scholarly journals Almost at Home in South Sudan: International Christian Humanitarians and the Theopolitics of Recognition

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-164
Author(s):  
Amy Kaler ◽  
John Parkins ◽  
Robin Willey
Keyword(s):  
International Development ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
The Other ◽  
Aid Workers ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Humanitarian Aid Workers ◽  
The People ◽  
Global North ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Relations Of Power

In this study, we examine the experience of international Christian humanitarian aid workers and who work in South Sudan. From interviews with thirty people in east Africa and north America, we derive a relationship between Christianity as our participants understand it, and their modalities of encountering “the other” – the people of South Sudan, who may seem different and unfamiliar, yet who must be met as part of religiously motivated life and work. In terrain of South Sudan, we argue that our participants enact a theopolitics of recognition, in which their emotional and practical connections to the people they serve are triangulated through God. This theopolitics operates almost entirely at the individual level, as personal encounters and work are mediated by the assumption of a shared relationship to God. The people of South Sudan are recognized as both familiar and strange, because they share a posited connection to the divine with humanitarians from the global north. We argue that this recognition is different from other ways of encountering the other found in literature ranging from feminist theory to international development. This study thus adds to scholarly knowledge of faith-based organizations and global humanitarianism. We also argue that while the theopolitical modality makes possible certain kinds of ethical action, it may close off other forms of action based in broader political critiques of global relations of power.

Whither the people in the ASEAN Community?

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 43-57
Author(s):  
See Seng Tan
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Management Development ◽  
The Other ◽  
Asean Member ◽  
Derechos Humanos ◽  
The People ◽  
Droits Humains ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

Abstract: The longstanding effort to develop a people-based regionalism in Southeast Asia has been shaped by an inherent tension between the liberal inclination to privilege the individual and the community under formation, on the one hand, and the realist insistence on the primacy of the state, on the other. This article explores the conditions and constraints affecting ASEAN’s progress in remaking Southeast Asia into a people-focused and caring community in three areas: disaster management, development, and democratization (understood here as human rights). Arguably, the persistent gap in Southeast Asia between aspiration and expectation is determined less by political ideology than by the pragmatic responses of ASEAN member states to the forces of nationalism and protectionism, as well as their respective sense of local and regional responsibility.Resumen: El esfuerzo histórico para desarrollar un regionalismo basado en las personas del sudeste de Asia ha estado marcado por una tensión fundamental entre la inclinación liberal de privilegiar el individuo y la comunidad y la insistencia realista sobre la primacía del estado. Este artículo explora las condiciones y limitaciones que afectan el progreso de la ASEAN en la reestructuración de Asia sudoriental en una comunidad centrada en el cuidado de las personas en: gestión de desastres, desarrollo y democratización (i.e., derechos humanos). La brecha persistente en el sudeste asiático entre la aspiración y la expectativa está determinada por las respuestas pragmáticas de los miembros de la ASEAN sometidos a las fuerzas del nacionalismo y proteccionismo, así como su respectivo sentido de responsabilidad local y regional.Résumé: L’effort historique pour développer un régionalisme fondé sur les peuples en Asie du Sud-Est a été marqué par une tension fondamentale entre l’inclination libérale qui privilégie, d’une part, l’individu et la communauté et, d’autre part, l’insistance réaliste sur la primauté de l’État. Cet article explore les conditions et les contraintes qui nuisent aux progrès de l’ANASE dans le cadre d’une refonte de l’Asie du Sud-Est en une communauté centrée et attentive aux peuples dans trois domaines : la gestion des désastres, le développement et la démocratisation (en référence aux droits humains). Le fossé persistant en Asie du Sud-Est entre les aspirations et les attentes est vraisemblablement moins déterminé par l’idéologie politique que par les réponses pragmatiques des États membres de l’ANASE soumis aux forces du nationalisme et du protectionnisme ainsi que par leur sens respectif de la responsabilité locale et régionale.

scholarly journals Frankly, We Do Give a Damn

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 816-826 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilad Feldman ◽  
Huiwen Lian ◽  
Michal Kosinski ◽  
David Stillwell
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Aggregate Level ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Common Causes ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

