"Künstlerische Selbstverletzung - seit den 1960er Jahren international fester Bestandteil der Performance Art - polarisiert, verstört und wirft vor allem Fragen nach Handlungsmotivationen auf. Rosemarie Brucher deutet dieses radikale Phänomen als Bewältigungsversuch bedrohter Autonomie und damit in erster Linie als Ermächtigungsstrategie. In dieser Ambivalenz aus Subjektermächtigung und Naturunterwerfung lässt sich künstlerische Selbstverletzung vor dem Hintergrund von Immanuel Kants Ästhetik des Erhabenen lesen, was die Autorin exemplarisch an VALIE EXPORT und Stelarc darlegt. Eine solche Bezugsetzung eröffnet nicht nur einen innovativen Zugang (...) zu dieser Kunstform, sondern wirft zugleich auch ein neues Licht auf Kants Erhabenheitskonzeption"--Back cover. (shrink)

This paper examines what can be learnt from analysing attempts to give lay people more involvement in the administration of state schools. Although devolving more responsibility to schools and lay governors has been an important feature of school reform in several countries, it is not immediately apparent if this shift is the product of globally similar social and political forces or nationally specific cultural, ideological and economic factors. In considering this issue, the paper describes recent changes in school governance in (...) England, New Zealand, USA, Scotland and Catalunya, Spain. It is argued that some of these changes can best be characterised as attempts to increase the democratic participation of citizens in the running of schools. Other changes, however, seem rather to represent on attempt to bring the culture of business to schools and reduce the power of professional educators over education. (shrink)

What do a short car trip, a pandemic, the wood-wide fungal web, a challenging learning experience, a storm, transport logistics, and the language(s) we speak have in common? All of them are systems, or multiple sets of systems within systems. What happens in any set of circumstances will depend on a mix of initial conditions, complexity dynamics, and the odd wild card (e.g., a chance event). While it is possible to model and predict what might or perhaps should happen, it (...) is impossible to be certain. "It depends" thinking needs to be applied. Future-focused literature identifies complex systems thinking as an essential capability for citizenship, and this book sets out to show teachers how they might foster it-for themselves as well as for their students. There are implications for pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment. Multiple examples show what changes might look like, for students of different ages, and in different subject contexts. This is a book of several layers: It is both practical and philosophical. There is explicit discussion of parallels between complexity science and indigenous knowledge systems (specifically mātauranga Māori in the New Zealand context). The many examples are designed to appeal to general readers with an interest in the complex challenges facing contemporary societies, as well as to teachers at all levels of the education system. (shrink)

This paper will examine a claim that nursing is united by its moral stance. The claim is that there are moral constraints on nurses' actions as people practising nursing and that they are in some way different from both what for now can be called standard morality and also different from the person's own moral views who also happens to be a nurse, hence the defining and unifying factor for nursing. I will begin by situating the claim within the broader (...) area about the need for a definition to state features that are essential to all and only members of its class. This will highlight the fact that there are two distinct types of definition used by authors seeking to find a unity for nursing. One type of definition has to do with goals or purposes given to nursing and the other with ends discovered as nursing. But even if there are ends waiting to be discovered a particular practical concern is how we can have knowledge of them. I will suggest that knowledge by intuition is plausible but that as things currently stand in moral epistemology it will not provide the unifying ground for nursing. Then I will argue that in the latter approach to definition a certain account of human nature has been advanced in order to provide features that are there to be discovered and so not dependent on human beings for the definition or classification. However, such an attempt to define nursing cannot do what is wanted. Rather than the account of human nature grounding morality and doing so for nursing, the account of human nature itself relies upon a prior account of morality. Because of this it loses its supposed ground of unity for the profession. Nursing is not united by its moral stance especially if this is understood in a strong sense as unique moral stance, but as things currently stand in moral epistemology this is not necessarily a bad thing for practitioners or patients. (shrink)

