Alternative Notion Research Articles

Seeing the Anthropocene through Montage

Environmental changes and the age of the Anthropocene demand new ways of seeing. This article contends that montage serves both as form and as argument in representing the modern Western experience of human-nature relations in the supposed Anthropocene. It suggests that montage resists a single narrative of the Anthropocene and allows for modified readings to address race and capital through alternative notions such as the Capitalocene and Black Anthropocenes. Montage in relation to the Anthropocene is exemplified through two works by contemporary British artists that visualize agencies and legacies of human interventions into fluvial geographies, the sea, and whales: the touring film installation Vertigo Sea (2015) by John Akomfrah, and the site-specific intervention BERLINWAL (Berlin Whale) (2018) by Elizabeth Price at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany. Both works, though differing in medium, use montage as a structure to hold different materialities and multiple spatial and temporal scales, affording integration as well as confrontation. Their multifocal perceptions and multiple perspectives challenge ontologies and afford a decentering of the viewer toward de-exceptionalizing the human.

Glitching the simulated carnival: “Girls like us” in MTV's Ex on the Beach

ABSTRACT During the fourth season of MTV’s Ex on the Beach, Adore Delano disrupts a rich and complicated tradition of queer visibility and representation. Unlike her queer predecessors, who often used unscripted talk shows and reality television to seek normalization, Adore demonstrates a conspicuous lack of appeals to normality while actively working toward coalition among her cis, straight counterparts. Recognizing the mediated nature of reality television as a simulation of Bakhtin’s carnival, this paper argues that Adore’s queer disruptions coalesce to glitch the homogenizing function of a simulated carnival. Throughout her time on the show, Adore actively and consciously produces discourses of gender that examine illegibility; enact and deconstruct hegemonic masculinities; and use the rhetorics of gender to hail cis and trans women into coalition. Together, these interventions provide a rich text through which we might understand alternative notions of visibility and coalition-building in the face of a political climate that intends to annihilate queer communities.

People consistently view elections and civil liberties as key components of democracy.

How do people around the world define democracy? Answering this question is critical as countries face democratic backsliding and authoritarian governments promote alternative notions of democracy. Indeed, some scholars argue that people from different backgrounds understand democracy differently. By contrast, we discovered very consistent views about what constitutes a "democratic" country from conjoint survey experiments conducted in Egypt, India, Italy, Japan, Thailand, and the United States. Across countries (N = 6150) and diverse subgroups within countries, people similarly emphasized free and fair elections and civil liberties as being the key determinants of democracy. Countries that produce desirable social and economic outcomes are also considered more democratic, but these and other factors exert a smaller and less consistent effect than elections and civil liberties.

Equilibria in matching markets with soft and hard liquidity constraints

We consider a one-to-one matching with contracts model in the presence of liquidity constraints on the buyer's side. Liquidity constraints can be either soft or hard. Competitive equilibria do exist in economies with soft liquidity constraints, but not necessarily in the presence of hard liquidity constraints. The limit of a convergent sequence of competitive equilibria in economies with increasingly stringent soft liquidity constraints may fail to be a competitive equilibrium in the limit economy with hard liquidity constraints. We establish equivalence and existence results for two alternative notions of competitive equilibrium, quantity-constrained competitive equilibrium and expectational equilibrium, together with stable outcomes and core outcomes, in economies with both types of liquidity constraints. We argue that these notions of equilibrium and stability do not suffer from discontinuity problems by showing appropriate limit results.

On generalized notions of consistency and reinstatement and their preservation in formal argumentation

We present a conceptualization providing an original domain-independent perspective on two crucial properties in reasoning: consistency and reinstatement. They emerge as a pair of dual characteristics, representing complementary requirements on the outcomes of reasoning processes. Central to our formalization are two underlying parametric relations: incompatibility and reinstatement violation. Different instances of these relations give rise to a spectrum of consistency and reinstatement scenarios. As a demonstration of versatility and expressive power of our approach we provide a characterization of various abstract argumentation semantics which are expressed as combinations of distinct consistency and reinstatement constraints. Moreover, we conduct an investigation into preserving these essential properties across different reasoning stages. Specifically, we delve into scenarios where a labelling is derived from other labellings through a synthesis function, using the synthesis of argument justification as an illustrative instance. We achieve a general characterization of consistency preservation synthesis functions, while we unveil an impossibility result concerning reinstatement preservation, leading us to explore an alternative notion to ensure feasibility. Our exploration reveals a weakness in the traditional definition of argument justification, for which we propose a refined version overcoming this limitation.

