questions but it does show that Norhed is a step in the right direction. Norhed is an attempt to fund collaboration within and between higher education institutions. We know that both the uniqueness of this programme, and ideas of how to better utilise the learning and experience emerging from it, call for more elaboration and broader dissemination before we can offer further guidance on how to do things better. This book is a first attempt.
As a cognitively-mediated response, autonomous adaptation at farm-gate levels constitutes reactionary actions by farmers against climate impacts. These actions are shaped by interacting factors such as household characteristics, livelihood scope and resources. It is driven by the goal of adapting cultivated farmlands to climate and for sustaining crop yields. Thus, interest in balancing adaptation goals with protection of vegetation conditions is less of a priority. Lack of research interest in understanding the gap between objectives of reactionary adaptation and protection of surface conditions (vegetation canopies) is a gap in research. In many studies, farm-gate level adaptation is described as a set of zero-feedback actions in response to climate impacts. This perception conceals the stress and impact-engendering attribute of reactionary adaptation. Inspired towards addressing this conceptual gap; this study investigates impact of farmers’ reactionary adaptation on vegetation cover in Keffi, Nasarawa, Nigeria. A twenty-year time-series NDVI and rainfall datasets are linearly regressed to examine the extent of NDVI-rainfall sensitivity. A weak linear relationship between NDVI and rainfall in Keffi for the period, 1999-2018 is observed. At a regression slope of 0.001, R squared, R2=0.129 (implying that only about 13% of the variability in NDVI in Keffi are explained by rainfall amount) and a bivariate regression coefficient, r=0.359; statistical evidence shows that rainfall amount are not significant predictors of NDVI in Keffi. In investigating the possible interference of non-rainfall factors on vegetation productivity (NDVI) in Keffi; a residual trend (RESTREND) analysis was carried out. Regression of residuals from NDVI-Rainfall linear regression produced a R=0.192 with a negative and downwards slope. The downward character of the RESTREND slope is suggestive of non-rainfall factors contained in the residuals. In validating the RESTREND analysis, a comparative analysis between observed and predicted NDVI derived from a reference NDVI value of 0.46 was carried out. The NDVI value of 0.46, is empirically assumed to be average NDVI value expected at a minimum rainfall amount of 850mm/year reported in tropical Savanna ecosystems. Using this empirical relationship, NDVI values were predicted for Keffi. Even at higher rainfall amounts≈1340mm/year, amounts were unable to produce corresponding higher NDVI values; rather a more plausible correlation between reference-derived predicted NDVI values and rainfall was obtained. A further analysis with predicted NDVI values, based on 1999 NDVI value in Keffi returned higher NDVI units than observed NDVI values. This strengthens the attribution of the possible interference of rainfall-NDVI sensitivity by non-rainfall factors like human activities on vegetation productivity. Surface soil analysis to exclude potential impacts of soil nutrients and moisture deficiency on vegetation productivity, showed that soil had insignificant effect on vegetation dynamics. Further inferential analysis, using the inter-annual NDVI and the reclassified bi-decadal NDVI maps showed that spatial vegetation distribution in Keffi were driven by farmers inter-annual rotational cultivation footprints than rainfall variability. With a three-class categorization, “gain, loss and significant loss”, the spatial distribution of vegetation in Keffi between (1999-2008) and (2009-2018) was assessed. Temporal condition (stressed and healthy) across the three classes supports the attribution of farmers’ reactionary adaptation and cultivation practices on the dynamic spatial vegetation distribution. Between 1999 -2018, an increase in areas with significant vegetation loss (42%), so with a decrease of -25% in areas with healthy vegetation was observed. The character of vegetation cover across the two decadal time slices, reflects landuse intensity and unsustainable farming practices. Preferences for modification of cultivation practices and changes in seed by farmers exerts positive feedbacks on vegetation cover. Higher statistical measures, 38.4% (yearly cropping) and 44% (shifting cultivation with less fallow periods) were observed in the chi-square analysis. These measures were higher than 2.0% relating to shifting cultivation with more fallow periods. While 11.6% farmers noted cultural practices as reasons for preferred cultivation methods, 48.4% farmers attributed climate as reason behind cultivation modification. This was higher than 24.4% who linked issues of tenure rights to cultivation practices. With preferences for yield- breaching strategies, the non-receding cultivation and shorter fallow practices in Keffi triggers feedback on vegetation dynamics. Evidence from this study shows that the NDVI-rainfall functional sensitivity in Keffi is plausibly dampened by effects of reactionary farm-gate level adaptation practices.
