Agonistic Conflicts Research Articles

Inbreeding avoidance, competition and natal dispersal in a pair-living, genetically monogamous mammal, Azara's owl monkey (Aotus azarae).

Natal dispersal is an important life-history stage influencing individual fitness, social dynamics of groups and population structure. Understanding factors influencing dispersal is essential for evaluating explanations for the evolution and maintenance of social organization, including parental care and mating systems. The social and mating systems of Azara's owl monkeys (Aotus azarae) are infrequent among mammals; these primates are pair-living, serially and genetically monogamous and both sexes directly care for offspring. To evaluate the role that competition and inbreeding avoidance play in shaping dispersal patterns, we used 25 years of demographic and genetic data to examine how variation in timing of natal dispersal is related to social (adult replacements, step-parents, births and group size) and ecological factors (seasonal abundance of resources) in a wild population of A. azarae in Formosa, Argentina. We found that all males and females dispersed from their natal groups, but subadults delayed dispersal when a step-parent of the opposite sex joined the group, indicating that they may perceive these step-parents as potential mates. Dispersal was more probable when resource conditions were better, regardless of age. Overall, agonistic conflict over food and potential mates with adults in the natal group, as well as inbreeding avoidance, contribute to regulating dispersal.

Evidence for female dominance in the Milne-Edwards' sportive lemur (Lepilemur edwardsi).

Female dominance over males is more frequent in Malagasy lemurs than in other primate clades, but patterns of female-male dominance vary among species, and few data are available for one particularly species-rich genus, Lepilemur. We investigated the types, temporal distribution, and outcome of female-male agonistic conflicts in the Milne-Edwards' sportive lemur (Lepilemur edwardsi). Ten L. edwardsi belonging to five social units were equipped with radio collars and observed during 79 focal follows between May and November 1998. We quantified agonistic conflicts, monthly conflict rates, and documented the winner and context for all conflicts. Female-male agonistic conflicts (N = 162) occurred at a mean rate of 0.21 conflicts/hour within groups. Agonistic conflicts peaked during the birth season and occurred mostly in unknown or infant proximity contexts. Females won 96% of all decided agonistic conflicts (N = 154). Other outcomes occurred only when females were with infants during the birth season. In that context, one female sometimes withdrew from her pair partner, and another female withdrew or fled from an extra-group male whose attacks eventually led to infanticide. Our results suggest female dominance in pair-living L. edwardsi. We hypothesize that elevated female aggression may convey fitness benefits to female Lepilemur because it generally allows females to intervene quickly and efficiently on behalf of their infants against nonfather males who may approach the newborn infants when they are parked in vegetation.

White Atmospheres: Choreographing Racial Materialities in Academic Space

This essay offers a critical introduction to the circulation of racial materialities, and especially whiteness, in North American and European academic contexts. It proposes that we can escape from the dominant epistemology of identity as a fixed attribute of individuals without losing the urgent and much-needed analytics of identity as social and material force. In the gap between “identity politics” and a richer critical politics of identity lies the difference between a discursive public sphere of agonistic conflict and one of potentially transformative relationality. Drawing on critical race theory and especially black radical thought, my analysis rejects the reduction of identity to discrete census categories and attempts to situate contemporary scholarly practices in the context of a planetary decolonial movement. If “identity” today is all too frequently dismissed by a methodological whiteness that strictly separates it from materiality, politics, and knowledge, then a dramaturgical or choreographic analytics of race might better address how racial materialities operate both above and below the level of individual bodies, subjects, and citizens. Synthesizing practical insights from artistic research and performing arts with critical theories of race and identity, this essay refers to some of the author’s recent personal experiences at academic events in order to describe and analyze whiteness as a form of social choreography.

Enlivening popular education in community development: Action research with neighborhood Centres and Landcare groups in Australia

ABSTRACT This article, drawing on an action research project, argues for the revitalized use of two under-utilized practice frameworks for community development in the pursuit of social change. The two frameworks – Participatory Development Practice and the Spiral Model of Community Education – support a citizen-led approach to practice, one that focuses on the relational and dialogical elements of group processes. Starting with stories of citizens’ lived experiences, a structural or community analysis about the root causes of oppression is enabled and supports community action that can be sustained over time. Findings from the action research showed that groups benefitted from foregrounding their own need for social sustainability and that the educational approach of Freire helped them shift from an antagonistic conflict mode to a dialogical or agonistic conflict mode which created confidence to engage in difficult conversations supporting their community development efforts.