Full downside risk aversion

It is shown that well-behaved notions of greater or less downside risk aversion, via utility transformations, lead not to just one, but two, dual, notions of absolute aversion to downside risk: one, the more evident but weaker condition, requires that the prudence measure be positive, given a positive Arrow–Pratt measure of risk aversion, whereas the other, stronger, but less obvious, condition requires that the prudence measure be greater than three times the corresponding Arrow–Pratt measure. The reason for the appearance of these two extreme conditions, bounding the spectrum of reasonable alternative notions of downside risk aversion, or equivalently of downside risk loving, are explained, and consequences of this divergence in the possible meanings of downside risk aversion are explored.

Adaptations of masculinity: mapping the affective power of Achilles and Patroclus

Abstract The Greek myth of Achilles and Patroclus, two of the heroes of the Trojan War, has served various ideological purposes in adaptive revisions. The central question of this article is how the story lends itself to different interpretations and ideological projects across time. Building on concepts of affect, power, and cartographical reading, as described by Gilles Deleuze, the analyses highlight the potential of the myth to do different things. The examples analysed are Christa Wolf’s novel Kassandra, Madeline Miller’s novel The Song of Achilles, and a figure skating routine by French elite skater Kevin Aymoz. A comparison of these adaptations shows how the myth can be used to celebrate alternative notions of masculinity and challenge homophobic discourses. Furthermore, the comparison highlights figure skating as a mode of adaptation where a performer becomes a character, thus underlining the affirmative potential of the sport.

The nutritional turn towards crisis: a critical perspective

ABSTRACT With concerns about food systems growing due to environmental change and the abrupt disruption of trade relations following the dual crises of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, it has become increasingly common for global development agendas to include discussions, programmes, initiatives, and policy proscriptions about the risks of malnutrition. Yet, there remains limited insight into how securitising nutrition in particular influences the politics of food insecurity more broadly. Therefore, we aim to develop a critical perspective of ‘nutritional crisis’. In doing so, we draw from critical security studies to advance an interpretation of the nutritional turn that takes into account three key dynamics: (1) the performativity of nutritional crisis discourses (2) the political-economic context in which they are embedded (3) alternative notions of nutrition, security, and crisis among resistance movements. We apply this perspective to a case in point concerning food insecurity in Guatemala – a country that remains the intense focus of nutritional policies at the global level and simultaneously a site of struggle and resistance for local and transnational food justice.

Zelfredzaamheid als uitgangspunt voor de begeleiding van ASS: een mythe

Life-course counsellors play a key role in the lives of people with autism and are committed to improving the quality of life of their clients. They combine their personal vision of care as best as possible with the system within they function. Since decentralization in 2015, they have had to deal with policy changes within the social domain, where the notion of self-reliance is used as a starting point for policy. This notion can be interpreted in many ways and causes confusion for people who are dependent on care and for people who provide this care, either as an informal caregiver or as a professional care provider. In this contribution I discuss the central criticisms on the notion of self-reliance as a policy starting point for the guidance of people with autism and which alternative notions could provide guidance.

Misunderstanding and Meaning Change

AbstractToday, the tone of discussion in the public sphere is dominated by misunderstanding. A common assumption is that misunderstanding comes from a failure of understanding. This article argues that misunderstanding is in fact a type of meaning change. To fully understand the contrast between misunderstanding as a failure of understanding and misunderstanding as a type of meaning change, the article uses Ludwig Wittgenstein and Hans-Georg Gadamer as a starting point to tease out an unthought assumption. Both thinkers challenge traditional preconceptions of how language shapes understanding and they make prominent use of the concept of misunderstanding to do so. Yet both rely on a de facto model of misunderstanding as a failure of understanding. To consider an alternative notion of misunderstanding, the article looks at examples from thinkers influenced by Wittgenstein's and Gadamer's philosophy. Finally, the article concludes by positing a new definition of misunderstanding.

About Logically Probable Sentences

The starting point of this paper is the empirically determined ability to reason in natural language by employing probable sentences. A sentence is understood to be logically probable if its schema, expressed as a formula in the language of classical propositional calculus, takes the logical value of truth for the majority of Boolean valuations, i.e., as a logically probable formula. Then, the formal system P is developed to encode the set of these logically probable formulas. Based on natural semantics, a strong completeness theorem for P is proved. Alternative notions of consequence for logically probable sentences are also considered.