This article claims that the institution of the market is structurally exploitative. It allows for exploitation, it encouragesactors to engage in it and it even pressurizes them to do so. Within Marxism, this claim is well known, but can it bedefended without strongly relying on Marxist concepts and arguments? I will answer in the affirmative and identify theforces of market competition to be a fundamental source of exploitative pressures...
This essay reflects on the convergence between Jürgen Habermas’ work and the theoretical framework put forward by the Institute of Social Research in Frankfurt, arguing in favor of the characteristics of the Frankfurt school in Habermas and pointing out research possibilities in the field of Organizational Studies (OS). We discuss the essential theoretical aspects of the work by Horkheimer (1975) “Traditional and Critical Theory,” and produce a critique on the use of generational chronology as the main criterion for understanding the intellectual movement of the Frankfurt School. The methodology is based on the critique of the interpretation using the philosophical hermeneutics (RICOEUR, 1990) and observes the propositional nature of an interpretation offered in theoretical essays (MENEGUETTI, 2011). To support the provocative proposition of this work, we establish a dialogue with authors such as Bottomore (2001), Freitag (2004), Nobre (2004), and Melo (2013)) discussing a non-generational characterization of the Frankfurt School’s members and the proximity of Habermas in relation to the pioneer works on the Critical Theory. We believe that (i) the re-reading of the emancipatory purpose (HABERMAS, 2002); (ii) the deconstruction of the impartiality of the scientific knowledge (HABERMAS, 1987); (iii) and the incorporation of the philosophy of language into the Frankfurtian social criticism (HABERMAS, 2012) are important contributions of Habermas to the Frankfurt’s critical theory. As for a proposal for the field of organizational studies, this esseay concludes that recognizing Habermas as a Critical Theory scholar of the Frankfurt School may constitute a new research agenda for the field. The contribution of this essay lies in helping researchers in the field of Organizational Studies to understand Habermas’ work differently and not as a non-critical or utopian production. In this perspective, it is clear that Habermas’ intellectual production is politically engaged in contemporary social problems, which is a dimension neglected by the researchers of the field of Organizational Studies in Brazil.
This article is an inquiry into the concept of metaphysical experience through a joint discussion of two authors and philosophers with different approaches that nevertheless converge in the reclamation of the concept and rely both on the experience of death as an example. In both cases, the authors are guided by the central problem of how not to relinquish metaphysical experience to unscrutinized immediacy or a powerful conversion which enjoins subjection, putting it in contact with aesthetics and ethics at once. Theodor Adorno situates metaphysical experience as a problem of philosophy of history and devotes attention to the contemporary possibility of experiences that evoke transcendence. The transformations he identifies in the concept also lead him to propose art as a domain where metaphysical experience is alive. The implicit personal investment Adorno makes is much more clear in Lacoue-Labarthe who, in a dialogue with Maurice Blanchot, shows the experience as deeply bound up with literature and its links to subjectivity. The article argues that the main difference between the two approaches is modal and temporal from the side of the object, aside from the different modes of interrogation recognized with the labels deconstruction and critical theory.
