In First-World-War Britain, women's ambition to perform noncombatant duties for the military faced considerable public opposition. Nevertheless, by late 1916 up to 10,000 members of the female volunteer corps were working for the army, laying the foundation for some 90,000 auxiliaries of the official Women's Services, who filled support positions in the armed forces in the second half of the war. This essay focuses on the public debate in which the volunteers overcame their critics to understand how they obtained sufficient (...) popular consent for their martial work. I explain the process in terms of shifting hegemonic understandings of space. As critics' arguments in the debate indicate, the gender attribution of war participation was organized and represented spatially, assigning men to the warlike “front” as warriors and women to the peaceful “home” as civilians. To redefine the meaning of these gendered wartime spaces, women volunteers deployed rival spatial discourses and practices in their campaign for martial employment. The essay explores the progress of these competing definitions through feminist and spatial theories, including gender performativity, discursively constructed and constructive spaces, and heterotopias. I argue that the upheaval caused by the war in gender and spatial norms undermined absolute conceptualizations of space with dichotomous binary areas on which critics drew for their arguments and reinforced more recent, relative spatialities, including the cultural construction of militarized heterotopic sites in between and paralleling both “home” and “front” for soldiers in training or recovery. The volunteers' efforts to gain access to military employment both contributed to and were supported by this shift. Heterotopic sites offered ideal discursive locations for constructing the new gender role of auxiliary soldiering through the performance of martial training and work, and competing spatial definitions provided arguments through which they could justify their activities to both critics and supporters. (shrink)

With the rise of the so-called military-entertainment complex, critical scholars note with alarm the integration of the political economies of entertainment companies and the military, in particular its potential influence on millions of young people who consume its concomitant films, toys and especially video games. Seen from a broad perspective, a potentially productive means of understanding the complexities of this sphere is through the lens of Michel Foucault’s notion of governmentality—a concept that ties together the actions and preferred outcomes of (...) the modern surveillance state with the microlevel actions of individual behavior. In this analytical framework, social norms are inculcated through subtle forms of coercion, where the state establishes the field of action in which state subjects ultimately perform self-discipline. This article argues that the first person shooter genre inculcates what I refer to as the governmentality of battlefield space: a form of discipline in which players adhere to gamic norms of performance—efficiency, proficiency, and masculine performativity—which are delineated by ludic structures and largely understood on terms which originate within the social ecology of gaming. The genre accomplishes this though disciplinary techniques such as informational verisimilitude, statistics, and masculinized “gamer” discourse, particularly during multiplayer instances, in which players constitute social understandings of what is “good” and “bad” play. It is on these terms that virtual combat performance and player performance become conflated in a kind of masculinized performance, which both adheres to and undermines traditional, hegemonic norms of (Western) military masculinity. This phenomenon transcends local social realities, and highlights the ways in which particular aspects of gaming and combat appear to have increasingly overlapping phenomenological and ontological qualities, working to produce a form of self-performance that may be required of tomorrow’s soldiers. (shrink)

South Africa's transition to democracy coincided and interlinked with massive global shifts, including the fall of communism and the rise of western capitalist triumphalism. Late capitalism operates through paradoxical global-local dynamics, both universalising identities and expanding local particularities. The erstwhile hegemonic identity of apartheid, 'the Afrikaner', was a product of Afrikaner nationalism. Like other identities, it was spatially organised, with Afrikaner nationalism projecting its imagined community onto a national territory. The study traces the neo-nationalist spatial permutations of 'the Afrikaner', (...) following Massey's understanding of space as political, produced through interrelations ranging from the global to micro intimacies, potentially a sphere for heterogeneous co-existence, and continuously created. Research is presented that shows a neo-nationalist revival of ethnic privileges in a defensive version of Hall's 'return to the local'. Although Afrikaner nationalism's territorial claims to a nation state were defeated, neo-nationalist remnants reclaim a purchase on white Afrikaans identities, albeit in shrunken territories. This phenomenon is, here, called Afrikaner enclave nationalism. Drawing on a global revamping of race as a category of social subjugation, a strategy is deployed that is here called 'inward migration'. These dynamics produce a privatised micro-apartheid in sites ranging from homes, to commercial and religious enterprises, to suburbs. Virtual white spaces in the form of Afrikaans media products serve as extensions of these whitened locales. The lynchpin holding it all together is the heteronormative, middle-class family, with consumption the primary mode of the generation of its white comfort zones. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Social media has given way to information and prosumption-oriented discursive fields wherein individuals construct their own social identities. Although interactivity, multimodality, user-centeredness and accessibility are the unique aspects of digital media but the fact that digital media as effective spaces for representing extreme self/other representation while being anonymous and free from following social norms, can cause dysfunctional social behaviours such as cyber hate. Mirroring the normative notions of femininity, masculinity and gender stereotype allows groups and individuals to connect and (...) express similar manifestations of hate, which, often result in the emergence of a ‘discursive spiral of hate’, misogyny and sexism. This paper draws on the important caveats discussed around Social Media-Critical Discourse Studies understanding of the contemporary digital discourses to deconstruct the complex relations between gender, hate speech and celebrities’ discourses on social media. In particular, how Lena Dunham, American celebrity, portrays herself on her Instagram page by going against the hegemonic views and how the audiences, i.e. the digital prosumers perceive that portrayal. Analysing 2000 user-generated comments deconstruct how women are required to suppress their feeling and limit their authentic online presentation to maintain the outward countenance that matches the stereotypical gender roles in audiences’ state of mind. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Public discourse under authoritarian rule is not monolithic. Yet how popular rhetoric engages with the hegemonic rhetoric in the same discursive space remains understudied. This article examines the rhetoric of a standup comedy show in China, streamed online and widely popular among Chinese millennials, to understand how alternative views on social issues can coexist with the hegemonic rhetoric. Using critical discourse analysis, it argues that some standup comedy performances transgress the hegemonic rhetoric of 'positive energy' (...) without outright subversion. Comedians use subversive affirmation, self-deprecation, ambiguity, absurd fantasy, and irony to present alternative viewpoints on social issues of broad interest, such as the neoliberal work culture and gender norms. The subtle yet powerful transgressions introduce previously marginal views into the public discourse, diminishing the aura of wide acceptance and authority assumed by the hegemonic rhetoric. The standup comedy performances thus open up new discursive pathways towards non-state-sanctioned views on important social issues. (shrink)

The hegemonic discourse of sustainable development adopted as an international alternative solution to the socio-ecological crisis has implied a progression of the modern utopian project and most importantly, an intrinsic contradiction and omission that positions sustainable development as something that is not in any place. To understand, discuss, and transcend this oxymoron, we first review the modern utopian project and analyze its paradigmatic and ontological assumptions about knowledge, time, and space. Second, we show that sustainable development just re-adapted (...) the founding premises of the modern utopias. Third, to transcend the modern utopian facet of sustainable development, we suggest an understanding of sustainability that stems from a topographical way of thinking. We suggest this approach allows us to seek alternatives to the modern epistemology and ontology that have shaped the current dominant vision of sustainable development. Finally, we propose to move from the modern utopia of sustainable development to the praxis of topographical sustainabilities to trigger a more comprehensive and relational praxis of sustainability. (shrink)

In a society marked by transnational migration and religious globalization, spatial factors are assuming a central role in the understanding of social relations. This is most prominent in urban areas, where the coexistence of culturally and religiously diverse subjects imposes a forced sharing of territory. Starting from a study of the semiotic concept of the city, the contribution aims first of all to explore the claimed right of the other to use public space through the creation of _aedes sacrae_. (...) It will show how the construction of a place of worship of a ‘minority’ religion can alter the pre-existing urban geography, leaving its imprint on space. Through a brief examination of the Italian constitutional jurisprudence on the so-called “anti-mosque” legislation, the paper will also outline a semantically relational conception of the religious building, offering a starting point for a rethinking of spatial organisation. An intercultural application of law is then needed insofar as the aim is towards a non-hegemonic polyphonic rewriting of urban territory. (shrink)

