Ambiguous Identity Research Articles

The Violent Shepherd: Constructing Legitimate Violence in Pre-Nicene Christianity

Summary In the present article, I analyze Greek and Latin sources of pre-Nicene Christianity and argue that violence, although generally overlooked, constitutes an intrinsic and significant aspect of the early Christian model of pastoral rule. I premise my argument on an understanding of violence that rejects so-called ‘legitimist’ definitions, which subordinate the judgment on violence to a judgment on legitimacy and reserve the label of violence for illegitimate actions alone. Congenitally embedded in a network of conflictual relations, the shepherd of early Christian imagery is primarily tasked with the salvation of the sheep from enemies whose ambiguous identity, I argue, often betrays their provenance from within the flock. The shepherd is also engaged in disciplining his animals through measures that include severe physical punishments and exclusion from the herd. To conclude, I argue that the pastoral metaphor is itself an especially powerful instrument in the discursive construction of legitimate violence. For a relevant strand of ancient thought, to frame a particular institution in terms of the shepherd-flock relationship is, I argue, to conceive of it as replicative of the natural and normative order of reality, while also making certain acts of violence appear as the preferable course of action to be sought in the government of the community.

The Naths of Bengal and Their Marginalisation During the Early Medieval Period

This article is about the Naths (also known as Yogi, Jogi and Jugi) of Bengal and the evidence about the depression of their status that occurred during the early medieval times. Today the householder Naths, who maintain a caste framework, are quite distinct from the ascetic branch of the Nath Sampradaya (community). The householder Naths were apparently degraded by the smarta-ruled Brahmanical society during the twelfth century, the marginalisation being multidimensional—social, political, economic and cultural. Because of their backwardness, the householder Naths were put among Other Backward Castes by the Central government and West Bengal state government in the 1990s. Thus, the householder Naths endure ambiguous identities—claiming high caste status themselves but placed in the Sudra varna by others. This article is an attempt to investigate the historical background of the marginalisation of the householder Naths in Bengal.

Transition theory and the emotional journey to medical educator identity: A qualitative interview study.

Medical academia is in crisis, with fewer people entering and growing concern at numbers leaving. While faculty development is often seen as part of the solution, there are significant issues with faculty not engaging with and resisting development opportunities. Lack of motivation may be linked to what might be called a 'weak' educator identity. We studied medical educators' experiences of career development to gain further insights into: how professional identity may develop; individuals' accompanying emotional responses to perceived identity change; and consideration of the accompanying temporal dimensions. Drawing on new materialist sociology, we explore medical educator identity formation in terms of an affective flow that places the individual within a constantly shifting assemblage of psychological, emotional and social relations. We interviewed 20 medical educators at various career stages, with differing strengths of medical educator self-identity. Using an adapted transition model as a basis for understanding the emotions experienced by those undergoing identity transitions, we explore the process that, for some medical educators, appears to lead to decreased motivation, ambiguous identity and disengagement, but for others results in renewed energy, a stronger and more stable professional identity and increased interest and engagement. By more effectively illustrating the emotional impact of the transition process leading to a more stable educator identity, we show that some individuals, especially where the change was not sought or welcomed, express their uncertainty and distress through low mood, resistance and an attempt to minimise the significance of undertaking or increasing teaching duties. Understanding the emotional and developmental phases of the transition to medical educator identity has several key implications for faculty development. Faculty development approaches should be alert to the individual educator's stage of transition since this will affect that individual's readiness to accept and respond to guidance, information and support. A renewed emphasis on early educational approaches that will support the transformational and reflective learning of the individual is needed, while traditional approaches emphasising skills and knowledge may be more useful in the later stages. Further testing of the transition model and its applicability to identity development in medical education is indicated.