This essay focuses on the relationship between solipsism and aesthetic subjectivity, as outlined in Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory. As he mentions, according to dialectical materialism, solipsism gained actuality within (radical) modernism as general “standpoint”, realized in atomistic society through “reified division of labor”. This also applies to artistic production. At the same time, solipsism constitutes a long standing philosophical hypothesis, which concerns the truth value of perception, thus imitating the “subjective point of reference in art”. Therefore, Adorno’s brief statements on the relationship between epistemological solipsism and immanent artistic subjectivity designate different phenomena under the same heading; these concern sociological, cognitive and existential aspects of artistic creation and aesthetic experience, sedimented in the artwork’s content. However, he often undertakes abrupt conceptual transitions within them. In this essay, I mainly focus on the cognitive aspect, especially on the relationship between solipsism and art’s “subjective point of reference”. For this purpose, I reconstruct Adorno’s relevant ideas on the role of subjectivity within art and relate them to his elaborated analysis of the process of aesthetic experience. Finally, I scrutinize the value of this non-apodictic truth and its relationship to particular aspects of “truth-content” and to Adorno’s redemption of the artwork’s fragile ontological status, its semblance character.
Hamlet or Europe and the end of modern Trauerspiel. On some shakespearians motifs in Walter Benjamin
(2019)
Hamlet’s character sets, under different shapes and extents, the benchmark against which a large part of the European philosophy of the very long «short twentieth-century» behind us has had to measure. In the name of Hamlet as the most enigmatic among Shakespeare’s creatures, even Europe, its spirit and destiny, is identified, according to the well-known claim by Paul Valery.
Common trait to a big part of these interpretations – from the juvenile works of Pavel Florenskij and Lev S. Vygotskij (respectively written in 1905 and 1915) to Carl Schmitt’s Hamlet oder Ekuba. Der Einbruch der Zeit in das Spiel (1956) – is offered by the detection, in Hamlet’s figure, of the contradiction inherent to an epochal transition: the time of an unresolved passage between two ages that only knows the endless pain of an “interim”. My paper concerns the possibility to interpret Hamlet’s time as the time of an “interim” in light of Benjamin’s claims about Shakespeare’s drama contained in his book on the German Trauerspiel.
While Florenskij interprets Hamlet’s time as tragic and the figure of Hamlet as a tragic one, in my essay - moving from some observations on the " Hamlet Problem " by the young Franz Rosenzweig - I consider the original Benjaminian thesis about the character and the drama of Hamlet as the end of the modern Trauerspiel. Starting from a statement by Theodor Adorno in the famed Hornberger Brief to Benjamin of August 2, 1935, I outline, therefore, how Benjamin characterizes the figure of Hamlet. This, from his early writings on the relationship between tragedy and Trauerspiel up to the great book on the Origin of the German Trauerspiel.
In the frame of Benjamin’s interpretation, exactly by virtue of its distance from the thesis on the duality of tragedy (evoked by Florenskij’s interpretation as well as other ones), the Shakespearian theatrum of consciousness, paradigmatically represented in the figure of Hamlet and in the intimately dialectic character of his drama, is accounted for as necessary correlate of the Cartesian’s theatrum of consciousness. From a theoretical point of view, the Benjaminian characterization of Hamlet's figure reveals, therefore, something of the nature of modern consciousness and of consciousness in general in relation to the problem of truth and its representation. Hence the end of modern Trauerspiel coincides with the original incompleteness of its time. Consequently, I also claim Hamlet's dramatic figure to represent the aporetic characters of modern politics. This contrasts the thesis of Carl Schmitt who (in direct controversy with Benjamin) speaks, instead, of the Shakespearean drama as an expression of a pre-modern barbaric time.
This article is an attempt to re-read the magnum opus of Adorno's philosophy, namely Aesthetic Theory, using an interpretative key offered by Agata Bielik-Robson's book entitled Jewish Cryptotheologies of Late Modernity: Philosophical Marranos. This interpretative key, called by the Author The Marrano Strategy implemented to Adorno's late philosophy allows us to investigate the common points of Adorno's theory of art criticism and modern Jewish thought. Therefore the main question of this text concerns the characteristics of Jewishness and messianicity (Scholem, Derrida) in Adorno's Aesthetic Theory. The thesis that I am attempting to justify is as follows: the implementation of Marrano strategy to the modern art criticism redefines and reverses the relationship between the particular element and the universal domain. Consequently, this dialectical 'appreciation' of the particular establishes a common conceptual field for critical thinking and traditional, religious motifs.