This paper deals with the traditional philosophical understanding of space in comparison with the contemporary physical understanding of space, which is under the influence of Einstein’s theory of relativity. As the first variant of the traditional philosophical understanding of space, an understanding of space as the property of existing beings is stated. This tradition takes us from ancient Greek philosophy to Descartes and Newton’s understanding of absolute space. As the second variant of the traditional philosophical (...) understanding of space, an understanding of space as the aprioristic intuition of mind, which enables us to perceive beings existing in absolute space, is stated. This tradition leads from Kant’s philosophy to contemporary theories of the inborn aprioristic faculty of mind. The untenableness of these variants, which include the concept of absolute space, is shown with the help of proofs that confirm Einstein’s theory of relativity, and with the help of non-Euclidean’s geometries. With the help of examples from Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose’s discussion concerning the nature of space and time, it is shown that the contemporary physical understanding of space remains inside the frames of philosophical understanding of three-dimensional space. With the help of the ontological foundation of the rules of deductive logic, what is shown is the measure of actuality of the aprioristic variant of philosophical understanding of space. (shrink)

Teachers’ engagement in critical intellectual and research work in England has been challenged in recent years under hegemonic policies and practices in teacher education. Since 2019, centralisation, standardisation and accountability in teacher education have intensified, along with explicit criticism of university involvement. Some describe teaching in England as a ‘semi-profession’ where teachers are positioned as technicians and their engagement in wider ethical, moral and intellectual endeavours are discouraged. Within this challenging policy and practice context, this paper argues that there (...) is a need to reconsider the space of professional learning over professional development for teachers, and that Master’s level qualifications can be site for potentially transformative learning experiences for teachers. An empirical research project is reported, where teachers’ lived experiences of engaging in critical intellectual and research work through part-time MA Education were systematically mapped and interrogated. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and video diaries. Analysis of significant episodes of each teacher’s narrative unlocked an understanding of their shared journeys as ‘becoming’, ‘being’ and ‘belonging’ as a teacher and a researcher. Conclusions and recommendations are presented which challenge current reductive policies and practices along with a call to prioritise teachers’ critical and intellectual knowledge and research work. (shrink)

This article stems from a sense of discontent and frustration that the cultural position of Eastern/Central European feminisms have not been theorized enough in comparison with other non-First World feminisms. To construct my argument, I use a rhetorical figure, zeugma, which is able to underpin the specificity and the commonalities of the post-Communist area feminisms as compared to the hegemonic feminisms of the world or to Third World feminisms. Zeugma (from an ancient Greek word meaning “bridge”) is a figure (...) of speech that relies on balance and acceptance of grammatical difference. An almost perfect cultural space shifter, Eastern/Central Europe produces feminist discourses that constitute, in my opinion, zeugmatic spaces in the worldwide concerto of world feminisms.I suggest that many of the problems of contemporary feminist theory arise from the context that has defined feminist theory. Only if we fully understand this context will we be in a position to understand how to escape from the dilemmas posed by this context” (Joan C. Tronto, Moral Boundaries. A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care)“Which is why the critique of all discourses concerning gender, including those produced or promoted as feminist, continues to be as vital a part of feminism as is the ongoing effort to create new spaces of discourse, to rewrite cultural narratives, and to define the terms of another perspective—a view from ‘elsewhere’” (Teresa de Lauretis, Technologies of Gender). (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article asks how social media changes and challenges critical agency through spatial, networked and embodied discourses? It argues that CDS has the potential to explore relations and contexts that go beyond the deliberative participatory, affective and exploitative conditions of social media. Employing a critical discursive reading of street artist Banksy’s mural of a Les Misérables-poster on the public wall across from the French embassy in London in 2016, we argue that social media is neither purely deliberative, affective, nor (...) exploitative. The illustrative case allows us to trace the intricate digital intertextual and interdiscursive relations between social media, public spaces and embodied politics offered in counter-discourse. Further, the case brings new light to the ability of CDS in combination with political discourse theory to underscore the political agency in social contexts. While critiques of the affective and exploitative conditions of social media have merit as critiques of hegemonic discourses, an affirmative response that emphasises the political agency in counter-discourses highlights the nuances of social media. This article argues that intersecting CDS with social media presents an opportunity to gain a complex understanding of how the political is played out in changing publics consisting of different mediated spaces, digital as well as non-digital. (shrink)

From a more physicalistic point of view the paper gives a brief overview of Boscovich’s thought about the bilayer of space and time, real space and time, and mathematical space and time, without going into philosophical analysis in detail. The paper provides examples of possible correspondence between Boscovich’s thought and physicalist concepts in modern physics.

Art’s obsession with politics is a problem, even a paradox. The more art there is, the less it shares with the political. Even the radical character of contemporary artistic practices revolves around the idea that there are no alternatives to liberal democracy and capitalist pluralism without risking another dystopia – a paradigm that, in the artistic realm, is articulated as the opposition between modernism and postmodernism. Indeed, with three recent transformations of our understanding; of emancipatory politics; the nature of aesthetics; (...) and the post-Fordist transformation of capitalism, many argue that we overcome the fundamental challenges of aesthetic and political modernities and encounter ‘things’ beyond power relations and beyond aesthetics. However, even at its most creative, art has more in common with hegemony than capitalism. At every hegemonic turn, artwork is directed against itself, only to reinstate another art form in order to continue. _This book looks at the problem of hegemony from an aesthetical perspective and argues that there is a ‘hegemonic trap’ pointing us in the direction of the alteration rather than alternative. Julia Svetlichnaja _asks: Can art become hegemony? What is proposed is not Paolo Virno's ‘exit', it is the ‘exit’ from thinking about the ‘world-making’ in terms of alternative. What if instead of searching for alternatives we perform an alteration and pluralise modernism? The aesthetic project of the alteration of hegemony through the pluralisation of modernism does not represent hope for a better, different, political order but a space for problematisation, overlapping and contaminations of a number of social orders. The idea is to think about the world not in terms of ‘alternatives,’ but in terms of their absence. (shrink)

Worldwide, healthcare has been touched by neoliberal policies to the extent that it has some of its characteristics, such as being asymmetrical, competitive, dehumanized, and profit driven. In Colombia, Law 100/93 was created as an ambitious reform aimed at integrating the social security and public sectors of healthcare in order to create universal access, and at the same time to generate market competence with the objective of improving effectiveness and responsiveness. Instead, however, Colombian health reform has served to generate competition (...) which has aggravated inequalities among people. Within this context, we practice nursing. As nurses, our responsibility is to advocate for our patients. We cannot ignore what is happening worldwide in hospitals and community health settings because our responsibility is to promote health, prevent disease, and care for human beings. So, today, when the world pushes for economical profit and competence on one hand, and, on the other, for moral compromises to care, respect, and advocacy for all human beings, being a nurse in the Colombian health system represents a challenge for us. This challenge is especially significant because harm and benefit, justice and injustice, respect and disrespect are separated by a fine line that is easy to transgress. (shrink)

This article aims to explore how the archival life of Olive Morris might radically rebuff the devaluation of Black womanhood and identity in Britain. Harnessing a Black feminist framework, I approach Lambeth Archives, where the Olive Morris Collection is found as a therapeutic space. Through an understanding of Olive as complex, I disrupt hegemonic expectations of Black women and propose that within the space of this research, Black womanhood be allowed the freedom of self-definition. In a conglomeration (...) of the documents and voices of the community that remembers Olive, marginalised epistemologies are legitimised. Their sometimes-conflicting accounts generate an unbounded image of Olive as a figure of Black British women’s history that harbours meaning as it is mobilised in social consciousness. Incorporating my own auto-ethnographic reflections, I explore the internal and external impact of Olive and my existence in this archival space. (shrink)

The relation between hegemony and masculinity needs reassessment in the light of postcolonial critique. A fully historical understanding of hegemony is required. The violence of colonization set up a double movement, disrupting gender orders and launching new hegemonic projects. This dynamic can be traced in changing forms through the eras of decolonization, postcolonial development, and neoliberal globalization. Specific configurations of masculinity in the contemporary metropole-apparatus can be traced, together with their relations with local power. A gender order is emerging (...) in transnational space and minimal conditions for hegemony within it can be defined. Counter-hegemonic projects among men have multiplied but have limited reach. Hegemony under construction, rather than achieved hegemony, is the key concept. (shrink)

Communicative Understandings of Women's Leadership Development: From Ceilings of Glass to Labyrinth Paths, edited by Elesha L. Ruminski and Annette M. Holba, weaves the disciplines of communication studies, leadership studies, and women's studies to offer theoretical and practical reflection about women's leadership development in academic, organizational, and political contexts. This work claims a space for women's leadership studies and acknowledges the paradigmatic shift from discussing women's leadership using the glass ceiling to what Eagly and Carli identify as the (...) labyrinth of leadership. (shrink)