Swin-JDE: Joint Detection and Embedding Multi-Object Tracking in Crowded Scenes Based on Swin-Transformer

Multi-object tracking (MOT) is a highly valued and challenging research topic in computer vision. To achieve more robust tracking performance, recently published MOT methods tend to use anchor-free object detectors, which have the advantage of dealing with the identity ambiguity problem encountered by anchor-based methods in learning appearance features. However, in practical applications, it is found that the detection accuracy of the anchor-free object detector based on classical convolutional neural networks in crowded scenes will be significantly reduced. In order to have better detection and tracking performance in crowded scenes, this paper proposes an anchor-free joint detection and embedding (JDE) MOT method based on Transformer architecture, called Swin-JDE. The proposed method includes a novel Patch-Expanding module, which can improve the spatial information of feature maps by up-sampling processing through neural network learning and Einops Notation-based rearrangement to enhance the detection and tracking performance of the MOT model. In terms of training method, we propose a two-step training method that trains the detection branch separately from the appearance branch to enhance the detection robustness of anchor-free predictors. Furthermore, during the training process, we also propose an examination method to remove occluded targets from the training dataset to improve the accuracy of the appearance embedding layer. In terms of data association, we propose a new post-processing method, which simultaneously considers the three factors of detection confidence, appearance embedding distance, intersection-over-union (IoU) distance to match each tracklet and the detection information to improve the tracking robustness of the MOT model. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves 70.38% multiple object tracking accuracy (MOTA) and 69.53% identification F1-score (IDF1) results in the MOT20 benchmark dataset, and the identification switch (ID Switch) is reduced to 2026. Compared with FairMOT, the proposed method improves MOTA and IDF1 by 8.58% and 2.23%, respectively.

Race, Nation, Class: A Neo-Marxist Critique

Racial discrimination is a phenomenon, which can be experienced in individual lives, in groups and communities, and in the structures of a global society. Racial discourses and the performance of discrimination are historical issues that are based on colonial and global relations. That’s why the topic of racism needs to be laid bare as an individual sensitisation as well as a structural – political, social, institutional, etc. – challenge. Often, education is held up as the solution to this. By this we mean education in a wide sense that addresses people of all ages, knowledge or social groups. According to Étienne Balibars and Immanuel Waller-stein’s book Race, Nation, Class - Ambiguous Identities (1991), we want to add a neo-Marxist perspective on the discussion of racism in issue 13 of on_education. We recognise a marginalization of historical and structural voices because some articles in the volume risk individualising a structural phenomenon – that of racism. To unpack our critique, we begin with a short overview of what a neo-Marxist perspective on racism comprises. In the second step, we outline how our perspective can enrich the discussion by summarising the main points of the volume's texts and critiquing them. In the final step, we conclude our argument with reflections on speaking about racism and education.

재한 조선족 고학력자의 진로결정과정에 관한 연구: 한국 취업 결정자를 대상으로

The purpose of this study is to explore the career decision making process and socio-cultural influencing factors of highly educated Joseonjok in Korea. In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 highly educated Joseonjok, and data were collected and analyzed using the grounded theory approach. The result of this study indicates that highly educated Joseonjok recognized career barriers and opportunities in both countries as non-mainstream members. This was related to ‘ambiguous identity’, ‘discrimination and acceptance experiences’ experienced in both China and Korea. Through cognitive control and positive coping behavior, participants finally decided to stay in Korea to work for their individual achievements after graduation. However, it was found that confidence in the outcome of career decision was influenced by the ‘sense of belonging’ perceived by individuals. In addition, ‘cultural and linguistic characteristics’, ‘the trend of migration of Joseonjok’, ‘social status in both China and Korea’, and the ‘system and environment of both China and Korea’ were also confirmed as contextual and mediating factors. The particular significance of this study lies in proposing countermeasures to introduce high-quality human resources, providing career education and consultation programs for highly educated Joseonjok, and expanding multicultural career theory and research.

Building Awareness of Diagnosis Together: Ambiguity During Progression-Free Survival Experienced by Patients With Lung Cancer and Caregivers in China.