Schmidt games and Cantor winning sets

Abstract Schmidt games and the Cantor winning property give alternative notions of largeness, similar to the more standard notions of measure and category. Being intuitive, flexible, and applicable to recent research made them an active object of study. We survey the definitions of the most common variants and connections between them. A new game called the Cantor game is invented and helps with presenting a unifying framework. We prove surprising new results such as the coincidence of absolute winning and $1$ Cantor winning in metric spaces, and the fact that $1/2$ winning implies absolute winning for subsets of $\mathbb {R}$ . We also suggest a prototypical example of a Cantor winning set to show the ubiquity of such sets in metric number theory and ergodic theory.

Therapeutic value in the time of digital brainwaves.

This article examines the value of medical technology through the case of electroencephalograms (EEGs), devices used to visualize brain activity and diagnose seizures. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, the article shows that EEGs are valued differently by patients and medical practitioners. While practitioners value EEGs for their clinical utility, i.e., ability to inform clinical decisions, patients value EEGs even in the absence of clinical utility. Indeed, patients derive long-lasting therapeutic effects from this diagnostic technology. These findings intervene in the utilitarian calculus of therapeutic value-a mode of reasoning that equates value with clinical utility-commonly deployed in biomedicine and engineering and call for a recognition of alternative notions such as the therapeutic value of being witnessed and cared for by medical experts via EEGs and other technologies that require time to work. Expansive notions of therapeutic value are imperative for including marginalized patients-especially low-income, disabled, and women patients-in debates on automation and the future of healthcare. Studying how multiple stakeholders value a medical technology provides insight into valuation, objectification, expertise, and other concerns central to science and technology studies.

TWAIL, archives, and refugee law

Abstract Critical scholars of refugee law and refugee studies have demonstrated the entrenched Eurocentricity and the ingrained hegemony that dominate the fields of study. Therefore, this article embarks on a methodological inquiry that intersperses Third-World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) and archival research to the study of international refugee law, with specific focus on India. I base this article on the preconceived notion that TWAIL cannot be divorced from the inquiry into understanding alternate non-European notions of refugee protection. This article emphasizes TWAIL’s significance as a methodological tool, and explores India’s refugee hosting practices and resistance to Eurocentric international refugee law through archives. The article also contends that TWAIL and archival research in this context, are not just methodological innovations, but constitute deliberate disruptions in the field.

A Framework for Effective Collaboration with Crisis-Affected Communities

In 2016, a localisation agenda was set across the international aid industry with the understanding that humanitarian interventions need to be led by local actors and local communities. Despite international agreements, the localisation efforts are largely failing. This paper demonstrates the challenges that prevent effective collaboration between international humanitarian agencies and crisis-affected communities. It draws on evaluation reports to highlight an inability to learn lessons or follow recommendations from previous crises. Based on the authors’ experiences, we present a novel framework for effectively collaborating with crisis-affected communities. The Communities Framework provides a pathway to establishing effective community collaboration and locally owned and led humanitarian interventions. The importance of local leadership, trust building, and local context are at the heart of the framework. In light of the need for a more localised and decolonial humanitarian response, this framework supports humanitarian actors and the affected communities in moving from a charity-led approach to one of mutual aid. The paper draws on alternative notions of compassion from the Global South of contemporary humanitarian interventions as a philosophical foundation for the framework. Caring for others and the world is central to implementing an appropriate and effective humanitarian response. There remains a largely unexplored scope regarding the outcome of resolving crises when both humanitarian actors and affected communities work as equal partners and how that will shape modern humanitarianism as we understand it today.

Differential experiments using parallel alternative operations

Abstract The use of alternative operations in differential cryptanalysis, or alternative notions of differentials, is lately receiving increasing attention. Recently, Civino et al. managed to design a block cipher that is secure with respect to the classical differential cryptanalysis performed using XOR-differentials, but weaker with respect to the attack based on an alternative difference operation acting on the first s-box of the block. We extend this result to parallel alternative operations, i.e. acting on each s-box of the block. First, we recall the mathematical framework needed to define and use such operations. After that, we perform some differential experiments against a toy cipher and compare the effectiveness of the attack with respect to the one that uses XOR-differentials.

A New Notion of Fuzzy Function Ideal Convergence

P.M. Pu and Y.M. Liu extended Moore-Smith’s convergence of nets to fuzzy topology and Y.M. Liu provided analogous results to J. Kelley’s classical characterization theorem of net convergence by introducing the notion of fuzzy convergence classes. In a previous paper, the authors of this study provided modified versions of this characterization by using an alternative notion of convergence of fuzzy nets, introduced by B.M.U. Afsan, named fuzzy net ideal convergence. Our main scope here is to generalize and simplify the preceding results. Specifically, we insert the concept of a fuzzy function ideal convergence class, L, on a non-empty set, X, consisting of triads (f,e,I), where f is a function from a non-empty set, D, to the set FP(X) of fuzzy points in X, which we call fuzzy function, e∈FP(X), and I is a proper ideal on D, and we provide necessary and sufficient conditions to establish the existence of a unique fuzzy topology, δ, on X, such that (f,e,I)∈L iff fI-converges to e, relative to the fuzzy topology δ.