It is known that people have been getting distressed for a long‐time and healthcare workers, like the military, seem to fit criteria for being at particular risk. Fairly recently a term of art, moral distress, has been added to types of distress at work, though not restricted to work, they can suffer. There are recognized scales that measure psychological distress such as the General Health Questionnaire and the Kessler scales but moral distress it is claimed is different warranting its own (...) scale. This seems to be because of both the intensity and nature of moral problems encountered at work that is so powerful and so destructive of moral agency and integrity. This paper will focus on how, if at all, moral distress is different by examining the idea of moral normativity. Moral normativity is understood as roughly the sort of thing that all rational persons would endorse regardless of his interests, having an “automatic reason giving force” and is likely to also require an overriding force. Specifically, it will examine how this force of moral claims seems to be needed for moral distress to be so destructive of healthcare professional's moral agency and integrity. This is related to the idea of warrantedness of the reaction of distress. Even if morality had such a strong normativity, one can still ask is distress the correct or warranted reaction? It seems plausible that if distress is a correct response for it to be both moral and warranted it needs a strong account of moral normativity. The idea of a distinct form of distress as moral distress may be true in theory but is too contested both ontologically and epistemologically for a useful practice of measurement at present. (shrink)

Within the nursing ethics literature, there has for some time now been a focus on the role and importance of character for nursing. An overarching rationale for this is the need to examine the sort of person one must be if one is to nurse well or be a good nurse. How one should be to live well or live a/the good life and to nurse well or be a good nurse seems to necessitate a focus on an agent's character (...) as well as actions because character is (for the most part) expressed in action (e.g. see Laird). This paper will give an overview of the reasons for the role and importance of character in nursing practice and explain its relation to nursing's frequent use of virtue ethics in order to recommend caution. While the paper agrees that the role of character is important in nursing caution is needed in both how much moral and thus normative, emphasis is being placed on the psychology of character and on the drift to virtue ethics. The psychological which may be explanatory needs to be linked with the normative, and a justification for the normative is needed. A justification as virtue ethics is contested, and nursing practice does not need to take on this explanatory and justificatory burden.A tentative proposal raised but not discussed in depth in this paper is that when an ultimate explanation or explanatory ground is needed, nursing practice leads quite naturally to a form of consequentialism as well as a realist metaethic. On this account, there are two levels of moral thinking, and nursing practice entails the virtues at one level and leads quite naturally to moral thinking at another more critical level of the criterion of what makes something right and good independently of character. (shrink)

It has been claimed that there are certain acts that nurses as people practising nursing must never do because they are nurses and this is regardless of what the same agent should do; that certain actions are not part of proper nursing practice. The concept of an internal morality has been discussed in relation to medicine and has been used to ground the actions proper to medicine in a realist tradition. Although the concept of an internal morality of nursing is (...) not explicitly mentioned in the literature the underpinning ideas about the proper practice of nursing based on philosophical realism I argue equate with it and a discussion of the method of an internal morality can help to understand how arguments against euthanasia related to the profession of nursing are far from clear. Ultimately, although the idea of particular acts proper to nurses qua nurses is not clear, the concept of an internal morality can help to get practitioners to see how the profession is tightly linked to moral actions, even so the hard problems in bioethics such as the morality of euthanasia remain hard for all and the easy ones easy for all. (shrink)

Pure time preference is a preference for something to come at one point in time rather than another merely because of when it occurs in time. In opposition to Sidgwick, Ramsey, Rawls, and Parfit we argue that it is not always irrational to be guided by pure time preferences. We argue that even if the mere difference of location in time is not a rational ground for a preference, time may nevertheless be a normatively neutral ground for a preference, and (...) this makes it plausible to claim that the preference is rationally permitted. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to determine the development of moral judgement in first-year and senior baccalaureate nursing students. These students were enrolled in three separate nursing programmes, each of which differed significantly in ethical content. The sample totalled 180 students enrolled in three New England programmes. Programme A included an ethics course taught by a professor of ethics. Programme B integrated ethical issues into all nursing theory courses. Programme C did not include ethical content in theory courses. The (...) design was of a developmental cross-sectional study. The dependent variable was the development of moral judgement, as measured by Rest’s Defining Issues Test. The independent variable was the amount of ethics taught in the nursing programmes and the level of academic education. The senior nursing students from programme A scored significantly higher than the other senior groups on the Defining Issues Test. The conclusion is that an ethics course with group participation and a decision-making element significantly facilitated nursing students’ development of moral judgement. (shrink)

Rosemary Hennessy confronts some of the impasses in materialist feminist work on rethinking `woman' as a discursively constructed subject. She argues for a theory of discourse as ideology taking into account the work of Kristeva, Foucault and Laclau.

