On ‘The Problem with Brenner’: The Paradox of Agency and the Heresy of Reification

Knafo and Teschke’s surprisingly polemical critique of Brenner’s work is derived from earlier work which applies the same critique arising out of the agency/structure debate in International Relations theory. Casting Brenner’s work as increasingly structuralist over time and therefore increasingly prone to reify social relations, thereby suppressing or downplaying the role of agency, Knafo and Teschke ask their readers to take such claims at face value, offering no close textual reading of Brenner’s work. Focusing almost entirely on method rather than on substance and by framing their critique within the confines of the unending debate over structure and agency, Knafo and Teschke’s claim that Brenner’s work consistently reifies social relations – presuming but not demonstrating that this is his intent – obscures and fails to engage substantively with his powerful historical contributions, or to offer alternative definitions or historical theories.

Debate in the Tibetan Tradition

“Debate” (Tibetan: rtsod pa), in the present context, refers to a uniquely Tibetan method of structured analysis and discourse conducted between two (or more) parties on matters pertaining to religion. The practice is extremely technical and has traditionally been the province of monks. It has medieval roots, and it references logical principles derived from the Indian Buddhist pramāṇa system. Debate is also closely aligned with the tradition of commentarial writing, in which the evaluation and critiquing of earlier interpretations of Indian-origin Buddhist works has long been standard. A custom among Tibetan religious writers has been to deal with “rival” interpretations in a truculent fashion, redolent of an actual confrontation. There is also much in the dialectical approach, analytical process, and language that can best be described as shared between the literary and oral spheres (with frequent crossover and borrowing). But debate is primarily to be understood as a face-to-face practice, distinct from what is represented in the written medium, and only truly comprehensible in terms of the institutional context of its performance. Furthermore, while inspired by Indian scholastic traditions, this kind of argumentation is peculiarly Tibetan in its formulation. The practice of debate is especially associated with the largest school of Tibetan Buddhism, the Geluk (dGe lugs). In the school’s major scholastic centers, which were, for a number of centuries, the largest monasteries in the world, debate was employed as the primary tool of education, with those trained in the scholastic tradition, including its most prominent figures, such as various Dalai Lamas and Panchen Lamas, having been required to master it. Academic understanding of debate relies heavily on analysis of the so-called Collected Topics (bsDus grwa) works, primer materials, chiefly composed of sample debates, from which students (and academics) learn about the logical principles, basic taxonomies, and informal “rules” that structure debate.

Argument: Political Opportunities and Muslim Strategies

This chapter lays out my argument. Firstly, I define and problematize the contentious categories used in the book: ulama, liberals, and conservatives. Subsequently, I delve into the agent-structure debate that pervades much of political science, and postulate a way of thinking of the problem, and then apply it to Muslim activists in Singapore. This is done through an application of the concept of political opportunities. The argument is explicated in detail.

The spatial structure debate in spatial interaction modeling: 50 years on

Spatial interaction and spatial structure are foundational geographical abstractions, though there is often variation in how they are conceptualized and deployed in quantitative models. In particular, the last five decades have produced an exceptional diversity regarding the role of spatial structure within spatial interaction models. This is explored by outlining the initiation and development of the notion of spatial structure within spatial interaction modeling and critically reviewing four methodological approaches that emerged from ongoing debate about the topic. The outcome is a comprehensive coverage of the past and a sketch of one potential path forward for advancing this long-standing inquiry.

The spatial structure debate in spatial interaction modeling: 50 years on

Spatial interaction and spatial structure are foundational geographical abstractions, though there is often variation in how they are conceptualized and deployed in quantitative models. In particular, the last five decades have produced an exceptional diversity regarding the role of spatial structure within spatial interaction models. This is explored by outlining the initiation and development of the notion of spatial structure within spatial interaction modeling and critically reviewing four methodological approaches that emerged from ongoing debate about the topic. The outcome is a comprehensive coverage of the past and a sketch of one potential path forward for advancing this longstanding inquiry.

Becoming Archaeologist

Throughout this volume are a series of semi-fictional assemblages of learning as a means to illustrate the nuances of the arguments made. These merge the experiences of authors, students, and others who have shared their many learning and life assemblages with us. In turn, the semi-fictional accounts both structure debate and illuminate the learning assemblages that pervade archaeological practice. In Chapter 3, Student X is introduced. Their experience highlights the financial and social pressures of completing a degree, and introduces the challenges they face in their multiple environments, partly as a consequence of the marketization of higher education and broader neoliberal agendas. Chapter 3 also begins to introduce the diversity of student identities through accounts of their daily experiences.

Navigating the Phonology-Syntax Interface and Tri-P Mapping

While it is widely acknowledged that phonological processes may be restricted to certain domains, appearing in a particular location or spanning some - but not all - junctures within (morpho-)syntactic structure, debate centers on how to derive phonological domains. There are three main models in the current literature: Relational Mapping, Syntax-Driven Mapping, and Syntactic-Spell Out. Comparisons between specific approaches have been made, but the only side-by-side test of all three approaches using the same data is found in Miller 2018. As part of that study, extreme morpho-syntactic complexity or "polysynthesis" is argued to be the crucial test for any interface model. A side-by-side test using data from Kiowa and Saulteaux Ojibwe shows that no current model is entirely successful. Building on those results, this paper introduces the foundations for Tri-P Mapping, a new model of the phonology-syntax interface.

Narrating events and imputing those responsible: Reflexivity and the temporal basis of retrospective responsibility

By showing how a number of temporal assumptions shape three mutually exclusive narratives, the article argues for a mediated and reflexive understanding of events, one that is more open and less likely to fall into the pitfalls of a confrontation between different versions of retrospective responsibility. The article begins by looking beyond the agency and structure debate and into the temporal dimension of narrative, mainly for the sake of understanding the relationship between continuity and change. The article covers three potential narratives, focusing on their influence on the study of events, policy, and retrospective responsibility. It then illustrates their impact on mainstream understandings of the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. Upon describing the problems of positing strict continuity and change, both of which impact accounts of retrospective responsibility, the outline of a more reflexive, mediated approach to events and temporality is introduced, based on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics. In doing so, the article demonstrates the disadvantages ofErlebnis, an approach that unreflexively applies a limited set of temporal assumptions, highlighting instead the advantages ofErfahrung, an approach that strives for a mediated understanding of events.