Lung cancer, as a multistep and multifactorial disease, is among the most fatal cancers worldwide. As new therapies are developed and early screening increases, patients tend to experience progression-free survival (PFS) as a coexistence of living and dying simultaneously. The aim of this study was to explore the awareness context experienced by Chinese elderly patients and family members. Interviews were conducted with 20 interviewees, including 13 elderly patients with lung cancer and 7 caregivers that were recruited using purposive sampling. Semistructured, face-to-face, in-depth interviews were conducted using a qualitative descriptive approach. Ambiguity was commonly experienced by patients with lung cancer with PFS. Three themes emerged from the data analysis: "ambiguity in cancer diagnosis," "ambiguity in prognostic awareness," and "ambiguity in identity." In this case, ambiguity refers to a situation or context in which patients are uncertain about whether there will be a recurrence of their cancer and when it might occur. The findings highlighted that patients experienced ambiguity in response to unclear diagnoses, uncertain prognoses, and identity crises during PFS. Healthcare teams should be equipped with psychosocial knowledge and communication skills to manage ambiguity in diagnosis and prognosis for patients with PFS.

Managing the Transition to Online Freelance Platforms: Self-Directed Socialization

Individuals increasingly turn to online freelance platforms to find flexible, remote, knowledge-based work. Yet we have only begun to understand the challenges new freelancers face with limited formal resources to orient themselves to this career. To inform design and policy to support new freelancers, we conducted a qualitative interview study on transitions to online freelance platforms with 27 freelancers working on the Upwork and Fiverr platforms. We found that new freelancers engage in self-directed socialization as they proactively seek support not directly provided by the platform or their clients. This support helps them resolve professional identity ambiguity, learn platform work self-management, build credibility, and overcome self-doubt in their new careers. Our findings suggest opportunities to support new forms of socialization and mentorship to address disparities in access to networks, resources, and knowledge needed to successfully begin an online freelance career.

Pulau dan Identitas yang Ditinggalkan dalam Shimagomoru Karya Tami Sakiyama: Kritik Sastra Ekofeminisme

Tami Sakiyama in Shimagomoru criticises homogeneity, dominance, and centralisation influencing the thinking model and development strategy in Okinawa, causing violence toward society and the environment. This article examines the construction of discourse in Shimagomoru related to colonisation in Okinawa and its impact on the environment and universal bioethics through an ecofeminist literary criticism approach. The data in the study were collected through the literature review method and analysed through the descriptive analysis method. Results of this study showed that the islands abandoned by their inhabitants due to moving to the more advanced and modern main islands are the result of discrimination in modernisation and development in Okinawa. Colonisation, annexation, and assimilation created a single identity as Japanese for Okinawans, causing identity ambiguity.

타잔의 “하얀 피부”

Tarzan, one of the most widely known cultural icons, came into being in Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan of the Apes. Since then, critics have read him variously as embodying heroic imperialism, violent racism, or white exclusionism. Unlike those critics who assume that Tarzan is undoubtedly white, however, this essay claims that Tarzan’s whiteness is problematic at best. Tarzan’s identity is ambiguous from the outset. Whether Tarzan is human or animal, whether he is a hybridized product of both, is not determined until the end. From other whites’ perspective, moreover, Tarzan is also divided between a civilized man able to read and write and a primitive superman unable to communicate in human language. Such ambiguity of identity culminates in the doubts that Tarzan might be a fake white who, living among savage Africans, would betray his own race, and that he might also be an undesirable and unassimilable white in the civilized society. Ultimately, I claim, the questionable whiteness of Tarzan’s “white skin” frustrates all his sedulous attempts to be integrated into core whiteness.

