ASE Annual Meeting Presidential Address 2024

Recent studies of the cultural construction of memory have drawn attention to the ways in which processes of remembering depend on the success of forgetting. Forgetting, by these accounts, is not merely an ineffective attempt to retain information, or an unintended consequence of the production of new forms of knowledge. Rather, forgetting can in some instances be seen as an intentional and purposive attempt to create absences that can be crucial to the reconstruction and revaluation of social meanings and relations. For Haya men and women in the Kagera Region of Tanzania inherited goods, or heirlooms, and the sociocultural practices that animate them, exhibit qualities in which the relation of remembering and forgetting are dynamically interrelated. This essay offers an assessment of Haya inherited valuables as elements in a process of objectification, a sociocultural process of value generation and transmission in which both remembering and forgetting are integrated dimensions. [memory, commodification, inalienability, mortuary, Haya] Introduction Recent studies of the cultural construction of memory have drawn attention to the ways in which processes of remembering depend on the success of forgetting. In spite of the dichotomy commonly drawn between these processes, forgetting, by these accounts, is not merely an ineffective attempt to retain information, or an unintended consequence of the production of new forms of knowledge. Rather, forgetting can in some instances, be seen as an intentional and purposive attempt to create absences that can be crucial to the reconstruction and revaluation of social meanings and relations (Lass 1988; Derrida 1986; Munn 1986; Battaglia 1992). For Haya men and women in the Kagera Region of Tanzania inherited goods, or heirlooms, and especially the sociocultural practices that animate them, exhibit qualities in which the relation of remembering and forgetting are dynamically interrelated. Such objects have the capacity both to establish and concretize the memory of social beings, and social relations and therefore to transmit knowledge and substance across generations. Moreover, through this process of objectification, they also permit, indeed they ensure, the dismantling or forgetting of certain aspects of these relationships. This essay offers an assessment of Haya inherited valuables as elements in a process of objectification, a sociocultural process of generating and transmitting knowledge and value in which both remembering and forgetting are integrated dimensions. Objectification, Permanence, and Inalienability Inheritance has long been critical to Haya constructions of memory, but not always by means of the same practices. The control and conversion of a variety of objects have undergone important transformations over the last century, transformations that have had significant consequences for the ways in which Haya men and women remember, as well as forget their forbears. The meanings of these transformations relate to yet another pervasive dichotomy in the study of objects and their transactions, namely the contrast between and commodities. Analyses of commoditization often argue that the spread of market transactions, consumer goods, and the medium of money creates a severance in the intimate links of persons to the objects they possess. The commodity, then, becomes the form in which objects become alienable things, in contrast to the inalienable bonds engendered by (Gregory 1982; see also Taylor 1991 for a recent African example). But, as Haya men's and women's control of inherited objects makes clear, some purchased commodities acquire the most intimate of connections with their owners, while what might be thought of as gifts can become decisively disengaged from their owners in certain contexts. This variety of practices surrounding the disposition of valuables in Haya society leads me to suggest that the contrast of commodities with gifts-and the qualities of alienability and inalienability on which this contrast is premised-might constructively be reconsidered. …

In this article, based on a representative mass survey, expert and in-depth interviews, the levels of ethnic, regional and local identities in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in 2023 are being analysed. It was revealed that the ethnic identity of the Sakha people (ethnic Yakuts) remains consistently high and subjectively significant, among Russian Yakuts its level is raising, as well as among Russians in the country in recent years. The cognitive content of ethnic identity is considered, the most important component of which is the native language - for both Sakha and Russians, as well as culture, territory and customs. The growth of religion as a component of ethnic identity for the Sakha is revealed. For Russian Yakuts, common statehood and common history are also significantly important, that is associated with the similarity of ethnic and civil identities for the Russians. It is demonstrated that regional and local identities are also very significant for the Yakuts and are combined for the majority with Russian identity. A high level of regional identity was recorded among Russian Yakuts, that is significant for a region where for a long time those arriving for work in production considered themselves and were considered by the local community as temporary residents, guests. It was also revealed that in the issue of the priority of rights of a particular ethnic community, the overwhelming majority of the republic's residents share an open and positive point of view: "all citizens of Russia should have equal rights." However, if they are talking directly about "their" republic, more than a third of the Sakha agree with the position that "representatives of the indigenous nationality should have more rights in their national republic than representatives of other nationalities." Such a position is, on the one hand, discriminatory and potentially leading to inequalities, and on the other hand, may be caused by fear of losing their own ethnic identity. It is also shown that the widespread view in the region that it would be good for the peoples of the republics to have more independence is shared by high proportions of respondents both among the Sakha and among Russian Yakuts, that could be potentially significant for strengthening the regional community. At the same time it is important to prevent the expansion of the influence of external actors hostile to Russia, trying to exploit the so-called anti-colonialist, anti-imperial agenda with the aim of undermining the integrity of our country.