Neo-liberalism often reduces pluralism to a social fact based on the collapse of the big ideals that once claimed to stand in for the ideal of humanity. Tolerance of inevitable value diversity is all that can be offered by the rationalized modern western state. This understanding of pluralism is completely inadequate in the post colony. Ernst Cassirer offers a philosophical understanding of symbolic plurality that allows us to respect divergent symbolic forms, including myth and religion. This understanding of pluralism opens (...) the space for respect for the customary law and the great indigenous ideals such as uBuntu which has often been denigrated as mythical and thus outdated or, worse yet, not law at all. This denigration is inseparable from colonial violence, and demands a process of transculturation as integral to this struggle to transform the new South Africa into a society that lives up to the Constitution’s call for the respect of all of its citizens. This respect can only be done if there are serious economic reforms and a challenge to the hegemonic neo-liberal capitalism. (shrink)

The constructions of genders and sexualities in different global spaces continue to be influenced by Christian and imperial ideologies. In Africa, genders and sexualities were (mis)construed by colonial and missionary enterprises, and they continue to be defined according to Eurocentric terms and perceptions. This has produced ‘modern sexual repression’. The use of Biblical discourses to construct African genders and sexualities is one way that this repression is mirrored in South Africa. Because of this, African genders and sexualities are marginalised, treated (...) as taboo and depicted as backward and uncivilised, thus, promoting hegemonic heteronormative and monogamous marriages. This article examined how Biblical discourses contributed to this narrative. It further advanced a call for transforming this dominant narrative by engaging theology, gender and sexuality studies and socio-political sciences from the premise of a multidisciplinary epoch. The decolonial motif, with a focus on delinking African genders and sexualities from the Western agenda of sexual repression, serves as the theoretical framework for this research. On the other hand, race, gender and sexuality serve as lenses used to better understand the phenomenon and to explore the use of biblical discourses in this context. Thus, the article makes use of a secondary research approach to carry out this task.Contribution: This article seeks to add to the body of knowledge that endeavours to change the way that biblical discourses are used in South Africa today to construct a narrative that represses non-normative genders and sexualities. (shrink)

The article that discusses the issue of culturalism as an element of the idea of representation tries to examine a concept, which claims to represent reality through conceptualization, from scratch, or by going to the bottom in a manner of excavation. Foucault's archaeology was chosen as the most suitable method for this excavation activity. Because the archaeological method does not make a historical or meta-historical claim beyond the truth; it does not impose the necessary violence of the method on its (...) object. It grasps its object in its singularity, and most importantly, it thinks and suggests that the truth is no more than an invention. This archaeological study on the concept of culture tries to reveal the difference between the current meaning of the concept and its etymological origin and to grasp it in its singularity. In this way, the problematic relationship between the concepts that man invented and applied while engaging in understanding things that are happening around him will be revealed. Conceptualization is inherent in the idea of truth, which is based on absolutism and is no more than an invention, while ultimately subordinating the particular to the universal. While the article reveals the intolerance of the act of dichotomous thinking, which operates as a product of the effort to represent the truth, as in the nature-culture distinction, it acts according to the approach known as deconstruction in social sciences. In a representative thought, truth is what can actually be represented, presenting itself to the observer as an object of display. The fact that the understanding of truth is based on essentialist principles such as absolute, unchangeable, fixed, universal thanks to Plato makes an idealized representation inevitable. In fact, intellectual endeavors such as conceptualization, abstraction, and generalization mean the idealization of the concrete, singular, and unique by detaching it from its context. It can be said that underlying the idea of representation is the belief that the human mind can grasp the essence of things and therefore can represent them in thought, depending on the idea that truth is rational. As is, it is a thought that tries to keep realism in its hands, blesses it, and strives with all its might to declare its divine absolutism. Ultimately, while the mechanism of representation operates for the stable, it acts with the aim of establishing dominance. The distinction between the representative and the represented is ultimately the product of an anthropocentric perspective. Thanks to this distinction, it is inevitable that everything except the observer subject becomes the object of study. This point of view, believed to be one and universal, requires the fixation of the object of study. It can be said that the idea of representation, which signifies the ideal of absolute truth, underlies today's issues that are based on differences, such as language, religion, race, and gender, that have always been on the world agenda. As the products of representative thought, both binary categorization based on distinction such as nature and culture, and the concept that implies a direct relationship between thought and the outside world, realism is a state of alienation in which whatever is related to the human being ceases to belong to it and is used against it. The reification made possible by the distinction between the representative and the represented is actually nothing but alienation. It can be said that the rooted problem of the world of thought and the peoples of the world since Platonism is that reification and commodification have become so universal that they seem almost like natural, organic entities, and forms. The attempt of representative thought, which confines external reality to the conceptual world, to impose a framework on reality, breaks the connection with reality, and moreover, by being guided by concepts and abstractions, it builds iron cages around the human being. The insistence of Western thought on representation, no matter if it is true or false, no matter it is accepted or not, has led to the radical consequence of the abolition of certainty over reality. Today, the world of thought has evolved from the representation of the truth, which implies the idea that there is a necessary connection between the order of things and the order of words, to the reality of representation, where the boundary between reality and image is abolished, the reality is aestheticized and transformed into images, and society ultimately becomes cultural. With an entry into the cultural turn, everything has become cultural and conventional in the postmodern period. (shrink)

Quoting Flaubert through time, Mieke Bal and Michelle Williams Gamaker’s Madame B brings Madame Bovary’s reflections on love and emotions to the present day, in a productive anachronism. Their work produces an intertemporal space where the past is relevant for the present, and the present enables us to understand the past. Intimacy and routine are central in their exploration of Flaubert’s contemporaneity. Those issues are precisely one of the keys in Karl Ove Knausgård’s project of literary autobiography, where he (...) expands narration foreclosing the ellipsis and giving visibility to small things and emotions; a project with some resonances with Munch’s crude-obscene uses of intimacy. This essay explores how both proposals, Bal and Williams Gamaker in film, and Knausgård in literature, can serve us to connect present and past sensibilities and, more than that, demonstrate resistances to the hegemonic discourses of temporality. (shrink)

In this paper we explore the phenomenon of writing online. We ask, ‘Is writing by means of online technologies affected in a manner that differs significantly from the older technologies of pen on paper, typewriter, or even the word processor in an off‐line environment?’ In writing online, the author is engaged in a spatial complexity of physical, temporal, imaginal, and virtual experience: the writing space, the space of the text, cyber space, etc. At times, these may provide (...) a conduit to a writerly understanding of human phenomena. We propose that an examination of the phenomenological features of online writing may contribute to a more pedagogically sensitive understanding of the experiences of online seminars, teaching and learning. (shrink)

0. The ancient and honorable role of philosophy as a servant to the learning, development and use of scientific knowledge, though sadly underdeveloped since Grassmann, has been re-emerging from within the particular science of mathematics due to the latter's internal need; making this relationship more explicit (as well as further investigating the reasons for the decline) will, it is hoped, help to germinate the seeds of a brighter future for philosophy as well as help to guide the much wider learning (...) of mathematics and hence of all the sciences. 1. The unity of interacting opposites "space vs. quantity", with the accompanying "general vs. particular" and the resulting division of variable quantity into the interacting opposites "extensive vs. intensive", is susceptible, with the aid of categories, functors, and natural transformations, of a formulation which is on the one hand precise enough to admit proved theorems and considerable technical development and yet is on the other hand general enough to admit incorporation of almost any specialized hypothesis. Readers armed with the mathematical definitions of basic category theory should be able to translate the discussion in this section into symbols and diagrams for calculations. 2. The role of space as an arena for quantitative "becoming" underlies the qualitative transformation of a spatial category into a homotopy category, on which extensive and intensive quantities reappear as homology and cohomology. 3. The understanding of an object in a spatial category can be approached through definite Moore-Postnikov levels; each of these levels constitutes a mathematically precise "unity and identity of opposites", and their ensemble bears features strongly reminiscent of Hegel's Science of Logic. This resemblance suggests many mathematical and philosophical problems which now seem susceptible of exact solution. (shrink)

Communicative Understandings of Women's Leadership Development: From Ceilings of Glass to Labyrinth Paths, edited by Elesha L. Ruminski and Annette M. Holba, weaves the disciplines of communication studies, leadership studies, and women's studies to offer theoretical and practical reflection about women's leadership development in academic, organizational, and political contexts. This work claims a space for women's leadership studies and acknowledges the paradigmatic shift from discussing women's leadership using the glass ceiling to what Eagly and Carli identify as the (...) labyrinth of leadership. (shrink)

