In the current scientific and political discourse surrounding the transformation of the scientific publication system, significant attention is focused on Diamond Open Access (OA). Diamond OA is characterized by no charges for readers or authors and relies on monetary allowances and voluntary work. This article explores the potential and challenges of Diamond OA journals, using Germany as a case study. Two key questions are addressed: first, the current role of such journals in the scientific publication system is determined through bibliometric (...) analysis across various disciplines. Second, an investigation is conducted to assess the sustainability of Diamond OA journals and identify associated structural problems or potential breaking points. This investigation includes an in-depth expert interview study involving 20 editors of Diamond OA journals. The empirical results are presented using a landscape map that considers two dimensions: 'monetized and gift-based completion of tasks' and 'journal team size.' The bibliometric analysis reveals a substantial number of Diamond OA journals in the social sciences and humanities, but limited adoption in other fields. The model proves effective for small to mid-sized journals, but not for larger ones. Additionally, it was found that 23 Diamond OA journals have recently discontinued their operations. The expert interviews demonstrate the diversity within the landscape and the usefulness of the two dimensions in understanding key differences. Journals in two of the four quadrants of the map exemplify sustainable conditions, while the other two quadrants raise concerns about long-term stability. These concerns include limited funding leading to a lack of division of labor and an excessive burden on highly committed members. Gift-like contributions, while appealing, also present challenges as potential donors not only decide whether to contribute but also how to contribute, potentially creating friction between the gift and the journal's requirements. Furthermore, journals in the lower right quadrant often rely on third-party funding, necessitating a transformation once the funding expires. Common pathways for sustaining operations include lobbying for funding at the journal's home institution or increasing reliance on gift-based completion of tasks. These findings underscore the need for the development of more sustainable funding models to ensure the success of Diamond OA journals. (shrink)

This paper elaborates on the idea of the epistemology of ignorance developed in Charles Mills’s work beginning in the 1980s and continuing throughout his writings. I I argue that his account developed initially from experiences of racism in north America as well as certain methods of organizing within parts of the Caribbean left. Essentially the epistemic practice of ignorance causes knowers to discredit or push away knowledge they in fact have. But this gives us cause for hope, for restoring existing (...) knowledge through changing ideas about who knows. (shrink)

Abstract‘Cultural racism’ is central to understanding racism today yet has receded into the background behind the focus on attitudinal racism. Even the turn to structural racism is largely circumscribed to inclusion without substantive challenge to existing processes or profit margins. When portions of the racist public are targeted, it is often the least elite members of society. Without question, the concept of cultural racism requires some clarification, but it will help bring the continued influence of colonialism forward and reveal the (...) alibis given in mainstream and elite circles that justify exclusion, resource extraction, and domination. (shrink)

This paper will develop a set of concerns about a central feature of Ásta's account of social categories that she calls “conferralism.” I argue that generalist approaches to social categories such as Ásta provides are inadequate as a way of understanding the diverse formations of diverse categories, and that conferralism overemphasizes the power of top-down forces (what she calls “persons with standing”) to confer social identities. This approach then underplays the horizontal and bottom-up influences on category formation as well as (...) the historical formation of many social identities, especially ethnicity and race. Conferralism sets aside not only physical differences that play a role in some categories but also group-related historical experiences and practices that produce the “base properties” that justify the use of social identity categories. (shrink)

This volume is an act of talking back, of talking heresy. To reclaim the term “realism,” to maintain the epistemic significance of identity, to defend any version of identity politics today is to swim upstream of strong academic currents in feminist theory, literary theory, and cultural studies. It is to risk, even to invite, a dismissal as naive, uninformed, theoretically unsophisticated. And it is a risk taken here by people already at risk in the academy, already assumed more often than (...) not to be uninformed and undereducated precisely because of their real identities. Of course, identity is today a growth industry in the academy, across the humanities and social sciences, influencing even law and communication studies. The constitutive power of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality and other forms of identity has, finally, suddenly, been recognized as a relevant aspect of almost all projects of inquiry. However, as I shall discuss in this essay, simultaneous to this academic commodification of identity is an increasing tendency to view identity as politically and metaphysically problematic, some have even said pathological. So on the one hand the theoretical relevance of identities has become visible, while on the other hand many theorists are troubled by the implications of the claim that identity makes a difference. Increasingly, then, the attachment to identity has become suspect. If identity has become suspect, identity politics has been prosecuted, tried, and sentenced to death. To espouse identity politics in the academy today risks being viewed as a member of the Flat-Earth Society. Like “essentialism,” identity politics has become the shibboleth of cultural studies and social theory, and denouncing it has become the litmus test of academic respectability, political acceptability, and even a necessity for the very right to be heard. In contrast, there has been a noticeable thaw regarding the term essentialism. What was once perfunctorily denounced at the start of every paper in feminist theory has recently been tentatively examined by a few theorists for possible signs of validity.. (shrink)