Globalization and ethnic identity are inescapable features of our contemporary social experience, operating in a complex and paradoxical relationship. On one hand, ethnic identity is often employed in service of resisting or contesting globalization. A group that can convincingly demonstrate a shared history and culture in a particular territory is well positioned to put forward a political argument or territorial claim in the national or international arena. On the other hand, this politicalization of ethnicity and its relationship to geography itself emerged and spread through globalization. The very concept of ethnic identity as we know it arose from the history of increased global mobility and intercultural contact. In addition, political movements that assert a common ethnic identity are often enabled by globalization in that they rely on international networks, institutions, and media outlets to shape and convey their message. While the increasing mobility of people, ideas, and things has loosened ties between ethnicity and territory, ethnic identity remains a primary way for a group of people to express a shared culture and history while differentiating themselves from other groups. Furthermore, since globalization is experienced in different ways by different populations, ethnic identity has become a useful discourse for people to process and articulate their experience.

Cooperatives are a vital component of the North Dakota economy. Owned by their customers or by privately-held firms, cooperatives provide a variety of goods and services to North Dakota. Based on data provided by the North Dakota Secretary of State, 332 businesses operating in North Dakota identified themselves as cooperatives in 2010; 256 are headquartered in the state. The economic contribution of the North Dakota cooperatives reaches beyond the local communities where they are headquartered. In 2010, the operations of electric, credit, farm supply and farm output marketing, and telecommunication cooperatives headquartered in North Dakota generated $3.5 billion of gross business sales. These sales led to secondary business volume of $2.1 billion. Hence, these 256 cooperatives made a total economic contribution to the state economy of $5.6 billion. The economic contribution of cooperatives is also comprised of jobs, labor income and tax revenue to the state. The 256 cooperatives featured in this study employ approximately 8,000 people on a full time basis in North Dakota. These employees were paid approximately $1.1 billion in wages and benefits. After the cost of goods sold, the principal expenditure of the cooperatives in North Dakota is employee compensation. The gross sales generated by the cooperatives, and the expenses generated by cooperative employee household spending generated an additional 17,000 full time jobs and $0.6 billion in wages and benefits in the North Dakota economy. Together, these activities generated a corporate, payroll and personal taxes contribution of $342 million to the state.

A construction of an individual identity, in dual ethno-cultural environments, is often based on a premise that an ethnic identity is a primary human determinant. In such dual ethno-cultural communities, a basic ethnic stereotype could be called „relational“: it is founded on the concept of „Others/We-group“ distinction, where the Others appear as a main reason for the existence of the We-group members who use the distinction. This stereotype is based on the following premises: the first one says that a local socio-cultural reality contains two solid ethno-cultural groups, whereas the other suggests that in a local context, there exist just „They“ as a solid ethno-cultural group while among „Us“ the solidity is in fact, limited to ethnic affiliation. The consequence of the attitude is pervasive presentation of intra-ethnic differences, more than mere stereotyping of the Others. These stereotypes are based on the so-called „homeland“ classifications and appear to represent a small ethnography of ideas and images on what constitutes and makes a local ethnic community. The stereotypes of this particular kind are more often seen among members of Serbian ethnic group, at least based on a research in two local communities - Becej and Seleus. In the two communities, the prevailing attitudes on intra-ethnic differences and the stereotypes developed out of the differences are more numerous and elaborated, based on the „homeland“ classification. This cultural, cognitive process is a consequence of intertwining of two perspectives in understanding of the We-group. The first perspective narrates about the We-group ethnic background, and the second emphasizes the group domicile, that is, it defines the We-group in space. The first perspective is founded, more or less, on indispensable experience of an ethnic identity, while the other perspective is more based on empirical experience; the second perspective is also a creation of a symbolic construction, the same as an image on an ethnic identity per se.