Loin du monde, l’île est le monde : Les écotones insulaires de l’océan Indien entre créolisation et frontières liquides

Far from the world, the island is the world: The island ecotones of the Indian Ocean between creolisation and liquid borders. Due to their specific geography and plural histories, the island societies of the south-western Indian Ocean are characterised by a considerable anthropological and cultural complexity. Colonial regimes and migratory and diasporic phenomena have strongly marked these territories on the oceanic borders as well as their social construction and particular ethno-racial composition. Island-as-utopia, island-as-prison, island-as-refuge, island-as-stopover, island-as-relation, island-as-world … there is no shortage of notions to imagine and describe these heterogeneous places where the realities, potentialities, and limits of (post)colonial cultural plurality are negotiated. For behind the tropical dreams and the exaltations of harmonious cohabitation (vivre-ensemble) appear the precariousness of the island condition, the ambiguity of identity, and the difficulty of anchoring oneself in and expressing oneself from a place which continues to be significantly shaped by its relations with the outside (the old and new ‘metropolises’ and places of reference, other islands). To what extent can the specificities of the Indian Ocean islands – this other ‘archipelago’ less visible than its Caribbean counterpart – inform and nourish continental territories, France, the world? Are they models of ethical solidarity? Antidotes to identity-based blockages? Laboratories of democratic thought? Creative prefigurations of the future? It may well be. However, according to certain thinkers, writers and artists from these spaces, the islands and archipelagos – far from being the idealisations of a vitalist and blissful community (en-commun) – prove to be above all plural and conflicting contact zones. They emerge as complex ecotones that allow us to imagine and think about the challenges of our contemporary societies and cultures from the ‘margins’, the interstices, the unstable borders.

Ambiguous culture in Greenland police: Proposing a multi‐dimensional framework of organizational culture for Human Resource Management theory and practice

AbstractThis article places ambiguity at the centre of Human Resource Management theory and practice of organizational culture and advances a multi‐dimensional framework that makes productive use of tensions between cultural integration and differentiation. Providing an illustrative analysis of Greenland Police, we identify a clash between a strong integrational pull and a similarly powerful differentiating force, involving an integrated occupational culture and differentiated national sub‐cultures. This clash, we show, becomes productive when organizational members articulate and enact ambiguous identities. Emphasising the contextuality of organizational culture, we do not believe the empirical findings to be generalisable, but, instead, offer the analytical framework for studying multi‐dimensional organizational culture as our main contribution. Conceptually, we emphasise how ambiguity is articulated in and between integration and differentiation, thus enhancing the relationality of the dimensions. The practical aim is to set ambiguous dynamics in motion that enable productive relations between different cultural dimensions.

The latest developments of the times and the extent to which they affect the values of Libyan youth Field study on a sample of young people in Marj

The crisis of values ​​that the modern man suffers is more acute among the younger generation, which suffers from ambiguity in identity and a loss of goals, especially after the deep social and political crises and shocks that ravaged the contemporary world, and here young people find themselves today distributed between multiple goals and goals, and what it requires of various values With the desire to achieve integration and adaptation to the surrounding community, the study starts from the following questions:
 - What are the most important values ​​for Libyan youth in light of the changes of the times?
 - What are the values ​​and their most prominent classifications?
 - What are the developments of the times and their effects on youth value trends?
 Aim of the study:
 To know the most prominent and important values ​​for Libyan youth in light of the two variables of the time
 To reveal the impact of the changes of the age represented by globalization in all its fields on the youth category
 Terminology of study:
 Young
 Abd Allah Bujalal sees that the youth stage extends from 15-26, but when procedural necessity it can be divided into progressive stages, as follows, the first youth stage falls between 15-18 years and the second youth stage falls between 19-22 years and the third youth stage falls Between 23 - 26 years old
 Value: Values ​​are ideas, perceptions, judgments and motives, and they often express something desirable positive, and they have a role in influencing human decisions and choices, and they are socially accepted principles and laws, i.e. developed by society and stem from it, as they differ from one society to another and from one group to another In the same society, they are generally guiding human behaviorAge variables:It means the sum of the new variables that have emerged and are expected to occur in the future at all levelsSystematic procedures for the studyStudy type:This study belongs to descriptive survey studies, which aim to describe the general aspects of the studied community as they exist in this region and not others.The curriculum used in the study:In this study, the descriptive approach was used, which is the approach followed in most social research, because of its role in helping the researcher to provide data and information on the subject of the study and help in analyzing and interpreting it and revealing the relationships between the variables of the study.The study sample :The sample of the study is the youth from Marj city who were randomly chosen using the random sample method, where the sample items reached 50 single from the Libyan youth.Conclusion of the study results:- The "family" came first, which confirms the importance of that value in their lives, due to the fact that the family is the first institution in which a person is raised and guides his values ​​and future behavior.- Either the value of religion and belief "is at the highest of their chosen values, as it was 70%, and then the value of" trustworthiness "among the young respondents came to - Trust is one of the important values ​​promoted by religion, and this indicates the important role played by the family and the belief of young people in that importance.

