scholarly journals I Want to Tell You a Story: How Narrative Water Ethics Contributes to Re-theorizing Water Politics

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 631 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Meisch
Keyword(s):  
Water Governance ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Narrative Ethics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Descriptive Ethics ◽  
Water Ethics

This paper explores potential contributions of narrative ethics to the re-theorization of the political in water governance, particularly seeking to rectify concerns regarding when water is excluded from cultural contexts and issues of power and dominance are ignored. Against this background, this paper argues for a re-theorization of the political in water governance, understood as the way in which diverse ideas about possible and desirable human-water relationships and just configurations for their institutionalization are negotiated in society. Theorization is conceived as the concretization of reality rather than its abstraction. Narrative ethics deals with the narrative structure of moral action and the significance of narrations for moral action. It occupies a middle ground and mediates between descriptive ethics that describe moral practices, and prescriptive ethics that substantiate binding norms. A distinguishing feature is its focus on people’s experiences and their praxis. Narrative water ethics is thus able to recognize the multitude of real and possible human-water relationships, to grasp people’s entanglement in their water stories, to examine moral issues in their cultural contexts, and, finally, to develop locally adapted notions of good water governance.

scholarly journals Water ethics, justice, and equity in social-ecological systems conservation: lessons from the Queensland Wild Rivers Act

Water Policy ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 933-952 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sameer H. Shah ◽  
Lucy Rodina
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resource Management ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Resource Governance ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Water Ethics ◽  
Natural Rivers

Abstract The protection of natural rivers and watersheds face important concerns related to environmental (in)justice and (in)equity. Using the Queensland Wild Rivers Act as a case study, we advocate that ethical water governance attends to multiple and diverse values, specifically in ways that: (i) locate them within stakeholders' claims of inequality that emerge from a given or practiced water ethic; and (ii) historicize and understand them as resonating or reflecting natural resource management frameworks that have led to structural injustices. This approach, combined with adaptive co-governance, can contribute to more inclusive water ethics and even support reflexive spaces where radical change in social-ecological resource governance can be imagined.

The “Separation” of Religion and Polities: The Paradoxes of Spinoza

1988 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 603-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hillel G. Fradkin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Values ◽  
The Political ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
American Founding ◽  
Founding Fathers

Benedict Spinoza is the first philosophical proponent of liberal democracy. In his Theologico-Political Tractate he calls for the liberation of philosophy from theology and for the subordination of religion to politics. Though Spinoza may have not influenced the American Founding Fathers directly, both the clarity and the paradoxes of his arguments are perhaps the best guide to understanding better the present-day conflicts over religion and politics in the United States. Spinoza's insistence on the prerogative of the political sovereign to exercise absolute authority in the sphere of moral action necessarily complicates religious values. But the “inconveniences” resulting from liberal democracy are justified in terms of justice.

scholarly journals Queer representation in Arab and Middle Eastern Films

2021 ◽  
pp. 71-86
Author(s):  
Maria Abdel Karim
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
The State ◽  
Audience Reception ◽  
Queer Identity ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Mise En Scene ◽  
Queer Representation ◽  
Women's Cinema

Queer representations have been present since the 1930s in Arab and Middle Eastern cinema, albeit always in coded forms. However, the idea of homosexuality or queerness in the Middle East is still not tolerated due to religious, political, social and cultural reasons. Middle Eastern filmmakers who represent homosexual relations in their films could face consequences ranging from censorship to punishment by the State or religious extremists. This article explores the representation of lesbians in three transnational Middle Eastern women’s films: Caramel (Sukkar banat, 2007) by Nadine Labaki, set in Lebanon, Circumstance (2011) by Maryam Keshavarz, set in Iran, and In Between (Bar Bahar, 2016) by Maysaloun Hamoud, set in Israel/Palestine. It analyses the position the female lesbian protagonists occupy in the narrative structure and their treatment within the cinematic discourse. The article will examine mise-en-scène elements and compare each director’s stylistic and directorial approach in representing homosexuality within different social and cultural contexts. It will also prompt discussions related to queer identity, queer feminism, women’s cinema, audience reception and spectatorship within the Middle East.

Rethinking Kant as a public intellectual

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-108
Author(s):  
Sofie Møller
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
The Political ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past

In Kant’s Politics in Context, Reidar Maliks offers a compelling account of Kant’s political philosophy as part of a public debate on rights, citizenship, and revolution in the wake of the French Revolution. Maliks argues that Kant’s political thought was developed as a moderate middle ground between radical and conservative political interpretations of his moral philosophy. The book’s central thesis is that the key to understanding Kant’s legal and political thought lies in the public debate among Kant’s followers and that in this debate we find the political challenges which Kant’s political philosophy is designed to solve. Kant’s Politics in Context raises crucial questions about how to understand political thinkers of the past and is proof that our understanding of the past will remain fragmented if we limit our studies to the great men of the established canon.