Reviewed by: American Literary Regionalism in a Global Age William M. Morgan American Literary Regionalism in a Global Age. By Philip Joseph. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 2007. 256 pp. Cloth, $45.00 Philip Joseph's American Literary Regionalism in a Global Age participates in "the ethical turn" of recent literary criticism. Without engaging directly with the thinking about literature and aesthetics that American pragmatism has inspired, Joseph nonetheless defines literature as a form of pragmatic exploration. Suffused by a continual return to "the disordered and contradictory living matter surrounding it," literature in Joseph's account resists categorical imperatives and ideological injunctions. It instead enacts an unending transaction with the everyday, focusing the reader's mind on how new events continually reveal the "limitations of one's judgments." [End Page 184] Literature thus commits to "open-end critique" as its mode of knowing, and this habit of mind, for Joseph, is "a crucial resource, to be recognized and protected, in an increasingly globalized, interconnected world." When the kind of inquiry literature provides is "practiced in good faith," it leads readers to new forms of knowledge about themselves and their communities. Literature leads, that is, "to democratic judgments, informed by consideration of multiple viewpoints." Teaching us as much about criticism as regionalism, Joseph, at his best, practices what he preaches. In his discussion of Abraham Cahan's fiction, he shows us how Cahan "test[s] his early faith," "poses" questions and "freely ponder[s]" contradictory views of the Jewish community, and "negotiate[s] between desires." The verbs Joseph uses throughout this chapter indicate how deeply a pragmatic mode of thought informs not only his approach but also Cahan's explorations of center and margin, citizen and immigrant, American and Jew. Resisting the conventions of both the Yiddish press and the mainstream American magazine culture where he published his work, Cahan depicts "Jews whose authenticity as Jews is unresolved and perplexing." According to Joseph, Cahan thus dramatizes his own equivocations about "the possible outcomes of Jewish relocation in America." As is true of this chapter, much of the book engages us in a consideration of different points of view about the relations between the literary writer, his or her regionalist literary works, the local communities that the works are about, and the ethics of representation and citizenship revealed by the works and at play in the print cultures where they were published. In both moments of regionalist literary output that Joseph studies closely (the 1890s, 1920s, and 1930s), he sets up contrasts in order to consider and in a way validate diverging perspectives. First, he juxtaposes Sarah Orne Jewett and Hamlin Garland to examine a spectrum of beliefs about the responsibilities of regionalist artists to the local communities they represent. Then he stages a fascinating debate about literature, locality, and cultural authenticity through a contrastive reading of works by Mary Austin and Willa Cather. Joseph's investigation of Austin's complex racial politics and her anti-touristic, feminist, rigorously place-centered regionalist aesthetic is astute, for instance. And the legitimacy that he grants her matters all the more because he himself is more sympathetic to Willa Cather's aesthetic and views. Joseph's reading of Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) most clearly demonstrates his claim that the regionalist works he studies and values, through their "recognition of the unencumbered subject as the starting point for modern conceptions of citizenship," help us to rethink academic debates about civil society and literature's continuing contributions to the [End Page 185] public sphere. Yet if this approach is well-chosen to reveal Cather's peculiar genius, it proves less useful when applied to Zora Neal Hurston. Here we see that "justice" and the rationalistic terms and nationalistic concerns of civil society theory keep us at a distance from what is most interesting in Hurston's writing. In particular, Hurston's own abiding interest in the hybridized Afro-Caribbean and African American folk cultures, especially in the religious practices of Hoodoo and Voodoo, should have been brought to bear more fully on the investigation into the local, the global, and the role of the artist and her literature in negotiating between the...

In this paper, a qualitative study is conducted in different neighborhoods in the Belgian city of Ghent to investigate the local attachments of young ethnic minorities and how these are related to ethnic identities. Analysis of the narratives of the young people shows that ethnic and local identities do not have to be mutually exclusive but are in a complex interaction. The first narrative distinguished is characterized by the expression of a strong neighborhood identity along with positive attitudes toward others. A second narrative contains the expression of a strong ethnic identity in the form of ties with a small local ethnic community, accompanied with negative attitudes toward other inhabitants. A third narrative is characterized by the expression of a strong anti–neighborhood identity and a disconnection of their ethnic identity from the local environment, as a strategy to cope with the bad reputation of the neighborhood.

The ‘age of imperialism’ is over. Or so it has been said. The above statement is often supported in the afterglow of the rise of a virulent postcolonialism that has rightfully sought to address the social injustices of European empire building. And yet, the educational legacy of imperialism lives on. The effects of its reality come alive through the consciousness and actions of those whose institutions and traditions have been forever marked by the arbitrary boundaries of a world geo-graphy constructed—mapped out, studied, carefully logged in, written down and taught—according to the ‘colonizing imperative’ of deŽ ning the difference of racial, ethnic, social and cultural identities as Ž nite polarities of human being in relation to the history of the West. To say the West has learned much from the global conquests that imperialism originally initiated as voyages of discovery is to underestimate the power and passion of the educational imagination that feeds the will to know ‘the Other’ no matter what the cost. To some, this may seem an odd way to put it, but there can be no denying the intensity of the Western desire to assimilate new forms of knowledge and experience beyond the safe horizons of the familiar so as to codify and therefore possess the ontological and epistemological domains of an ever expanding sense of world (Said, 1978, 1993). Indeed, the chronicles of difference archived during the era of European expansionism tell the tale of a wanting-to-know gone awry, the so-called ‘disinterestedness’ of intellectual and scientiŽ c objectives quite overtly implicated in the quest for power guided by imperialist economic and political agendas. That will ‘to know the Other’ which had signiŽ ed to Western consciousness a frontier of boundless possibilities beyond the limits of imagination, essentially facilitated the logic of the rise of a new mercantilism working methodically and ruthlessly toward the appropriation of material and human resources. Let us make no mistake, the golden age of imperialism was a movement intended to grow the economic power base of European states and governments through exploration and colonization designed to fulŽ l grandiose images and

