In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to HadrianJohn T. KirbyShadi Bartsch. Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian. Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 1994. x + 310 pp. Cloth, $37.50. (Revealing Antiquity 6)The unsuspecting reader, if such exists in the 1990s, will probably not know what to make of the title of this book. Even deeply suspicious ones will (...) not be able to predict its contents. Nor does the subtitle produce full disclosure. The reason, I think, is that classical philologists will, by virtue of their training, expect something rather different from a book so titled: they might suppose it to be a work on technical aspects of Roman theater, or perhaps an assessment of oratory in the imperial Senate. The author is deliberately coy in the preface:I have not written an introduction to this book, preferring to let the reader travel through its twists and turns unequipped with the lamp of foreknowledge. All I will say at the outset is that it is a book about representation, not reality, although much of its content serves to undermine that distinction (a trait in which I follow the tendency of my ancient sources); a book about the ways in which antithetical categories such as spectator and spectacle, intention and interpretation, and praise and blame were variously conflated and exploited by writers and historians of the first century a.d. as a reaction to the transformation of Rome from republic to empire; a book about what happens to language’s ability to mean when all communication is distorted by the pull of a centralized and autocratic authority.(vi)But these compressed remarks in fact offer a serviceable précis of what is to come. Put another way, this is a book about rhetoric, about Rezeptionsästhetik, about the reciprocal reflexes of language and power.What are the effects of political power upon the free and fearless use of language? The question is not new. Hesiod and Demosthenes both posed it, answering in quite different ways. Tacitus revisited the issue explicitly in his Dialogus de oratoribus, and more subtly in the historical writings. Indeed the problem continues to be a pressing one today, as the whole scholarly project of Michel Foucault demonstrates. This is a main theme of Actors in the Audience.A contrapuntal issue is that of how texts of all kinds problematize the distinction between reality and illusion (“fiction”?). Here again we may reach back as far as Hesiod and—though he might balk at a subpoena to such testimony—Plato. This latter theme is at least as persistently (post-)modern as the first; one thinks of Pirandello’s Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore and Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo.Bartsch’s project begins to come into focus by page 2. After a brief meditation on the savagery of Caligula, she moves to a vivid evocation of Nero as scaenicus and of his scrutiny of the audiences at his thespian and musical performances, “as if the spectators were the performers here” (5); for Tacitus, Dio, and Suetonius, “Nero’s rule is the occasion for a transformation of the theater into the site of a reversal of actor-audience relations, and as an emperor onstage, [End Page 155] Nero literally constrained his audience to be actors” (10). Moreover, according to Bartsch, Tacitus sees this phenomenon extending beyond the theater itself to encompass the Neronian political scene in general.The first three of the book’s five chapters—“The Emperor’s Audience: Nero and the Theatrical Paradigm,” “The Invasion of the Stage: Nero Tragoedus,” and “Oppositional Innuendo: Performance, Allusion, and the Audience”—all have to do with Nero in some respect. Chapter 2 turns to the issue of reality versus illusion. Bartsch demonstrates that, in the realm of politics, this is already of explicit interest to Philostratus. She then goes on to consider its implications for the reign of Nero. We read of popular graffiti, sparked by Nero’s murder of his mother Agrippina, that classed him with the legendary matricides Orestes and Alcmeon. These, plus the numerous theatrical roles (such as Oedipus and... (shrink)

This article seeks to locate the body and embodiment more centrally among the concerns of actor-network theory by exploring working bodies. Using a newly introduced national system of vocational training as an exemplary case, it explores the tension between representations of skilled human bodies—‘competencies’—as given to trainers and the ways in which these representations are incorporated into their everyday practice. Vocational training has had a long struggle with the apparent separability of subject and object—between what can be felt and (...) experienced as distinct from what can be stated, measured, and expressed in words. The argument is made that paying attention to bodies in vocational training can shed light on this struggle. Paying attention to bodies in networks can also strengthen network analyses. Like texts and other forms of materiality, ‘the body’ is not singular but multiple. Furthermore, body politics constitutes an important actor-network them e. (shrink)

Civil society organizations attempt to induce corporations to behave in more socially responsible ways, with a view to raising labour standards. A broader way of conceptualizing their efforts to influence the policies and practices of employers is desirable, one centred upon the concept of civil governance. This recognizes that CSOs not only attempt to shape the behaviour of employers through the forging of direct, collaborative relationships, but also try to do so indirectly, with interactions of various kinds with the state (...) being integral. Drawing on evidence derived from UK-based CSOs involved in work and employment relations, four types of civil governance are identified and characterized. By elaborating the concept of civil governance, and demonstrating how different types of civil governance operate, the research extends our knowledge and understanding of how CSOs, as increasingly prominent actors in the field of work and employment relations, operate within, and contribute to, systems of labour governance. (shrink)

Professor Beare has attacked the position established by Alfred Körte in 1893 and accepted in large measure by Sir Arthur Pickard-Cambridge in Dithyramb, etc., and Festivals. The following reply is brief because I have dealt with the works of art at some length in Rylands Bulletin, xxxvi , 563 f. and in a forthcoming number of Ephemeris Archaiologike. The statement of Aristotle . I have tried to show that various elements in the ‘phallic performances’ were taken over by comedy and (...) that we have some evidence that the leaders of padded dancers wore the phallos. (shrink)

The rise in the number of people on sick leave for common mental disorders is a growing concern, both from a societal and individual perspective. One common suggestion to improve the return-to-work process is increased cooperation between the relevant parties, including at least the employer, the social insurance agency and health care. This suggestion is often made on the presumption that all parties share the common goal of reintegrating the patient-employee back into the workplace. In this paper we investigate (...) this presumption by mapping out the ethical frameworks of these three key actors in any return-to-work process. We show that although the goals of these actors often, and to a large extent, overlap there are potential differences and tensions between their respective goals. Further, we emphasise that there may be other limitations to an actor’s participation in the process. In particular the health care system is required to respect patient autonomy and confidentiality. There is also an inherent tension in the dual roles of health care professionals as therapists and expert witnesses in work ability assessment. In conclusion, there are potential tensions between the key actors in the return-to-work process. These tensions need to be addressed in order to enable an increased cooperation between actors and to facilitate the development of a feasible plan of action for all parties, including the employee. (shrink)