‘I’ve got no idea’: an ethnography of Critical Care Nurses’ nuanced and ambiguous professional identities in regional Australia

ABSTRACT Historical sociological perspectives posit professional identity to emerge from socialisation and attainment of ‘traits’ considered unique to and distinguishing of a profession. Such essentialist understandings, however, cannot account for group heterogeneity, nurses’ lived experiences, nor the fluidity of professional and personal identity. This article conceptualises professional identity as being both individual and collective, influenced by context, involving subjective meaning-making, and membership to a specific professional group. Drawing on ethnographic data gathered through participant observation and semi-structured interviews with Critical Care Nurses in an Intensive Care Unit in regional Australia, we identify four themes that reveal different aspects of professional identity: conceptualising professional identity; professional identity as a title and legislative requirement; professional identity as qualifications and training; and professional identity as a social performance. The findings demonstrate that Critical Care Nurses hold multifaceted perceptions of professional identity. While they collectively distinguish their nursing training, knowledge, and practice from other nurses, they struggle to articulate what professional identity is, while creating boundaries between different forms of nursing education and qualifications to construct their professional identity. These uncertain and diverse meanings of professional identity contribute to nurse identity ambiguity, while also reflecting the necessity of flexible individual and collective nursing identities.

Animals in the Locality: Environmental Disaster, Disability and Human–Animal Spatial Identity Politics in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People (2007)

The concept of disability has often been chained to that of animality as humanness is regarded as inherently marked by independence and rationality, the lack of which in animate beings is randomly associated with animality. The animality/humanity dualism, championed by anthropocentrism and ableism, not only affects the identity of humans with special needs by grouping them as Others but also disregards the agency of animals/nonhumans and nature by denying human dependency on and similarities with more-than-human entities. This research in its exploration of the connection between disability and ambiguous identity will focus upon the dynamics of the animality/humanity dualism in the context of an industrial disaster and ensuing disability as represented in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People (2007). By understanding animality/humanity binary through the lens of local/global spatial distinction, the article scrutinises the way the animal/human ambiguous sense of place of the protagonist is mediated by his spatial relations. Building on both critical disability scholarship on animalisation of disabled humans and bioregional exploration of local/global spatial boundaries, the research, therefore, contends that the impact of environmental disasters on certain human groups creates a local (deformed humans as animals)/global (elite humans) spatial binary. The resolvability of such binaries, as the research further argues, is coterminous with developing a local bioregion, which is both connected to and dissociated from global/international places and is built upon humans–nonhumans/animals/nature interrelations that allow an agentic and inclusive human–nonhuman sense of belonging in the region.