Front and back cover caption, volume 36 issue 1Front coverALTERNATIVE FACTSIn response to discourses of alternative facts, denials of climate science and the undermining of science in the public sphere, on 22 April 2017, protestors marched for science in cities across the United States. In this image of the San Francisco march, a protestor holds a sign proclaiming ‘science is universal’. While some protestors' slogans assumed the objectivity of science and facts, others asserted the importance of diversity, equality and inclusion in science. Scholars of science and technology studies have long deconstructed claims of universality, but recently some have argued that the authority of science and facts must be reclaimed. Bruno Latour emphasizes that it is untenable to talk about scientific facts as though their rightness alone will be persuasive. Analyses of human rights and political violence disclose how narratives and propaganda shape not just individual attitudes but also the functioning of institutions. Contexts of gaslighting, repetition, distraction and undermining facts require different strategies for understanding how institutions and societies are perpetrating and perpetuating injustices. In this issue, Drexler's article develops a framework of multidimensional and intersectional justice for analyzing the layered, compounded, dynamic forms of power and inequality that contribute to particular injustices. Understanding justice as multidimensional and intersectional is part of a struggle from which new forms of knowledge and truth can emerge.Back cover‘NEW SCHISM’ IN ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY?A supplicatory prayer service (Moleben) to Saint Emperor Nikolay II in an Orthodox church in the Russian Federation. On the commemoration day of his death, believers line up to venerate large icons of the tsar installed in the church, as in many other churches of the ‘Russian world’. When kissing the holy icons and listening to the words of prayer, they participate in a theopolitical performance of belonging to a community of co‐believers and compatriots, of people who share the same faith and the same nation, an enactment of the model ‘one state, one church’ prevalent in Eastern Orthodoxy.What happens, however, when state borders change, when new sovereign states emerge or become stronger? Is it possible for Orthodox Christians to practise their faith outside the national‐territorial logic?Since the summer of 2018, Jeanne Kormina and Vlad Naumescu have been observing a rapidly developing cold war within Orthodox Christianity. This war between different claims for sovereignty and jurisdiction over ‘canonical territories’ has followed clear logics of religious nationalism and imperialism. In this conflict, the less privileged — ordinary believers and local religious communities — have suffered most.In this issue, Kormina and Naumescu analyze the recent ‘schism’ in Eastern Orthodoxy to show how religion and politics are strongly intertwined in disputes over territory and sovereignty. Drawing a parallel between the post‐socialist revival of religion in Ukraine and the current mobilization on the ground, they show how the theopolitics of ‘communion’ and ‘canonical territory’ shape the fate of people, churches and states.