This article discusses freedom of movement under the lens of shifting boundaries of membership and traces the tension between the political and the economic rationale of European integration. It first reflects on the normativity of free movement and links it to the foundations of modern democratic citizenship. Subsequently, it discusses the role of free movement in the construction of EU citizenship and argues that the genesis in market integration casts a long shadow which hinders EU citizenship's potential to fully display the logic of political and social equality. Under current conditions of huge wealth discrepancies between member states, the prevailing form of horizontal integration necessarily brings about a tension between mobility and solidarity, which in turn creates a barrier for further developing EU citizenship. It is concluded that strengthening an intra‐European dimension of solidarity is needed in order to substantiate the right to move as an equal European citizenship right.
Recent years have witnessed a revival of interest in Marcuse's critical theory. This can be partly ascribed to Marcuse's interdisciplinary approach to humanities and social sciences. Many of Marcuse's ideas and concepts are tacitly present in contemporary social and ecological movements. Contemporary literature on Marcuse is positively inclined to his theory while the critique of Marcuse dates back to the '70s, and remains largely unimpaired. This fact poses significant challenges to the revival of Marcuse's critical theory. This study sets out to report on current interest in Marcuse's critical theory trying to correct "past injustices" by responding to negative criticism. The main flaw of such criticism - as we see it - is in failing to perceive interdisciplinary character of Marcuse's critical theory. Marcuse's renaissance cannot be complete without, to use dialectical term, sublating the history of negative criticism.
This article aims to shed light on some core challenges of liberating social criticism. Its centerpiece is an intuitively attractive account of the nature and difficulty of critical social thought that nevertheless goes missing in many philosophical conversations about critique. This omission at bottom reflects the fact that the account presupposes a philosophically contentious conception of rationality. Yet the relevant conception of rationality does in fact inform influential philosophical treatments of social criticism, including, very prominently, a left Hegelian strand of thinking within contemporary Critical Theory. Moreover, it is possible to mount a defense of the conception by reconstructing, if with various qualifications and additions, an argument from classic—i.e., mid twentieth-century—Anglo-American philosophy of the social sciences, in particular, the argument that forms the backbone of Peter Winch’s The Idea of a Social Science. Winch draws his guiding insights from the later philosophy of Wittgenstein, and one of the payoffs of considering Winch’s Wittgenstein-inspired work against the backdrop of Hegel-inspired work in Critical Theory is to contest the artificial professional strictures that are sometimes taken to speak against reaching across the so-called ‘Continental Divide’ in philosophy. The larger payoff is advancing, by means of this philosophically ecumenical approach, the enterprise of liberating social thought.
The following article attempts to clarify the ambivalent relationship that Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse developed with the vitalist and phenomenological tendencies that permeated philosophy and the social sciences during the Weimar Republic. More precisely, it traces how both thinkers, in spite of acknowledging the “truth moment” contained in the criticism that the philosophical exponents of both movements (Husserl, Bergson, Dilthey) developed of 19th century positivism, also recognized in its shallow popularization the advancement of a dangerous philosophical irrationalism, suspicious of science and Enlightenment values, that would soon become an accomplice to the rise of fascism.