Reconstructing perspectives: investigating how molecular geometry cards (MGCards) and molecular model building (MMB) disrupt students' alternative notions of molecular structure – a qualitative study

The range of abstract concepts encountered when learning chemistry and the inability of students to make connections between the macroscopic, sub-microscopic, and symbolic representations, used in chemistry teaching, are believed to be the main reasons for students’ difficulty when learning chemistry. Prediction and determination of molecular geometry using the theory of valence shell electron pair repulsion (VSEPR) is a sample of the abstract concept that is hard to understand by students who learn chemistry. Students may comprehend these ideas better if the learning process is supplemented with cutting-edge, interactive learning aids. To address the conceptual difficulties that students encounter when learning how to predict the shapes of molecules, a card game (MGCards) has been developed which is supported by simple molecular model building (MMB). The card game allows students to work through the steps required to predict the shape of a molecule in an engaging format. The student learning process is supported by feedback at all stages (if students make a mistake, they receive hints that will help them in the next step of the game). Action research with qualitative methods has been used to design, develop, and evaluate the MGCards. The MGCards and MMB were piloted at the University of Leicester with year one Natural Sciences students and modified based on the feedback received. Both MGCards and MMB were then used as part of the first-year chemistry education programme at Tanjungpura University in Indonesia. The findings of students’ answer analysis (pre- and post-test) in both cycles showed that students had a better understanding after learning with MGCards and MMB. The positive feedback for MGCards and MMB confirmed that these resources were effective in delivering an engaging learning experience. The results suggest that MGCards and MMB play a significant role in enhancing students’ understanding while also keeping them engaged.

The Reproduction of Nationalism and the Nationalism of Reproduction: Putin’s Biopolitics of Defending Tradition, 2012–2021

AbstractAfter Putin’s return to the Russian presidency in 2012, a further turn toward authoritarianism has been coupled with attacks on Western secularism, multiculturalism, and alleged moral decay. At home, the Kremlin has been increasingly preoccupied with defining and addressing problems related to citizens’ bodies, linking “traditional values” to national security. Central to this discourse are issues relating to reproductive norms. This analysis uses the Foucauldian concept of “biopower” as an epistemic point of departure in an attempt to understand the central role of reproduction in the Kremlin’s identity project. Administering the bodies of a population simultaneously produces and delimits that population according to bodily criteria. Thus, this “bodily turn” in Russian nation-building may be understood as “bionationalism,” a depoliticizing style of nationalism that relies on biopolitical techniques. The analysis explicates the mechanisms of this style of nationalism: how and why this discourse functions, legitimates problematic practices, excludes “abnormals,” expands the state into the everyday lives of citizens, and marginalizes and even securitizes alternative notions of national identity. Putin’s bionationalism may be read as an existential nationalism and thereby as producing a specific mobilizational context.

Unravelling the Norwegian meat reduction controversy: navigating contested sustainabilities and the role of meat

Controversy surrounds research reports that promote reduced meat consumption in Norway. By studying these controversies in the media, we ask why meat reduction is polarised seemingly between environmental and agricultural, urban and rural voices. We show how a ‘conventional’ definition of meat reduction in a self-regulating market tends to disconnect consumption habits from agricultural policies. The result is a paradox: Norwegians are urged to eat less meat, but farmers must produce more to stay afloat. In this conventional frame, meat reduction is seen by rural and farmer voices as a further exaggeration of agricultural decline, depopulation and centralisation. To unravel this controversy, we contrast this with a critical ‘post-productivist’ view of conventional agriculture and volume-centred farm subsidies since the 1950s. We show how a different, more interactive understanding of consumption as interrelated with Norwegian food policies, production and distribution emerges, highlighting a path through the controversy. By reimagining a change from subsidies for production volume to production methods, climate, health, environmental and rural issues are brought into conversation with each other. While largely remaining a marginal voice in a heavily polarised debate, we show how alternative notions of meat reduction can help us move past meat reduction controversies. The article stresses that the two concepts of meat reduction are characterised by distinct notions of consumption, suggesting that the popular understanding of what consumption is can be a barrier to, or a part of, a meat-reduced future.