Previous articleNext article FreePresidential AddressRecognizing Complexity in Our Changing Contexts: Centering What Matters in Comparative and International EducationKaren MonkmanKaren Monkman Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreIntroductionAs I write this address, we are in the third year of a global pandemic; an unprovoked assault on Ukraine is continuing unabated; climate change is impacting our lives and the ecosystems on which we depend; racial and gender violence continues; and a diminishing tolerance for difference is evident, whether related to sexuality and gender identities, religion and ethnicity, political orientation, among many others. The layering of these challenges has created a new reality for all of us, although some are impacted more than others. These conditions have affected our teaching, research, projects, how we engage with colleagues and mentor students—basically, all aspects of how we live and work. Even more so, communities with whom we work are impacted.Just as in the world, our field of comparative and international education (CIE) has also undergone changes, not only due to current global conditions, but due to the evolving ways of understanding how education is shaped by forces such as neoliberalism, poverty, social values, politics and environmental changes. Discursive framings of CIE embed particular agendas and ways of seeing the world, and they in turn shape how we think, understand, and act. More concretely, our field has seen an increase in the types and numbers of actors involved, including nonstate actors such as celebrities, billionaires, corporations, and others, each of whom has their own priorities and ways of engaging in education globally.Now more than ever, we need to understand with much more nuance these realities across diverse communities and within our changing field. We need to act in ways that are informed by a profound responsibility for the consequences, with, as I will suggest, a renewed focus on considering what really matters in and for the field.After reminding us of several ideas from previous presidential addresses, I will examine some key issues from CIES 2021—specifically, changing contexts and social responsibility—as an invitation to reexamine where we are, how we engage in our work and with each other. I invite you to consider a variety of questions to ponder, including:• What really matters? … to whom? … how? … why?• Whose interests are (and are not) being served?• To whom are we individually and collectively responsible? … for what? … how?• How are we implicated in creating or maintaining the social, political, and economic structures that impede education, or enable it, in ways that matter to people and communities we seek to serve?• How does our own work, the configuration of our professional relationships, and our discursive framing re-shape, reify, resist, or challenge structures of inequity and exclusion?• How does our work in education affect people’s lives, directly and indirectly, immediately and long-term?Our Shared HeritageTwenty years ago, Heidi Ross (2002) began her presidential address by situating her focus within the challenges she observed in how students and others grappled with making sense of education and society in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. In noting the need for critical dialogue, she called for a renewed relational orientation in our work—for reconsidering the “space between us” (416). In using “metaphors and imagery of relational theories to think with,” she argues, we can then (a) center a critical analysis of “conceptualizations of democracy, globalization, connection, and difference,” (b) “take seriously the issues of ‘identity work,’” and (c) “move toward social justice” (411).We have known for a long time that education serves some populations well and underserves others. In 2004, Kassie Freeman observed that “looking but not seeing has led to the underutilization of human potential” (443), particularly in Black communities. Freeman (2004) explaines the costs to those whose potential is underutilized: “Having their talents underutilized over the centuries has had a negative impact on the psychological being (self-esteem and confidence) because the costs of underutilizing their potential has gone to the heart and soul of black populations” (451–52). Not being seen is a form of violence that has profound negative implications. We might apply that point to our field more broadly, by saying: “looking but not seeing” (443) as we form or interpret policy, measure progress, teach others, or engage in collaborations can easily result in a diminished, and sometimes counterproductive outcomes that further challenge rather than help people and communities. Using “seeing as a metaphor [is useful for] capturing difference, the depth of understanding of that difference, and the plight of the human condition” (444).Ross and Freeman built on the work of Vandra Maseman (1990), who, 14 years earlier, had challenged us to use paradigms in our thinking and our work that are “holistic, context dependent, and integrative” (471), because these paradigms can promote a more integrated understanding of our place in the world, by conceptualizing knowledge not as fragmented, or some forms as less important than others, but as integrated wholes. She argues: “our conception of ways of knowing have limited and restricted the very definition of comparative education that we have taught students and used in our own research and, indeed, have promulgated to practitioners” (465). This has led “to willful ignoring or bypassing of large areas of teaching and learning that are not considered in the domain of valid knowledge” (465)—this, in turn constricts our awareness of possibility.N’Dri Assié-Lumumba (2016) also resonated with those ideas and challenged us to be more inclusive and holistic in choosing how we frame our own ways of seeing and knowing. Ubuntu, she argues, is an alternative way to frame not only our work but also how we see ourselves in the world. It is about a sense of shared humanity, a rich sense of community and collectivity, a recognition that we are all connected to each other and to the broader ecosystems within which we live. In this Ubuntu framing, we would think differently about knowledge, how we know, and power relations across time and location.Finally, beyond human-to-human experience, Iveta Silova (2021) called for more attention to environmental concerns and climate change, recognizing that we, as humans, are integral to a much larger environment and often act in ways that are destructive to our own life spaces.Across these addresses, past CIES presidents have called upon us not only to look, but also see, and to consider the space between us. We are also called upon to reconsider how we situate ourselves among others, and also in relationship to particular ways of knowing and the production of knowledge itself. These orientations are important for positioning humanity and meaningful social relationships at the center of our work—especially in today’s world with increasingly challenging conditions.CIES 2021: Social Responsibility within Changing ContextsThe theme of the CIES 2021 annual meeting, “Social Responsibility within Changing Contexts,” was an invitation to consider a variety of complexities related to changing contexts and our own individual and collective social responsibility.1 Like the presidential addresses noted above, these issues invite us to consider who we are, how we engage, what influences our understandings that inform how we engage, and how that engagement has consequences for others.Changing ContextsThere are many dimensions