Philosophical and empirical work on the nature of the emotions is extensive, and there are many theories of emotions. However, all agree that emotions are not knee jerk reactions to stimuli and are open to rational assessment or warrant. This paper's focus is on the condition or conditions for compassion as an emotion and the likelihood that it or they can be met in nursing practice. Thus, it is attempting to keep, as far as possible, compassion as an emotion separate (...) from both moral norms and professional norms. This is because empirical or causal conditions that can make experiencing and acting out of compassion difficult seem especially relevant in nursing practice. I consider how theories of emotion in general and of compassion in particular are somewhat contested, but all recent accounts agree that emotions are not totally immune to reason. Then, using accounts of constitutive conditions of the emotion of compassion, I will show how they are often likely to be quite fragile or unstable in practice and particularly so within much nursing practice. In addition, some of the conditions for compassion will be shown to be problematic for nursing practice. It is difficult to keep ideas of compassion separate from morality, and this connection is noticeable in the claims made of compassion for nursing and so I will briefly highlight one such connection that of the need for normative theory to give an account of the value that emotions such as compassion presume and that compassionate motivation is separate from moral motivation and may conflict with it. The fragility or instability of the emotion of compassion in practice has implications for both what can be expected and what should be expected of compassion; at least if what is wanted is a realist rather than idealist account of “should.”. (shrink)

ABSTRACTBusiness actors often act in ways that may harm other parties. While the law aims to restrict harmful behavior and to provide remedies, legal systems do not anticipate all contingencies and legal regulations are not always well-enforced. This article argues that the logic of double effect, which has been developed and deployed in other areas of practical ethics, can be useful in helping business actors decide whether or not to pursue potentially harmful activities in commonplace business activity. The article illustrates (...) how LDE helps to explain the exploitative nature of payday lending, the distinction between permissible and impermissible forms of market competition, and the potential wrong of imposing risk of harm on others. The article also addresses foundational debates about LDE itself. We offer the article as an illustration of the sort of “midlevel” theorizing that can address directly the needs of practitioners. (shrink)

As in many other fields of practical ethics, virtue ethics is increasingly of interest within nursing ethics. Nevertheless, the virtue ethics literature in nursing ethics remains relatively small and underdeveloped. This article aims to categorize which broad theoretical approaches to virtue have been taken, to undertake some initial comparative assessment of their relative merits given the peculiar ethical dilemmas facing nurse practitioners, and to highlight the prob- lem areas for virtue ethics in the nursing context. We find the most common (...) approaches fall into care approaches grounded in sentimentalist or feminist ethics, eudaimonist approaches grounded in neo-Aristotelianism, and those grounded in MacIntyre’s practice theory. Our initial assessment is that the eudaimonist approach fares best in terms of merit and relative to criticisms of virtue ethics. But an outstanding issue concerns the motivational psychology of virtuous nursing and whether virtue ethical accounts of right action are self-effacing, i.e. justify an act on grounds that cannot function as the agent’s reason for doing it if she is to act well. One of us, Newham, believes that a virtue consequentialist approach is the best response to these issues. Some form of pluralistic theory, such as Christine Swanton’s, may be needed to explain the many competing values and goods involved in ethical nursing. (shrink)

This paper examines what managers ought to do when confronted with apparent moral conflicts between their managerial responsibilities and the general requirements of morality, specifically when those conflicts are driven by the institutional environment. I examine Google’s decision to enter the Chinese search engine market as an example of such a conflict. I consider the view that Google’s managers engaged in justifiable moral compromise in making the choice to engage in self-censorship and show how this view depends on the idea (...) of genuine moral dilemmas or irresolvable moral conflicts. I argue that there are serious reasons to doubt the existence of genuine moral dilemmas both in the abstract, as well as in the context of managerial responsibility. I propose an alternative account for what Google’s managers ought to do, as well as others who face relevantly similar situations. The account contains two conditions for permissibly contributing to another party’s failure to live up to their moral responsibilities. The first condition is that the manager must intend and act in such a way as to minimize the firm’s complicity in the other entity or actor’s failure, which in most cases will imply a duty for the manager to take actions that aim towards changing the institutional context. Under the second condition, managers ought to communicate to the firm’s constituents that they take seriously the importance of the interests at stake. (shrink)