Hegemonic gender role is specific configuration of different gender performances and practices that represents socially accepted answer on concrete circumstances within given society in particular historical moment. Analytical insight into their content and direction of change could provide us better understanding of other social structures and aspects of social life of society/ culture/sub cultural community/social group within which hegemonic gender role has been formulated and practicized. In that sense this research shell try to recognize them as a legitimate (...) source of data about societal process of structural transformation of Serbian society during the last two decades. (shrink)

In the course of his critique of the Buddhist doctrine of universal momentariness, Udayana argues for an isomorphism between our understandings of space and time, which is meant to undercut the Buddhists’ well-known “inference from existence.” The present paper examines these arguments from Udayana’s Ātmatattvaviveka, together with Ratnakīrti’s treatment of them in his Kṣaṇabhaṅgasiddhi Anvayātmikā. As an historical study, the paper aims to elucidate the connections between Udayana and Ratnakīrti, and the implications of those connections for the dependence (...) of the inference from existence upon various arguments which appear elsewhere in Ratnakīrti’s corpus. As a work of philosophical interpretation, the paper will clarify what is at stake in the local debate over the space–time isomorphism. Ratnakīrti’s position will best be understood as an account on which different simple causal properties are ascribed, or indexed, to an allegedly persisting entity at different times, while Udayana will prefer an account on which complex properties indexed to the place and/or time of the effect—for instance, “generating a sprout in this particular place” or “producing a visual awareness at a certain time”—will belong to a persisting thing throughout its entire existence. Furthermore, the acceptance or rejection of space and time as substantial entities in their own right, as distinct from the entities which are conventionally said to exist in space and time, will have important implications for the accounts of causality that each thinker can accept. (shrink)

Multicultural cities in the Global North are rapidly developing and releasing urban food policies that outline municipal visions of sustainable food systems. In turn, these policies shape conceptions of food citizenship in the city. While these policies largely absorb activities previously associated with “alternative” food systems, little is known about how they respond to critical food and race scholars who have noted that these food practices and spaces have historically marginalized immigrants. A critical discourse analysis of 22 urban food policies (...) from Global North cities reveals that most policies do not meaningfully consider immigrant foodscapes, foodways, and food-related labour. Many promote hegemonic and/or ethno-nationalistic understandings of “healthy” and “sustainable” food without recognizing immigrants’ food-related knowledge and skills. Policies largely fail to connect the topic of immigrant labour with goals like shortening supply chains, subject immigrant neighbourhoods to stigmatizing health discourses, and lack acknowledgement of the barriers immigrants may face to participating in sustainable food systems. Relatedly, policy discourses articulate forms of food citizenship that emphasize individual obligations over rights related to food. This jeopardizes the potential for immigrants to be seen as belonging to dominant political urban food communities and benefitting from the symbolic and material rewards associated with them. (shrink)

Based on insights of phenomenology, this article aims to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of embodied space and place of and for leader- and followership in organisations. From an interrelational perspective, the “spacing” and implacement of leadership and followership will be interpreted as local-historical and as local-cultural processes. Linked to questions of distance of leadership, embodied face-to-face interaction will be critically compared with distant, non-localised, displaced relationships and tele-presence mediated by information and communication technology. In addition to outlining some (...) links to “potential space” and place-responsiveness by concluding some implications, problems and perspectives on research of embodied space and place forleadership in organisation are discussed. (shrink)

This paper reports on-going work in the eSCAPE Project (Esprit Long Term Research Project 25377) directed to the research and development of electronic landscapes for public use. Our concern here is to elucidate a sociologically informed approach towards the design of electronic landscapes or virtual worlds. We suggest — and demonstrate through ethnographic studies of virtual technologies at a multimedia art museum and information technology trade show — that members sense of space is produced through social practices tied to (...) the accomplishment of activities occurring within the locations their actions are situated. Space, in other words, is socially constructed and shaped through members’ practices for accomplishing situated activities. We explicate, by practical examples, an approach to discovering social practices in and through which a sense of space is constructed and outline how such understandings may be used to formulate requirements for the design of electronic landscapes. In explicating our ethnographically informed approach, we outline how future technologies may bedeveloped through the situated evaluation of experimental prototypes in public use. (shrink)

RESUMO Analisar linhas delimitadoras de um certo desenvolvimento tecnológico é uma tarefa já empreendida por diversos autores. Este é um tipo de abordagem que se inspira em parte em ação semelhante empreendida em relação à ciência. Neste artigo pretendemos apresentar algumas linhas, a que chamamos tendências, que marcam as tecnologias móveis, como celulares, smartphones ou tablets. Estudamos alguns artefactos e funcionalidades que, não sendo exclusivos deste tipo de dispositivo, marcam direções e hegemonias. Para o efeito, desenvolvemos uma análise sociotécnica que (...) se centra em uma observação e utilização desse tipo de tecnologia. O resultado é uma tipologia que mostra cinco tendências: realismo; continuidade técnico-corporal; prioridade ao contexto; velocidade; e compatibilidade/multifuncionalidade. Essas diferentes formulações sociotécnicas permitem compreender como essas materialidades inscrevem-se no espaço social, ao mesmo tempo que exibem projetos que emergem de intenções sociais. O proliferar das tecnologias móveis faz com que a compreensão dessas dinâmicas seja de enorme relevância para questionarmos o futuro tecnológico que se instala. ABSTRACT The delimitation of defining lines of certain technological development is something that several authors already established. This kind of approach is inspired in similar task applied to science. In this work it is intended to present some lines, that we call tendencies, which mark mobile technologies development, like mobile phones, smartphones or tablets. This work makes an analysis of some artifacts and its features, which make some directions and hegemonic dominations, although they are not exclusive of these technologies. It is applied a sociotechnical analysis based on observation and on the use of this kind of technologies. The output is the identification of five tendencies: realism; techno-body continuity; priority to context; velocity; and compatibility/multi-functionality. This different sociotechnical forms allow the understanding of how these materialities are inscribed in social space, and how some projects are a result of social intentions. The proliferation of mobile technologies shows by itself the relevance of this approach in order to question technological future. (shrink)

Since antiquity, natural philosophers have struggled to comprehend the nature of three tightly interconnected concepts: space, time, and motion. A proper understanding of motion, in particular, has been seen to be crucial for deciding questions about the natures of space and time, and their interconnections. Since the time of Newton and Leibniz, philosophers’ struggles to comprehend these concepts have often appeared to take the form of a dispute between absolute conceptions of space, time and motion, and relational (...) conceptions. This article guides the reader through some of the history of these philosophical struggles. Rather than taking sides in the (alleged) ongoing debates, or reproducing the standard dialectic recounted in most introductory texts, we have chosen to scrutinize carefully the history of the thinking of the canonical participants in these debates — principally Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Mach and Einstein. Readers interested in following up either the historical questions or current debates about the natures of space, time and motion will find ample links and references scattered through the discussion and in the Other Internet Resources section below. (shrink)

In the scientific literature, there are accents that emphasize certain changes in the functioning of philosophy, which took place in connection with the establishment of the postulates of postmodernism as a new period in the development of culture, as a style of post non-classical scientific thinking, in fact, the content and hierarchy of values positions itself with a sophisticated departure from the classical and non-classical philosophical reflection. Philosophical and educational understanding of the methodology of research of dialogue and tolerance testified (...) to the relevance of their research in the development of the potential of today’s multicultural education and its growth in the cultural and educational space. Dialogue, dialogics and tolerance are represented by the mechanisms of meaning-making, axiology and praxeology: dialogical cognition of the interpersonal, social-group, societal, planetary world provides a certain "breakthrough" in the worldview-value coordinate system, in external-internal control of growth efficiency and its spiritual dimension. The axiological, ontological, educational-epistemological aspects of “fitting” a person into a new world context are precisely in the plane of philosophy, enriching the cultural fields of today’s education through integration in goal-setting, content, organizational and managerial conditions for teaching and upbringing value ideals, principles, methods of holistic study of a person and those that are relevant today and provide Homo educandus with a meaning-making knowledge. (shrink)