Part IV Federalism, A Federalism in Canada, Ch.20 The Spending Power in Canada

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kong Hoi L
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
The Political ◽  
Federal Spending ◽  
Constitutional Interpretation ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Division Of Powers ◽  
Constitutional Legitimacy

In this chapter, I will argue that the Canadian Constitution authorizes the federal government to spend in areas of provincial jurisdiction and constrains the scope of this power. I will, moreover claim that effective enforcement of these limits requires that the judiciary recognize its institutional limits and that the political branches act with restraint. The arguments advanced will seek to occupy a middle ground, between proponents of an unlimited spending power and critics who would bind federal spending to the limits imposed by the legislative division of powers, strictly interpreted. In staking out this ground, I will undertake an approach to constitutional interpretation that closely examines the sources of constitutional law and carefully considers issues of institutional competence and constitutional legitimacy.

scholarly journals Political history of Farakka Barrage and its effects on environment in Bangladesh

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Abul Kawser ◽  
Md. Abdus Samad
Keyword(s):  
Water Governance ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
The Past ◽  
Farakka Barrage ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
The Ganges

Soon after the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, India took initiative to construct a barrage on its side of the Ganges and commissioned it in 1975. In the past few decades, many of the 54 Bangladeshi Rivers that originate in India have either been diverted or dammed upstream, inside India. All of these hydro-developmental initiatives have left a profound impact on Bangladesh as it is at the receiving end of the Himalayan fluvial regime. In particular, Bangladesh’s agriculture, fisheries, and human health and wellbeing are reported to have been significantly affected by the disruption of natural water flow in its rivers. The debate over the water sharing issues between India and Bangladesh dates back as early as their birth but the historical developments of the disputes have never been adequately addressed in settling the issues. This paper analyzes the political developments in Bangladesh and India over Farakka issue from historical perspectives. It also reveals the adverse effects of Farakka Barrage on environment in Bangladesh. The aim is to provide policy makers with the insights into historical developments of disputes centred on Farakka Barrage to contribute towards better water governance.

Three Decades of Religious Vote in Europe

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-98
Author(s):  
Guillermo Cordero
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sharp Decline ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
The Social ◽  
Electoral Behaviour ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Religious Voting

AbstractThe social sciences have often claimed the end of religiosity as one explanation for electoral behaviour in Europe. Nevertheless, left and right parties still incorporate religious and moral issues on the agenda in order to distance themselves from their opponents. This article undertakes a comparative study of 34 European democracies and examines the extent to which religious voting has diminished since the eighties. Results point to a sharp decline in the levels of religious vote until the nineties, followed by a revitalization since that time in a third of the countries included in the sample. The analysis also highlights the important role played by the political elite in activating the religious vote.

Structures of Feeling: Yvonne Rainer circa 1974

October ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 152 ◽  
pp. 3-25
Author(s):  
Siona Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Racial Difference ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Aesthetic Form ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
Structures Of Feeling ◽  
Film Form

Yvonne Rainer's transition from choreography to filmmaking in the 1970s coincided with the widespread social and political impact of the women's movement. Through a close analysis of her second feature-length film, this essay argues that Film About a Woman Who … (1974) can be understood as a complex reflection on the widely influential feminist idea “the personal is the political.” Rather than seeing Rainer's turn to the personal and emotional as the antithesis of a materialist political analysis—as Marxist influenced critics have tended to—I draw upon Raymond Williams's concept of “structures of feeling” as a way of discerning emergent social change through figurations of lived experience. This analysis identifies moments of rupture in the film's narrative structure where questions of queerness and racial difference emerge to complicate the film's focus on (white, heterosexual) female identity. Moreover, Rainer's engagement with the emotional or personal has typically been seen as related only to her work's content and as such these references have been set in opposition to formal experimentation, whereas Williams's notion of the “structures of feeling” is addressed to transformations at the level of aesthetic form. By focusing on film form, this essay displaces the commonly held opposition of “structure” and “feeling” that continues to give shape to critical analyses of post—minimalist and post—conceptualist work of this period.

To the last drop: the political economy of Philippine water policy

Water Policy ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 946-962 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalie Hall ◽  
Joy Lizada ◽  
Maria Helen Dayo ◽  
Corazon Abansi ◽  
Myra David ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Water Policy ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Water Rights ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Legislation ◽  
Institutional Stakeholders ◽  
Policy Shifts

This paper examines the conflicts arising from the layered legal treatment, fragmentation and multiplicity of institutions involved in Philippine water governance. Using a thematic analysis of national legislation, a survey of 299 water managers in 10 provinces, and five cases illustrating local contestations, the paper tracks the diversification of formal institutional stakeholders which have been found to lack coherence and inter-agency connectivity. Water managers are not grounded in policy shifts, have little understanding of formal water rights and settle local conflicts with little reliance on formal mechanisms. The select cases reveal that water rights provide weak currency in local contestations.

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