This paper explores the question of how non-human actors contribute to the acceptability of technologies. Acceptance and acceptability of technologies were examined as network formation and not, as in conventional technology acceptance models, as adoption by individual human actors. Using the approach of translation sociology, the acceptance work necessary for network formation was examined. As a result, the actibelt®-Actor-Network and five modes of acceptance work by non-human actors and their effects on patients were identified. The different modes (...) of acceptance work show that non-human actors, such as events, meetings, graphs, and socio-technical discourses, are not passive actors in the development of technology, but can enable, hinder, or condition acceptability. Therefore, non-human actors play a central and constitutive role in the translation process by performing acceptance work and contributing to the stabilisation and acceptability of the actibelt®-Actor-Network. (shrink)

Background Moral courage means courage to act according to individual’s own ethical values and principles despite the risk of negative consequences for them. Research about the moral courage of whistle-blowers in health care is scarce, although whistleblowing involves a significant risk for the whistle-blower. Objective To analyse the moral courage of potential whistle-blowers and its association with their background variables in health care. Research design Was a descriptive-correlational study using a questionnaire, containing Nurses Moral Courage Scale©, a video vignette of (...) the wrongdoing situation with an open question about the vignette, and several background variables. Data were analysed statistically and inductive content analysis was used for the narratives. Participants and research context Nurses as healthcare professionals (including registered nurses, public health nurses, midwives, and nurse paramedics) were recruited from the membership register of the Nurses’ Association via email in 2019. A total of 454 nurses responded. The research context was simulated using a vignette. Ethical considerations Good scientific inquiry guidelines were followed. Permission to use the Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale© was obtained from the copyright holder. The ethical approval and permission to conduct the study were obtained from the participating university and the Nurses’ Association. Findings The mean value of potential whistle-blowers’ moral courage on a Visual Analogue Scale (0–10) was 8.55 and the mean score was 4.34 on a 5-point Likert scale. Potential whistle-blowers’ moral courage was associated with their socio-demographics, education, work, personality and social responsibility related background variables. Discussion and conclusion In health care, potential whistle-blowers seem to be quite morally courageous actors. The results offer opportunities for developing interventions, practices and education to support and encourage healthcare professionals in their whistleblowing. Research is needed for developing a theoretical construction to eventually increase whistleblowing and decrease and prevent wrongdoing. (shrink)

Cet article propose un regard historique sur la notion d’exercice en art, à travers le cas du métier de comédien dans la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle. Alors qu’une véritable théâtromanie s’empare de la société française, les acteurs et les actrices doivent répondre aux exigences d’un public friand de nouveautés à l’affiche. L’article met en lumière des pratiques peu visibles du travail artistique, comme l’effort de mémorisation des rôles, ou les modalités d’organisation des exercices au sein de la première école (...) dramatique française (1786-1789). Nous montrons également que la reconnaissance croissante de la centralité de l’exercice, à la fois corporel et intellectuel, dans le métier de comédien contribue à définir la spécificité de l’art dramatique dans le second XVIIIe siècle. (shrink)

The relationship between agriculture and nature is a central issue in the current agricultural debate. Organic Farming has ambitions and a special potential in relation to nature. Consideration for nature is part of the guiding principals of organic farming and many organic farmers are committed to protecting natural qualities. However, the issue of nature, landscape, and land use is not straightforward. Nature is an ambiguous concept that involves multiple interests and actors reaching far beyond farmers. The Danish research project Nature (...) Quality in Organic Farming has investigated the relationship between nature and organic farming. This article will focus on an expert workshop held in connection with the project that investigates the way different actors conceptualize nature. Farmers, scientists, and non-governmental organizations came together to discuss their experiences of nature and expectations of organic agriculture. From this interaction, it was clear that nature is a contested notion. Different understandings of nature exist within the three groups and there is disagreement as to whether emphasis should be given to biological qualities, production values, or experiential and aesthetic perspectives. This complexity provides a challenge to organic farming as well as to the implementation of nature considerations in general. It illustrates an underlying battle for the right to define nature and nature quality and essentially decide what organic farmers should work towards. We argue that successful implementation requires organic farmers to carefully consider what expectations they wish to meet. Optimally it is dependent on a dialog between stakeholder interest groups that allows for multivocality and pluralism. (shrink)

Background Rationing and allocation decisions at the clinical level – bedside rationing – entail complex dilemmas that clinicians and managers often find difficult to handle. There is a lack of mechanisms and aids for promoting fair decisions, especially in hard cases. Reports indicate that clinical ethics committees sometimes handle cases that involve bedside rationing dilemmas. Can CECs have a legitimate role to play in bedside rationing? Main text Aided by two frameworks for legitimate priority setting, we discuss how CECs can (...) contribute to enhanced epistemic, procedural and political legitimacy in bedside rationing decisions. Drawing on previous work we present brief case vignettes and outline several potential roles that CECs may play, and then discuss whether these might contribute to rationing decisions becoming legitimate. In the process, key prerequisites for such legitimacy are identified. Legitimacy places demands on aspects such as the CEC’s deliberation process, the involvement of stakeholders, transparency of process, the opportunity to appeal decisions, and the competence of CEC members. On these conditions, CECs can help strengthen the legitimacy of some of the rationing decisions clinicians and managers have to make. Conclusions On specified conditions, CECs can have a well-justified advisory role to play in order to enhance the legitimacy of bedside rationing decisions. (shrink)

The present work proposes to explore the discourse on migration in Arabic language media outlets. Present scientific literature in discourse analysis studies consistently analyzed discourses on migration and displayed the consistency of its features. In this paper, we will analyze how the Arabic discourse on migration in the Mediterranean area, either inbound or outbound, are realized and if they are shaped by the European discourse, in order to add an Arabic language contribution to the scientific discussion. The research showed (...) that, while most established categories typical of discourses of racism were present, others were put into discussion, and a context-bound system of representation emerged, with its specificities concerning the reality of migration into and from Arabic countries. However, the European discourse resulted a strong presence, even in the representation of outbound migration of the specific ingroup. (shrink)