Increasing computational power and improving deep learning methods have made computer vision technologies pervasively common in urban environments. Their applications in policing, traffic management, and documenting public spaces are increasingly common (Ridgeway 2018, Coifman et al. 1998, Sun et al. 2020). Despite the often-discussed biases in the algorithms' training and unequally borne benefits (Khosla et al. 2012), almost all applications similarly reduce urban experiences to simplistic, reductive, and mechanistic measures. There is a lack of context, depth, and specificity in these (...) practices that enables semantic knowledge or analysis within urban contexts, especially within the context of using and occupying urban space. This paper will critique existing uses of artificial intelligence and computer vision in urban practices to propose a new framework for understanding people, action, and public space. This paper revisits Geertz's (1973) use of thick descriptions in generating interpretive theories of culture and activity and uses this lens to establish a framework to approach evaluating the varied uses of computer vision technologies that weigh meaning. By discussing cases of implemented examples of urban computer vision—from LinkNYC and Numina's urban measurements to the Detroit Police's use of DataWorks Plus's facial recognition technology—it proposes a framework for evaluating the thickness of the algorithm's conclusions against the computational method's complexity required to produce that outcome. Further, we discuss how the framework's positioning may differ (and conflict) between different users of the technology, from engineer to urban planner and policymaker, to citizen. This paper also discusses how the current use and training of deep learning algorithms and how this process limits semantic learning and proposes three potential methodologies toward gaining a more contextually specific, urban-semantic, description of urban space relevant to urbanists. This paper contributes to the critical conversations regarding the proliferation of artificial intelligence by challenging the current applications of these technologies in the urban environment by highlighting their failures within this context while also proposing an evolution of these algorithms that may ultimately make them sensitive and useful within this spatial and cultural milieu. (shrink)

This article offers a philosophical account of a range of urban phenomena that are integral to the visual fabric of the modern city and, at the same time, external to the visual order administered by the city’s rulers. Explaining why the common terms of “graffiti” and “street art” are too narrow for discussing the plurality of the illicit visual forms that populate the city’s space, I coin the alternative term “streetography” and aim at a new understanding of its visual (...) efficacy. This is done by showing that the key for deciphering the streetograph’s unique visuality is its form of embeddedness in the street and, in a corollary manner, the form of visual experience—the kinds of viewing—that the street opens for the urban viewer.Streetographs always operate within the city’s given visual order and as such the question of their efficacy is addressed here in terms of the streetograph’s relationship to that hegemonic visual rule whose basic traits are also clarified. Developing an understanding of this relationship, the article thus addresses the following questions: What kind of resistance can streetographs provide to the kind of optics that governs the modern urban space? Can streetographs evoke an alternative kind of spectatorship that disrupts the sovereign’s imagination? And, more specifically, in an epoch in which streetographs are regularly absorbed into capitalist aesthetics—advertising, cinema, social media—how can they allow us to rethink the possibility of resisting the measure of a global capitalist visual system? (shrink)

Prolegomena §38 is intended to elucidate the claim that the understanding legislates a priori laws to nature. Kant cites various laws of geometry as examples and discusses a derivation of the inverse-square law from such laws. I address 4 key interpretive questions about this cryptic text that have not yet received satisfying answers: How exactly are Kant's examples of laws supposed to elucidate the Legislation Thesis? What is Kant's view of the epistemic status of the inverse-square law and, relatedly, of (...) the legitimacy of the geometric derivation of that law? Whose account of laws, the understanding, and space is Kant critiquing in the passage? What positive account of the relationship between laws, the understanding, and space is Kant offering in the passage? My answer to depends crucially on my answers to –. As I interpret Kant, he holds that a wide range of a priori laws—including geometric laws, the inverse-square law, and the universal laws discussed in the Analytic of Principles—are ‘grounded’ in categorial syntheses rather than the intrinsic nature of the space given to us in pure intuition. (shrink)

Barnett Newman professed that a beholder's encounter with his paintings was like meeting another person for the first time. He believed the experience produced the conditions for apprehending an ethical relationship that would entail both the individual's achievement of his or her own understanding of “self” and his or her acknowledgment of another individual. But it would be their mutual recognition of separateness as the condition of possibility for communication — for sharing worlds — that would ground the ethical relationship (...) between them. Not just interested in matters of theory, the artist was also specific about the modes of spatial experience that he intended his canvases to inaugurate for a beholder. A detailed phenomenological account of how, in particular cases, the perceptual effects of Newman's paintings are created, both technically and artistically, helps to develop the implications, for his ethics of relationship, of what he called his “sense of space.” This article focuses on major paintings (particularly Vir Heroicus Sublimis and The Wild) in order to ground an interpretation of the perceptual effects of Newman's works. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that nurses need to be aware of how the production of space in specific contexts – including health care systems and research institutions – perpetuates marginalized populations' state of social otherness. Lefebvre's idea regarding spatial triad is mobilized in this paper, as it pertains to two‐spirited, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer populations (2SLGBTQ*). We believe that nurses can create counter‐spaces within health care systems and research institutions that challenge normative discourses. Lefebvre's work provides (...) us the necessary tools to understand how various places or environments produce identities. In understanding Lefebvre's principles, we believe that nurses can play an essential role in creating counter‐spaces, thereby instigating counter‐institutional practices, for those who experience otherness. (shrink)

The central contribution of Ströker’s investigations is a careful and strict analysis of the relationship between experienced space, Euclidean space, and non-Euclidean spaces. Her study begins with the question of experienced space, inclusive of mood space, space of action and perception, of practical activities and bodily orientations, and ends with the controversies of the proponents of geometric and mathematical understanding of space. Within the context of experienced space, Ströker includes historical discussions of place, (...) topology, depth, perspectivity, homogeneity, orientation, and the questions of empty and full spaces. Her investigation concludes that any strict analysis of space must be founded upon an unavoidable ontology._ _Philosophical Investigations of Space__ addresses a number of methodological controversies. It tests the limitations of a variety of scientific, phenomenological, geometric, and logical methods in order to demonstrate limitations of both methodology and underlying assumption. In addition to the richness of her historical and systematic discussion, Ströker’s work is a model of thoroughly documented philosophical scholarship and conceptual precision. (shrink)

This essay applies Henri Lefebvre’s notion of the production of space, particularly his conceptualization of the tension formed by the perceived-conceived-lived triad to analyze how space is produced in wartime hospitals as demonstrated in Richard Selzer’s “The Whistlers’ Room.” Wounded soldiers participate in producing the triad of the social space of military hospitals through their multilayered performances as fighting soldiers serving the nation and as living human beings longing for human connections. Contradictory performances demonstrate the strategic positioning (...) of wounded soldiers as active producers of different social spaces. By representing the lived spaces produced by wounded soldiers, Selzer challenges the hegemonic representations of the conceived spaces of military hospitals. Selzer’s exploration of soldiers’ contradictory performances opens up opportunities for discussion of writing physicians who assume a similar role by positioning themselves strategically within the medical institution. (shrink)