There are two conflicting perspectives regarding the relationship between profanity and dishonesty. These two forms of norm-violating behavior share common causes and are often considered to be positively related. On the other hand, however, profanity is often used to express one’s genuine feelings and could therefore be negatively related to dishonesty. In three studies, we explored the relationship between profanity and honesty. We examined profanity and honesty first with profanity behavior and lying on a scale in the lab (Study 1; N = 276), then with a linguistic analysis of real-life social interactions on Facebook (Study 2; N = 73,789), and finally with profanity and integrity indexes for the aggregate level of U.S. states (Study 3; N = 50 states). We found a consistent positive relationship between profanity and honesty; profanity was associated with less lying and deception at the individual level and with higher integrity at the society level.

Workplace Location and ICTs Substituting Travel

2010 ◽  
pp. 205-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greger Henriksson ◽  
Minna Räsänen
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Time Service ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Relations Of Power ◽  
Shed Light

This chapter is based on the assumption that keeping the number and length of business and commuting trips at reasonable levels could contribute to reaching targets of environmental sustainability. The authors highlight a couple of options for reducing or avoiding business trips and commuting through workplace location or improved use of communications. They present case studies concerning travel and communications, carried out by using diaries and interviews. They also present relevant literature on social practices and sustainability goals in relation to use of ICT. The aim is to shed light on variation in the use of travel and communications on an individual level in work life. The case studies illustrate that such variation is mainly due to the concrete practices involved in execution of professional duties and roles. Duties that involve a clearly defined end result or product being delivered regularly by the member of staff are correlated to clearly defined needs for communications. Less clearly defined end results of the work duties seem to make it harder for the individual to plan and perform communication and travel in a more energy saving way. The difference in professional duties can thus be expressed in terms of clarity and maturity. Another factor that affect who can replace travel with ICTs is relations of power, e.g., when a purchaser dictates the terms for a subcontractor concerning how and where to “deliver” his working time, service or product. The importance of clarity, maturity and power aspects means that professional practices need to be studied at a detailed level to find out who could substitute ICTs for travel and how this could be done.

The Normative Body and the Embodiment of Norms

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maren Wehrle
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Habit Formation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Feminist Philosophy ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Habitual Body

AbstractPhenomenologically speaking, one can consider the experiencing body as normative insofar as it generates norms through repeated actions and interactions, crystallizing into habits. On the other hand according to Foucauldian approaches, the subjective body does not generate norms but is itself produced by norms: Dominant social norms are incorporated via repeated practices of discipline. How is the individual level of habit formation in phenomenology related to this embodiment of supra-individual norms? In what sense can we differentiate between a habit formation that results in a skill and one that disciplines a body? To address these questions the paper will analyze examples of the embodiment of norms in Foucault and feminist philosophy and show how they rely on the phenomenological concept of the actual and habitual body.

No Peace, No Rest: Paying More Attention to Actors at the Wealth–Power Nexus

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Lingelbach
Keyword(s):  
Process Research ◽  
The Other ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Individual

Actors at the wealth–power nexus—oligarchs, cronies, plutocrats, and the like—have become increasingly consequential in the global economic, political, and organizational landscapes. Yet, we know little about them, especially the processes by which they gain wealth or power, and then transform one into the other. I suggest that one reason for our limited understanding is that we are prisoners of Aristotle’s conceptualization of them as groups. To break out of that prison, a turn to the individual level seems warranted. This turn opens up new theoretical perspectives that focus on individuals and their processes, including effectuation, process research, biology and neuroscience, and arts and literature. These perspectives put individual-level processes front and center in the uncertain contexts in which these actors create and transform wealth and power.