This paper aims to understand the kind of activities that industrial actors develop in order to protect their enterprises during industrial crisis conditions. A series of political unrest, insurgency, economic turmoil, deadly earthquakes, and economic embargo at the Indo- Nepal boarder escalated the industrial crisis in Nepal. The quest for sustainability of enterprises during the enduring nature of the crisis stimulated for a more detail conversation and survey. A perceptual survey of industrial actors accompanying conversation therein indicates that trade union (...) and association leaders develop positive attitude and advance specific activities for protecting their enterprises during industrial crisis conditions. The study finds that an empathic nature helps to develop a positive attitude among the industrial actors, which seems contributory for enterprises to survive during crisis conditions. The actors tend to positively perceive significance of specific activities under the conditions of difficulties and hardships and enhance immunity to the industrial crisis. This paper argues that the empathic nature of the industrial actors becomes more effective to safeguard the pluralistic interests of the stakeholders of the enterprise than the self- centric nature of the actors. The actors are not only engaged in safeguarding their claims on the industry but are also contributing—beyond their routine work—positively to strengthen the enterprise immunity during difficulties. This paper concludes with an insight of shifting managerial attention from the generic concepts like cost minimisation and product differentiation to the concepts of regularity in supply of goods and services in the business network by expanding the scope of industrial relations vertically and horizontally. The empathic nature of industrial actors enhances the effectiveness of the general system theory and social network theory by developing understanding of the role of industrial actors’ relations in sustaining and operationalizing a business network under organizational crisis conditions. (shrink)

BackgroundResearch misconduct and questionable research practices have been the subject of increasing attention in the past few years. But despite the rich body of research available, few empirical works also include the perspectives of non-researcher stakeholders.MethodsWe conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups with policy makers, funders, institution leaders, editors or publishers, research integrity office members, research integrity community members, laboratory technicians, researchers, research students, and former-researchers who changed career to inquire on the topics of success, integrity, and responsibilities in science. (...) We used the Flemish biomedical landscape as a baseline to be able to grasp the views of interacting and complementary actors in a system setting.ResultsGiven the breadth of our results, we divided our findings in a two-paper series with the current paper focusing on the problems that affect the integrity and research culture. We first found that different actors have different perspectives on the problems that affect the integrity and culture of research. Problems were either linked to personalities and attitudes, or to the climates in which researchers operate. Elements that were described as essential for success were often thought to accentuate the problems of research climates by disrupting research culture and research integrity. Even though all participants agreed that current research climates need to be addressed, participants generally did not feel responsible nor capable of initiating change. Instead, respondents revealed a circle of blame and mistrust between actor groups.ConclusionsOur findings resonate with recent debates, and extrapolate a few action points which might help advance the discussion. First, the research integrity debate must revisit and tackle the way in which researchers are assessed. Second, approaches to promote better science need to address the impact that research climates have on research integrity and research culture rather than to capitalize on individual researchers’ compliance. Finally, inter-actor dialogues and shared decision making must be given priority to ensure that the perspectives of the full research system are captured. Understanding the relations and interdependency between these perspectives is key to be able to address the problems of science.Study registrationhttps://osf.io/33v3m. (shrink)

In a wide range of contemporary debates on Japanese cultures of technological practice, brief reference is often made to distinct Shinto legacies, as forming an animist substratum of indigenous spiritual beliefs and cosmological imaginations. Japan has been described as a land of Shinto-infused ‘techno-animism’: exhibiting a ‘polymorphous perversity’ that resolutely ignores boundaries between human, animal, spiritual and mechanical beings. In this article, we deploy instances of Japanese techno-animism as sites of theoretical experimentation on what Bruno Latour calls a symmetrical anthropology (...) of nature-cultures. In staging a dialogue between actor-network theory and Japanese techno-animism, we show how Shinto cosmograms provide an enlivening and alternative diffraction device on several of the ontological motifs manifested in Latour’s work. In particular, by mobilizing the territory of a ‘new’ animism debate in anthropology – manifested in the work of Philippe Descola and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro – we attempt to infuse Latourian ‘multinaturalism’ with new, other-than-western analytical energy. Extending actor-network theory, we argue, Shinto cosmograms offer an interesting vantage point for interpreting the immanent, affective, enchanting and enabling powers of non-humans in contributing to collective life. By thus broadening the ‘cosmopolitical’ imagination beyond Latour’s own European-Catholic frame of reference, Shinto techno-animism offers up a wider reflection on contemporary entanglements of science, politics, ecology and cosmos. This reflection, we conclude, opens up a new intellectual territory, allowing us to trace techno-animist streams of thinking both ‘East’ and ‘West’, beyond the confines of the scientific naturalism indigenous to European thinking. (shrink)

While recent science and technology studies literature focuses on “projectification” and its felt tensions for researchers, a surprising scarcity of empirical work addresses experiences at the “other end,” such as funding bodies often held “responsible” for tensions encountered by researchers. Actors in funding bodies experience similar tensions, however. While projectification necessitates predictability and individual project objectives, research funding is also increasingly organized in networks promoting local experimentation. Moreover, funding bodies are part of a system of accountability in which investments (...) are legitimized politically in often reductionist ways. We argue for the salience of more detailed empirical investigations into the work of funding bodies as they navigate these tensions. We apply a dramaturgical perspective to investigate the “staging work” of program committees responsible for the management of funded programs, identifying three forms of staging work: setting the scene, temporal narration, and signifying success. All come with discursive, material, and symbolic dimensions. We develop the notion “adaptive coherence” to show how the program committee sought to maintain the coherence of the overall program despite continuous risks of fragmentation due to projectification, local experimentation, and divergence in interests. “Adaptive coherence” proves productive in incorporating the temporal and spatial dimensions of staging work in networked contexts. (shrink)

Midstream modulation is a form of public engagement with science which benefits from strategic application of science and technology studies (STS) insights accumulated over nearly 20 years. These have been developed from STS researchers’ involvement in practical engagement processes and research with scientists, science funders, policy and other public stakeholders. The strategic aim of this specific method, to develop what is termed second-order reflexivity amongst scientist-technologists, builds upon and advances earlier more general STS work. However this method is focused (...) and structured so as to help generate such reflexivity—over the ‘upstream’ questions which have been identified in other STS research as important public issues for scientific research, development and innovation—amongst practising scientists-technologists in their specialist contexts (public or private, in principle). This is a different focus from virtually all such previous work, and offers novel opportunities for those key broader issues to be opened up. The further development of these promising results depends on some important conditions such as identifying and engaging research funders and other stakeholders like affected publics in similar exercises. Implementing these conditions could connect the productive impacts of midstream modulation with wider public engagement work, including with ‘uninvited’ public engagement with science. It would also generate broader institutional and political changes in the larger networks of institutional actors which constitute contemporary technoscientific innovation and governance processes. All of these various broader dimensions, far beyond the laboratory alone, need to be appropriately open, committed to democratic needs, and reflexive, for the aims of midstream modulation to be achieved, whilst allowing specialists to work as specialists. (shrink)