Why are conflicts about race a point of no return for feminist organizations?

AbstractThis article seeks to advance scholarship on conflict in feminist organizations. Using the theoretical framework on agonistic conflict of Chantal Mouffe, it analyzes a conflict about racism that arose in a feminist lesbian, bi and trans social movement organization, located in Paris (France). The main contribution lies in offering a framework to analyze the mechanisms that prevented this conflict from constructively fostering the intersectional politics of the feminist organization. The ethnographic findings show that the organization's inability to challenge its racism and whiteness is linked to its post‐political vision of feminism, which translates into attempts to suppress conflict related to multiple and competing identifications. Thus, this article contributes to existing research on conflict in feminist organizing by suggesting that the subduing of conflict associated with such a post‐political vision of feminism prevents feminist organizing from being “anti‐oppressive”.

Farmers` agonistic conflict frames regarding river restoration disputes

Farmers` agonistic conflict frames regarding river restoration disputes

Arenas for conflict or cohesion? Rethinking public libraries as potentially democratic spheres

In policies and research, public libraries are often put forth as public spheres promoting inclusion and shared values. This article investigates possible implications of replacing the idea of the library as public sphere with a plurality of public spheres, thereby acknowledging existing inequalities and conflicts between adversaries. The paper is conceptual, focusing on deepening the theoretical analysis. Fraser’s elaboration on the concept public sphere is utilized alongside Chantal Mouffe’s concept agonism to critically discuss the perception of libraries as public spheres, and to explore the library as a place enabling multiple public spheres where different groups can strengthen their social identity and make claims of power. Two main risks with a consensus-oriented starting point are identified: Firstly, marginalized groups may be silenced when inclusion and shared values are emphasized rather than plurality. Secondly, when cultural and social hierarchies are ignored, the ‘others’ are turned into enemies and antagonism replace agonism. If the notion of libraries as promoters of democracy and inclusion shall not result in upholding the status quo, we must go beyond what we know and make room for pluralistic communities and agonistic conflicts.

Female aggression towards same-sex rivals depends on context in a tropical songbird

Agonistic conflict is ubiquitous throughout taxa, although the intensity of aggression observed is often highly variable across contexts. For socially monogamous species, a coordinated effort by both pair members can improve the chances of successfully warding off challengers and reinforce pair bonds. However, the intensity of aggression exerted by any one pair member may vary with respect to contextual factors, including the intensity of their mate’s aggression. Thus, experimentally exploring how individuals respond to potential rivals via multiple assays with varying social contexts can advance our basic understanding of how aggression varies in socially monogamous systems. We used simulated territorial intrusion and mirror image simulation assays to explore this issue in white-shouldered fairywrens (Malurus alboscapulatus moretoni) of Papua New Guinea. While males tended to be more responsive than females during simulated territorial intrusions, females were more aggressive towards their mirrored reflection than males. Further, individual females that were most aggressive in mirror image simulations were the least aggressive during simulated territorial intrusions, whereas males were inconsistent. These results suggest that female behavioral phenotypes appear to be flexible, relative to context. We discuss how multiple commonly used measurements of aggression might in fact measure different types of responses.

Weapon shape variation of male morphotypes in two freshwater prawn species genus Macrobrachium (Decapoda: Palaemonidae)

Abstract Many animal groups can develop weapons that originate from specialized modifications in different body regions. Decapods are a classic example of organisms that develop these weapons. In this group, we can find specific appendages modified to claws that are used during agonistic conflicts, as is the case between dominant and submissive male morphotypes in freshwater prawns. Our study aimed to analyze the shape, size, and morphological integration of claw components (propodus and dactyl) in male morphotypes of two freshwater prawn congeners (Macrobrachium amazonicum and M. brasiliense). Claws of the prawns were photographed and marked with landmarks and semilandmarks for the acquisition of shape variables. The shape of the propodus and dactyl was statistically different between almost all morphotypes of the two species. The size of structures differed statistically between all morphotypes. The claws of almost all morphotypes showed a high degree of morphological integration; however, statistical differences were observed only between the morphotypes of M. brasiliense. The variation in the shape and degree of morphological integration of the claws between the morphotypes of M. amazonicum was less evident when compared to the morphotypes of M. brasiliense, which may be related to distinct patterns in the development of chelipeds of each species, that is, homochely and heterochely, respectively. Thus, the exaggerated development of a cheliped (heterochely) can cause greater variation in the shape of this structure, also influencing the degree of morphological integration between its components, as evidenced in this study.

