Few scholars have explored the founding documents to identify the deliberate social change strategy that led to America's independence and a new form of government that was of, by, and for the people. This study aimed to apply a post-hoc polytheoretical framework of power to the findings of a democratic social change study to understand the dynamics of power between Great Britain and the American colonists. The original study employed the constructivist grounded theory tradition to explore democracy in the (...) Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, The Federalist Papers, and the United States Constitution. This produced two frameworks of power strategies, one empowering and the other demoralizing: principles of democracy and anti-democratic tenets. To gain a holistic perspective of the interplay of power, a polytheoretical framework of power consisting of theories of power proposed by Marx and Engels, Bourdieu, and Foucault was employed to discuss the findings. The findings suggested that democratic social change interacts with structural forces, culture, and power strategy selection. This could provide an alternative lens through which to explore whether people of color in America were used instrumentally to sustain democracy. (shrink)

This paper develops a Foucauldian analytics of resistance in relation to components of a system of governance – a governmentality. Techniques of resistance that can transform a governmentality towards the development of a new politics of truth require the design of techniques of resistance to counter directly oppressive techniques of biopower and disciplinary power, in turn to produce new regimes of practices or counter-conduct that can engender a new mentality and set of discourses to convey it. (...) Strategies of resistance towards transformative change in the governance of a population as well as of the self therefore require development following, and in relation to, an analytics of governance. I thread these points through a particular case, the problem of care for the infirm elderly in the United States, focusing specifically on nursing homes by critically synthesizing issues from inter-disciplinary literatures and casting them in terms of governmentalities. I frame the problems of eldercare broadly in terms of interrelated neoliberal and scientific mentalities and associated discourses, and then examine the associated techniques of biopower, disciplinary power, and regimes of practices to identify roots of problems, explain failures of policies, and crucially, to frame the design of techniques of resistance to produce new regimes of counter-conduct. I suggest avenues of resistance in relation to existing governmentalities on the terrain of inter-firm relations and everyday life in nursing-home care, all currently entangled with government policies, economies of documentation, and dehumanizing scientific practice. (shrink)

In the article, we elaborate an interdisciplinary methodological framework that enables us to study and prepare the grounds for the development of organizational practices through discourse perspectives. The framework differs from mainstream monological and complexity reducing tendencies within organizational studies in that it argues for an approach that takes in historical, broad, and situational power relations and discourses into consideration when we engage in ethical organizational development. We place the framework within organizational discourse studies (ODS) and discuss (...) how the intersection of Bakhtinian and Foucauldian ideas and concepts, as well as their diverse analytical strategies and focuses, contributes to the field. The combination entails taking a dissensus approach to organizational discursive phenomena that we view as dynamic features that are historically and locally (re)created through battles of unifying (centripetal) and diversifying (centrifugal) force relations. Following similar ideas of Deleuze and Bakhtin, we argue that dialogue and every (organizational) situation is seen as a plurivocal, open-ended, and unique time-space in which subjects have agency to change and transform the power relations and lines of subjectification that they are embedded in. We arrive at a methodological framework that bridges the gulf that often exists between discourse perspectives that tend to either focus on situated or more abstract and historical discursive dimensions. Furthermore, the frame involves an ethics of dispositif and dialogue that insists that organizational discourse scholars engage in organizational discourse activism furthering local change processes. (shrink)

ABSTRACT My aim in this paper is to articulate a Foucauldian critique of scientific naturalism as well as a Foucauldian critique of the nomothetic framework underlying the Placement Problem. My Foucauldian post-structuralist critique of scientific naturalism questions the relations between our society’s imbrication of economic-political power structures and knowledge in a way that also effects some constructive critical alignment between Foucault and Habermas, helping to undermine the traditional view of their respective social critiques as incompatible. First, (...) I will outline a brief genealogical backstory for the rise of scientific naturalism, and I will then reconstruct the Placement Problem. In the second part of the paper, I introduce Foucault’s notion of pouvoir-savoir, namely his account of the interconnection between power and knowledge. I then go on to articulate the Foucauldian critique of scientific naturalism by arguing that the levelling nature of nomothetic rationality and its conservative naturalistic vocabulary involves regulative discourse: anything that resists placeability/locatability is labelled “odd”. By being thus visibly marked, “odd” phenomena become “queer” phenomena, which then become “problematic” phenomena. They are, thereby, construed in need of discipline. Understood in this Foucauldian way, scientific naturalist disciplinarity produces subjected and practised minds, “docile” minds. (shrink)

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacterial infections is a growing threat to humanity and a challenge to healthcare systems worldwide. Healthcare professionals have an important role in preventing AMR and the spreading of infections. This article focuses on trade union financed journals for nurses in Scandinavia studying how the journals articulate AMR to its readership. A systematic literature search over an eleven‐year period was conducted, using web‐based national trade union financed journals, searching for ‘bacteria’ and ‘resistance’. A thematic analysis, (...) inspired by Foucault's concepts of power and governmentality, was made of 131 texts to understand, which kind of practices, strategies and policies the journals frame regarding AMR. The time period studied resulted in the recognition of four separate themes: the horror scenario, the ‘dangerous’ other, healthcare professionals as a source of resistance development and AMR as a field of research and producer of research qualifications. The study concludes that the journals tend: to present AMR in apocalyptic terms with more research and pharmaceutical industries needed for avoidance; to point out problems in other countries, populations, and sometimes nurses’ working conditions, but primarily with other professionals’ behaviour; and lastly, to present the nurse as a good fairy and disciplinator of doctors. (shrink)