The trend to centralization of the Mizrahi narrative has become an integral part of the nationalistic, ethnic, religious, and ideological-political dimensions of the emerging, complex Israeli identity. This trend includes several forms of opposition: strong opposition to "melting pot" policies and their ideological leaders; opposition to the view that ethnicity is a dimension of the tension and schisms that threaten Israeli society; and, direct repulsion of attempts to silence and to dismiss Mizrahim and so marginalize them hegemonically. The Mizrahi Democratic (...) Rainbow [The Keshet], the most prominent proponent and representative of this trend, was established in the 1990s with the intention of being a leading civic and political body in Israeli society. While it was the Mizrahi worldview that led to selection of the organization's name and aims, their vision was to be involved in social struggle on behalf of other groups in Israeli society. Since it was established, The Keshet has aimed to function as an assertive, long-term alternative coalition exerting influence, power, and pressure on the Israeli narrative network. And, indeed, the organization has succeeded in disrupting Israeli discourse, principally, by challenging the ideological foundations of the Zionist meta-narrative. Nearing the end of the first decade of the 21st century and nearly a decade since it was established, The Keshet not only represents the most current wave of Mizrahi discourse, it has changed it to such a great degree that it is impossible to ignore its influence. Further, this alternative narrative may have significant potential to advance the internal Jewish discourse so fundamental at this time given the changing Israeli situation and regional conditions. And, while it is possible to view The Keshet and this new narrative as a continuation of the Mizrahi struggle, as a narrative The Keshet's agenda represents a post-colonial perspective and multi-cultural alternative to Zionism as a social vehicle. Amidst all of this, The Keshet continues to offer concrete proposals to change the Jewish character of the state as well as its internal and external relations. One of the primary goals of this study was to examine the rise of the Mizrahi narrative over the last two decades and the new Mizrahi discourse in Israeli society. More specifically, the study sought to attain an in-depth understanding of the central narrative created and represented by The Keshet. An additional goal was to investigate the influence of The Keshet's activity and the narrative it constructed in regard to other narratives. In particular, the study focused on The Keshet's opposition to the central Zionist narrative that infuses civic, political, and academic frameworks in Israel. Accordingly, the primary research questions investigated in the study sought to determine: What has been the influence of the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow on the Mizrahi narrative in Israel? And, what are implications of such influence for the central Zionist narrative? Methodologically, the study was based on narrative and comparative analyses of texts from different periods of the older and newer Mizrahi narratives. The corpus included two types of texts: First, academic texts and opinion pieces, both philosophical and programmatic in nature, published in magazines, journals, books, as well as position papers; second, all of the texts published by prominent and influential figures who charted the path of The Keshet or led it organizationally and/or intellectually over the last twenty years (e. g., Yehudah Shenhav, Yossi Yona, Moshe Krief among others). All texts were examined by means of philosophical, historical and critical hermeneutic tools. This analysis revealed different levels of Mizrahi and civic discourse in Israel as well as among The Keshet's founders and leading ideologues. The study was based on a three stage process model, developed for purposes of this study, for investigation and analysis of the new Mizrahi narrative as well as other oppositional narratives, in particular opposition to the hegemonic meta-narrative. The stages are: issuing the challenge, dissolution and, liberation; that is, liberation is the measure of the ultimate success of the struggle for narrative change. Such change is not based on success in the field, but rather on a radical, fundamental reversal of thought, discourse patterns, stylistic structures, as well as forms of questioning - in this case of taken-for-granted racist mechanisms. However, the principal change is in achieving a deep, inner de-legitimization of the signifiers, categories, and reproductions of all manner of mockery that are based on immoral colonialist processes that are reinforced by regimes of fear and intimidation whose self-destruction began upon their very creation. This three stage model charts the course of the oppositional Mizrahi narrative from: accounting for the past (passing judgment on the so-called historic colonialist Zionism) to writing a new (pure Mizrahi) history and creation of a Mizrahi-Arab identity separate from the Ashkenazic, identified as Zionist. Contemporary post-colonialist discourse is integral in these stages. Such a perspective has been transformed by transitions from - binarism to hybridity, Orientalism to Occidentalism, the politics of "liberation" to "constructive" politics, from the history of consciousness to the history of change, as well as from nationalist to post-nationalist questions. Fundamentally, according to this approach, political and other struggles for the emerging narrative of Mizrahi (or Arab) history seek to centralize it in society and weave it amidst the models of multiculturalism. Undertaken in parallel, the central characteristics of all these stages are borrowed from countries in which the need for national reconciliation led to renunciation of apartheid and racist policies and historical judgment of the hegemony supported by racist leaders. In addition, these three moves were undertaken in Keshet and its ideologues by means of substantive symbolic violence directed at the hegemonic Ashkenazic discourse, which included creation of hatred of it, use of stereotypes the opposite of oppressive discourse, and adoption of an arrogant point of view toward it. This stands in stark contrast to the claims of the self-proclaimed new Mizrahi stance of a discourse established on purely ethical grounds that sought to cleanse itself of these very same oppressive elements. The model developed for and demonstrated in this study allows for analysis of oppositional narratives in which the libratory stage evolves into a form of entrapment, as appears to be occurring to the new Mizrahi discourse. This conclusion is based on the observations shared by many Keshet proponents including leading intellectuals who worked on the manifestos that were the subject of criticism from the Zionist camp. The study identified and defined the following six interwoven strata, which for purposes of explication are each discussed in a separate chapter: The first chapter presents a general theoretical discussion of the issue of the narrative and the inter-narrative struggle that has become central and applicable in various ways in the latest generation (e. g., anthropologically, hermeneutically, and philosophically). The analysis surveys different discussions in the inter-narrative struggle and locates them in the contexts, relations, and meanings derived from, representing, and indeed reproducing the narrative of national identity. The second chapter includes a historical survey of the older Mizrahi struggle that existed prior to the ascendance of the new Mizrahi narrative. Initially, Mizrahi discourse focused on expressing the ethnic protest that grew in years to follow. These feelings of discrimination and social distancing of the immigrants from Islamic countries gave birth to expressions of protest, the most prominent of which were Wadi Salib and the Black Panther Movement's various activities. The research literature contains many explanations for the exacerbation of the ethnic problem and creation of a situation that could not be ignored. The consensus academic view reached at the end of the 1970s identified a number of primary factors for this situation: the existence and extensive numbers of different ethnic groups; the relative or absolute segregation of frameworks within which members of these ethnic groups lived and acted; and the significant overlap between socio-economic status and feelings of discrimination retained by members of the Mizrahi group due years of neglect by the Ashkenazic establishment, the strengthening of Mizrahi social, cultural, and political power, as well as the emergence of a Mizrahi elite that identified with Mizrahi problems. The severe consequences of feelings of discrimination were expressed in a long series of events, such as: rioting by residents of the Rehovot Sharayim neighborhood in 1956; events of Wadi Salib in Haifa in 1959; and a chain of activities involving the Black Panthers in the 1970s. Protest was also an aspect of the "tent movement" in the 1970s and 1980s. Political activities were advanced by the Tami Movement that competed in the election for the 10th Knesset in 1981 and the Shas Movement that has continued to garner political power since being found in 1984. The 1980s and 1990s were characterized as the era of radical consciousness of Mizrahi discourse as well as by the rise to power, in consecutive order, of the political parties – Tami, Shas, and the Mizrahim HaHadashim [the New Mizrahi]. The latter party laid the foundations of the new radical Mizrahi discourse from which emerged such cultural activities as: Iton Aher [A Different Newspaper]; Bimat Kivon Aher [Another Direction Forum]; Efir'yon journal; the Halah Organization for Education in Neighborhoods, Development Towns, and Villages; Kedma; the newspaper – Patish [Hammer]; and, eventually the establishment of Keshet. The third chapter presents an examination of the materialization of the inter-narrative struggle in the case of Israel, with a specific focus on The Keshet and the new Mizrahi narrative advanced by it and intellectuals. The Keshet ideology is examined in the context of its grounding in post-colonial thought, especially that of Edward Said; the directions proposed by Ella Shohat and her followers; the central thinkers of the narrative in Israel in the last decade; and the harsh critique leveled at the Ashkenazic-Zionist narrative. The practical steps proposed for implementation within the multicultural model are also examined. Here the effort to reduce the centrality of Zionism while revealing its oppressive mechanisms was undertaken in parallel with use of these mechanisms in order to create a Mizrahi space with broad margins inclusive of alternative forms of Israeli identity in the Middle East and in conjunction with Arabs within and beyond Israel. Mizrahi traditionalism is examined in the fourth chapter in two particular respects. First, the criticism of the new Mizrahi narrative leveled by the renewed view and, second, the implications of the alternative in terms of creating a Mizrahi space that does not oppose Zionism. Rather, in opposing the post-colonialist perspective, this renewed traditionalist perspective criticizes as well as values Zionism. This space seeks to be both Jewish and Mizrahi. It does not detach itself from nationalist Zionism but rather views itself as a continuation of this tradition and, accordingly, is an effort to develop a next stage in its development. For example, an essential dimension of the traditionalist perspective, "commitment," is considered in this stage to be a fertile basis for dialogue with the past and as an anchor for contemporary interpretation of Mizrahi and other Jews' identities in Israel. The fifth and sixth chapters deal with all of the vectors of criticism directed at the new Mizrahi narrative, including its ideological foundations, philosophical stance, as well as intellectual and practical basis in the Israeli sphere in the face of Palestinian nationalism. These vectors of criticism from within and beyond The Keshet deal with issues, such as, the meaning of the movement's activities and the narrative that it offers regarding questions of Israeli identity, Israeli collective memory, and Mizrahi self-perception. At the same time, it must confront the capitalist neo-liberal narrative in a global world and thrive in a context in which it must make itself manifest amidst oppositional narratives. The final chapter presents a comprehensive, critical analysis of the new Mizrahi narrative. It does so by means of a theoretical model that examines it as an oppositional narrative – one that seeks to challenge the hegemonic meta-narrative, to dissolve the boundaries of the narrative discourse, and to propose liberation and redemption that may led to entrapment amidst a changing, a-dichotomous realities (e. g., global economic development in the face of Zionist nationalisms that display ideological strength as well as development of the sense of being an Israeli that maintains its vitality and continuity while being constituted by sectors that challenge being a Mizrahi, such as co-ethnic subjects. The Keshet's influence is dramatic and extends in a number of central directions. Its political activity and non-entry into the domains of the Israeli parliament granted the movement significant power in civic discourse and contributed to changing the persona of the Mizrahi discourse; for example, from political-party struggles over budgets and obtaining shares of the regime to changing the face of Israeli society and the centrality of the Mizrahi narrative. This change included deconstructing the Ashkenazic narrative and constructing comprehensive Ashkenazic-Zionist guilt, as evident in the Ehud Barak's request for collective forgiveness. This was accomplished through the participation of leading members of Keshet who appeared in prominent intellectual forums and engaged in lively discourse - principally in academic, social, and media domains. Such participation gave new meaning to various aspects of Israeli society while establishing different models of multiculturalism. The rise of the new Mizrahi narrative is a significant marker in the inter-narrative struggle as it represents a desire for separate or hybrid identities. And, the deep probing of the narrative constructed by leaders of The Keshet and those who identify with the movement produced a number of clear ways to distinguish it from the old Mizrahi struggle, whose history was portrayed through social protests, in a manner similar to linear vectors marked with wars and elections. The old Mizrahi struggle selected the traditional tactical struggle identified usually with social and political movements that seek to change political, social, and economic reality - from the bottom up. Their primary demand was to change decisions as well as the division of social goods and resources. Hence, this older period of struggle was not aimed at opposing the ideological foundations of the hegemonic narrative nor did it seek to undermine in a radical manner the unique nature of the state of Israel as a revolutionary solution for the problems of the Jews according to the Zionist approach, as a national home for the Jewish people, and recognition of the right to an preferred and meta-definition of Jewish nationalism. In contrast, the top down struggle advanced by the new narrative is part of an ideological movement led by the educated that is assertive and ground in post-colonialist theory. Accordingly, it was critical of the techniques and mechanisms of oppression as well as sought to attack the Zionist ideological foundations and to reveal its racist operations and the regimes that have preserved it so efficiently for many years. The uniqueness of this narrative is the intellectual offensive that continues to be advanced and, in parallel, development of the discourse struggle in Israel concerning the justification for Zionism and the concrete political proposal that Jews reject the taken-for-granted status of it as an ideology. This new narrative recognizes the historic difficulties of subversion as an emancipatory and, principally, moral effort. In addition, the new Mizrahi narrative shares the foundations and narrative of Palestinian victimization. In its radical version, the new Mizrahi narrative seeks to connect to the Palestinian narrative in order to create a new space here. According to this version, this action will take place gradually. The first stage will be characterized by opposition to Western European, Ashkenazic Zionism. The Eurocentric Zionism will surrender in the second stage, to be followed in the last stage by creation of a coalition of Jews and Arabs that will be establish through concrete actualization of the refugee status and victimization that is shared by both Palestinians and Mizrahim (whether as Mizrahim or Jewish-Arab). Not a speculative academic exercise, the goal sought by this narrative is delineate and to achieve a multicultural model in which equality, liberty, and social justice will overcome the nationalism and colonialism of either side; that is it will be neither Zionist nor Jewish. Thus, this approach stresses what is shared (e.g., acceptance of the Arab space and not a rejection of it; the legitimacy of the Arab language and culture). This is part of detachment from and historic judgment of the colonialist Zionist enterprise. This possibility includes moral elements that remove the evil and harm caused by Zionism for many years as well as inner cleansing – primarily among Ashkenazim – of attitudes towards Jews and non-Jews. Though, in this regard, it should be noted that, to date, the new narrative has not made similar claims that Palestinians undergo a similar process. The assumption seems to be that this should be tested, that the coalition proposed is a possibility that will be recognized by the Palestinians, and that they are prepared to undergo a similar, shared moral process that involves negating the state of Israel as a Jewish, Western state, a state of the Jewish people, and not only for those who live within it. These Mizrahi thinkers conducted a significant move through deconstruction and substitution of the Eurocentric narrative with a multi-cultural proposal that is optimistic and even attractively naïve. Today, they acknowledge that they did not take into account Palestinian nationalist violence directed to citizens, the traditionalist alternative, and widespread opposition within the Mizrahi community toward what is perceived to be Mizrahi seclusion. They also did not take into account the harsh criticism rendered by young and educated Mizrahim who claim that they were born into a complex, multi-dimensional, multi-layered identity that includes internalization of the language of the West and rules of the game of this complex identity. And, though they are critical of some of its values, this makes it difficult to mount internal emotional opposition to the West and to the globalization contained within this world. Hence, this more familiar world is preferred over the values of the Mizrahi-Arab alternative, particularly in regard to problems in the domains of democratic citizenship, stance taken toward women, and freedom of speech. Further, educated Mizrachim reject the post-colonialist perspective and are stridently critical of its dichotomization. They claim that such a division is irrelevant in a world in which older ideologies have collapsed and new spheres – such as cyberspace and others – are open to them in which they can present themselves with an Israeli identity that is not categorized as necessarily Mizrahi. (shrink)