Foreword
(2019)
Conflicts are shaping our life and influencing most of our behaviour. In the recent years, conflict archaeology has developed into a growing sub-discipline. This article tries to go beyond the traditional concepts of conflict archaeology that mainly addressing violence. We advocate widening the view on conflicts by including different levels of conflict escalation as well as of conflict de-escalation. Archaeological indicators for all of these facets of conflicts are discussed. Here, we concentrate on fortifications which are sensitive indicators of historical, social, economic and cultural processes and hence are able to indicate different facets of conflicts and not only violence. In this context, we also consider territoriality as relevant, because it is a kind of regulation, preventing conflicts from further escalation. The article presents a simple scheme of conflict archaeology which extends the traditional approach and provides deeper insights in human behaviour and its rational.
There has been a burgeoning interest in the sociology of the Frankfurt School as well as the oeuvre of Theodor W. Adorno since the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump. The objectives of this study are to both illustrate the enduring importance of Adorno and to provide an important theoretical outline in making sense of Trump’s 2016 United States presidential campaign. Using Adorno’s understudied textual analysis of the radio addresses of Martin Luther Thomas and data from Trump’s 2016 US presidential campaign, we find that Trump’s own discourse can be condensed into three of Adorno’s rhetorical devices: (1) the lone wolf device or anti-statism/pseudo-conservatism, reflecting his criticism of "special interests" and his appraisal of business and (self-)finance; (2) the movement device, which amounted to glorification of action; and (3) the exactitude of error device which amounted to xenophobic, ethnonationalist hyperbole.
Attachment theory is commonly used to investigate children’s psychosocial development. To demonstrate cultural variability and to advance the idea of attachment as a collective resource, we assessed children’s attachment networks during middle childhood among the Nseh, a Cameroonian clan with distinct concepts of family and childhood. Using photo elicitation interviews, we used an exploratory approach to investigate the structural and functional composition of these networks and to generate a comprehensive overview. Participants were 11 children (six girls and five boys), aged 6 to 10 years. Children took photos of individuals who were important to them and with whom they felt safe, comfortable, and at ease. Then, in follow-up interviews they were asked to characterize their attachment figures on sociostructural dimensions and to elaborate how those individuals made them feel comfortable and safe. Transcripts of the interviews were coded using ethnographic strategies. Initial descriptive codes were analyzed concerning key terms, semantic relationships, and their context of meaning, before assigning higher level codes to generate distinct main categories of functionality. Children described attachment networks that were structurally adapted to concepts of social ties and interactional norms of the clan. Concerning their functionality, children differentiated between peers, responsible for overt emotional needs, and adults, providing nutritional care. We conclude that this pattern reflects sources of security and concepts of care of the distinct developmental environment. We discuss the importance of context-specific and comprehensive approaches to attachment, moving beyond Eurocentric monotropic concepts, with the goal of developing a complex understanding of childhood across ecocultural settings.
Mistrust and social hierarchies as blind spots of ICT4D projects : lessons from Togo and Rwanda
(2019)
Information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) are seen to have great potential for boosting democratization processes all over the world by giving people access to information and thereby empowering them to demand more accountability and transparency of authorities. Based on ethnographic research in Togo and Rwanda on an SMS-based citizen monitoring and evaluation system, this article argues that focusing on access to information is too narrow a view. We show that it is crucial to take into account the respective socio-political backgrounds, such as levels of mistrust or existing social hierarchies. In this context, mobile phone usage has rather varied and ambiguous meanings here. These dynamics can pose a challenge to the successful implementation of ICT4D projects aimed at political empowerment. By addressing these often overlooked issues, we offer explanations for the gap between ICT4D assumptions and people’s lifeworlds in Togo and Rwanda.
There seems to be a wide agreement in critical geographic thought that Hegel is dead, as to end up with Hegel’s idealism serves to be the starting point for the materialist project of critical geographies. This paper aims to call this starting point into question by confronting Henri Lefebvre with Slavoj Žižek. While Lefebvre, one of the pioneers of materialist geographic thought, intensively worked on a metaphilosophical critique to open Hegel’s testament, Žižek’s Hegel supposed to pave the way for a new philosophical materialism. This paper seeks to claim that such a materialist Hegel not only survives the critical encounter of Lefebvre’s metaphilosophy, but also encourages us to inquire about the possibilities and consequences of a geographical turn to Hegel. What if there is a Hegel out there that geography has not even detected?