Divinatory failure: the religious and social role of Gisu diviners

Africa ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzette Heald
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
The Other ◽  
Diagnostic Systems ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Social Invisibility ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThe literature has tended to deal with diviners only where they have been seen to play a notable role in the transformation of social relationships. This leads us to overlook their relative social invisibility in many African societies. Yet we may gain insight into the rise of prophets and charismatic healers by looking at the other side of this story in the multitude of very humble practitioners plying their trade. This is the context in which this article explores the role of diviners among the Gisu of Uganda.The privacy of consultation, the search for distant diviners, the way they are approached only at times of crisis and as agents of private counteraction or vengeance, go some way towards explaining why it is difficult for diviners to gain recognition. Added to which are the difficulties of another order which relate to what might here be regarded as divinatory success. For divination may be seen to fail at a number of different levels: in the lack of credibility of a given practitioner, i n a lack of unanimity among those consulted and in the multiplicity of causal agents evoked.An argument put forward here is that scepticism is endemic to the system and, possibly, distinctive to it. We should ask not, as Evans-Pritchard did, how belief i s sustained despite the presence of scepticism but what it is about these beliefs which encourages scepticism. It is not useful to explore this issue in terms of the rationality question or the ‘truth’ of belief systems. If we are to draw a comparison with modern attitudes, of greater significance are the organisation and differentiation of knowledge and its relationship to power. It is suggested that diagnostic systems used by societies such as the Gisu encourage an agnostic attitude in a way i n which those of the modern West do not.In the final part of the article the social role of divination is reconsidered and some of the positive functions proposed for it are questioned. Gisu divination can be seen to have evolved into a very narrow niche whose parameters are bound, on the one hand, by the limits of belief and, on the other, by a system of interpersonal vengeance. We may say that the socially marginal attributes of diviners, exclusively concerned with the negative aspects of social relationships, represent a real social marginality. At best they are agents by which the individual may be reconciled with harshnesses imposed by his own destiny, of ancestral affliction; at worst they are agents of individual vengeance and retribution. This may be taken as more or less disqualifying them from articulating a positive, future-oriented vision on behalf of the community. Clearly it is not impossible but it is a huge jump from these humble practitioners, interpreting the present in terms of the past and trading evil with evil at an individual level, to prophets capable of formulating a positive social vision, a means forward, on behalf of a wider moral or social community.

scholarly journals LEXIS AND PHRASEOLOGY, VERBALIZING CONCEPTS OF WOMAN AND GIRL IN A.B. KAITUKOV’S WORKS

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Р.Г. ЦОПАНОВА
Keyword(s):  
Mental Content ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
The Other ◽  
Contextual Analysis ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Linguistic Units ◽  
First Time

Целью данного исследования является определение ментального содержания лексики и фразеологии, вербализующей концепты женщина (сылгоймаг) и девушка (чызг) в произведениях осетинского писателя А.Б. Кайтукова. Научная новизна связана с тем, что впервые на языковом материале произведений А. Кайтукова выявлено ментальное содержание указанных концептов. Актуальность данного исследования в том, что, благодаря описанию языкового содержания концептов женщина (сылгоймаг) и девушка (чызг), читатель, с одной стороны, вводится в мир национальной лингвокультуры, содержащей информацию о менталитете народа, с другой стороны – дается характеристика индивидуальных особенностей языка писателя. В работе использованы следующие методы исследования: семантико-стилистический, методы концептуального и контекстуального анализа языковых единиц в художественном тексте. Поставлены следующие задачи: определить номинативную плотность концептов женщина и девушка; раскрыть ментальное содержание лексики и фразеологии, вербализующей названные концепты; указать когнитивные признаки исследуемых концептов; охарактеризовать лексику и фразеологию, объективирующие названные концепты как средство создания идиостиля писателя. В результате работы дана характеристика концептов женщина и девушка в произведениях А. Кайтукова в аспекте лингвокультуры и в рамках идиостиля писателя. The purpose of this study is to determine the mental contents of the vocabulary and phraseology that verbalize the concepts of woman (sylgoymag) and girl (chyzg) in the works of the Ossetian writer A. B. Kaitukov. The scientific novelty is connected with the fact that for the first time the mental content of these concepts will be revealed on the language material of A. Kaitukov's works. The relevance of this study is that due to the description of the linguistic content of the concepts woman (sylgoimag) and girl (chyzg), the reader, on the one hand, is introduced into the world of national linguoculture, containing information about the mentality of the people, on the other hand, a characteristic of the individual features of the writer’s language is given. The following research methods were used in the work: semantic and stylistic, methods of conceptual and contextual analysis of linguistic units in a literary text. The following tasks were set: to determine the nominative density of the concepts woman and girl; to reveal the mental content of lexis and phraseology, verbalizing the named concepts; indicate the cognitive features of the studied concepts; to characterize the vocabulary and phraseology that objectify the named concepts as a means of creating the idiostyle of the writer. As a result of the work, a description of the concepts of a woman and a girl in the works of A. Kaitukov is given in the aspect of linguoculture and within the framework of the writer's idiostyle.