Summary The recovery of the Camp Century deep ice core in 1966 – the first ice core to reach all the way through a polar ice sheet to bedrock – marked a shift from an era of United States military dominated glaciological research in Greenland to an era of climate oriented research on the island. This paper aims to provide an understanding of this shift. I show that the Camp Century ice core was at the heart of a complex blend (...) of environmental, military and scientific interests. By deconstructing these interests, I ultimately show that the island of Greenland underwent two reimaginings during the early Cold War. First, the island was reimagined as part of the US Cold War military sphere: driven by the need to secure the North American continent, the US established a hegemonic military colonization of Greenland. In the second reimagining of the island, environmental geography led the way: the scientific results of the Camp Century ice core and political concern about climatic change converged in the early 1970s to build Greenland into a unique location for pursuing research on climate questions. This paper adds to the literature by contextualizing the Camp Century ice core at the interface between the history of science, environmental history and Cold War history, and thereby illuminating Greenland as a dual geopolitical entity and environmental space. By highlighting the interaction of climatic change, geophysical sciences and national security narratives, it responds to recent historiographic calls to unite a set of narratives which, too often, talk past one another. (shrink)

Travelling through various historical and geographical contexts, Social Imaginaries of Space explores diverse forms of spatiality, examining the interconnections which shape different social collectives. Proposing a theory on how space is intrinsically linked to the making of societies, this book examines the history of the spatiality of modern states and nations and the social collectives of Western modernity in a contemporary light. Debarbieux offers a practical exploration of his theory of the social imaginaries of space through the (...) analysis of a number of case studies. Advanced geography scholars will find the analysis of space and its impact on societies a valuable tool in understanding the ways in which space, culture and behaviour interact. Historians of Western modernity will also benefit from Debarbieux's analysis of case studies that impact modern life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Nature of Space by Milton SantosDave McLaughlinThe Nature of Spaceby milton santos (trans. by brenda baletti) Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2021When asked to review Milton Santos’s The Nature of Space, I was interested mostly in the book’s core theme. As a literary geographer, my own research focuses heavily on space as an analytical concept and a lived experience; I was keen to read (...) and understand a fresh perspective on this topic. Little did I know that opening this book would connect me to a world of geography scholarship for the most part ignored, actively or otherwise, in the Anglophone academy. For my sins, I was not alone in this ignorance. In 2017, for example, one scholar felt confident in writing that:The English-speaking geographical community knows very little about the theoretical work in geography being produced in the so-called [End Page 147] “global South.” They are unaware, for example, of the work of Brazilian geographer Milton Santos.1It is not my place here to write about the reasons why this is such a mistake. Others, better qualified than me, have already done so.2 My aim here is to do three things. First, to put Santos’s arrival into English-language geography in context; second, to consider briefly his key contribution to defining the nature of space; and finally, to touch on what Santos’s book offers us more broadly.Published in 2021, Brenda Baletti’s translation of Santos’s great work arrived on the crest of a wave of discussions, debates, and scholarly interventions around decoloniality in Western geography. This movement emphasizes uncovering “still colonising frames of knowledge”3—frames “through which the world is apprehended and explained and modelled for the future”—and “craft[ing] ways of thinking harder about and against them.”4 Others have argued that the long wait for an English translation of Santos’s The Nature of Space is evidence of just such modes of thought continuing, unreflectively, among Anglophone academia. In 2019, an English-language translation of Santos’s For a New Geography was published by the University of Minnesota Press, followed by The Nature of Space in 2021. Hopefully, publications indicate that some publishers, at least, are following Stephen Legg’s call to think hard against certain predominant Western frames.The Nature of Space, despite its mere 280 pages, is an opus of sorts. Santos’s style eschews narrow conceptualization in favor of building a solid theory of space on a remarkably broad foundation of thinkers, including Braudel, Merleau-Ponty, Habermas, Latour, and many, many others. This broad foundation is a result not only of his long career and his own widely travelled life; it is necessary due to the slippery and almost-undefinable nature of space itself. In a wonderful section of For a New Geography, Santos lays out the problem facing geographers in defining this concept around which our discipline revolves:I understand why geographers have spent more time defining geography than space as the latter is extremely hard to do. The same could be said of space as Saint Augustine said of time: “if I ask myself if I know [End Page 148] what it is, I respond that I do; but, if I ask myself to define it, I respond that I do not know how.”5Part of this complication, recognized by Santos, is that “space” is a word with many meanings outside academia.6 Yet, geographers also face no simple task in defining this core concept for our own needs. Doreen Massey’s definition from For Space is one of my favorites, not only because it well illustrates the complexity of the term “space,” but also due to the range of reactions it produces in my first-year undergraduate students when I introduce it: Space is the sphere of the possibility of the existence of multiplicity in the sense of contemporaneous plurality.7 This is a very crunchy sentence! But it gets to the heart of a conceptually complex truth: that space is the dimension in which things happen, a dimension in which we must live at all times, as well as... (shrink)