This paper examines one strand of the ‘turn to ethics’ in recent political theory by engaging with Michel Foucault's late work on ‘the care of the self.’ For contemporary thinkers interested in how democratic politics might be guided, informed, or vivified by particular ethical orientations, Foucault's inquiry into ancient ethics has proved intriguing. Might concentrated ‘work on the self’ contribute to efforts to resist and remake present-day power relations? This paper endeavors to raise doubts about the Foucauldian inspired view, (...) which regards a reflexive relation of the self to itself as a privileged site for critically engaging with existing configurations of power. To do so, I offer a close reading of Foucault's scholarship that examines his work on ethics together with his well-known theory of power. I demonstrate that Foucault's distinctive theory of power, if read carefully, alerts us to the limits of the care of the self as a strategy for making power relations more equitable, open, and responsive to democratic constituencies. As I show, disciplinary power and biopower target collectivities by ‘individualizing’ and ‘massifying,’ respectively, and thereby diminishing the potential ‘counter-power’ generated by pluralistic association. If this dimension of Foucault's thought is appreciated, the ‘care of the self’ appears as a very limited resource for challenging these de-politicizing effects. Yet this paper also draws on Foucault's thought in order to stress the importance of re-orienting debates concerning the relationship between ethics and politics toward associative rather than reflexive practices of freedom. (shrink)

There exist valuable methods for theorem proving in non classical logics based on translation from these logics into first-order classical logic (abbreviated henceforth FOL). The key notion in these approaches istranslation from aSource Logic (henceforth abbreviated SL) to aTarget Logic (henceforth abbreviated TL). These methods are concerned with the problem offinding a proof in TL by translating a formula in SL, but they do not address the very important problem ofpresenting proofs in SL via a backward translation. We propose a (...) framework for presenting proofs in SL based on a partial backward translation of proofs obtained in a familiar TL: Order-Sorted Predicate Logic. The proposed backward translation transfers some formulasF TL belonging to the proof in TL into formulasF SL , such that the formulasF SL either (a) belong to a corresponding deduction in SL (in the best case) or, (b) are semantically related in some precise way, to formulas in the corresponding deduction in SL (in the worst case). The formulasF TL andF SL can obviously be considered aslemmas of their respective proofs. Therefore the transfer of lemmas of TL gives at least a skeleton of the corresponding proof in SL. Since the formulas of a proof keep trace of the strategy used to obtain the proof, clearly the framework can also help in solving another fundamental and difficult problem:the transfer of strategies from classical to non classical logics. We show how to apply the proposed framework, at least to S5, S4(p), K, T, K4. Two conjectures are stated and we propose sufficient (and in general satisfactory) conditions in order to obtain formulas in the proof in SL. Two particular cases of the conjectures are proved to be theorems. Three examples are treated in full detail. The main lines of future research are given. (shrink)

: Drawing from work in feminist moral philosophy, Tobin argues that the most common methodology used in practical ethics is a questionable methodology for addressing practical problems across diverse cultural contexts because the kind of impartiality it requires is neither feasible nor desirable. She then defends an alternative methodology for practical ethics in a global context and uses her proposed methodology to evaluate a problem that confronts many Sunni Muslim women around the world.

Drawing from work in feminist moral philosophy, Tobin argues that the most common methodology used in practical ethics is a questionable methodology for addressing practical problems across diverse cultural contexts because the kind of impartiality it requires is neither feasible nor desirable. She then defends an alternative methodology for practical ethics in a global context and uses her proposed methodology to evaluate a problem that confronts many Sunni Muslim women around the world.

Drawing from work in feminist moral philosophy, Tobin argues that the most common methodology used in practical ethics is a questionable methodology for addressing practical problems across diverse cultural contexts because the kind of impartiality it requires is neither feasible nor desirable. She then defends an alternative methodology for practical ethics in a global context and uses her proposed methodology to evaluate a problem that confronts many Sunni Muslim women around the world.

This article discusses the effects of the 24 year-old rule in Denmark utilising Foucault’s understanding of the ‘subject’ within a governmentality framework. The 24 year-old rule is a good example of how a gendered knowledge about immigration becomes a reality that steers biopolitics, enables practices of normalisation and subjectifies immigrants in various ways. The article foregrounds the subjectivity of immigrant women through a narrative analysis of the constitution of the subject within discourses and in an asymmetrical relationship to power (...) in governance. This analysis reveals the complexity of empirical interactions between the ideational structure of legislative measures and personal meanings expressed by immigrant subjectivities. While I illustrate certain modes of subjectification in relation to the 24 year-old rule, I emphasise the ways subjects employ certain identity strategies by resisting, reworking or contributing to the practices of normalisation. (shrink)