of context that are changing. After broadly contextualizing our changing world, I will focus on three dimensions: increasing precarity in today’s world, changing education/development discourses, and the expanded variety of actors in the field (i.e., the changing social/collaborative terrain).The world in which we find ourselves now is not the world that shaped the development of our work several decades ago, or even our work a few years ago. We are now experiencing rapid changes in basic life conditions which affect education, and, in turn, changes in education which affects life conditions. Most obvious in these current times is the global COVID-19 pandemic, which has not only forced changes in how CIES creates space for coming together in our annual meetings and how our professional relationships develop but has also radically altered how schooling is experienced globally, how nonformal and informal modes of learning occur (or not), how policy is created and understood, how research is conducted, and how we decide what is worth learning or knowing. Teachers worldwide were either forced to pivot to teach online, usually with little support or knowledge about how to do so—or for those where adequate or appropriate technology was not available, teachers were left without work as schools closed completely (UNICEF 2021; UNESCO Institute for Statistics, n.d.). Disparities in school closures and in access to technology have intensified already existing inequities (World Bank 2021). Beyond teaching, many researchers have moved to conducting interviews on virtual platforms, for example, which impacts the building of rapport and the development of nuanced understandings (both of which are critical for the collection of meaningful qualitative data). This shift also limits who is available as research participants (due in part to in/accessibility to technology). Others have stopped their research or shifted to other topics that are doable with pandemic restrictions, thereby changing the contours of knowledge production. In addition, many people struggle with social isolation due to lockdowns and social distancing.Beyond the COVID-19 pandemic are critical concerns about climate change, racial injustice and xenophobia, gender violence, increasing poverty, forced displacement, and the increased politicizing of migration along with a wide range of other social concerns. Globally, of the 26 million refugees—the highest number ever recorded—half are children, and 85 percent are being hosted in developing countries (Amnesty International, n.d.). Over 100 million people are forcibly displaced globally (Siegfried 2022), including 12.8 million people in Ukraine (Treisman 2022; UN-OHCHR 2022). International students of color have had a hard time crossing borders to escape the war in Ukraine, since neighboring countries do not welcome them as readily as White Ukrainians (Benavot 2022; Okeowo 2022). Conditions such as these are layered and intertwined, multiplying today’s challenges. Gender violence remains an endemic part of social strife, increasing in times of war and in conditions of domestic isolation as in a pandemic (Moaveni and Nagarajan 2022). In addition, world hunger is increasing, reflected in a doubling of severe food insecurity in the last 2 years (United Nations 2022).Fake news, belief in unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, and hate rhetoric add to the complexities we struggle with today. Global warming is still denied or downplayed by some (Dunlap and Jacques 2013). And, the global pandemic also has its deniers (Krugman 2021; Spring 2021), despite solid science about the virus and over 6 million lives lost worldwide (WHO 2022).Along with these recent contextual changes, we see other conditions continue to evolve, adding to individual and collective challenges. Neoliberal policies, for example, continue to constrain the work of teachers; narrow the curriculum; prioritize assessments over meaningful learning; and disadvantage some schools over others, growing the gaps in achievement (Lubienski and Brewer 2019).Woven throughout all of these dynamics and more, supporting some elements and undermining others, is the global circulation of cultural values and ideas, including through social media (Anderson 2016). Our globalized world connects us all and enables real time communication, as long as one has access to particular technologies. Even so, the ideas that flow around the world are often controlled by those in positions of power (Brøgger et al. 2016; Menashy 2019) and accessed only by those with the required technology—we are not all engaged in the same conversations, so we do not all have access to the same knowledge and ideas.All of these conditions, and more, affect our work and our lives, and, more importantly, the lives of the people we are striving to support through our work. The experiences of these conditions and dynamics are not the same for everyone. For increasing numbers of people these layered and rapidly changing conditions make their lives precarious.2Precarious ConditionsThis layering of challenging conditions we now experience is increasingly referred to as precariousness or precarity.3 Although these terms have long been used to describe unstable conditions of employment, the terms are now also used to now describe conditions of life much more broadly. Judith Butler (2009) argues that precarity is a politically induced condition, in which, “certain populations suffer from failing social and economic networks of support and become differentially exposed to injury, violence, and death. Such populations are at a heightened risk of disease, poverty, starvation, displacement, and of exposure to violence without protection” (25–26).Conditions of precarity include unpredictability, vulnerability, insecurity, instability, and the like.4 For many, “precarious situations and events are like rugged terrains: every step must be carefully preconceived and decisively taken and, even then, one can never be certain that s/he has firm ground under his or her feet” (della Porta et al. 2015, 2). Precarization has been described as “[penetrating] entire life-worlds of individuals and groups of people” (della Porta et al. 2015, 2, citing others).Those on the social margins are impacted most (Butler 2009; Perry et al. 2021). When intersections of multiple forces of instability, insecurity, vulnerability, and unpredictability are present, it is easy to see that precariousness is exacerbated. This demands that we not only “look” but also “see” the realities of life of those we presume to help through our work, so that our actions have a better chance to reduce precariousness and alter the structures that create these realities.These changing conditions—especially those that increase precarity—raise important questions about who has a right to learn and has access to learning, how to make learning available to those less able to adapt to today’s realities, what is worth learning, what is worth teaching, and even what education is for (Dovemark and Beach 2016). Grappling with these increasingly complex global challenges also raises questions such as: what kinds of policy would best support more equitably distributed education across disparate populations as we grapple with these increasingly complex global challenges. And finally, who is, can, and should be involved, and how, in these processes?The CIE professional terrain is also changed in these precarious times. Funding, jobs, mobility restrictions, organizational priorities, and other challenges have resulted in many losing jobs or having hours, salaries, or benefits cut. Limitations in travel due to the pandemic or lack of funding reduces opportunities to do fieldwork (whether related to projects or research) and to join colleagues at conferences.These precarious times demand that we reimagine how we come together in CIES, as has been evident in the most recent annual meetings. Even in virtual interactions, we notice different communication networks which likely fragment our communications within CIE. Who is talking with whom on what platforms? Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, WeChat, Zoom, e-mail, text, or phone—not everyone is engaged in or has access to all of these, so conversations, the sharing of ideas, and ways of thinking and framing of issues discursively are likely occurring among particular groups and not others.Discourses: Ways of ThinkingWords and images matter, especially in policy. They change how we make sense of what we do and how we do it. They condition how we see the world, and what we decide is important. As Ross did 5 years before him, Victor Kobayashi (2007) highlighted the role of metaphors in his presidential address, and Ruth Hayhoe (2000) discussed metanarratives in hers. Similarly, discourses—the ideological underpinnings embedded in the ways we use words and images—shape how we and others think and understand (Ninnes 2004; Ball 2006; Allan 2012). The reason I raise this here is to call attention not just to the concrete language that we use but also to the need to unpack it, to more fully examine the discursive underpinnings of how we make sense of our worlds and how we live and work within them. Discursive shifts are another layer of changing contexts.In work on girls’ education, for example, policy discourses, such as in the sustainable development goals (SDGs), continue to prioritize counting bodies in seats (access, enrollments, gender parity, etc.) rather than messier (and more difficult to measure) research related to quality, content, empowerment, and other critical issues (Monkman and Hoffman 2013). To see our work differently, we must be willing to reexamine our underlying assumptions (discourses). Gayatri Spivak (2021), our Kneller lecturer at CIES argues that a and … how we come to is She this point by saying: real are the and is to are other our to see how others think and how they are to life conditions is to understanding other more issues differently can new with shape how we understand our own field. We are a diverse from many with ideological but we also to with those who do work and with whom we the numbers and variety of actors in the field this does not us How well do we understand particularly those of our new nonstate in our field who the between and nonstate actors in their work be in a to help interpret these especially to be often from where and how we are from our and our own ways of and the ideological can to inform of and in the variety of actors in our field is How they are in development work changes the among that is, relationships and assumptions that inform priorities and et al. 2016; Menashy actors and policy of nonstate celebrities, billionaires, and so to help the world. The long of of a of by the and see has expanded to many more and use for education work, and their as They about their to but research that benefits to and only sometimes to the communities they are to research, for example, how and in and of color as of that this benefits the positioning them new of to new in the Global but without changing the structures of that would or in communities (or other called for and for in their relationships with and as in their and as well as of their and these relationships, to whom and for what are these are, in of a larger often as part of their social responsibility What like in this environment but it is to with their new actors we see a wide variety of to funding from some whose goals are to the to others that are in their own to Like most have their own priorities, and many lack a knowledge of the field. In one I was with, a funding the their to the as they the communities to create priorities to their that their the communities and the experienced had the knowledge and and they the of In in another the that the did not to understand a to social to make the was on the of whether the participants to around one as by the even the was to enable communities to decide for what issues they The measure of did not from the or usually the form of For example, their and or as a way to awareness of particular development international have 2022), and are a few in the development world. many by are for education (or to be to their For example, and the known and his with They the the jobs were not their lives as a was was known for in Others have through their work in for example, known through his about schools in and and the of his education work on and development have now created whose is to with more research is on the benefits to the communities that are to be the benefits to the or to the argues that complexities of development that for can be or failing to the real underlying these and have and some do work. have goals that or do not often have the to the of education globally or in or to understand complex social issues as they with To the it that these are the world, but they had been better more have been and the challenges they have been and also about a that they had work on girls’ education globally and before that many of us have been in this for of these new actors are very well to frame the education issues in the ways in which large understand our not and 2021). This also impacts the ways that relationships are and engaged in the actors in our field have more in and the language of and have of to some they are not without including the in power among the More have actors and other nonstate actors as those discussed sometimes as the of funding and sometimes as key et al. and 2021). questions about whose agendas are more in and what the are of the particular power relations within recent international has changed in recent with numbers of increasingly diverse actors involved, as well as more through which is She conceptualizing these changes in the of new actors and relationships as not because the of where multiple actors come to the as and work toward a is in today’s world. does not the relationships, or in the of these relationships can result in disparate influences in policy a at the the power of nonstate actors is evident and 2021; 2021). Menashy and their related as increasingly education and having a much larger in policy In Global are and are now of several As part of a they become able to shape although not about nonstate actors in and research has that some but also many in the Global the policy (Brøgger et al. 2016). research the networks through which policy are by the Global and development at recent CIES have also power inequities in and have the power relations of those at the policy or on the of these policy networks not having a in policy. the of and the discursive underpinnings are integral to understanding what social responsibility to different actors and what is focus in the 2021 CIES theme us to unpack how we understand social at CIES 2021 we a variety of of social world the social although this narrow was not the of the CIES 2021 that should have a responsibility beyond their it is also as a social and environmental with its and et al. 2015, that be to can prioritize or the world at large and have elements related to or In the of social responsibility us to consider what a broader understanding of social responsibility might in the work by the increasing variety of actors in education globally, including To many of us in CIES, it would a much more at the and our priorities, and so to

