In areas of land conflict, fear and the threat of violence work to reproduce imaginaries of land as a resource that powerful people can grab. An urgent question for agrarian scholars and activists is how people can overcome fear so that alternative imaginaries might flourish. In this article, we argue for attention to the affective dimension of imaginaries; ideas of what land is and should be are co-constituted through the material and social, imbued with powerful emotions that enable imaginaries to (...) be reproduced, to be challenged, and even to be transformed. We draw from long-term research projects in Cambodia—a country known for plantation-fuelled dispossession—where the Prime Minister’s surprise announcement of a land titling campaign in 2012 ruptured the wave of land grabbing, creating openings to imagine different outcomes that are rooted in the potential for legal recognition of smallholder claims. Although the campaign was an uncertain rupture in land imaginaries, these moments matter. Land claimants sought to create affective ties with volunteer land surveyors that embedded hopeful land imaginaries in rural areas and into the national cadastral system. The land title in this context is the material bearer of a land imaginary that centres on rural people’s connection to the land, and also reinforces rural people’s connection to the Cambodian state and the potential to gain the state’s protection. We contribute to an emerging literature that locates the formative effects of hope as an orientation and as a method by exploring the possibilities inherent in rupture. (shrink)

The recent cycle of social struggles against precarity in Italy has been characterized by an extensive use of images representing precarious workers. This contribution explores this in the case of the Euro Mayday Parade (EMP) protest campaign. The subversion of existing popular culture traditions was the main objective of the activists’ newly created icons such as San Precario, Serpica Naro and other visual tools. The visual work on gender in the EMP seemed to fill a gap between theoretical work on (...) the feminization of affective and immaterial labour and the less predominant presence of gender. Visual icons seem to have been at least as successful as text messages in publicizing the precarity discourse and their production deserves further attention. (shrink)

Building on research demonstrating relationships between well being and perceptions of aspects of life as sacred, this study describes the rationale for and development of a scale measuring perceiving sacredness in life. It then explores associations between perceptions of sacredness in life and these four domains: religious/spiritual, personal, social, and situational. Participants responded to a mailing to a national random sample within the United States, completing 16 scales pertaining to the religious/spiritual, personal, social, and situational domains. While many variables were (...) correlated with perceiving sacredness in life, there were three overall predictors: intrinsic religiosity, mysticism, and community service attitude. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Just Sustainability: Technology, Ecology, and Resource Extraction eds. by Christiana Z. Peppard and Andrea ViciniTallessyn Zawn Grenfell-LeeJust Sustainability: Technology, Ecology, and Resource Extraction Edited by Christiana Z. Peppard and Andrea Vicini maryknoll, ny: orbis, 2015. 304 pp. $42.00Just Sustainability offers a detailed journey through various Catholic contextual understandings of what ecological sustainability means today in light of the demands of justice. In the first section of the (...) book, called "Locations" (11–53), the contributors put concepts of sustainability into dialog with concerns of socioeconomic, gender, and racial justice from contexts as diverse as Europe, East Asia, India, Africa, and North America. The various locations share common themes, such as the importance of deep meanings of the term "sustainability," the priority of education and advocacy, the resource and energy challenges behind structures of injustice, and the primary role of economics. Yet distinctive emphases emerge from the diverse contexts as well. Examples include the [End Page 200] need for humility instead of the ironic arrogance of nuclear energy in Japan, the widespread challenges of corruption in Africa and Mexico, and the problem of the agriculture lobby in the United States.The second section, "Structures" (57–156), steps back from specific cultural contexts and explores various systemic approaches to the challenge of just sustainability. Using Catholic social teachings, the authors again often speak from diverse global contexts, but with reference specifically to economic and societal systems such as politics, measurements of well-being, urban planning, food and agriculture, and health care. In this section the authors speak of which structures have worked and which have failed to build just and sustainable societies. For example, in the Philippines, more accountability through transparency and regular reporting helped impact energy efficiency. In Kenya and Chad, the authors highlight the need for reliable social systems of access, communication, collaboration, and government in order to counter corruption and build sustainable programs to address HIV, hunger, employment, and food sovereignty. Several authors also describe the positive impact of more democratic and egalitarian participatory structures that involve the people most affected by ecological decisions and policies.The last section, "Theological Stances and Sustainable Relations" (159–268), delves more deeply into Catholic theological resources to provide both a foundation as well as specific practices of just sustainability. The authors wrestle with theocentric, biocentric, and anthropocentric concepts of humanity and the imago Dei, the Eucharist as a potentially powerful way to connect ideas of inequity, the promise of ecofeminist theologies in elevating the wisdom of local peoples to build just sustainability practices, and virtue ethics and Catholic social teachings to foster ecological conversion and build solidarity, hope, and efficacy.The book sets itself a challenging task, to provide a coherent picture of Catholic approaches to building just sustainability while presenting a spectrum of not only diverse cultural and geographical contexts but also diverse theologies. In the end, the book reveals the ways in which Catholic laity and leaders are creatively responding to the challenge of just sustainability across much of the globe by using a combination of ecclesial, theological, and social scientific resources. The book would have benefited from a concluding essay to tie together some of the salient themes from the numerous, somewhat disparate essays, and a chapter from South America would have strengthened the global orientation of the collection. Nonetheless, the reader is left with a more holistic understanding of the difficult task of just sustainability as well as the wealth of work toward this goal from many parts of the Earth. [End Page 201]Tallessyn Zawn Grenfell-LeeBoston University School of TheologyCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Bourdieu and Education details the practical applications of Bourdieu's theories in a series of specific pedagogic research studies, showing how his ideas can be put into practice. Language, gender, career decision-making and the experience of higher education students are all covered. Questions are also raised concerning research methodology. The authors also examine Bourdieu's interest in the position of the researcher within the research process. Bourdieu's influence is traced in aspects of both theory and practice. Finally, principles, approaches, methods and techniques (...) that may be derived from Bourdieu are suggested, and assessed, for practical use in research. (shrink)