Third-party vocal intervention in the proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus)

Vocal intervention is a triadic social interaction, where a third party responds vocally to a conflict between group members, minimizing the costs of aggression in response to the intervention. Because there is little information on vocal third-party intervention in nonhuman mammals, we investigated whether adult male proboscis monkeys use the bray vocalization as a vocal third-party intervention signal to intervene in intragroup conflicts. First, we audio-recorded 1,811 vocalizations from 17 free-ranging proboscis monkey groups in the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary, analyzing 378 vocal responses of the adult male to agonistic vocal exchanges (shrieks) of group members. Second, we video- and audio-recorded five habituated groups in the Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary investigating the context of these vocalizations and the conflict dyads evoking vocal support. We found that adult males of one-male/multifemale groups mainly uttered bray vocalizations, whereas females, immatures, and infants uttered shrieks in intragroup conflicts or in response to other animal species. The adult male uttered significantly more often brays after agonistic shrieks than expected based on the overall occurrence of brays. Brays ended 65% of agonistic conflicts, which were accompanied by vocalizations of the conflict partners and occurred more often after conflicts between females than between offspring. This suggests that the bray functions as a vocal third-party intervention signal for intragroup conflict resolution. We suggest that living in the high canopies of the tropical rainforest might restrict direct access to conflict partners and prevent physical intervention, favoring the evolution of the bray as a third-party vocal intervention signal.

Ideological Struggle as Agonistic Conflict (Anti)Hypocrisy, Free Speech and Critical Social Justice

Ideological Struggle as Agonistic Conflict (Anti)Hypocrisy, Free Speech and Critical Social Justice

Spatial working memory is disparately interrelated with social status through different developmental stages in rats

Social life necessitates cognitive competence to meet the dynamic demands of social development. The formation of dominance hierarchy is a general phenomenon in social groups. As an essential element of executive and cognitive function, working memory could influence and be influenced by social status in a dominance hierarchy. However, the direction and degree of the association between them through different developmental stages remain unclear. To address this issue and clarify the “cause or consequence” problem, we investigated the spatial working memory performance in a Y-maze and Morris water maze in home-caged sibling Wistar rats (N = 26 cages, three rats/cage) through three stages of their life: before (week 7), during (week 10), and after (week 20) assumed timings of the social dominance hierarchy formation (SDHF). We used the social dominance tube test during the assumed time of hierarchy formation (weeks 9–11) to measure the relative dominance status in each cage. Here, we found that higher working memory index before SDHF could be predictive of later acquisition of higher social status. Working memory performance declined for all animals during SDHF, in which agonistic conflicts are increased. However, living within an established hierarchical social network for several weeks deteriorated the working memory performance of dominant and middle-ranked animals, while the performance of subordinates improved and got significantly better than higher-ranked animals. In conclusion, while working memory and social status were correlated positively before dominance hierarchy formation, there was a trade-off between them after the formation of it. In contrast to the common view, these results highlight the adverse effect of higher social status on cognitive behavior.

Disarticulation and chains of equivalence: agonism and non-sectarian movements in post-war Beirut

Divided cities are characterised by intergroup contestation over the wider issue of state legitimacy. Violent conflict has left a legacy of segregation, weak public services and clientelistic networks. Debates and practices for conflict management in divided cities centre on accommodationist or integrationist approaches. While accommodationist methods seek to recognise and accommodate ethnosectarian divisions within public institutions, it risks intensifying ethnosectarian polarisation and empowering elites to deepen control over communities. Integrationist methods, alternatively, aim to foster shared identities and relationships between groups, but are too optimistic in assuming that divisions can be overcome through rational deliberation. As an alternative, I deploy Mouffe’s theory of agonistic conflict to show how various non-sectarian movements contest the hegemony of a sectarian system that reproduces exclusion and inequality. To this end, I use key dimensions of agonism – ‘rearticulation/disarticulation’ and ‘chains of equivalence’– to analyse different types of non-sectarian actors and successive waves of protest, known as ‘You Stink’ and the ‘Thawra’, in post-war Beirut.