The politics of ethnic names, such as ‘Latino’ and ‘Hispanic’, raises legitimate issues for three reasons: because non-political considerations of descriptive adequacy are insufficient to determine absolutely the question of names; political considerations may be germane to an ethnic name’s descriptive adequacy; and naming opens up the political question of a chosen furture, to which we are accountable. The history of colonial and neo-colonial conditions structuring the relations of the North, Central and South Americas is both critical in understanding the (...) political condition of Latinos in the USA and relevant in current colonial relations. Key Words: ascriptive class segment • colonialism • ethnic names • Hispanic • Latino • neo-colonialism • political contestation. (shrink)

The politics of ethnic names, such as ‘Latino’ and ‘Hispanic’, raises legitimate issues for three reasons: because non-political considerations of descriptive adequacy are insufficient to determine absolutely the question of names; political considerations may be germane to an ethnic name’s descriptive adequacy; and naming opens up the political question of a chosen furture, to which we are accountable. The history of colonial and neo-colonial conditions structuring the relations of the North, Central and South Americas is both critical in understanding the (...) political condition of Latinos in the USA and relevant in current colonial relations. (shrink)

This article is concerned with the devaluation of the work of public intellectuals within the academic community. The principal reason given for this devaluation is that the work of the public intellectual does not have intellectual integrity as independent thought and original scholarship. I develop three models of public intellectual work: the permanent–critic model, the popularizer model, and the public–theorist model. I then consider each model in relation to the concern with intellectual integrity and conclude that both independent thought and (...) original scholarship are possible within work that is engaged with nonacademic publics. (shrink)

Cultural appropriation is a timely topic that has been taking up a lot of space in public discussions. The concept is often applied in heated debates aimed at calling out’ different actors and actions as appropriation, or on the other hand to defend against such accusations. This thematic issue seeks to look at the topic from a broader and more nuanced perspective, asking what different expressions of appropriation appear in the field of and in relation to religion and spirituality. What (...) discourses and discussions emerge around instances of religious and spiritual appropriation? And how is appropriation understood, negotiated or problematized within, across and around different religious and spiritual groups? The publication is part of the research project ‘Learning from Religion and Spirituality’ (Academy of Finland 2019-2023) [325148]. (shrink)

Justice Sonia Sotomayor was vilified for arguing that one's social identity can contribute positively to judgment or public reason. This paper considers and expands on Sotomayor's arguments, showing that identity is relevant to snap judgments and to sensation transference that affects how speakers are assessed. It further develops a hermeneutic account of identity that can make sense of its epistemic relevance without foreclosing individual variation.

The idea that Adorno should be read as a “realist” of any sort may indeed sound odd. And unpacking from Adorno’s elusive prose a credible and useful normative reconstruction of epistemology and metaphysics will take some work. But we argue that he should be added to the growing group of epistemologists and metaphysicians who have been developing post-positivist versions of realism such as contextual, internal, pragmatic and critical realisms. These latter realisms, however, while helpfully showing how realism can coexist with (...) ontological pluralism, for example, as well as a highly contextualised account of knowledge, have not developed a political reflexivity about how the object of knowledge—the real—is constructed. As a field, then, post-positivist realisms have been politically naïve, which is perhaps why they have not enjoyed more influence among Continental philosophers. (shrink)

In this paper I set out the problem of feminist social science as the need to explain and justify its method of theory choice in relation to both its own theories and those of androcentric social science. In doing this, it needs to avoid both a positivism which denies the impact of values on scientific theory-choice and a radical relativism which undercuts the emancipatory potential of feminist research. From the relevant literature I offer two possible solutions: the Holistic and the (...) Constructivist models of theory-choice. I then rate these models according to what extent they solve the problem of feminist social science. I argue that the principal distinction between these models is in their contrasting conceptions of truth. Solving the problem of feminist social science will require understanding that what is at stake in the debate is our conception of truth. This understanding will serve to clarify, though not resolve, the various approaches to and disagreements over methodologies and explanations in feminist social science. (shrink)

This article analyzes Nancy Fraser's account of the contrasting social movements for recognition versus those for redistribution. In her most recent analysis, only those forms of recognition struggles that she equates with identity politics are subject to critique. I argue that identity politics does not have an inevitable logic to it that destines it to fracture, border patrol, internal conservatism, etc., and further that the very redistribution claims she proposes require identity politics.