The marginalization of the hijra identity in postcolonial Pakistan perpetuates the inequalities that have dogged the transgender community since the colonial era. Although Pakistan has since ratified all concerned UN treaties aimed at protecting transgender people and preventing human rights violations against them, the country’s gender-variant population nevertheless remains vulnerable to these transgressions. As such, this study aims to explore the following inquiry: “What are the lifeways of the hijra community and how do hijra people face human rights violations in their daily life activities?”
The identity construction of the hijra is a complex process. Pakistan is a patriarchal society that determines gender based on biological sex. While a genitally ambiguous child is generally recognized as intersexed, the family usually obscures this circumstance or tries to enforce a predominantly male identity onto the child. To some degree, an intersexed child is allowed to perform feminine roles, particularly when compared to a biologically male individual who is inclined toward femininity. They may partake in “girls’ games” or in “women’s chores” like cooking; they may opt to don feminine clothing and jewelry or practice walking and talking “like a girl.” Many family members and relatives consider such actions a threat to family honor and/or an indication of weakness, which in turn renders the child vulnerable to sexual or physical assault. Abuse also causes some gender-variant children to drop out of school. As adults, many hijras do not see childhood sexual encounters as assault, particularly because they considered themselves to be feminine even from a young age. Nevertheless, experiences of isolation, abuse, and exclusion often compel a gender-variant child to seek company outside of his/her family of orientation.
Many transgender individuals see redemption in joining the hijra community: there, a new identity is defined and shaped. New members mirror themselves after more senior hijras. In the community, relationships are solidified through similar childhood experiences and interests as well as a shared freedom to express the outer reflection of an “inner feminine soul.” Here, they accept the childhood label affixed to them by heteronormative society: hijra. In fact, the identity now becomes the key to economic viability and socialization.
The predominant livelihood strategies within the hijra community are dancing and prostitution. New members must adhere to stringent norms and rules; they risk (sometimes severe) punishment if they do not. For example, a new hijra must adopt a very strict feminine appearance; if she does not appear feminine enough she may be socially isolated or physically punished. Similarly, a hijra is required to remain passive during sex. In fact, because hijras are stereotyped as passive and vulnerable, many clients physically exploit or even rape them. If she tries to resist, a hijra may face physical violence and, in extreme circumstances, death. Reporting abuse to law enforcement authorities often leads to further exploitation. As such, whether dancing or performing sexually, hijras are encouraged to do whatever is asked of them.
In the last decade, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has taken significant steps to ensure the rights of transgender people. The Court has similarly compelled local governments to amend existing legislation in order to protect the transgender community. Nevertheless, discrepancies exist in legislative and judicial interpretations of the transgender identity, which continues to impede the struggle for basic rights. Indeed, there is a long way to go in the effort to incorporate transgender people into the folds of mainstream Pakistani society.
In this article, we hypothesize, and then demonstrate, that experiences of embarrassment have significantly increased in the United States, due in part, to the current situation in American politics under President Donald Trump. We provide support for our hypothesis by conducting both qualitative and quantitative analyses of Twitter posts in the U.S. obtained from the Crimson Hexagon database. Next, based on literature from social psychology, social neuroscience, and political theory, we propose a two-step process explaining why Trump's behavior has caused people in the U.S. to feel more embarrassment. First, compared to former representatives, Trump violates social norms in a manner that seems intentional, and second, these intentional norm violations specifically threaten the social integrity of in-group members—in this case, U.S. citizens. We discuss how these norm violations relate to the behavior of currently represented citizens and contextualize our rationale in recent changes of political representation and the public sphere. We conclude by proposing that more frequent, nation-wide experiences of embarrassment on behalf of the representative may motivate political actions to prevent further harm to individuals' self-concepts and protect social integrity.