Global Perspectives on Orchestras: Collective Creativity and Social Agency

Legacies of imperial frontier-making, ongoing border conflicts between nuclear armed nations, changing livelihoods, and the impact of anthropogenic climate change have created complicated claims on Himalayan borderland areas in the name of conservation, security, ethnic identity and development. Combining historical research with ethnography, this article traces the role of the Black-necked crane (grus nigricollis) in the formation of mid-nineteenth century imperial frontiers in the Himalayas and, subsequently, its present-day position in the political ecology of two Himalayan regions along the Sino-India border – Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh. We introduce the concept of ‘border object’ and demonstrate how it can serve as a useful concept to understand how non-humans become participants in changing configurations of territoriality, biopolitics and science, which underpin both a past imperial frontier and present-day border regimes.

2012 Presidential Address—On Compassion In Scholarship: Why Should We Care?

Bernard P. Wong, The Chinese Silicon Valley: Globalization, Social Networks, and Ethnic Identity. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005, 288 pp. For many people, phrase the Chinese is likely to conjure images of railroad laborers and Gold Rush era Chinatowns. Bernard Wong's ethnography assists deconstructing this and other stereotypes about overseas Chinese, as well as effects of on such traditional anthropological topics as social ties, ethnic identity, and cultural practices. Anthropologically-informed statements about have become almost rote: results cultural homogenization; it leads to breakdown of social groupings; it creates a population of rootless transnationals who feel no allegiance to their adopted countries. While these generalizations may be true some cases, it is refreshing to learn of at least one exception-that of Chinese Silicon Valley. Though there are some commonalities within this group-it is overwhelmingly comprised of males who work high-tech industries-the population is otherwise quite diverse. Subgroups can be defined by such factors as country of origin (American-born Chinese, Taiwanese, mainland Chinese, and others), length of residence US, and visa status. One of Wong's main arguments is that and localization can function concomitantly. Localism, local social networks, and traditional institutions are maintained, and even cultivated and used for economic globalization (44). The use of social networks is a case point. Dealings between and companies take place via conduits of Chinese Americans and their social ties, or guanxi, Asia. These connections may be established on basis of kinship, friendship, alumni associations, or any number of other ties. This model is imperative, Wong argues, because hightech businesses operate on an informal and highly personal level, which is more along lines of an model of business whereby personalism, loyalty, and long working hours are expected (49). Frequent travel and long working hours a predominantly male workforce has resulted a bachelor society among Silicon Valley Chinese, so that while has had effect of lessening role of nuclear family, roles of other types of social groups are maintained or strengthened. Furthermore, Chinese Silicon Valley are invested their local communities as well as their overseas connections. They establish local groups, both formal and informal, based on friendships, associations, and common interests, and join pre-existing ones because, by and large, they see themselves as Americans and therefore have personal investments local communities. Another common assumption about is that it leads to demise of cultural diversity. Wong presents evidence that, rather than homogenizing into mainstream culture, pan-Asian or even pan-Chinese culture, diverse Chinese populations Silicon Valley actively seek to maintain their ethnic identities and cultural practices through agents such as language, foods, etiquette, media, and traditional festivals. This brings up an interesting point regarding Asian American identity. In Hawaii where, for example, Asians comprise fifty-eight percent of population, people of heritage do not identify themselves as Asian-American but rather identify more specifically with their particular national heritage(s)-Japanese, Filipino, Chinese, etc. In California and other mainland states, use of Asian American as an identity is more common, especially where numbers of Asians are low. Although, as Wong notes, population Silicon Valley grew large enough 1990s that Asians began to more readily identify themselves by particular ethnic group, to identify oneself as is still useful certain contexts, in order to have representation and a voice larger society (201). …

Medicaid is a critical safety net for about 19,000 adults ages 50 and older in North Dakota. 1 It covers long-term care (such as home care aides and nursing homes), emergency and routine medical and behavioral health care, and prescription drugs for individuals who have very low incomes or qualifying life circumstances.It also helps pay out-of-pocket costs for millions of low-income Medicare beneficiaries.The Medicaid program plays an integral role in the health and long-term care of older adults, including helping them age at home and in their communities.The program directly supports hospitals, health care workers, nursing homes, other health care and long-term care providers, and their local communities across the state. 2 9,000 Medicare enrollees who, in addition to help paying Medicare costs, get additional services that Medicare does not cover, notably, long-term care. Key Takeaways9 Medicaid provides health care coverage for Americans throughout their lifespan, including about 19,000 people ages 50 and over in North Dakota.9 Medicaid is a safety net for low-income adults on Medicare who face unaffordable out-of-pocket costs.9 Medicaid pays for a broad range of long-term care services for people who need them.9 Medicaid provides important supports for family caregivers, including health care coverage for them and services for the people they care for.