scholarly journals Organizing alternatives : examining normative and alternative nonprofit organizing practices

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Peter Jensen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Institutional Logics ◽  
Organizational Level ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
Organizational Problem ◽  
Communicative Constitution ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Relations Of Power

Homelessness presents a massive organizational problem in the United States, with over 400,000 men, women, and children making use of shelter services each night. In this study, I take a comparative ethnographic approach to study how the use of the organizing Discourses of feminism, paternalism, neoliberalism, and anarchism result in more normative or alternative organizing practices. My project examines the organizing practices at two shelters for homeless women. One shelter is affiliated with an international religious nonprofit organization and self-identified anarchists run the other. Using the communicative constitution of organization (CCO) and institutional logics theories, I propose a theoretical framework for understanding how organizing Discourses are enacted or resisted at the organizational and individual level. My findings highlight how the institutional logics of responsibility, social welfare, and market manifest in different and sometimes paradoxical organizing practices based on the Discourse that is being translated. In this project, I highlight and critique how Discursive translations of institutional logics structure relations of power that impact agency at the individual and organizational level. My project has implications for understanding why the United States organizes around the social problem of homelessness the way it does, and explores alternatives to normative nonprofit organizing practices.

scholarly journals Transitional Justice in Rwanda: Analysis of Reconciliation Initiatives in Musha Village

Politologija ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 101 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-148
Author(s):  
Urtė Jakubėnaitė
Keyword(s):  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Field Trip ◽  
National Government ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The People ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Individual

The article examines how reconciliation is perceived at the individual level. This particular case study analyses what types of reconciliation practices exist in Musha village and whether or not the inhabitants see it as effective ones. In an attempt to investigate the reconciliation definition from the local people’s perspective and to observe their community-level experiences, ethnographic fieldwork in Rwanda has been conducted. This study reveals that locals understand reconciliation in the same way as the government authorities proclaim. Data gathered during this field trip indicate the significance of reconciliation as controlled by the national government. As a consequence, the people are not able, and at the same time, are not really concerned about rethinking reconciliation in other possible ways. Furthermore, this concludes the fact that the central authorities have become able to peacefully construct the narrative of forced reconciliation, while social exclusion in the country still robustly prevails.

Making Amulets Christian

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore de Bruyn
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Location ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Religious Institution ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
The People ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

This book examines Greek amulets with Christian elements from late antique Egypt in order to discern the processes whereby a customary practice—the writing of incantations on amulets—changed in an increasingly Christian context. It addresses three questions. First, how did the formulation of incantations and amulets change as the Christian church became the prevailing religious institution in Egypt in the last centuries of the Roman Empire? Second, what can we learn from incantations and amulets containing Christian elements about the cultural and social location of the people who wrote them? Finally, how were incantations and amulets indebted to the rituals or ritualizing behaviour of Christians? The book analyses amulets according to types of amulets and the ways in which they incorporate Christian elements. By comparing the formulation and writing of individual amulets that are similar to one another, one can observe differences in the culture of the scribes of these materials. The book argues for ‘conditioned individuality’ in the production of amulets. On the one hand, amulets manifest qualities that reflect the training and culture of the individual writer. On the other hand, amulets reveal that individual writers were shaped, whether consciously or inadvertently, by the resources they drew upon—by what is called ‘tradition’ in the field of religious studies.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document