Agonistic Conflict as a Distinct Type of Contentious Politics: Learning from Protests For and Against Asylum Seekers in Israel

This paper focuses on a particular form of protest that emerges in what this paper calls an 'agonistic environment'. It defines the latter as a form of contentious politics within deliberative democracies in which concurrence rather than estrangement is more likely to define the relationship between citizens and the state. It then asks what is the nature of conflict in such environments, and will activism in the settings be more or less likely to generate change. Finally, it considers whether protest in agonistic environments produces a form of shared knowledge among parties to the conflict, particularly with respect to the possibility of change and how best to achieve it? In exploring these questions, the paper focuses on the political dynamics in Israel associated with the wave of African asylum seekers who arrived from 2010 to 2012, most of whom originated from Eritrea and Sudan. Using a quantitative approach, the paper analyses this agonistic environment focusing on two dimensions: (a) protest events; and (b) state policy and juridical decisions as well as legal initiatives aimed at challenging state policy and relevant court decisions. By highlighting the scalar mismatch between protests focused on delimited urban spaces and responses of authorities at the scale of the nation – in this case, legal rulings – the paper further advances our understanding of agonistic conflict and how it produces change.

Leading through agonistic conflict: Contested sense-making in national political arenas

This article examines the social processes of political leadership in situations of contest and conflict, taking place within a key and long-established democratic institution, the UK Parliament. The empirical focus is on leadership in House of Commons select committees, which are concerned with holding the government to account. Headlines and media scrutiny, combined with internal challenge from the cross-party mix of politicians on the committees and a range of external stakeholders, create leadership challenges for committee chairs. The study is of two committee inquiries led by the same committee chair, which occurred concurrently and in real time, thereby providing a rare comparative study of leadership through the same leader at the same time but with different leadership challenges. Rather than shying away from conflict, as does much of the leadership literature, this research highlights how leaders who actively engage in challenge and conflict can build a degree of shared purpose among diverse groups of stakeholders. It examines and combines, in theory elaboration, two theories relevant to understanding these leadership processes: agonistic pluralism with its role in creating respectful conflictual consensus, and the theory of sense-making and sense-giving. The two cases (the two inquiries) had different trajectories and reveal how the chair recognised and dealt with conflict to achieve sense-making outcomes across divergent interests and across political parties. There are implications not only for understanding political leadership but also more widely for leadership where there are diverse and sometimes conflicting interests.

How speculative designs produce new potentials for education research in digital culture

ABSTRACT This article reports on a speculative design experiment, wherein the authors produced a critical remix video as intervention into the spread of toxic technocultural discourse on Twitch.tv (Twitch), an online platform in which content creators stream live content alongside a live chat audience. It focuses on the authors’ development of a speculative design process for education research in the context of livestreaming technoculture. This process began with a multimodal discourse analysis showing how specific discourse processes – amplification, waving, and network influencing – on a popular Twitch stream produced agonistic conflict and sometimes toxic discourse stemming therefrom. These findings from the multimodal discourse analysis informed a speculative intervention performed through the production of a critical remix video, which recontextualized the same discourse processes, thereby producing a working critique of potentially toxic agonism on this Twitch channel. The article also illustrates how speculative design experiments in digital culture may help develop new pedagogic potentials that catalyze social change through youths’ expanded and nuanced repertoire of digital practices in the future.

Gruesomeness conveys formidability: Perpetrators of gratuitously grisly acts are conceptualized as larger, stronger, and more likely to win.

While associated with extreme terrorist organizations in modern times, extensive accounts of grisly acts of violence exist in the archeological, historical, and ethnographic records. Though reasons for this dramatic form of violence are multifaceted and diverse, one possibility is that violence beyond what is required to win a conflict is a method by which violent actors communicate to others that they are formidable opponents. The formidability representation hypothesis predicts that formidability is cognitively represented using the dimensions of envisioned bodily size and strength. We tested the informational ramifications of gruesome acts using two vignette studies depicting individuals who either did or did not grievously damage the corpse of a deceased foe. Participants rated the individual's height, bodily size, and strength, as well as his aggressiveness, motivation, and the capacity to vanquish opponents in future conflicts. Results indicate that, as predicted, committing gruesome acts of violence enhances perceptions of formidability as measured both by envisioned bodily size and strength and expectations regarding the outcomes of agonistic conflicts. Moreover, the gruesome actor was perceived as more aggressive and more motivated to overcome his enemies, and this mediated the increase in conceptualized size and strength. These results both provide further evidence for the formidability representation hypothesis and support the thesis that overtly grisly violence is tactically employed, in part, because it conveys information about the perpetrator's formidability.