A number of accounts of expert programming behavior have been advanced. These models of the programming activity have served to highlight the range of factors that are thought to underpin programming strategy. However, such accounts have tended to emphasize either the effects of the organization of the programmer's knowledge representation or the role played by features of the notation of the task language on the emergence, development, and support of particular forms of strategy. Such work has neglected to (a) provide (...) an account of the way in which these factors might interact to determine programming strategy, and (b) shed light upon the nature of the development of particular strategies as programming skill increases.This article presents the results of an empirical analysis of the strategies employed by programmers of varying skill levels using different programming languages. The development of particular forms of strategy is hypothesized to be related both to the development of systematic asymmetries in programmers' generic plan‐based representations of programming knowledge and to the way in which features of the notation of particular programming languages might differentially support particular strategies. However, the results of the study reported here suggest that these effects must be interpreted within a broad developmental context. Hence, as programming skill develops, it appears that the notation of the task language tends to take precedence as a determinant of strategy, but has less relevance at beginning stages of skill development and within the context of expert performance. This finding would not be predicted by current models of the programming activity because such models suggest that any notational effects will tend to be consistent regardless of the skill level attained by the programmer. This article endeavors to extend current models of programming by emphasizing the need to consider in detail not only the development of programming strategy, but also the way in which knowledge representation and features of the task langauge interact to give rise to particular forms of programming behavior. (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop an ethical framework for the marketing of corporate social responsibility. Methods The approach is a conceptual one based on virtue ethics and on the corporate identity literature. Furthermore, empirical research results are used to describe the opportunities and pitfalls of using marketing communication tools in the strategy of building a virtuous corporate brand. Results/conclusions An ethical framework that addresses the paradoxical relation between the consequentialist perspective many proponents of the (...) marketing of CSR adopt, and ethical perspectives which criticize an exclusive profit-oriented approach to CSR. Furthermore, three CSR strategies in relation to the marketing of CSR are discussed. For each CSR strategy it is explored how a corporation could avoid falling into the promise/performance gap. (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop an ethical framework for the marketing of corporate social responsibility. Methods The approach is a conceptual one based on virtue ethics and on the corporate identity literature. Furthermore, empirical research results are used to describe the opportunities and pitfalls of using marketing communication tools in the strategy of building a virtuous corporate brand. Results/conclusions An ethical framework that addresses the paradoxical relation between the consequentialist perspective many proponents of the (...) marketing of CSR adopt, and ethical perspectives which criticize an exclusive profit-oriented approach to CSR. Furthermore, three CSR strategies in relation to the marketing of CSR are discussed. For each CSR strategy it is explored how a corporation could avoid falling into the promise/performance gap. (shrink)

Foucault’s theories of power, resistance, and agency provide useful tools of analysis to support a stronger understanding of the individual experiences of survivors of sexual violence in conflict situations, as many feminist accounts have tended to focus analysis at the macro-level. This paper will outline key Foucauldian concepts, before discussing how Foucauldian and feminist theories can be complementary and indeed useful tools in understanding sexual violence. This paper will then apply a Foucauldian-Feminist framework to better (...) understand patterns of sexual violence in conflict, and to propose modes of resistance for survivors of sexual violence. (shrink)

Although overarching if not foundational conceptualizations of digital governance in the field of critical data studies aptly account for and explain subjection, calculated resistance is left conceptually unattended despite case studies that document instances of resistance. I ask at the outset why conceptualizations of digital governance are so bleak, and I argue that all are underscored implicitly by a Deleuzian theory of desire that overlooks agency, defined here in Foucauldian terms. I subsequently conceptualize digital governance as encompassing (...) subjection as well as resistance, and I cast the two in relational perspective by making use of the concepts “affordance” and “assemblage” in conjunction with multiple subjectivities and Foucault's view of power as productive as well as his view of resistance as an “antagonism of strategies” in his late scholarship on resistance, ethics, and subjectivity. I offer examples of salient modes of what I call “productive” resistance, and from a Foucauldian perspective I explain how each mode targets and subverts technologies of repressive power to produce new elements of the digital environment and construct new truths. I conclude by recognizing the agency embodied in resistance as an end in itself, but I also consider that modes of productive resistance can have extrinsic value as they affect the fluid interaction among elements of the digital environment, potentially disrupting the presumed structure of dominance and dependence, and opening our conceptualization of algorithmic life to hopeful possibilities for change. (shrink)

The papers collected in this volume exemplify some of the trends in current approaches to logic, language and computation. Written by authors with varied academic backgrounds, the contributions are intended for an interdisciplinary audience. The first part of this volume addresses issues relevant for multi-agent systems: reasoning with incomplete information, reasoning about knowledge and beliefs, and reasoning about games. Proofs as formal objects form the subject of Part II. Topics covered include: contributions on logical frameworks, linear logic, and different approaches (...) to formalized reasoning. Part III focuses on representations and formal methods in linguistic theory, addressing the areas of comparative and temporal expressions, modal subordination, and compositionality. (shrink)

Effective social data governance rests on a bedrock of social support. Without securing trust from the populace whose information is being collected, analyzed, and deployed, policies on which such data are based will be undermined by a lack of public confidence. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digitalization and datafication by governments for the purposes of contact tracing and epidemiological investigation. However, concerns about surveillance and data privacy have stunted the adoption of such contact-tracing initiatives. This commentary analyzes Singapore's contact-tracing initiative (...) to uncover the reasons for public resistance and efforts by the state to address them. The government's contact-tracing program encompassing its proprietary TraceTogether app and physical token initially triggered vociferous public criticisms of Big Brother style surveillance. Using a dialogic communication framework, we analyze the TraceTogether initiative to interrogate the communicative strategies that were used to overcome public resistance. We argue that these strategies reflect a top-down approach that prioritizes transactional dissemination of information, in line with Singapore's technocratic stance toward governance. We further assert that such communicative tactics represent missed opportunities to foster public confidence in social data governance through greater trust building. We propose solutions for more dialogic communicative forms that build trust, so that officials can develop a sound understanding of the public concerns, increase the level of public engagement, and incorporate public feedback into policies that govern data use. (shrink)

In this article, we analyze a seven-page speech delivered by Sukarno, first president of Indonesia, at the opening of the First Asia-Africa Conference where he advocated Afro-Asian unity/ solidarity as the panacea for colonialism, imperialism, and neocolonialism. Our aim, by focusing on a single text, is to demonstrate the role of an intensive analysis of ‘outstanding’ singular texts within the broad field of discourse analysis. The analysis is rooted within a positive discourse analysis (PDA) framework, with special focus on (...) lexical choices and variation, modality, intertextuality/interdiscursivity, metaphorical representations, ideological use of pronouns, indexical meaning, and strategies of argumentation. Through these rhetorical techniques, we illustrate how an independence leader constructs an emancipatory discourse aimed at reconciling the ideas and beliefs of the leaders of two continents that have a common history of colonialism. The study sheds light on the role of key speeches and political leaders in promoting an emancipatory discourse, and exemplifies how (presidential) rhetoric can be construed as offering a message of hope, strength, and inspiration while playing the role of a unifier, thereby highlighting the major underlying assumption of PDA: a commitment to a discourse of social change. (shrink)