Pierre Bourdieu is now recognized as one of the key contemporary critics of culture and the visual arts. Art Rules analyses Bourdieu's work on the visual arts to provide the first overview of his theory of culture and aesthetics. Bourdieu's engagement with both postmodernism and the problem of aesthetics provides a new way of analyzing the visual arts. His interest is in how artistic fields function and the implications their processes have for art and artistic practice. Art Rules applies Bourdieu's (...) theory of practice to the three fields of museums, photography and painting. These practical examples are used as a springboard to address visual arts in the 21st Century and to establish Bourdieu's rules of art. (shrink)

This article investigates the relationship between occupied social centres in Milan, Italy, and social media platforms. It reviews literature on the political and cultural significance of occupied social centres as spaces enabling of political autonomy since the 1960s. Then through participant observation and interviews conducted in late 2022, the research examines how platform capitalism – online media platforms and the connective ecosystem in which they exist – has impacted on three occupied social centres in the greater Milan area: ZAM, Boccaccio (...) and Piano Terra. Their members interviewed for this study described three broad approaches to dealing with the social media of platform capitalism, starting with the most popular: to engage strategically with social media platforms for outreach while attempting to create a physical prefigurative political space; to ignore and disengage from social media platforms; and to create and use their own platforms. The article discusses the nuances and tensions in and around these approaches that can further understandings about how social media platforms impact capacity to create and sustain occupied social centres and, potentially, other forms of prefigurative space. (shrink)

This article seeks to explore a neglected perspective in pastoral theology: namely that of the influence of conservative family culture and church practice on the spiritual, emotional, and physical development of young Christian women, particularly in the area of disordered eating patterns and negative self-image. It shows the ways in which hidden tensions, particularly within somewhat marginal Christian communities, or for groups which seek to define themselves strongly against prevailing secular cultural norms, can play themselves out in the inner conflicts (...) of vulnerable young women. Such conflicts often centre on their difficulties in trying to define themselves in relation to their family and culture when they may have neither the opportunity nor the language to articulate the burden of such hidden conflicts. The author suggests models of pastoral care which involve working with Christian tradition and scriptural narratives to help Christian communities, and particularly women within them, to redefine assumptions about female roles and norms, and to develop a more open and physically grounded spirituality. (shrink)

The French social philosopher Pierre Bourdieu is now recognised as one of the major thinkers of the twentieth century. In a career of over fifty years, Bourdieu studied a wide range of topics: education, culture, art, politics, economics, literature, law, and philosophy. Throughout these studies, Bourdieu developed a highly specialised series of concepts that he referred to as his "thinking tools", which were used to uncover the workings of contemporary society. Pierre Bourdieu: Key Concepts highlights his most important concepts and (...) examines them in detail. Each chapter deals with an individual concept and is written to be of immediate use to the student with little or no previous knowledge of Bourdieu. This new edition of the leading text is entirely revised and updated and includes new essays on Methodology, Politics and Social Space. (shrink)

This review essay evaluates Karl Maton's Knowledge and Knowers: Towards a Realist Sociology of Education as a recent examination of the sociological causes and effects of education in the tradition of the French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu and the British educational sociologist Basil Bernstein. Maton's book synthesizes the scholarship of Bourdieu and Bernstein and complements their work with “discoveries” from the world of systemic functional linguistics to produce a new “realist sociology of education.” It does so by means of Legitimation (...) Code Theory, defined as a “toolkit” to analyze knowledge construction in cultural fields, especially education. The authors of this review essay take a polyphonic approach in assessing this ambitious synthesis, offering four perspectives on Maton's book. Brian Barrett provides a Bernsteinian perspective; Dan Schubert approaches the book from his grounding in Bourdieu; and Susan Hood contributes a view from systemic functional linguistics. Michael Grenfell weaves these three perspectives together and provides introductory and concluding reflections. They aim, through their combined expertise, to use Maton's book as an occasion to take stock of the state of the field of sociology of education generally and to reflect on the questions: What is its nature and what type of knowledge does it express? To what uses may it be set and what is its place within the larger project of educational theory? (shrink)