Based on an ethnographic study in a Danish residential care center, this article shows how the interplay of a sensor-floor technology and currently influential values of person-centeredness, privacy, and security in care transforms care work and care interactions between residents and care workers. Based on an understanding of care as realized in a heterogeneous collective of human and nonhuman actors, this article illustrates how new modes of monitoring and interpreting residents’ care needs at a distance arise, and how a (...) new organization of work focusing on quick and responsive care is established. These new care practices lead to conflicts between the values of privacy and security, to ambivalent experiences among care workers of simultaneously increased security and insecurity in work, and, paradoxically, also often to a decentering rather than person-centering of care. Instead of accommodating simultaneous compliance to the values of privacy, security, and person-centeredness, the use of the sensor-floors makes the tensions between these values continuously and loudly present in daily care practices. (shrink)

Organizational innovation depends heavily on whether or not communication processes are regulated. Furthermore, social networks represent content-based connectivity of actors in opposition to formal organization. Communication technologies such as e-mail make it possible to continuously maintain the establishment and preserve social networks. Enhancing cooperation in team working processes are the benefits of social networks in dynamic organizations. This article reports on four case studies which focused on teamwork and the structural analysis of e-mail as a communication technology in a mobile (...) phone company. The case studies reveal the impact of computer supported social networks which became mainly apparent through changes in personal communication styles and the establishment of alternative hierarchies in electronic environments. (shrink)

This paper explores the influence of transpersonal thinking, including the mythological perspective of Joseph Campbell and the holotropic perspective of Stanislav Grof, on actor training using the neutral mask. An outline of training in the neutral mask is given, focusing on the approach of David Latham, as experienced by the author in his own training. Points of correspondence with the vision of Campbell and Grof, and their influence, are discriminated and discussed. These correspondences open up two areas of inquiry: (...) the transformative effect of the mask work when conducted in a transpersonally-oriented set, and the use of the neutral mask as an approach to the study of myth and archetype. Both are discussed, and some preliminary conclusions drawn based on experiences reported by student-actors and the author’s observations during his own research and his practice as actor and teacher. (shrink)

The target article by Bernard Baars presents a quick way of grasping the gist of his book In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind, published recently . The metaphor of consciousness as a theatre has a long history. A prototype of the theatre model may be traced back to Plato's Allegory of the Cave, in which we are like prisoners living in a cave just observing the shadows of reality. The modern theatre model insists on consciousness being (...) under the control of attention by introducing a searchlight metaphor . The target article explores some evidence from the viewpoint of Global Workspace theory by using a method of ‘contrastive analysis’. According to this theory, GW works as the publicity organ of the brain and has a facility for accessing, disseminating, and exchanging information, and for exercizing global coordination and control . Baars describes his GW as a theatre. ‘As the house lights begin to dim and the audience falls silent, a single spotlight pierces the descending darkness, until only one bright spot, shining on stage, remains visible. You know that the audience, actors, stagehands, and spotlight operators are there, working together under invisible direction and guided by an unknown script, to present the flow of visible events on stage. As the house lights dim, only the focal contents of consciousness remain. Everything else is in darkness’ . According to GW theory, a theatre stage with a bright spot is just a working memory. So I would like to comment on some general characteristics of the working memory and related spotlight problem. (shrink)

The article considers modern tendencies prevailing in the higher education system while training technical specialists nowadays. According to the authors, excluding the humanitarian courses from curriculum results in the complete dissolution of subjectivity in the impersonal world, which is deprived of “living” knowledge, that is, definite knowledge of a definite person. The application of such an approach is illustrated by the actor–network theory (ANT). While studying several works by ANT founders, it turned out to be clear that such an (...) approach eliminates any differences between natural and humanitarian, engineering, and philosophical knowledge. As a result, the net emerges consisting of numerous actants and which requires from every participant his “building‐in” a model with the functions being delegated to him in advance. The article concludes that an “alive” component is disappearing from the higher education nowadays when the main stress is being made on the knowledge acquired a priori, not a posteriori. (shrink)

The article focuses on working time policies introduced in Belgium during the period 1975-1990. As a country with early mass-unemployment, the magnitude of the unfolding Labour market problems fostered a specific set of responsive strategies. The initial trajectory of Belgian working time policies was centered around cutting standard weekly working hours in order to enhance Labour market effects. In the course of a marked issue transformation, work sharing objectives were substituted by the notion of temporal flexibility which focused primarily (...) on concerns for and changes in the economie performance of individual firms. The author outlines various structural features of the Belgian socio-economic system and argues that these profoundly affected the goals identified with working time policies as much as the actor constellations endorsing the respective measures. (shrink)

Immigrant women to Western Europe, especially those originating from Islamic countries, have been turned into icons of cultural difference by the general discourse on immigration. They are not recognized as actors in a changing society, just as society's changes through immigrants tend to be denied. This obscures the work and the accomplishments of women in the course of their immigration. Focusing on a biographical interview with a Turkish woman who came to Germany as a ‘guest worker’ in 1972, the (...) social history of this labour migration is outlined. Instances of ‘biographical work’ in the interview are discussed, pointing out the transformation potential of immigrant women's biographies. (shrink)