This paper argues that the linguistic approach to analyzing induction, according to which induction is a type of inference or argument composed of statements or propositions, is unsuitable to account for scientific reasoning. Consequently, a novel approach to induction in model-based science is suggested. First, in order to show their adherence to the linguistic treatment of induction, two strategies are reviewed: (i) Carnap and Reichenbach’s attempts to justify induction and (ii) Norton’s recent material theory of induction. Second, three reasons (...) are provided to support the claim that the linguistic treatment of induction is insufficient in accounting for model-based reasoning in science. Finally, a framework focused on models—rather than statements or propositions—is suggested to address induction in science. William Whewell’s theory of induction is briefly outlined as an example of a non-propositional treatment of induction that is consistent with model-based scientific practice. (shrink)

This article sets out a framework for a language-oriented analysis of sensationalism in news media. Sensationalism is understood here as a discourse strategy of ‘packaging’ information in news headlines in such a way that news items are presented as more interesting, extraordinary and relevant than might be the case. Unlike previous content analyses of sensational coverage, this study demonstrates how sensationalism is instantiated through specific illocutions, semantic macrostructures, narrative formulas, evaluation parameters, and interpersonal and textual devices. Examples are drawn (...) from a corpus of headlines of the ‘most read’ articles in the online outlet of the British mid-market tabloid Daily Mail compiled in early 2012. Sensationalized instances are identified through surveys and focus group discussions and subsequently analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The study is located within the context of media scholarship on news values and current trends in journalism. (shrink)

Differences in perceptions and knowledge of crop diseases constitute a major obstacle in farmer–researcher cooperation, which is necessary for sustainable disease management. Farmers’ perceptions and management of crop diseases in the northern Ethiopian Regional State of Tigrai were investigated in order to harness their knowledge in the participatory development of integrated disease management (IDM) strategies. Knowledge of disease etiology and epidemiology, cultivar resistance, and reasons for the cultivation of susceptible cultivars were investigated in a total of 12 tabias (...) (towns) in ten weredas (districts). Perception of diseases involved both scientific and spiritual conceptual frameworks. Of the more than 30 crop diseases recorded on the major crops in the region, only rusts and powdery mildews (locally called humodia) and a few root rots were considered by farmers to be important. Farmers’ awareness of other diseases was extremely low; some highly damaging but less conspicuous diseases, such as faba bean chocolate spot and chickpea ascochyta blight (also called humodia), were not regarded by farmers as disease but as problems caused primarily by excessive soil moisture. Considering that some of these “unrecognized” diseases can cause complete yield loss and genetic erosion in epiphytotic years, there is an urgent need for bringing together farmers’ and scientists’ knowledge to complement each other. Even when farmers had access to disease-resistant or disease-tolerant cultivars, they grew susceptible local varieties because of multiple criteria including earliness, good yield in years with low humodia severity, suitability for home consumption, market demand/quality, and low soil fertility and land management requirements. Farmer innovation and knowledge were evident in their use of diverse disease control measures, but these were a mixture of the “useful and the useless.” Our findings stress the necessity for extension workers and researchers to understand and improve farmers’ knowledge of crop diseases, and farmers’ ability to observe and experiment, through the Farmer Field School or a similar experiential learning approach. These insights about farmers’ knowledge of crop diseases provide a basis for further collaborative maintenance of crop genetic diversity, development of germplasm, and IPM-related research in Africa. (shrink)

This article develops a multi-level framework for the analysis of a bottom-up politics of technology at the workplace. It draws on a multi-case study on algorithmic management of manual labor in manufacturing and delivery platforms in Germany. In researching how workers influenced the use of algorithmic management systems, the concept of technopolitics is developed to refer to three different arenas of negotiation: (1) the arena of regulation, where institutional framings of technologies in production are negotiated, typically between state actors, (...) employers’ associations, and unions. (2) The arena of implementation, where strategies of technology deployment are negotiated—in the German production model typically between management and works council. (3) The arena of appropriation, in which different organizational technocultures offer contesting schemes for the actual use of technology at work. Whereas most recent research on digitalization of work conceptualizes workers as mere objects of digitalization processes, this paper focuses on worker agency as a “technopolitics from below.” It thus demonstrates how workers influence the concrete outcome of digitalization projects. (shrink)

Active surveillance cultures and contact precautions is a strategy to control the transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) within healthcare facilities. Whether to implement this strategy to routinely screen and isolate inpatients with MRSA in non-outbreak (endemic) settings, or to remove it and use standard infection control precautions only is scientifically and ethically controversial, in view of the potential adverse effects of contact precautions on patients. To support the use of standard precautions only, it has been argued that active surveillance (...) to identify patients who are asymptomatically colonised with MRSA to place them in contact precautions is unjust or unfair to these patients in various ways. This paper will unpack and examine four distinct arguments, which are advanced from a medical ethics or quality improvement ethical framework, for why this is so. Our analysis shows that while these arguments highlight the injustice of current practices, they do not provide strong ethical reasons for justifying the removal of active surveillance and contact precautions to control MRSA transmission and infection. An implication of our arguments is that the ethical frame for evaluating prevention and control strategies for MRSA, a multi-drug resistant bacteria, should shift from healthcare to primarily public health. From a public health ethics perspective, whether a strategy is unjust, or how ethically significant its lack of fairness is, depends on assessing the evidence for its public health effectiveness and necessity in a given setting, and the extent of the harms and burdens patients with MRSA bear when they are on contact precautions, which remain matters of scientific debate or uncertainty. As an ethical consideration in the debate, the chief normative implication of justice is to provide us further reasons to revise current active surveillance-contact precautions practices, and for the need for research and interventions to minimise their potential adverse effects on patients. (shrink)