We investigate how the perceived uncertainty of a conditional affects a person's choice of conclusion. We use a novel procedure to introduce uncertainty by manipulating the conditional probability of the consequent given the antecedent. In Experiment 1, we show first that subjects reduce their choice of valid conclusions when a conditional is followed by an additional premise that makes the major premise uncertain. In this we replicate Byrne. These subjects choose, instead, a qualified conclusion expressing uncertainty. If subjects are given (...) a third statement that qualifies the likelihood of the additional premise, then the uncertainty of the conclusions they choose is systematically related to the suggested uncertainty. Experiment 2 confirms these observations in problems that omit the additional premise and qualify the first premise directly. Experiment 3 shows that the qualifying statement also affects the perceived probability of the consequent given the antecedent of the conditional. Experiment 4 investigates the effect of suggested uncertainty on the fallacies and shows that increases in uncertainty reduce the number of certain conclusions that are chosen while affirming the consequent but have no effect on denying the antecedent. We discuss our results in terms of rule theories and mental models and conclude that the latter give the most natural account of our results. (shrink)

1. IntroductionA paternalistic act is one in which the protection or promotion of a subject's welfare is the primary reason for attempted or successful coercive interference with an action or state of that person. My aim in this paper is to determine the conditions under which such acts are Justified. The route I take is through the concept of consent, with actual consent providing the foundation for a rather complex condition which I claim is necessary and sufficient for the Justification (...) of paternalism.Because a paternalistic act apparently violates a subject's right to non-interference, it constitutes a problem in the general area of rights. Ideally, then, one should have a developed and convincing theory of rights — that is, a theory which contains an analysis of the concept of a right, and offers solutions to the central problems, e.g. who has rights and why, what considerations override prima facie rights, and how the relative importance of prima facie rights is determined — from which the solutions to various problems about paternalism can be derived. (shrink)

This paper's philosophical ideas are developed from a General Nursing Council for England and Wales Trust‐funded study to explore nursing knowledge and wisdom and ways in which these can be translated into clinical practice and fostered in junior nurses. Participants using Carper's (1978) ways of knowing as a framework experienced difficulty conceptualizing a link between the empirics and ethics of nursing. The philosophical problem is how to understand praxis as a moral entity with intrinsic value when so much of value (...) seems to be technical and extrinsic depending on desired ends. Using the Aristotelian terms poesis and praxis can articulate the concerns that the participants as well as Carper (1978) and Dreyfus (in Flyvbjerg, 1991) among others share that certain actions or ways of knowing important for nursing are being devalued and deformed by the importance placed on quantitative data and measurable outcomes. The sense of praxis is a moralized one and most of what nurses do is plausibly on any account of normative ethics a morally good thing; the articulation of the idea of praxis can go some way in showing how it is a part of the discipline of nursing. Nursing's acts as poesis can be a part of how practitioners come to have praxis as phronesis or practical wisdom. So to be a wise nurse, one needs be a wise person. (shrink)

We suggest that mammalian endothermy was established amongst Middle Jurassic crown mammals, through reviewing state‐of‐the‐art fossil and living mammal studies. This is considerably later than the prevailing paradigm, and has important ramifications for the causes, pattern, and pace of physiological evolution amongst synapsids. Most hypotheses argue that selection for either enhanced aerobic activity, or thermoregulation was the primary driver for synapsid physiological evolution, based on a range of fossil characters that have been linked to endothermy. We argue that, rather than (...) either alternative being the primary selective force for the entirety of endothermic evolution, these characters evolved quite independently through time, and across the mammal family tree, principally as a response to shifting environmental pressures and ecological opportunities. Our interpretations can be tested using closely linked proxies for both factors, derived from study of fossils of a range of Jurassic and Cretaceous mammaliaforms and early mammals. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the controversy over genetically modified canola (GM canola) in Australia as an ontological politics, drawing on recent work in Science and Technology Studies that extends actor-network theory and its commitment to the contingency of reality. I examine three different and overlapping performances of GM canola: as an agronomic object, a risk object and a market object. I focus on how each performance effects similarities and differences between GM and conventional canola that are productive of ontological (...) distinctions that make GM canola controversial. I argue this analysis offers useful insights that are not revealed by more traditional explanations of controversy. (shrink)

Die Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes behandeln grundlegende Lebensbereiche der Eisenzeit aus kulturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive, u.a. Sozialordnungen, die Rolle der Frauen, Waffen und Kriegerordnungen, Werkzeug, Grabbau, Religion und Rituale, Kunst.