The global environmental and social-economic crises of industrialized agriculture have led to the emergence of agroecology as an alternative approach aiming to increase the ecological, social and economic sustainability of agri–food systems. The ‘multi-level perspective’ is now a widely used framework to understand and promote the upscaling of local innovation niches, such as agroecology, to broader scales (e.g., regional, national, international), thus reconfiguring the dominant socio-technical regimes. Additionally, emergent ‘hybrid forums’ can provide a space between niche and regime where niche (...) innovators can become important actors in scaling up and out emergent innovations. In this paper, we examine a university training program (Postgraduate Diploma in Local Agroecological Dynamization at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), to better understand its role as a ‘hybrid forum’. Our analysis focuses especially on how the program, as an example of a hybrid forum, worked to reconfigure practices, concepts, and tools of local development practitioners. We also assess to what extent the program contributed to transitioning local development institutions toward agroecology. An online survey (n = 46) and in-depth interviews (n = 16) were carried out to determine how the training program has impacted the student’s opinions and their respective institutions. The results show that most of the students consider that they have acquired new theoretical frameworks and useful methods to re-framing their local development projects, that new alliances with multi-actor networks have been perceived, and that some internal changes of the local development practices have taken place. We conclude that the training program, as a hybrid forum, is capable of outscaling niche innovations through linkages with different kind of actors both from the niche and the regime. Political changes in the socio-technical landscape level offer an opportunity to amplify the impact of the innovations which are being generated by those multi-actor networks, but with a limited multi-level impact as far as institutional regime-actors not aligned with agroecological transition keep the most of the competencies on agri–food systems. (shrink)

Cleaning the floor, stripping the bed, arranging a bouquet of flowers—such tasks are essential to keeping a hospital room clean and creating a pleasant atmosphere. They usually fall under the purview of female* nurses, cleaning staff and housekeepers. In everyday hospital life, the demands for hygienic cleanliness commingle with the imperatives of economization, marketing logic, and attention to the affective and emotional needs of the actors in these rooms. Although the standards of clinical hygiene are based on medical knowledge, the (...) division of labor and the demands for cleanliness at various hierarchical levels also reveal gendered and partly racialized ideas that point beyond the clinical context. This blending of imperatives in the hospital environment invites deeper consideration of the history of bacteriology: The logic and language of defense against infection in science and everyday life is also interwoven with social markers of difference.Drawing on the findings of an ethnography on cleanliness and cleaning work in hospitals, as well as a history of knowledge approach, the article links the question of (feminized) care for the environment with the question of the atmosphere of clinical rooms. In what ways, and to what effect, does scientific knowledge about medical hygiene also carry with it cultural and aesthetic perceptions of beautiful and pleasant cleanliness that reveal feminine connotations rooted in the nineteenth century? (shrink)

The majority of workplace incivility research has focused on implications of such acts for victims and observers. We extend this work in meaningful ways by proposing that, due to its norm-violating nature, incivility may have important implications for perpetrators as well. Integrating social norms theory and research on guilt with the behavioral concordance model, we take an actor-centric approach to argue that enacted incivility will lead to feelings of guilt, particularly for prosocially-motivated employees. In addition, given the interpersonally (...) burdensome _as well as_ the reparative nature of guilt, we submit that incivility-induced guilt will be associated with complex behavioral outcomes for the actor across both home and work domains. Through an experience sampling study (Study 1) and two experiments (Studies 2a and 2b), we found that enacting incivility led to increased feelings of guilt, especially for those higher in prosocial motivation (Studies 1 and 2a). In addition, supporting our expectations, Study 1 revealed that enacted incivility—via guilt—led to increased venting to one’s spouse that evening at home, increased performance the next day at work, as well as decreased enacted incivility the next day at work. Our findings demonstrate that enacted incivility has complex effects for actors that span the home and work domains. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our results. (shrink)

One of the strikingly iconoclastic features of actor-network theory is its juxtaposition of the claim to be a realist perspective with denials that supposedly natural phenomena existed before scientists “made them up.” This paper explains and criticizes such arguments in the work of Bruno Latour. By combining referent and reference in the concept of assemblages, Latour provides a superficially viable way to reconcile these apparently incompatible claims. This paper will argue, however, that this conflation of referent and reference (...) leads Latour’s ontology into difficulties that can only be resolved by abandoning it in favor of a more conventional—critical—realism. (shrink)

"In the same period Wagner was deeply inspired by the works of Shakespeare, an influence that runs throughout this volume. The title essay, "Actors and Singers," is one of Wagner's most deliberate and philosophical writings. He wrote, "Art ceases, strictly speaking, to be Art from the moment it presents itself as Art to our reflecting consciousness. " He described how the unconsciousness of art, and thus art's power, connected natural genius to cultivate traditions.

The future of work has become a pressing matter of concern: Researchers, business consultancies, and industrial companies are intensively studying how new work models could be best implemented to increase workplace flexibility and creativity. In particular, the agile model has become one of the “must-have” elements for re-organizing work practices, especially for technology development work. However, the implementation of agile work often comes together with strong presumptions: it is regarded as an inevitable tool that can (...) be universally integrated into different workplaces while having the same outcome of flexibility, transparency, and flattened hierarchies everywhere. This paper challenges such essentializing assumptions by turning agile work into a “matter of care.” We argue that care work occurs in contexts other than feminized reproductive work, namely, technology development. Drawing on concepts from feminist Science and Technology Studies and ethnographic research at agile technology development workplaces in Germany and Kenya, we examine what work it takes to actually keep up with the imperative of agile work. The analysis brings the often invisibilized care practices of human and nonhuman actors to the fore that are necessary to enact and stabilize the agile promises of flexibilization, co-working, and rapid prototyping. Revealing the caring sociotechnical relationships that are vital for working agile, we discuss the emergence of power asymmetries characterized by hierarchies of skills that are differently acknowledged in the daily work of technology development. The paper ends by speculating on the emancipatory potential of a care perspective, by which we seek to inspire careful Emancipatory Technology Studies. (shrink)

Beyond the reaches of scholarly debates about how to define and value civility properly, social actors across various institutional domains routinely demarcate civil from uncivil behavior. Yet this everyday classification process remains understudied and undertheorized, despite being widespread and having significant stakes for the individuals and groups involved. This article begins to fill this gap by developing the concept of civility contests—practical efforts to draw symbolic boundaries between civil and uncivil individuals, groups, or behaviors. Through a focus on the realm (...) of political protest in the United States, this article demonstrates that civility contests involve a wide range of political actors (including institutionalized power holders, opposing movements, and the media) who engage in this boundary-work in order to justify the control or (de)legitimation of protest. It then highlights patterned disparities in the outcomes of these contests, demonstrating that the likelihood of being marked as uncivil and the extent to which this prompts negative social sanction is shaped by one’s social position. Overall, the article seeks to stimulate and guide future empirical research on civility contests and to deepen theoretical understandings of the relationship between symbolic and social boundaries and the role of symbolic boundary-work in the reproduction of political inequality. (shrink)