This paper provides examples of how a teacher and a principal construct their ‘ethical selves’. In doing so we demonstrate how Foucault's four-part ethical framework can be a scaffold with which to actively connect emotions to a personal ethical position. We argue that ethical work is and should be an ongoing and dynamic life long process rather than a more rigid adherence to a ‘code of ethics’ that may not meaningfully engage its adherents. We use Foucault's four-part framework (...) of ethical practice as a framework through which an ‘ethical self’ can be purposely constructed. This is important work, as those who have authority over others must know how to monitor themselves against the misuse of the power of their positions. (shrink)

Converging technologies require intelligent policy-making as they have significant capabilities to develop disruptive innovations. In this regard, future-oriented technology assessment is vital given the great uncertainty about the consequences of and barriers to accessing these technologies. However, few frameworks have been developed to evaluate converging technologies, and most of those have neglected the unique dimensions of these technologies. Therefore, this study aims to provide a policymaking framework for converging technology development. Accordingly, the proposed framework is designed through a (...) meta-synthesis of previous technology assessment frameworks by considering the feasibility, challenges, and achievements of converging technologies development pathways (CTDPs) as the key factors. Then, the framework is implemented in a case study of Iran and an appropriate strategy for each converging technologies development pathway is proposed based on a quadruple matrix of achievements and challenges. The results show that in Iran, biotechnology and cognitive technologies have the highest and lowest development horizons, respectively; and surprisingly, the combined field of biotechnology-cognitive is the most promising pair combination of converging technologies. (shrink)

This paper provides examples of how a teacher and a principal construct their ‘ethical selves’. In doing so we demonstrate how Foucault's four‐part ethical framework can be a scaffold with which to actively connect emotions to a personal ethical position. We argue that ethical work is and should be an ongoing and dynamic life long process rather than a more rigid adherence to a ‘code of ethics’ that may not meaningfully engage its adherents. We use Foucault's four‐part framework (...) of ethical practice as a framework through which an ‘ethical self’ can be purposely constructed. This is important work, as those who have authority over others must know how to monitor themselves against the misuse of the power of their positions. (shrink)

A general framework for analysing the effects of variability and the effects of interruptions on foraging is presented. The animal is characterised by its level of energetic reserves, x. We consider behaviour over a period of time [0,T]. A terminal reward function R(x) determines the expected future reproductive success of an animal with reserves x at time T. For any state x at a time in the period, we give the animal a choice between various options and then constrain (...) it to follow a background strategy. The best option is the one that maximizes expected future reproductive success. Using this framework, we show that sensitivity to variability in amount of energy gained is logically distinct from sensitivity to variability in the time at which food is obtained. We also show that incorporating interruptions results in both a preference for variability in time and a preference for a reward followed by a delay as opposed to the same delay before the reward. (shrink)

We propose to characterize imaginative resistance as the failure or unwillingness of the reader to take a fictional description of a deviant reality at face value. The goal of the paper is to explore how readers deal with such a breakdown of the default Face Value interpretation strategy. We posit two distinct interpretative ‘coping’ strategies which help the reader engage with the resistance-inducing fiction by attributing the offending content to one of the fictional characters. We present novel (...) empirical evidence that shows that actual readers use these strategies and we flesh out the exact workings of these strategies by integrating them into a general formal semantic framework for interpreting fiction. (shrink)

ABSTRACTFaced with the marketization of Higher Education in England, pedagogy is under pressure in ways that often undermine lecturers’ deeply held values. For instance, this pressure results in the reduction of significant aspects of teaching to narrow metrics and requires universities to operate within intrusive structures that subordinate their pedagogical aims to profit-orientated objectives. In this paper, I analyse the way that people can preserve their agency in this pedagogical context. I guide my analysis with a framework that combines (...) critical realism with Aristotelian virtue ethics and MacIntyre’s ideas of qualities within human practices. I suggest the kinds of qualities that might assist faculty to preserve and advance rich pedagogical projects in the current circumstances. Finally, I use a critical realist morphogenetic approach to argue that people may be able to resist losing their way when faced with ubiquitous performativity regimes. (shrink)

This paper has four aims: first, to outline the role of the sceptical problem of the criterion in the principal argument for epistemic relativism; second, to establish that methodist and particularist responses to the problem of the criterion do not, by themselves, constitute successful strategies for resisting epistemic relativism; third, to argue that a more fruitful strategy is to attempt to evaluate epistemic frameworks on the basis of the epistemic resources that they have in common; and finally, to make (...) the case that finding this common ground will necessarily involve determining how it is that a framework’s constituent epistemic methods depend on one another for not only their warrant, but for their application. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Corporate social responsibility has been hailed as a new means to address gender inequality, particularly by facilitating women’s empowerment. Women are frequently and forcefully positioned as saviours of economies or communities and proponents of sustainability. Using vignettes drawn from a CSR women’s empowerment programme in Ghana, this conceptual article explores unexpected programme outcomes enacted by women managers and farmers. It is argued that a feminist Foucauldian reading of power as relational and productive can help explain this since those involved (...) are engaged in ongoing processes of resistance and self-making. This raises questions about the assumptions made about women and what is it that such CSR programmes aim to empower them ‘from’ or ‘to.’ Empowerment, when viewed as an ethic of care for the self, is better understood as a self-directed process, rather than a corporate-led strategy. This has implications for how we can imagine the achievement of gender equality through CSR. (shrink)