This book aims to contribute significantly to the understanding of issues of value which repeatedly emerge in interdisciplinary discussions on space and society. Although a recurring feature of discussions about space in the humanities, the treatment of value questions has tended to be patchy, of uneven quality and even, on occasion, idiosyncratic rather than drawing upon a close familiarity with state-of-the-art ethical theory. One of the volume's aims is to promote a more robust and theoretically informed approach to (...) the ethical dimension of discussions on space and society. While the contributions are written in a manner which is accessible across disciplines, the book still withstands scrutiny by those whose work is primarily on ethics. At the same time it allows academics across a range of disciplines an insight into current approaches toward how the work of ethics gets done. The issues of value raised could be used to inform debates about regulation, space law and protocols for microbial discovery as well as longer-range policy debates about funding. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to evaluate on how good traditional house design is able to give residential satisfaction levels and could contribute towards habitability in Shibam, Yemen. House design in this study is a subject dealing with efficient space-function design of the house layout which shows cultural aspects of the community. Houses in Shibam typify the traditional architecture which reflects to the structure of family, and social and cultural realms. The houses comprises mid and high-rise mud brick (...) house types, considered as one of the earliest high-rise house type built in the world. Today, the city of Shibam with mid and high-rises mud brick house types is recognized as one of the heritage sites under UNESCO’s World Heritage Lists. The literature study is conducted to understand the definitions of the title, which is important to identify the measurable factors for the research analysis. The study finds that diwan, dining area, bedrooms, bathrooms, corridor and storage, courtyard and balcony, and the composition of the rooms’ layout are important measurable checklist’s factors under category of space planning and function. There are two types of the research analyses which are qualitative and quantitative analysis. The qualitative analysis is a study by the researcher based on the researcher’s observation on the house design during the site visit while the quantitative analysis is from the respondents’ answers (300 respondents) on their satisfaction level from the research questionnaires. With high average scores of 94% in qualitative and 90% in quantitative analysis on satisfactory level, it shows that both results of qualitative and quantitative analysis support the research assumption. In that light, within the ambit of this study, the house design in Shibam can and does serve as a reference. (shrink)

Re-working the Gramscian idea of the ‘organic’ intellectual from the cultural-political sphere to Higher Education (HE), suggests the need to develop critical and questioning ‘counter hegemonic’ ideas and behaviour in community education students. Connecting this reworking to the Habermasian theory of communicative action, suggests that these students also need to learn how to be constructive in developing such knowledge. Working towards critical and constructive capacities is particularly relevant for students who learn through acting in practice settings where general principles (...) and purposes acquired in the academy need to be interpreted in response to the unique demands of specific situations. From a Gramscian perspective, enabling students to develop the qualities of organic intellectuals means that lecturers have a duty to teach critical knowledges which the student will be unfamiliar with and unlikely to possess. If teaching is not to become simply didactic, however, there is also a need to acknowledge Habermas’s contention that all knowledge is contingent. This does not mean that knowledge is merely relative, subjective, or essentially interest serving, as some postmodernists would have it. In Habermasian terms, knowledge is developed through a rigorous process of contesting validity claims according to procedures appropriate to discipline areas. In these procedures, contestation occurs to the point where there is general agreement about the best current understanding, until such time as this is overtaken by ideas with a better claim. The danger is that over commitment to contestation in the classroom undermines subject knowledge and ultimately the authority of the educator. Speaking Habermas to Gramsci, and vice versa, helps socially and politically committed educators to construct a space in which didactic and discursive moments purposefully alternate. (shrink)

Presenting the history of space-time physics, from Newton to Einstein, as a philosophical development DiSalle reflects our increasing understanding of the connections between ideas of space and time and our physical knowledge. He suggests that philosophy's greatest impact on physics has come about, less by the influence of philosophical hypotheses, than by the philosophical analysis of concepts of space, time and motion, and the roles they play in our assumptions about physical objects and physical measurements. This way (...) of thinking leads to interpretations of the work of Newton and Einstein and the connections between them. It also offers ways of looking at old questions about a priori knowledge, the physical interpretation of mathematics, and the nature of conceptual change. Understanding Space-Time will interest readers in philosophy, history and philosophy of science, and physics, as well as readers interested in the relations between physics and philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Heidegger and the Issue of Space: Thinking on Exilic GroundsGilbert LepadatuAlejandro A. Vallega. Heidegger and the Issue of Space: Thinking on Exilic Grounds. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 202. Cloth, $55.00.As the author himself clarifies, this book is not a rehearsing of what Heidegger says, or a commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time. It is rather an "engagement with issues essential (...) to his thought." And the essential issue with which Vallega is primarily concerned is the issue of space. What is indeed interesting about Vallega's engagement with Heidegger is the way in which he understands to approach spatiality: spatiality as a figure of alterity indicating the "exilic" character of thinking. If "exile" refers to one having to live outside his country of origin, "exilic," by contrast, refers to that specific experience where one not only has to live beyond his source of identity, but has no possibility of returning to his origins, anddue precisely to this becomes open to transformations that may lead to new possibilities of being. And by alterity of thinking Vallega refers to that aspect of thinking which, although constitutive of the very nature of thinking, has always been suspended or covered over in the determinations of thinking as provided by traditional metaphysics, and as such functions as a challenging and distressing limit to thinking itself.More specifically, in taking up the question of being, Vallega tells us, thinking becomes an issue for itself in its temporality or finitude, and is forced to reach a limit requiring an [End Page 217] engagement with issues that can no longer be addressed in terms of a traditional philosophical discourse. It is this loss of a familiar ground, the adaptive transformation called for by such a loss, the intimation of new unsuspected resources for thinking, all occurring out of thought's new awareness of its own finitude, that Vallega refers to by the name "exilic." Vallega's proposal thus is that spatiality as a figure of alterity indicates the exilic character of thought.It is unclear to what extent exilic experience can be thought of in terms other than Heidegger's. Vallega spends a great deal talking about alterity ascan be taken to arise within Heidegger, but the only conceptual apparatus available to him isprovided actually by Heidegger. The way he defines "exilic" is greatly, if not totally, dependent on Heidegger's interpretation of the attempt to overcome traditional ontology. I have my doubts that the rather exotic or quixotic term "exilic" brings something significantly new to the table. Exilic thought and alterity of thinking are based on Heidegger's fundamental insight that metaphysics has forgotten being, has forgotten the fundamental dimensions of temporality and finitude. It seems to me that what Vallega calls "exilic" is just a recasting in different terms, or a new term for one aspect of, Heidegger's engagement with the finitude of thinking. To say that the exilic character of Heidegger's thinking lies in the fact that Heidegger's critique of traditional ontology cannot go back to metaphysical origins and is as such open to "a thought to come," and to localize where this actually happens, does not appear to me to be a significant philosophical gain. Whether "exilic" experience and "alterity" of thinking bring anything new to what Heidegger has already thought of the overcoming of metaphysics should remain an open question, as should remain the question whether the recasting of Heidegger's struggling with the issue of finitude in terms of alterity of thinking or exilic experience is truly an engagement with "issues essential to his thought."Regardless of the issue of alterity and exilic thought, the book is still an excellent detailed analysis of how spatiality reveals the limits of traditional ontology as exemplified by Plato and Aristotle, and Heidegger's temporal ontology, and the difficulties, made apparent by such limits, facing the attempt of thinking being and thinking in their essential finitude. Vallega's undeniable merit lies, in my view, in his tracing Heidegger's own engagement with the issue of spatiality as a limit of his discourse on temporality and in showing how concretely spatiality figures in... (shrink)