The article demonstrates the possibility of applying an ANT to the analysis of religious monuments. The study of religion within the framework of memory studies demonstrates the realization of a trend laid down in the works of Durkheim regarding the distinction between religion and sacralization as a social phenomenon. From this point of view, religion cannot be regarded as an isolated social institution, but is a way of expressing the functional need to form a sacralized set of social practices and (...) rituals that contribute to the consolidation of society and the strengthening of collective identity. At the same time, in a pluralistic society, the preservation of this function by religion appears to be methodologically archaic, which suggests the involvement of new theoretical approaches that can problematize the place of religion in social space, whilst demonstrating the heterogeneity and fragmentation of religious practices. As a new theoretical model, the article proposes to use the variant of ANT presented in the works of J. Law. Its main principles are the use of spatial metaphors in describing social objects, as well as emphasizing the material status of objects that conflict with spatial configurations. The application of this approach to the analysis of religious monuments allows us to talk about the distinction between the material and network projection of monuments. A religious monument is not just a product of the representation of a certain symbolic system, but also has its own status as an actor. On the one hand, it becomes part of existing network of interactions, and, on the other, it creates new connections and new antitheses that transform the existing memorial landscape, giving rise to new forms of spatial configurations. (shrink)

The global environmental and social-economic crises of industrialized agriculture have led to the emergence of agroecology as an alternative approach aiming to increase the ecological, social and economic sustainability of agri–food systems. The ‘multi-level perspective’ is now a widely used framework to understand and promote the upscaling of local innovation niches, such as agroecology, to broader scales, thus reconfiguring the dominant socio-technical regimes. Additionally, emergent ‘hybrid forums’ can provide a space between niche and regime where niche innovators can become important (...) actors in scaling up and out emergent innovations. In this paper, we examine a university training program, to better understand its role as a ‘hybrid forum’. Our analysis focuses especially on how the program, as an example of a hybrid forum, worked to reconfigure practices, concepts, and tools of local development practitioners. We also assess to what extent the program contributed to transitioning local development institutions toward agroecology. An online survey and in-depth interviews were carried out to determine how the training program has impacted the student’s opinions and their respective institutions. The results show that most of the students consider that they have acquired new theoretical frameworks and useful methods to re-framing their local development projects, that new alliances with multi-actor networks have been perceived, and that some internal changes of the local development practices have taken place. We conclude that the training program, as a hybrid forum, is capable of outscaling niche innovations through linkages with different kind of actors both from the niche and the regime. Political changes in the socio-technical landscape level offer an opportunity to amplify the impact of the innovations which are being generated by those multi-actor networks, but with a limited multi-level impact as far as institutional regime-actors not aligned with agroecological transition keep the most of the competencies on agri–food systems. (shrink)

Purpose: Gordon Pask has left behind a voluminous scientific oeuvre in which he frequently uses technical language and a detail of argument that makes his work difficult to access except by the most dedicated of students. His ideas have also evolved over a long period. This paper provides introductions to three of Pask's key concepts: "conversations," "individuals," and "concepts." Method: Based on the author's close knowledge of Pask's work, as his collaborator for ten years and as someone who (...) has had access to and is familiar with almost all of his published work, the paper selects three of Pask's key concepts for elucidation in order to motivate the interested reader to explore Pask's work in the original. Results: Pask's key concepts, "conversations," "individuals," and "concepts," which are central in his conversation theory and his later elaborations in "interaction of actors theory," are shown to be grounded in fundamental principles from cybernetics. Furthermore, the form of Pask's theorising is that of second order (reflexive) metatheorising, developing theories of theorising that explain their own form and genesis. (shrink)

Background The world is urbanizing rapidly; more than half the world’s population now lives in urban areas, leading to significant transition in lifestyles and social behaviours globally. While offering many advantages, urban environments also concentrate health risks and introduce health hazards for the poor. In Bangladesh, although many public policies are directed towards equity and protecting people’s rights, these are not comprehensively and inclusively applied in ways that prioritize the health rights of citizens. The country is thus facing many issues (...) that raise moral and ethical concerns. Methods A narrative literature review was conducted between October 2016 and November 2017 on issues related to social justice, health, and human rights in urban Bangladesh. The key questions discussed here are: i) ethical dilemmas and inclusion of the urban poor to pursue social justice; and ii) the ethical obligations and moral responsibilities of the state and non-state sectors in serving Bangladesh’s urban poor. Using a Rawlsian theory of equality of opportunity to ensure social justice, we identified key health-related ethical issues in the country’s rapidly changing urban landscape, especially among the poor. Results We examined ethical dilemmas in Bangladesh’s health system through the rural–urban divide and the lack of coordination among implementing agencies. The unregulated profusion of the private sector and immoral practices of service providers result in high out-of-pocket expenditures for urban poor, leading to debt and further impoverishment. We also highlight policy and programmatic gaps, as well as entry points for safeguarding the right to health for Bangladeshi citizens. Conclusions The urban health system in Bangladesh needs a reform in which state and non-state actors should work together, understanding and acknowledging their moral responsibilities for improving the health of the urban poor by engaging multiple sectors. The social determinants of health should be taken into account when formulating policies and programs to achieve universal health coverage and ensure social justice for the urban poor in Bangladesh. (shrink)

The authoranalyzes the types of metaphors that are used to describe the Internetin issues of Wired magazine from before and after the dot-com collapse to understand the perceptions and expectations of some of the actors involved in the shaping of the Internet. In addition, the metaphors deployed in economics and geophysiology are used to demonstrate how metaphors can influence public debate, policy, and theory. The author argues that metaphors do not simply have a descriptive function but that they also carry (...) normative connotations. Language, alongside social practices and material objects, is an important tool in attempts to construct the future. Six overlapping metaphorical themes are identified: revolution, evolution, salvation, progress, universalism, and the “American dream.” A critical analysis of these metaphors, informed by a critique of the metaphors used in economics and geophysiology, leads the author to challenge the universalist claims made by some Internet enthusiasts for the inclusive potential of the Internet. (shrink)