There is an ethical dilemma present when considering updating predictive clinical artificial intelligence (AI) models, which should be part of the departmental quality improvement process. One needs to consider whether withdrawing the AI model is necessary to obtain the relevant information from a naive patient population or whether to use causal inference techniques to obtain this information. Withdrawing an AI model from patient care might pose challenges if the AI model is considered standard of care, while use of causal inference (...) will not be reliable if the relevant statistical assumptions do not hold true. Hence, each of these two updating strategies is associated with patient risks, but lack of reliable data might endanger future patients. Similarly, not withdrawing an outdated AI might also expose patients to risk. Here I propose a high level ethical framework – epistemic risk management - that provides guidance for which route of model updating should be taken based on the likelihood of the assumptions used during the creation of the original AI model and the assumptions required for causal inference holding true. This approach balances our uncertainty about the status of the AI as standard of care with the risk of not obtaining the necessary data, so as to increase the probability of benefiting current and future patients for whose care the AI is being used. (shrink)

We examine stigma and how it operates, then develop a novel framework to classify the range of positions that are conceptually possible regarding how stigma ought to be handled from a public health perspective. In the case of weight stigma, the possible positions range from encouraging the intentional use of weight stigma as an obesity prevention and reduction strategy to arguing not only that this is harmful but that weight stigma, independent of obesity, needs to be actively challenged and (...) reduced. Using weight stigma as an illustrative example, we draw on prior theoretical work on stigma mechanisms and intervention strategies to develop a framework for improving the understanding, evaluation, and planning of anti-stigma interventions. This framework has the potential to help public health actors to map out how protest, contact, education, and regulation strategies can be used to reduce direct discrimination, structural discrimination, and internalized stigma. (shrink)

Philosophical and scientific investigations of the proprietary aspects of self—mineness or mental ownership—often presuppose that searching for unique constituents is a productive strategy. But there seem not to be any unique constituents. Here, it is argued that the “self-specificity” paradigm, which emphasizes subjective perspective, fails. Previously, it was argued that mode of access also fails to explain mineness. Fortunately, these failures, when leavened by other findings (those that exhibit varieties and vagaries of mineness), intimate an approach better suited to searching (...) for an explanation. Having an alternative in hand, one that shows promise of achieving explanatory adequacy, provides an additional reason to suspend the search for unique constituents. In short, a negative and a positive thesis are developed: we should cease looking for unique constituents and should seek to explain mineness in accord with the model developed here. This model rejects attempts to explain the phenomenon in terms of either a narrative or a minimal sense of self; it seeks to explain at a “molecular” level, one that appeals to multiple, interacting dimensions. The molecular-level model allows for the possibility that subjective perspective is distinct from a stark perspective (one that does not imply mineness). It proposes that the confounding of tacit expectations plays an important role in explaining mental ownership and its complement, disownership. But the confounding of tacit expectations is not sufficient. Because we are able to be aware of the existence of mental states that do not belong to self, we require a mechanism for determining degree of self-relatedness. One such mechanism is proposed here, and it is shown how this mechanism can be integrated into a general model of mental ownership. In the spirit of suggesting how this model might be able to help resolve outstanding problems, the question as to whether inserted thoughts belong to the patient who reports them is also considered. (shrink)

Since Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, the quest for just and lasting peace has been a fountainhead of debate, negotiation, and violent friction. Souad Dajani traces the Palestinians' struggle and argues for a strategy of nonviolent civilian resistance based on deterrence and defense. This strategy would defeat Israel's political will to maintain their occupation and prepare Palestinians for a time beyond the interim period of self-rule agreed upon by Israel and the PLO in (...) September 19932. Dajani's formulation of nonviolent civilian resistance is examined against a backdrop of early developments in Mandate Palestine, the impact of Zionist ideology, and the realities of life for Palestinians under occupation. Her assessment of the role of the PLO, objectives of the Palestinian National Movement, developments since the Gulf War, and other factors crucial to an effective strategy raises critical questions surrounding the operation of nonviolent techniques for the Palestinian community, Israeli politics, and international actors, most prominently the United States. (shrink)

This article explores feminist resistance and resistance to feminism in gender equality planning in educational institutions in Finland. Focusing on feminist resistance signifies asking whether gender equality planning makes feminist resistance possible, and, if so, what does this resistance look like and what does it do? The article argues that feminist resistance is always intertwined with and in interplay with resistance to feminism. Analysing feminist resistance and resistance to feminism in gender (...) equality work sheds light on the possibilities and challenges involved in transforming gender relations through this kind of work. It is suggested that this is a novel approach as much of feminist theorizing on the issue has focused on the neoliberal disciplining that gender equality planning results in. The theoretical framework for the analysis builds on Foucauldian notions of power and resistance where the two are conceptualized as deeply intertwined. The research material consists of personal interviews, group interviews and research notes taken during participation in the gender equality planning processes in one upper secondary school and one vocational institution. (shrink)