RésuméDans cet article, j'explore les intimités épistémiques de l'amitié, en m'inspirant à la fois de la philosophie de Steven Burns et des nouvelles d'Alice Munro. J'identifie trois formes distinctes de ce que j'appelle « l'intimité épistémique ». Les amis peuvent refléter qui nous sommes ou ils peuvent façonner qui nous sommes selon la compréhension qu'ils ont de nous. Au-delà de ces rôles miroirs et constructifs, nous vivons l'expérience d'une intimité épistémique avec des amis simplement par les manières distinctes dont (...) nous nous occupons d'eux, et dont ils s'occupent de nous. De plus, la reconnaissance des disparités entre les diverses formes d'intimités épistémiques nous permet d'expliquer pourquoi certaines amitiés perdurent alors que d'autres échouent. (shrink)

The contributors to this study present and evaluate a number of powerful conceptual tools that have been developed by Pierre Bourdieu, a key social theorist of the 20th century. He has defined a new approach to the study of sociology.

While the influence of emotion on individuals'' ethical decisions has been identified by numerous researchers, little is known about how emotions influence individuals'' ethical decision process. Thus, it is not clear whether different emotions promote and/or discourage ethical decision-making in the workplace. To address this gap, this paper develops a model that illustrates how emotion affects the components of individuals'' ethical decision-making process. The model is developed by integrating research findings that consider the two dimensions of emotion, arousal and feeling (...) state, into an applied cognitive-developmental perspective on the process of ethical decision-making. The model demonstrates that certain emotional states influence the individual''s propensity to identify ethical dilemmas, facilitate the formation of the individual''s prescriptive judgments at sophisticated levels of moral development, lead to ethical decision choices that are consistent with the individual''s prescriptive judgements, and promote the individual''s compliance with his or her ethical decision choices. In particular, the model suggests that individuals experiencing arousal and positive affect resolve ethical dilemmas in a manner consistent with more sophisticated cognitive moral structures. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. (shrink)

Obtaining consent for medical treatment in older adults raises a number of complex challenges. Despite being required by ethics and the law, consent for medical treatment is not always validly sought in this population. The dynamic nature of capacity, particularly in individuals who have dementia or other cognitive impairments, adds complexity to obtaining consent. Further challenges arise in ensuring that older people comprehend the medical treatment information provided and that consent is not vitiated by coercion or undue influence. Existing mechanisms (...) to address issues surrounding consent for older adults only address incapacity and raise further challenges. As the ageing population increases, these issues are likely to become more profound, thus action is required to address these challenges. Raising awareness, more education, engaging with people with dementia, and conducting further research would assist in beginning to overcome these challenges. (shrink)

Wider possibilities for moral thought -- Objectivity revisited: a lesson from the work of J.L. Austin -- Ethics, inheriting from Wittgenstein -- Moral thought beyond moral judgment: the case of literature -- Reclaiming moral judgment: the case of feminist thought -- Moralism as a central moral problem.

Alice Crary is a moral and social philosopher who has written widely on issues in metaethics, moral psychology and normative ethics, philosophy and feminism, critical animal studies, critical disability studies, critical philosophy of race, philosophy and literature, and Critical Theory. She has written on philosophers such as John L. Austin, Stanley Cavell, Cora Diamond, John McDowell, Iris Murdoch and Ludwig Wittgenstein. This is the first of two parts of the interview with Crary conducted in a single exchange in the (...) first weeks of January 2022, where she discusses ordinary language philosophy and feminism, Wittgenstein’s conception of mind and its relation to feminist ethics, the link between Wittgenstein and Critical Theory, and her own views about efforts to bring about social and political transformations. The second part on “Wittgenstein and Critical Theory” is published in the regular volume 11 of NWR. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly relied upon by clinicians for making diagnostic and treatment decisions, playing an important role in imaging, diagnosis, risk analysis, lifestyle monitoring, and health information management. While research has identified biases in healthcare AI systems and proposed technical solutions to address these, we argue that effective solutions require human engagement. Furthermore, there is a lack of research on how to motivate the adoption of these solutions and promote investment in designing AI systems that align with values (...) such as transparency and fairness from the outset. Drawing on insights from psychological theories, we assert the need to understand the values that underlie decisions made by individuals involved in creating and deploying AI systems. We describe how this understanding can be leveraged to increase engagement with de-biasing and fairness-enhancing practices within the AI healthcare industry, ultimately leading to sustained behavioral change via autonomy-supportive communication strategies rooted in motivational and social psychology theories. In developing these pathways to engagement, we consider the norms and needs that govern the AI healthcare domain, and we evaluate incentives for maintaining the status quo against economic, legal, and social incentives for behavior change in line with transparency and fairness values. (shrink)