In this article, we present an ethics framework for health practice in humanitarian and development work: the ethics of engaged presence. The ethics of engaged presence framework aims to articulate in a systematic fashion approaches and orientations that support the engagement of expatriate health care professionals in ways that align with diverse obligations and responsibilities, and promote respectful and effective action and relationships. Drawn from a range of sources, the framework provides a vocabulary and narrative structure for examining the (...) moral dimensions of providing development or humanitarian health assistance to individuals and communities, and working with and alongside local and international actors. The elements also help minimize or avoid certain miscalculations and harms. Emphasis is placed on the shared humanity of those who provide and those who receive assistance, acknowledgement of limits and risks related to the contributions of expatriate health care professionals, and the importance of providing skillful and relevant assistance. These elements articulate a moral posture for expatriate health care professionals that contributes to orienting the practice of clinicians in ways that reflect respect, humility, and solidarity. Health care professionals whose understanding and actions are consistent with the ethics of engaged presence will be oriented toward introspection and reflective practice and toward developing, sustaining and promoting collaborative partnerships. (shrink)

One of harm reduction’s most salient features is its pragmatism. Harm reduction purports to distinguish itself from dominant prohibitionist and abstinence-based policy paradigms by being grounded in what is realistic, in contrast with the moralism or puritanism of prohibition and abstention. This is reflected in the meme “harm reduction works”, popular both in institutional and grassroots settings. The idea that harm reduction is realistic and effective has meant different things among the main actors who seek to shape harm reduction policy. (...) Drawing on scholarly literature about harm reduction, as well as examples from recent harm reduction advocacy efforts in relation to drug policy in Canada, this paper argues that harm reduction distinguishes itself through a unique “way of knowing”. Grassroots harm reduction advocates, particularly as they argue through human rights frameworks, do more than simply make claims for the provision of particular services—like needle exchange, safe consumption sites, safe supply and the like—on the basis that these are realistic paths toward the health and well-being of people who use drugs. Rather, as they marshal lived experience in support of these policy changes through peer-driven initiatives in contexts of prohibition, they make particular claims about what constitute valid, methodologically rigorous evidence bases for action in contexts where policies to date have been driven by ideology and have developed in ways that have excluded and marginalized those most affected from policymaking. In doing so, they advocate for the centrality of people who use drugs not only in policy-making processes, but in evidence production itself. (shrink)

Despite the promise of new gene editing technologies (GETs) (e.g., CRISPR) in accelerating sustainable agri-food production, the social acceptability of these technologies remains unclear. Prior literature has primarily addressed the regulatory and economic issues impacting GETs ongoing acceptability, while little work has examined socio-cultural impacts despite evolving food policies and product commercialisation demanding input from various actors in the food system. Our systematic review across four databases addresses this gap by synthesising recent research on food system actors’ perspectives to (...) identify the key socio-cultural factors influencing GET acceptability. This review extends prior literature by including views from a more diverse range of actors (e.g., farmers and NGOs) and provides a better understanding of their perceived social benefits and concerns. We find food system actors perceive positive and negative impacts of using GETs in agriculture. These perspectives are often entangled in broader debates regarding sustainability and food systems issues (e.g., social justice). We discuss practical recommendations for policymakers, agri-food industry managers, and scientists to better align gene edited foods (GEFs) with food system actors’ values. GEF policy, development, and commercialisation must reflect social values such as collective wellbeing and transparency to improve actors’ acceptability. More research is required among marginalised food actors such as Indigenous and smallholder farmers. (shrink)

This article is organized in four sections. The first section introduces sensing governance in terms of the governance of effects rather than causation, focusing on the work of Bruno Latour in establishing the problematic of contingent interaction, rather than causal depth, as key to emergent effects, which can be unexpected and catastrophic. The second section considers in more depth how sensing governance enables politics by other means through putting greater emphasis on relations of interaction, rather than on ontologies of (...) being, and links the methodological approach of sensing governance closely to actor network assumptions that disavow structures of causation. The final two sections analyze how correlation works to reveal new agencies and processes of emergence and how new technologies have been deployed in this area, providing some examples of how the shift from causal relations to sensing effects has begun to alter governmental approaches. (shrink)

An increasing body of institutional research has examined organizations’ response to conflicting institutional logics, but few studies have looked into how cross-sector organizational actors experiencing institutional complexity strategize their response mechanisms to create value in the context of corporate social responsibility (CSR). We conduct a comparative case study of nine social partnerships between multinational companies (MNCs) and nonprofits in China. We identify a partnership logic among the value-creating partnerships where partners guided by an either/and mindset take joint ownership of the (...) social or sustainability issue/cause and integrate it into their core set of activities and goals. By contrast, the less successful partnerships guided by an either/or mindset pursue a substitution logic in which the issue and project are kept separate and marginalized from core activities and goals. We contribute to an understanding of the value creation of cross-sector social partnerships by revealing the institutional embeddedness of such partnerships and deriving a process model of collaborative value creation through institutional works in social partnerships. (shrink)

This essay is written in two sections. The first, following a short introduction, is made up of three scenarios drawn from the life and work of Martin Buber. As well as demonstrating his obvious interest in human relationships with the other-than-human, each scenario describes an encounter between either Buber himself or a stand-in character and a member of the other-than-human world. Together, these scenes not only suggest that I/Thou encounters are possible with the other-than-human, and that they are important (...) for the development of the human I, but also outline characteristics that make such encounters possible. The second section focuses on Buber's description of the “great actor” in order to offer a way teachers might engage their own students with the other-than-human world. Just as the actor embodies both the character and his or her own person in a dramatic role, so the teacher might embody the I/Thou relationship with the natural world, becoming Teacher/Tree, and exemplifying that relationship with the students. (shrink)

The paper argues that one of the reasons the suppression of scientific dissent during the Covid pandemic has been so severe was because the dominant scientific Covid narrative has been turned into a political myth, i.e. a narrative mobilizing groups in support of key moral values. Taking the example of Covid vaccination, I show the key values with which it became linked in Czechia. Questioning vaccination came to be seen as endangering these values, which made scientific dissent appear as particularly (...) dangerous. I further analyse how this schematic discourse dealt with “free-vax” scientists, who were not against Covid vaccination as such but only against its blanket application. I show that their discreditation was mainly carried out by various fact-checking NGOs or social media influencers, who attempted to delegitimize them not by scientific arguments but rather by associating them with more dubious groups of social actors, or labelling their views as “disinformation”. This discrediting strategy was largely successful, but it also had some undesirable social and political backfire effects, in that it pushed some of the free-vaxxers out of the liberal democratic mainstream and forced them to seek alliance with more anti-systemic segments of the population in attempts at political resistance. (shrink)