The dissertation studied reused Roman coins (AD 100 – 400) that were found in medieval cemeteries (AD 400 – 1400) in the territory of Serbia. The evaluation process was traced through three different periods and cultural contexts: (1) in the period of Roman domination in the central Balkans (AD 1 – 400), i.e. the “primary context” of their use and circulation; (2) in the time of transition from the late antiquity to early medieval period (AD 400 – 700); and (3) in the high and late Middle Ages (AD 900 – 1400), where the last two were considered to be a “secondary context” in which the Roman coins were no longer a valid currency.
It was observed that the reused Roman coins, as a distinctive category of archaeological finds, impose a necessity for reconsideration of the relationship between the disciplines of archaeology and numismatics; encouraging a greater cooperation and discussion between the two. Considering the use and evaluation of Roman coins in their “primary context”, it is possible to presume that the strength of the political Roman system was the crucial factor in the formation and maintaining the stability of the value of Roman coins. The act of reuse should not be automatically equalized with recycling; implying only to use value, but at the same time it was not possible to assume that the value was formed only on a purely symbolical level. The (re)use of Roman coins in the funeral practices from c. AD 400 to 700 was considered to be a part of wider and occasional practice of incorporating older Roman issues in the coin pool by the “barbarian” or Byzantine authorities. It could be then concluded that the value of Roman coins was understood more as a potential attribute than as a fixed category; enabling one to simultaneously “overvalue “ and “undervalue” these objects. In the period from c. AD 900 to 1400, the reuse of Roman coins was detected only within the cemeteries of the peasantry and in a context of gradual increase of general coin use in the central Balkan communities of the Middle Ages. This was understood as an indicator that the Roman coins were not perceived as particularly valuable per se, but since the were recognized as category of objects that became more important in defining social relationships they were then incorporated in the funeral rituals and reinterpreted by the medieval population.
Critique, and especially radical critique of reason, is under pressure from two opponents. Whereas the proponents of "post-critical" or "acritical" thinking denounce critique as an empty and self-righteous repetition of debunking, the decriers of "post-truth" accuse critique of having helped to bring about our current "post-truth" politics. Both advocate realism as a limit critique must respect, but Vogelmann defends the claim that we urgently need radical critiques of reason because they offer a more precise diagnosis of the untruths in politics the two opponents of critique are rightfully worried about. Radical critiques of reason are possible, he argues, if we turn our attention to the practices of criticizing, if we refrain from a sovereign epistemology, and if we pluralize reason without trivializing it. In order to demonstrate the diagnostic advantage of radical critiques of reason, he briefly analyzes the political and epistemic strategy at work in two exemplary untruths in politics.
Critique, and especially radical critique of reason, is under pressure from two opponents. Whereas the proponents of "post-critical" or "acritical" thinking denounce critique as an empty and self-righteous repetition of debunking, the decriers of "post-truth" accuse critique of having helped to bring about our current "post-truth" politics. Both advocate realism as a limit critique must respect, but I will defend the claim that we urgently need radical critiques of reason because they offer a more precise diagnosis of the untruths in politics the two opponents of critique are rightfully worried about. Radical critiques of reason are possible, I argue, if we turn our attention to the practices of criticizing, if we refrain from a sovereign epistemology, and if we pluralize reason without trivializing it. In order to demonstrate the diagnostic advantage of radical critiques of reason, I briefly analyze the political and epistemic strategy at work in two exemplary untruths in politics.
"We have always been living in bubbles" The opportunities and risks in the digitalisation of media
(2019)
The digitalisation of communication started as early as the 1980s. With the rise of the internet in the mid-90s the digitalisation process intensified; then it took on another dimension with the spread of social media and smartphones in the mid noughties. These new technologies are providing new possibilities that are unveiling, or rather, strengthening societal trends. What’s more, traditional forms of organisation are also being transformed at breakneck speed. This publication provides an overview of both developments: On the one hand we have societal developments such as the blurring of boundaries between real and digital worlds, constant connectivity, fake news, and social media outrage. On the other, we have the effects on traditional media, the workplace, schools, non-governmental organisations and sports. ...