Democracy, disagreement, disruption: agonism and the environmental state

ABSTRACT Contemporary liberal democratic states seem to be headed towards inevitable environmental crisis. These states are locked into unsustainable practices and appear to lack the political institutions that could help them change path. Although there is broad social awareness of the problem of climate change, for example, this has not translated into robust environmental policymaking. Should democracy be regarded as a constitutive part of the ‘glass ceiling’ to socio-ecological transition? Here, I defend democracy, sketching a model of ‘ecological agonism’ in which democratic disagreement over environmental issues is understood to be crucial in provoking the emergence of alternatives, disrupting unsustainable conventions, and engaging citizens in a lively politics. Democratic disagreements should not be transcended or rationalised but regarded as a political (re)source. State institutions are key in ensuring the legitimate, provocative, and respectful expression of agonistic conflict over environmental concerns.

Sources of variation in social tolerance in mouse lemurs (Microcebus spp.)

BackgroundSocial tolerance strongly influences the patterns of affiliation and aggression in animal societies. However, not much is known about the variation of social tolerance in species living in dispersed social systems that combine solitary foraging activities with the need of coordinating social interactions with conspecifics on a regular basis. This study aims to investigate the sources of variation in social tolerance within a Malagasy primate radiation with dispersed social systems, the mouse lemurs (Microcebus spp.). Six mouse lemur species were selected as model species that belong to three different taxonomic clades, live in two types of forest environments (dry and humid), and differed in this study with respect to their reproductive activity. Six male–female and six male–male dyads of each species were tested temporarily in a standardized social encounter paradigm in Madagascar to collect data on joint use of space, non-agonistic body contacts, aggression rates, the number of conflicts and the establishment of intra- and intersexual dominance.ResultsMale–female dyads of the six species differed significantly in the frequency of affiliative and agonistic behaviors. In contrast, the variations between male–male dyads could not be explained by one parameter only, but clade membership, forest type, reproductive state as well as species were all suggested to be partially influential. Only one species (Microcebus mamiratra) showed signals of unambiguous female dominance in all male–female dyads, whereas the others had no or only a few dyads with female dominance.ConclusionsVariations in social tolerance and its consequences are most likely influenced by two factors, ecology (via forest type) and physiology (via reproductive activity), and only to a lesser extent by clade membership. The study suggests that mouse lemur females have higher aggression rates and more agonistic conflicts with males when females in the population are reproducing, at least in resource-rich humid forests. The study confirms a high degree of social plasticity between species in these small solitary foragers that supports their taxonomic distinctiveness and requires further scientific attention.

Does the grey mouse lemur use agonistic vocalisations to recognise kin?

Frequent kin-biased coalitionary behaviour is a hallmark of mammalian social complexity. Furthermore, selection to understand complex social dynamics is believed to underlie the co-evolution of social complexity and large brains. Vocalisations have been shown to be an important mechanism with which large-brained mammals living in complex social groups recognise and recruit kin for coalitionary support during agonistic conflicts. We test whether kin recognition via agonistic calls occurs in a small-brained solitary foraging primate living in a dispersed social network, the grey mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus, Miller JF, 1777). As mouse lemurs are frequent models for ancestral solitary foraging mammals, this study examines whether kin recognition via agonistic calls could be the foundation from which more complex, kin-based coalitionary behaviour evolved. We test whether female wild mouse lemurs in Ankarafantsika National Park, Madagascar, react differently to agonistic calls from kin and nonkin and to calls from familiar and unfamiliar individuals during playback experiments. Subjects showed no significant differences in reactions to the different stimuli; thus they did not react differently based upon kinship or familiarity. Results suggest that this solitary foraging species does not use agonistic calls to recognise kin and monitor agonistic interactions involving kin, unlike several species of Old World monkeys and hyenas. Thus, kin recognition via agonistic calls may have evolved independently in these lineages in parallel with greater social complexity and frequent coalitionary behaviour.