This study examined the role of key causal analysis strategies in forecasting and ethical decision-making. Undergraduate participants took on the role of the key actor in several ethical problems and were asked to identify and analyze the causes, forecast potential outcomes, and make a decision about each problem. Time pressure and analytic mindset were manipulated while participants worked through these problems. The results indicated that forecast quality was associated with decision ethicality, and the identification of the critical causes of (...) the problem was associated with both higher quality forecasts and higher ethicality of decisions. Neither time pressure nor analytic mindset impacted forecasts or ethicality of decisions. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

The question of judgment has become one of the central problems in recent social, political and ethical thought. This paper explores Hannah Arendt's decisive contribution to this debate by attempting to reconstruct analytically two distinctive perspectives on judgment from the corpus of her writings. By exploring her relation to Aristotelian and Kantian sources, and by uncovering debts and parallels to key thinkers such as Benjamin and Heidegger, it is argued that Arendt's work pinpoints the key antinomy within political judgment (...) itself, that between the viewpoints of the political actor and the political spectator. The paper concludes by highlighting some lacunae and difficulties in the development of Arendt's account, difficulties that set challenges for those theorists (such as Seyla Benhabib and Alessandro Ferrara) who wish to appropriate and extend Arendt's contribution into the field of contemporary critical theory. Key Words: action • aesthetics • community • freedom • history • judgment • reflection. (shrink)

Studies of creative industries typically contend that creative work is profoundly precarious, taking place on a freelance basis in highly competitive, individualized and contingent labour markets. Such studies depict creative workers as correspondingly self-enterprising, self-reliant, self-interested and calculative agents who valorise care-free independence. In contrast, we adopt the ‘ethics of care’ approach to explore, recognize and appreciate the communitarian, relational and moral considerations as well as interpersonal connectedness and interdependencies that underpin creative work. Drawing on in-depth interviews with (...) creative workers in a range of marginal socio-cultural contexts, we argue that creative workers cultivate and sustain a diverse array of practices of care arising from an affective concern with the well-being of others. Far from being merely individualistic and crudely competitive actors, creative workers enact practical ethical responsibilities and affectivities towards a range of human and non-human others, including families, local communities and neighbourhoods, colleagues, artistic scenes and their adjacent genres, and surrounding national and linguistic cultures. In emphasizing the fundamental and structuring role of care in contingent labour markets our approach accords with recent trends in the social sciences that ‘affirmatively’—as opposed to ‘negatively’ and ‘suspiciously’—recognize that mutuality, solidarity and affectivity are powerful drivers of action on a par with or even exceeding market-driven self-centredness. (shrink)

Institutionalism gives priority to structure over agency. Yet institutions have never developed and operated without the intervention of interested groups. This paper develops a conceptual framework for the role of agency in historical institutionalism. Based on recent contributions following the coalitional turn and drawing on insights from sociological institutionalism, it argues that agency plays a key role in the creation and maintenance of social coalitions that stabilize but also challenge institutions. Without such agency, no coalition can be created, maintained, or (...) changed. Similarly, without a supporting coalition, no contested institution can survive. Yet, due to collective action problems, such coalitional work is challenging. This coalitional perspective offers a robust role for agency in historical institutionalism, but it also explains why institutions remain stable despite agency. In addition, this paper forwards several portable propositions that allow for the identification of who is likely to develop agency and what these actors do. (shrink)

This paper investigates how participants in cross-functional project groups use a formal work method in their sense making when dealing with the complexity of innovative work, especially in its inventive phase. The empirical basis of the paper is a prospective case study in which three project groups in three different companies are followed as they try to frame and solve their innovation tasks consisting in problems of a relatively general and vague character. The data are analyzed by means (...) of a modified version of the principles of grounded theory. This means that the lessons drawn from the empirical data are guided by a relational sense making perspective in which the formal method used by the participants is seen as a technological artifact. Among the lessons learned by using this frame of reference are that a formal method may be seen as an entity with a meaning depending on the relations it is embedded in; as an enacted cue for interpretation and action; and as a non-human actor. Compared to the tradition of organizational development, these lessons represent an alternative conception of the implementation of a work method and illuminate prevailing notions about the importance of improvisation in innovation. (shrink)

Women are important actors in smallholder farmer milk production. Therefore, female input in the dairy cooperatives is essential to dairy development in emerging economies. Within dairy value chains, however, their contributions are often not formally acknowledged or rewarded. This article contributes to filling this gap by adopting a multileveled institutional perspective to explore the case of dairy development in the Pangalengan mixed-sex dairy cooperative on West Java, Indonesia. The objective is to add evidence from the dairy development practice in Indonesia (...) to the current agenda for gender and development as well as identify pathways for future research on dairy development that will help it do better in practice. Central to the exploration is a discussion of formal and informal institutions as part of the dynamics of the inequality regimes in dairy cooperatives. Evidence from dairy development practices in the Pangalengan cooperative shows, among others, distinct differences between the participation of male and female target groups in dairy development extension, as well as farm size- and resource-related trends in ‘masculinization’ and ‘feminization’ of the smallholder farmer household. The conclusions contribute to debates on more resilient, thus sustainable working relations in food chains, women’s empowerment, gender equality and social justice in agriculture as well as cooperative studies. (shrink)

The Soviet psychologist L. S. Vygotsky was immersed in theater and the arts through much of his life, collaborating with scholars of the psychology of acting, including Konstantin Stanislavski’s close confidante and long-time editor Liubov Gurevich, on terms and theories expressed in his historically defining text, An Actor’s Work. This article connects linguistic, theoretical, and methodological aspects of Stanislavski’s work with Vygotsky’s quest to develop a new psychology, finding its apogee in the works of his final years, (...) especially after he gained access to an extended draft of Stanislavski’s chapters. As Vygotsky’s theories continue to influence the field of psychology, this article looks to provide a guidepost for refining understanding of Vygotsky’s theories based on archival evidence and a close reading of contemporary translations of Vygotsky’s major works. (shrink)