This paper proposes a framework for understanding and analysing online social resistance movements based on Hilde Lindemann’s concept of counterstories (Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair, 2003). This framework is based on the premise that we shape our identities in shared social spaces, and that such shared spaces are structured according to so-called ‘master narratives’. Master narratives define the ‘realm of possible identities’ that we can assume, and form the basis for either recognizing or denying recognition to various social (...) groups in specific roles that they might occupy. Social oppression occurs when master narratives preclude or forbid a certain form of self-expression, or alternatively force members of a specific social group into a determinate societal role (say, women who receive recognition only in the roles of mother or housewife). Counterstories serve as a corrective to these aspects of oppression by challenging the oppressive facets of master narratives. Based on this framework, I propose an interpretation of the #MeToo movement as a counterstory that aims to change the oppressive aspects of the patriarchal master narrative that (partially) structures many shared social spaces in the modern Western world. I end this paper by applying the framework to consider potential obstacles #MeToo may encounter as a distinctively online movement. (shrink)

Combining a Nietzschean framework with close attention to a wide range of carefully selected literary texts, Autoaesthetics presents a case for Nietzche's centrality in contemporary aesthetic and literary studies. Based on Nietzche's own practice of combining poetry and philosophy by transcending ressentiment and approaching life to its fullest, Autoaesthetics engages in a heated but intricate debate through and with Nietzche's re-articulation of the self as a strategic (and impossible) aesthetic creation." "Stephen Barker argues that all notions of self are (...) aesthetic, literary, strategic, and teleological, and must be seen not in the context of any essential self but as a complex series of self-articulations. He sets out a strategy of reading that combines Nietzschean "psychology" with subsequent theoretical investigations and shows how Nietzschean dialectics of the self are at work in all (self-defining) human experience in the (post)modern world. His book itself is a play of dialectics (again after Nietzche), designed for interdisciplinary scholars and graduate students interested in exploring the scope of literary and aesthetic theory and philosophy. (shrink)

Background: The United States symbolizes democracy in the new world and contributes to global prosperity. Nevertheless, incrementalism is a historically dominant national approach to public policy implementation that delays democracy and undermines human dignity. Human flourishing and national development are endangered by slow-moving democratic changes. This necessitates a social justice framework that traces the exploitation of incrementalism and the consequences of opportunity gaps. Objectives: This study aims to construct a grounded theory to address and answer the following research question: (...) Are anti-democratic concepts part of a process or strategy that hinders democratic change, and what reinforces it, if anything? Methods: Two categories emerged from a grounded theory of democratic social change. This combination of anti-democratic tenets and democratic principles led to abductive reasoning to fill the research gap. Results: The key finding was the existence of a systematic approach that led to democracy while simultaneously disempowering the same group through legal and extralegal means. Two processes hinder democracy: incrementalism and an anti-democratic demoralizing process. A constructivist social justice grounded theory was developed to analyze and evaluate public policy for barriers and facilitators of democracy. A thorough analysis and evaluation of the impact and consequences of public policy is recommended to better understand how such policies impede democracy and influence American perceptions of justice. (shrink)

This article explores recent developments in the sociology of the arts, namely the new theoretical framework set up by the French sociologist Pierre-Michel Menger in order to approach the artistic activity. It aims to show how he has shaped new tools of understanding and modelling for exploring the arts, as a particular world of action. Laying down the foundation of a conception of action related to symbolic interactionism and drawing on the economic analysis of risk and uncertainty, Menger move (...) towards a model where uncertainty, not determinism, is the default category. Uncertainty is thus the principle unifying the analysis and understanding of the particularities of the arts, and the main argument in integrating sociological and economic studies on artistic activities. Correlatively, artistic creation is qualified as an act of work, the creative work being defined as a system of action in uncertain horizon. Within this model, the artists are seen less like “rational fools” and more like Bayesian actors, adopting strategies for managing risk and uncertainty. (shrink)

We argue the need for academics to resist and challenge the hegemonic discourse of sustainable development within the corporate context. Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory provides a useful framework for recognizing the complex nature of sustainable development and a way of conceptualizing counter-hegemonies. Published empirical research that analyzes sustainable development discourse within corporate reports is examined to consider how the hegemonic discourse is constructed. Embedded assumptions within the hegemonic construction are identified including sustainable development as primarily about economic development, (...) progress, growth, profitability, and “responsibly” managed levels of resource depletion. We call for multiple voices in the discursive field to debate and to resist closure and highlight the possibilities for academic researchers to actively resist the hegemonic construction. Specifically, we advocate vigilance and awareness, critical and reflective analyses, challenge and resistance based on other frames of reference, and strategies for communicating both within and outside the academy. (shrink)

This article focuses on patients' participation in decision‐making in meetings with healthcare professionals in a healthcare system, based on neoliberal regulations and ideas. Drawing on two constructed empirical cases, primarily from the perspective of patients, this article analyses and discusses the clinical practice around decision‐making meetings within a Foucauldian perspective. Patients' participation in decision‐making can be seen as an offshoot of respect for patient autonomy. A treatment must be chosen, when patients consult physicians. From the perspective of patients, there (...) is a tendency for healthcare professionals to supply the patients with the information that they think are necessary for them to make their own decision. But patients do not always want to be a ‘customer’ in the healthcare system; they want to be a patient, consulting an expert for help and advice, which creates resistance to some parts of the decision‐making process. Both professionals and patients are subject to the structural frame of the medical field, formed of both neoliberal framework and medical logic. The decision‐making competence in relation to the choice of treatment is placed away from the professionals and seen as belonging to the patient. A ‘projectification’ of the patient occurs, whereby the patient becomes responsible for his/her choices in treatment and care and the professionals support him/her with knowledge, preferences, and alternative views, out of which he/she must make his/her own choices, and the responsibility for those choices now and in the future. At the same time, there is a tendency towards de‐professionalization. In that light, participation of patients in decision‐making can be regarded as a tacit governmentality strategy that shapes the location of responsibility between individual and society, and independent patients and healthcare professionals, despite the basically desirable, appropriate, and necessary idea of involving patients in their own situations from a humanistic perspective. (shrink)