Michel Foucault’s formative years included the study not only of history and philosophy but also of psychology: two years after he took license in philosophy at the Sorbonne in 1948, he took another in psychology, and then obtained, in 1952, a Diplôme de Psycho Pathologie . From his earliest years at the Ecole Normale Superieur he had taken courses on general and social psychology with one of most influential psychologists of the time, Daniel Lagache, who was attempting to integrate psychoanalysis (...) with clinical methods.(Eribon 1991, 42) Foucault’s studies included experimentation and clinical instruction in which patients were presented in an amphitheatre just as in the days of Charcot. For several years after he had received his Diplôme, Foucault continued research in psychopathology, observing practices in mental hospitals, reportedly sometimes volunteering in experiments himself. He purchased the material required to administer Roschach tests, subjecting numerous friends to the inkblots, and became, when it was founded, the honorary president of the French Rorschach organization. Foucault’s first books were on the topic of the psychological characterization of madness and the development of clinical medicine, and his last books addressed the development of psychological norms within the establishment of modern prisons as well as within an increasingly scientific approach to sex. Thus, he worked at the intersections of philosophy and psychology throughout his life. Nonetheless, Foucault reported feeling an intense aversion to psychology no less than to philosophy.(Sheridan 1980, 5) Foucault’s oeuvre is almost exclusively focused on particular knowledges in the human sciences, especially those aspects which pertained to psychological theories of human behavior, capacity, and normative functioning. His historical approach to these, and his emphasis on the role of discourse, is readily reminiscent of Thomas Kuhn’s similarly historical approach to scientific method with its emphasis on the role of paradigms and the untranslatability of paradigm dependent objects.. (shrink)

This article reflects on the worlds that María Lugones has made and has transformed, particularly for the doing of feminist theory. Thus this article will be more exploratory than argumentative: to explore the lessons that Lugones's work holds, especially her work on pluralist feminism, world-traveling, the uses of anger, boomerang perception, and the multiplicitousness of both our selves and our communities, for our twenty-first-century challenges. This article argues that Lugones's work addresses how to negotiate conflicts that arise within social movements (...) of liberation, within coalitions or spaces of shared commitments. (shrink)

Epistemology was a central concern of Michel Foucault. By denying the conflation of knowledge with power, and consistently maintaining a dyadic relationship (“power/knowledge”) rather than a relationship in which power eclipses knowledge, Foucault maintains that knowledge requires its own analysis irreducible to the strategic maneuvers of power. “Epistemology,” by this caricature, has to approach the question of knowledge as a transcendent entity, akin to Plato's Ideal Forms. Foucault's work on knowledge is primarily critical rather than normatively reconstructive. The most important (...) and influential of his ideas was Foucault's claim that power and knowledge are co‐constituting: “that power and knowledge directly imply one another ”. The chapter also explores some of Foucault's case studies, which reveal general claims about the nature of truth and knowledge. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Suggested Reading.

Caring to Know by Vrinda Dalmiya is a remarkable, and remarkably original, work. It develops a significant extension of the care-ethical framework for epistemology, builds on as well as critiques Western feminist philosophy, and offers an original interpretation of the Mahābhārata's implication for epistemic norms. But perhaps most importantly, it invents an entirely original epistemology unlike anything, really, in English. The revolutionary dimensions of the book are clear from the beginning: this is a work of decolonial epistemology.For the period of (...) our shared presence in the profession of philosophy, moral theory and epistemology have begun a cautious conversation. There is now moral epistemology, a field of... (shrink)

We have been teaching gender issues and feminist theory for many years, and we know that there is certainly a diversity of views among women, and men, about what counts as feminist or as good for women. Some may see a competent woman running for V.P as inevitably a step forward for women's equality. But consider this.

In her book, Real Knowing (Cornell UP, 1996), and in many articles, she argues, in opposition to many post-structuralists and pragmatists, for the preservation of a notion of truth as partly referential albeit inextricably tied to a context. Furthermore, and in connection to this, she also critiques pure proceduralism in the normative dimension, defending instead a notion of normativity that is substantive but context related, thus, not universal or absolute.

This paper provides a memoir and overview of Iris Young's philosophy and a discussion of her account of gender identity.