Browsing the web for school: social inequality in adolescents’ school-related use of the internet
(2019)
This article examines whether social inequality exists in European adolescents’ school-related Internet use regarding consuming (browsing) and productive (uploading/sharing) activities. These school-related activities are contrasted with adolescents’ Internet activities for entertainment purposes. Data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 is used for the empirical analyses. Results of partial proportional odds models show that students with higher educated parents and more books at home tend to use the Internet more often for school-related tasks than their less privileged counterparts. This pattern is similar for school-related browsing and sharing Internet activities. In contrast to these findings on school-related Internet activities, a negative association between parental education and books at home is found with adolescents’ frequency of using the Internet for entertainment purposes. The implications of digital inequalities for educational inequalities are discussed.
This publication aims to provide an overview on how digitalisation of communication results in societal trends such as an “always-on” culture, “shitstorms”, “fake news” and their effects on schools, media, non-governmental organisations, work and sports.
Table of Contents
Christian Reuter, Tanjev Schultz, Christian Stegbauer: Digitalisation and Communication: Societal Trends and the Change in Organisations — Preface
Daniel Lambach: Digital World and Real World – Opposites no more
Leonard Reinecke: Brave New Smartphone World? Psychological Wellbeing between Digital Autonomy and Constant Connectedness
Christian Reuter: Fake News and the Manipulation of Public Opinion
Christian Stegbauer: Tantrums on a Massive Scale, or: Could Anybody be a Victim of Social Media Outrage?
Volker Schaeffer: “We Have Always Been Living in Bubbles” The Opportunities and Risks in the Digitalisation of Media
Angela Menig, Verena Zimmermann, Joachim Vogt: Digital Transformation of the Workplace – Risk or Opportunity?
Stefan Aufenanger, Jasmin Bastian: Digital Technology in Schools
Angelika Böhling: Development Assistance Goes Digital - The Opportunities and Challenges Non-Governmental Organisations Face in Digital Communication
Josef Wiemeyer: Digital Interaction and Communication in Sports
The research focuses on magic - the practice of performing tricks and illusions on stage aiming at entertaining the audience. In the late XIX-early XX century magic achieved an outstanding social recognition and became an important artistic phenomenon. This study aims to analyze the work of the most prominent magicians of the late XIX-early XX centuries and to define the historical role of magicians in the history of culture and art.
Using methods of art history and cultural studies, I analyze the autobiographies of magicians, the literature on magic published during the period in question, and contemporary press. I approach the history of magic from three different perspectives: magic as a branch of show business, magic as a cultural phenomenon, and magic as a type of performing art. It allowed me to create a detailed account of magic as a social, cultural and artistic phenomenon.
I argue that magic became a highly influential cultural phenomenon of the late 19th- early 20th centuries in Great Britain that represented the idea of real magic on stage. Magic shows reflected a complex relationship between rational and magical thinking that existed in society and produced narratives about science and the supernatural.
Moreover, very few studies have focused on the question of defining magic as an art form. In the thesis, I analyzed the theoretical works on magic written by magicians and developed a framework for further research on magic from the perspective of the history of art.
In this article, we explore civil society mobilisation and the impact of organised interests on the energy policies of two post-communist countries—Hungary and Czechia—and specifically nuclear energy. Drawing on numerous hypotheses from the literature on organised interests, we explore how open both political systems are for civil society input and what interest group-specific and socio-economic factors mediate the influence of organised interests. Based on the preference attainment method, our case studies focus on the extent to which organised interests have succeeded bringing nuclear energy legislation in line with their preferences. We find that while both democracies are open to civil society input, policy-making is generally conducted in state-industrial circles, whereby anti-nuclear and renewable energy advocates are at best able to make minor corrections to already pre-determined policies.