The question of how to respond to the deep political divides in the United States today has resulted in the emergence of two camps. On one side are those who argue that the cultivation of civic virtues like civility will lead to more respectful interpersonal relationships through which consensus and mutual understanding can be built. On the other are those who argue that our commitment to justice is primary and may require uncivil behavior to disrupt and change unjust structural relationships. (...) In Healthy Conflict in Contemporary American Society, Jason Springs helps to bridge the divide between these two positions. Because he takes a relational approach that centers both interpersonal and structural relationships, Springs makes both mutual respect and just structures central to his conception of healthy conflict. Taking relationality seriously thus helps to overcome this impasse, but it also raises significant questions about the impact of asymmetrical relationships on citizens’ responsibilities to engage in healthy conflict. (shrink)

Cost-benefit analysis is commonly understood to be intimately connected with utilitarianism and incompatible with other moral theories, particularly those that focus on deontological concepts such as rights. We reject this claim and argue that cost-benefit analysis can take moral rights as well as other non-utilitarian moral considerations into account in a systematic manner. We discuss three ways of doing this, and claim that two of them (output filters and input filters) can account for a wide range of rights-based moral theories, (...) including the absolute notions of moral rights proposed by Hayek, Mayo, Nozick, and Shue. We also discuss whether the use of output filters and input filters can be generalized to cover other non-utilitarian theories, such as Kantian duty ethics and virtue ethics. (shrink)

The Japanese scholar Miura Baien (1723-1789) worked throughout his life to produce a philosophical analysis of the natural world. Misinterpretations of his intentions arise from drawing diagrams on his behalf that are inconsistent with his text, or by applying to his text Western academic terms that are quite foreign to his thought. When Baien's text is examined in his own terms we can understand its significant role in the scientific thought of the Edo period.

This empirical study advances the understanding of the theory of investment in human capital by outlining limitations to its applicability in the context of return to education. The study uses the concept of moral hazard to examine circumstances when financial support for education purpose generates less desirable post-graduation incomes. This study explores the relationship between financial support and post-graduation incomes using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation that is designed to measure the economic situation of individuals. Results (...) suggest that students are less likely to engage in moral hazardous behavior to the degree to which they are older and to the degree to which they receive costlier financial assistance. (shrink)

Recent years have seen the advent of two feminist judgment-writing projects, the Women’s Court of Canada, and the Feminist Judgments Project in England. This article analyses these projects in light of Carol Smart’s feminist critique of law and legal reform and her proposed feminist strategies in Feminism and the Power of Law (1989). At the same time, it reflects on Smart’s arguments 20 years after their first publication and considers the extent to which feminist judgment-writing projects may reinforce or trouble (...) her conclusions. It argues that both of these results are discernible—that while some of Smart’s contentions have proved to be unsustainable, others remain salient and have both inspired and hold important cautions for feminist judgment-writing projects. (shrink)

At no time in the past century have there been fiercer battles over our public schools than there are now. Parents and educational reformers are challenging not only the mission, content, and structure of mass compulsory schooling but also its underlying premise—that the values promoted through public education are neutral and therefore acceptable to any reasonable person. In this important book, Rosemary Salomone sets aside the ideological and inflammatory rhetoric that surrounds today’s debates over educational values and family choice. (...) She offers instead a fair-minded examination of education for democratic citizenship in a society that values freedom of conscience and religious pluralism. And she proposes a balanced course of action that redefines but does not sever the relationship between education and the state. Salomone demonstrates how contemporary conflicts are the product of past educational and social movements. She lays bare some of the myths that support the current government monopoly over education and reveals how it privileges those of economic means. Through a detailed case study of recent controversy in a suburban New York school district, the author explores the legal and policy issues that arise when widely disparate world views stand in the way of political compromise on educational materials, techniques, and programs. Salomone builds a case for educational governance that places the developmental needs of the child at the center of family autonomy. She advances a plan that respects diverse values and visions of schooling while preserving the core commitments that bind our nation. (shrink)

Feminist critiques of intention challenge some aspects of traditional just war reasoning, including the criteria of right intention and discrimination. I take note of these challenges and propose some directions just war reasoners might take in response. First, right intention can be evaluated more accurately by judging what actors in war actually do than by attempting to uncover inward dispositions. Assessing whether agents in war have taken due care to minimize foreseeable collateral damage, avoided intentional targeting of noncombatants, corrected previous (...) mistakes in their later actions, and taken responsibility to repair unintended damage they cause are examples of ways in which just war reasoners can evaluate intention by looking at actions. (shrink)