BackgroundResearch has been an essential part of the COVID-19 pandemic response, including in Latin American (LA) countries. However, implementing research in emergency settings poses the challenge of producing valuable knowledge rapidly while upholding research ethical standards. Research ethics committees (RECs) therefore must conduct timely and rigorous ethics reviews and oversight of COVID-19 research. In the LA region, there is limited knowledge on how countries have responded to this need. To address this gap, the objective of our project is to explore (...) if LA countries developed policies to streamline ethics review and oversight of research in response to the pandemic while ensuring its adherence to ethical standards, and to analyze to what extent these governance frameworks are in accordance with international guidance.MethodsWe conducted a descriptive and exploratory study assessing the COVID-19 research ethics governance frameworks of 19 LA countries, considering 4 dimensions based on international COVID-19 ethics guidance documents: (i) ethics review organizational model adopted, (ii) measures to coordinate between RECs and other research stakeholders, (iii) operational guidance for RECs, and (iv) key ethical issues for review and oversight of COVID-19 research.Results10 out of 19 LA countries have some policy to streamline ethics review of COVID-19 research. Of these countries only 6 issued comprehensive documents following international guidance that contemplate strategies with recommendations for concrete actions for a timely and rigorous review.ConclusionLA countries adopted partial strategies and operational guidance that may demonstrate a lack of a comprehensive view of research ethics for the review and oversight of COVID-19 research. Continuing efforts should be directed to strengthen LA countries' research capacity to respond timely and ethically to future health emergencies. Past lessons and the ones from this pandemic should be the basis to develop international standards and operational guidelines for ethics review and oversight of any research for public health emergencies. (shrink)

In this contribution, we set out a framework for ethical research and innovation. Our framework draws upon recent scholarly work recommending the introduction of new models at the intersection of ethics, strategy, and science and technology studies to inform and explicate how the decisions of researchers can be considered ethical. Ethical research and innovation is construed in our framework as a dynamic process emerging from decisions of multiple stakeholders in innovation ecosystems prior to, during and after the (...) execution of a research and innovation project. The framework can be used by different types of research organizations to implement governance models of ethical research and innovation. (shrink)

This article deals with the empowerment and resistance strategies used by working women in Turkey. In order to explore the ways in which gender ideologies are produced and resisted, a very specific group of women were studied using life history and focus group interviews. The interviews were conducted with women who had graduated between 1960 and 1970 from Girls' Institutes. The Girls' Institutes were all-female high schools and the curriculum of these institutes was particularly geared towards modern domestic, (...) or homemaking skills. However, despite the notion of producing modern women for the domestic sphere, most of the graduates have chosen to work outside their homes. Of these working women some have remained single, some have not had children. These outcomes present a paradox. The article focuses on the resolution of these paradoxes, the power and resistance manoeuvres that women employ and their relationship to the processes of modernization and westernization in Turkey. (shrink)

Indigenous nurse scholars across nations colonised by Europeans articulate the need for accomplices (as opposed to mere performative allies) to work alongside them and support their ongoing struggle for health equity and respect and to prioritise and promote culturally safe healthcare. Although cultural safety is now being mandated in nursing codes of practice as a strategy to address racism in healthcare, it is important that white nurse educators have a comprehensive understanding about cultural safety and the pedagogical skills needed to (...) teach it to undergraduate nurses. We open this article with stories of our journeys as two white nurses in becoming accomplices and working alongside Indigenous Peoples, as patients and colleagues. Our lived experience of the inertia of healthcare and education organisations to address systemic and institutional resistance to the practice of cultural safety underpins the intention of this article. We understand that delivering this challenging and complex topic effectively and respectfully is best achieved when Indigenous and white educators work together at the cultural interface. Doing so requires commitment from white nurses and power holders within universities and healthcare institutions. A decolonising approach to nurse education at individual and institutional levels is fundamental to support and grow the work that needs to be done to reduce health inequity and increase cultural safety. White nurse accomplices can play an important role in teaching future nurses the importance of critical reflection and aiming to reduce power imbalances and racism within healthcare environments. Reducing power imbalances in healthcare environments and decolonising nursing practice is the strength of a cultural safety framework. (shrink)

While corporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming a mainstream issue for many organizations, most of the research to date addresses CSR in large businesses rather than in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), because it is too often considered a prerogative of large businesses only. The role of SMEs in an increasingly dynamic context is now being questioned, including what factors might affect their socially responsible behaviour. The goal of this paper is to make a comparison of SME and large firm (...) CSR strategies. Furthermore, size of the firm is analyzed as a factor that influences specific choices in the CSR field, and studied by means of a sample of 3,680 Italian firms. Based on a multi-stakeholder framework, the analysis provides evidence that large firms are more likely to identify relevant stakeholders and meet their requirements through specific and formal CSR strategies. (shrink)

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been declared one of the top ten global public health threats facing humanity. To address AMR, coercive antimicrobial stewardship policies are being enacted in some settings. These policies, like all in public health, require ethical justification. Here, I introduce a framework for ethically evaluating coercive antimicrobial stewardship policies on the basis of ethical justifications (and their limitations). I consider arguments from effectiveness; duty of easy rescue; tragedy of the commons; responsibility-tracking; the harm principle; paternalism; (...) justice and development; a precautionary approach; and professional duties. I consider how these justifications might form the basis for developing a comprehensive ethical framework, and the need for this to be context-specific and aligned with the priorities, evidence and needs of the particular jurisdictions in which a policy is to be enacted. I demonstrate how the ethical justifications might be used by reference to an example policy of the EU ban on the use of certain human-critical antibiotics for livestock, before concluding with challenges for further development of the framework. (shrink)