Rings of Saturn: Fellini Rosi1

This article offers a comparative reading of Gianfranco Rosi’s Sacro GRA (‘Holy GRA’) (2013) and Federico Fellini’s Roma (1972). It sets Sacro GRA within Rosi’s career, his ambiguous identity as an ‘Italian’ filmmaker and the film’s relation to the history of cinema in/on Rome and psycho-geographical road movies. It moves on to analyse Rosi’s treatment of place and urban space, comparing key motifs and patterns in Sacro GRA with the short episode of Fellini’s Roma, also set on the GRA, Rome’s urban outer ring road. This dual reading is articulated around four axes of comparison in the construction and evocation of the ring-road space: street furniture, metacinematic frames and recordings, noises and silences, machines and monsters. Through these and other incidental constellations, the article argues that the two films display parallel, at times symmetrical, fascinations with the urban as simultaneously a space of utopia and dystopia, nature and the man-made, past and future.

The Role of διάνοια in Plotinus’ Philosophy

Abstract In this paper, I explore the centrality of διάνοια in Plotinus’ philosophy. Plotinus says that the real “we” is found to be the subject of διάνοια and “upwards.” This fundamental definition elicits several pressing questions. First, how is the subject of discursive reasoning related to the subject of appetitive and affective states? Second, how does the subject of discursive reasoning come to recognize its ultimate destiny as an undescended and disembodied intellect? Finally, why should we think that, as Plotinus says, there is “no falsity” in discursive thinking? The answers to these questions begins with Plotinus’ reflections on Plato’s Divided Line and the sharp distinction between διάνοια and δόξα. I argue that διάνοια is the embodied expression of disembodied νοῦς. It is the focus of our ambiguous and conflicted personal identity.

Improving Global Planning Education by Centering the Experience of International Students in U.S. and Canadian Planning Schools

This report examines ways to better support international students in U.S. and Canadian planning schools based on a survey and focus groups conducted by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Global Planning Education Committee (GPEC). Findings show that international students often face alienation and structural barriers to navigating universities and living in an unfamiliar culture, along with identity ambiguity, inadequate career services, and narrowly focused urban planning curricula. This suggests the need for greater mentorship; explicit recognition in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts; tailored professional development; and more holistic support systems.

Is it reciprocating or self-serving?: Understanding coping strategies for postpartum depression in an online community for Korean mothers

The proliferation of online health communities creates opportunities to exchange social support. Given the growing need to investigate the extent to which social support helps mothers with postpartum depression (PPD) and psychological distress, we conducted a content analysis of 3,073 posts from a PPD-related message board in a prominent online community for Korean mothers. We found that community members tended to provide rather than seek support, indicating potential reciprocity in the community. We also found that emotion-focused coping strategies were much more prevalent than problem-focused coping strategies. Thus, the message board had an ambiguous identity, potentially undermining its actual purpose.

From clinician to educator: A scoping review of professional identity and the influence of impostor phenomenon

Introduction: As healthcare educators undergo a career transition from providing care to providing education, their professional identity can also transition accompanied by significant threat. Given their qualifications are usually clinical in nature, healthcare educators’ knowledge and skills in education and other relevant theories are often minimal, making them vulnerable to feeling fraudulent in the healthcare educator role. This threat and vulnerability is described as the impostor phenomenon. The aim of this study was to examine and map the concepts of professional identity and the influence of impostor phenomenon in healthcare educators. Methods: The authors conducted a scoping review of health professions literature. Six databases were searched, identifying 121 relevant articles, eight meeting our inclusion criteria. Two researchers independently extracted data, collating and summarising the results. Results: Clinicians who become healthcare educators experience identity ambiguity. Gaps exist in the incidence and influence of impostor phenomenon in healthcare educators. Creating communities of practice, where opportunities exist for formal and informal interactions with both peers and experts, has a positive impact on professional identity construction. Faculty development activities that incorporate the beliefs, values and attributes of the professional role of a healthcare educator can be effective in establishing a new professional identity. Conclusion: This review describes the professional identity ambiguity experienced by clinicians as they take on the role of healthcare educator and solutions to ensure a sustainable healthcare education workforce.