The West has created categories of property, including intellectual property, which divides peoples and things according to the same colonizing discourses of possessive individualism that historically disentitled and disenfranchised Native peoples in North America. These categories are often presented as one or both of neutral and natural, and often racialized. The commodification and removal of land from people’s social relations which inform Western valuations of cultural value and human beings living in communities represents only one particular, partial way of categorizing (...) the world. Legal and cultural manifestations of authorship, culture, and property are contingent upon Enlightenment and Romantic notions built upon a colonial foundation. I will argue that the law rips apart what First Nations peoples view as integrally and relationally joined, but traditional Western understandings of culture, identity, and property are provoked, challenged, and undermined by the concept of Aboriginal Title in a fashion that is both necessary and long overdue. (shrink)

The ratio-bias (RB) phenomenon refers to the perceived likelihood of a low-probability event as greater when it is presented in the form of larger (e.g. 10-in-100) rather than smaller (e.g. 1-in-10) numbers. According to cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST), the RB effect in a game of chance in a win condition, in which drawing a red jellybean is rewarded, can be accounted for by two facets of concrete thinking, the greater comprehension (at the intuitive-experiential level) of single numbers than of ratios, and (...) of smaller than of larger numbers. In a lose condition, in which drawing a red jellybean is punished, the assumption of a third facet of concrete thinking, the ''affirmative-representation principle'', is necessary, as many participants reverse their focus of attention from the undesirable red to the desirable white jellybeans. Results supported the CEST explanation of the RB effect by demonstrating a predicted negative linear relation between the magnitude of the RB effect and the magnitude of the probability-ratios in the win condition and a positive linear relation in the lose condition. Support was also found for the associative principle of experiential processing. (shrink)

Drawing on resources from pragmatist thought allows religious ethicists to take account of the central role traditions play in the formation and development of moral concepts without thereby espousing moral relativism or becoming traditionalists. After giving an account of this understanding of the concept of tradition, I examine the ways in which understandings of tradition play out in two contemporary examples of tradition-based ethics: works in comparative ethics of war by James Turner Johnson and John Kelsay. I argue that a (...) pragmatist approach to tradition-based ethics allows for a nuanced and flexible understanding of moral traditions, and one that holds great promise for international consensus-building around shared ethical norms for the use of armed force. (shrink)

Elite athletes, coaches and high-performance staff are exposed to a range of stressors that have been shown to increase their susceptibility to experiencing mental ill-health. Despite this, athletes may be less inclined than the general population to seek support for their mental health due to stigma, perceptions of limited psychological safety within sport to disclose mental health difficulties and/or fears of help-seeking signifying weakness in the context of high performance sport. Guidance on the best ways to promote mental health within (...) sporting environments is increasing, though current frameworks and position statements require greater focus on a whole of system approach, in which the needs of athlete, coaches and high-performance staff are considered within the context of the broader ecological system in which they operate and perform. This paper synthesizes existing research, reviewed for translatability by mental health professionals working in elite sport, to provide an evidence-informed framework with real world utility to promote mentally healthy environments for all stakeholders in elite sporting organizations, from athletes through to administrators. Recommendations are provided to positively impact the mental wellbeing of athletes and support staff, which may in turn influence athletic performance. This framework is intended to provide sporting organizations with evidence-informed or best practice principles on which they can develop or progress their policies to support mental health promotion and prevent the onset of mental health difficulties. It is intended that the framework can be adapted or tailored by elite sporting organizations based upon their unique cultural, contextual and resourcing circumstances. (shrink)

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is tasked with facing the hundred-year history of Indian Residential Schools. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is frequently invoked in relation to the Canadian TRC, perhaps because this is one of the few TRCs worldwide that Canadians know. Whilst the South African TRC is mainly applauded as an international success, I argue that loose analogizing is often more emotive than concise. Whilst much indeed can be drawn from the South African experience, it (...) is important to specify the Canada–South Africa analogy. In this article, I do so by focussing on the institutional approach to truth and how this relates to issues of settler/white denial. The South African experience teaches that narrow approaches to truth collude with superficial views of reconciliation that deny continuities of violence. Consequently, I argue that Indigenous–settler reconciliation requires a broad truth that locates residential schools on a continuum of violence, linking extraordinary abuses with structural injustices and historic colonization with lived relationships. (shrink)

The roles of women and of feminine identity have been historically and traditionally constructed around motherhood. However, recent years have seen a growing trend among women to remain childless/ childfree. Drawing on interviews with 25 voluntarily childless women, this article considers the extent to which this trend results from the appeal or pull of the perceived advantages of a childfree lifestyle as well as the ways childfree women might represent a more fundamental and radical rejection of motherhood and the activities (...) associated with it. The article concludes by considering how to recast understandings of feminine identity away from a mother-centered focus. (shrink)