Asymmetrical Power Relations Research Articles

Transatlantic Shakedown: Presidential Shaming and NATO Burden Sharing

Does “shaming” work in NATO? More precisely, does publicly using negative language criticizing allies’ defense spending improve burden-sharing, or is it counterproductive, leading to lower spending? We evaluate the effectiveness of public shaming language; specifically, whether it increases allies’ defense spending or whether other considerations like external threat, domestic budgets, economic growth, or unemployment rates are better predictors of contributions. Using an original dataset of presidential statements and NATO defense spending data disaggregated across the four categories tracked by the alliance, we conclude that negative language toward allies’ spending is at best ineffective and may even adversely affect burden-sharing in the long run. These findings have important implications for the political economy of alliances and both theories and policies on the use of rhetorical pressure to elicit compliance in asymmetric power relationships.

Election, Favoritism, and Freedom: Towards a Modern Jewish Theology of Matrilineal Descent

AbstractThis article offers an account of the broad theological contours of the Jewish practice of matrilineal descent. I make the case that matrilineality epitomizes God's contingent preference in favoring and electing Israel. I link Mara Benjamin's recent work to recuperate asymmetrical power relations for feminist theology to the asymmetrical relationship inherent in God's election of Israel. With Benjamin, I emphasize the importance of contingency, vulnerability, and favoritism for divine and parental love. I then read the opening parable in the tractate of Avodah Zarah for one Talmudic strategy for reckoning with the contingency of election. In Avodah Zarah, election's contingency is qualified by the concept of zekhut avot—the merit of the patriarchs. From here, I turn to the work of Jon Levenson for an account of the construction of zekhut avot in the Genesis stories. I show that the merit of the patriarchs is defined by the patriarchal encounter with the trial of favoritism. For the Israelites after Genesis, a decisive consequence of zekhut avot is that all of Jacob's (Israel's) descendants become beloved of God. The contingent transmission of the covenant thus transforms from inscrutable divine choice to the still‐contingent power of ancestry. The article closes with an interpretation of the rabbinic concept of zekhut imahot—the merit of the matriarchs. The preferred or preferring matriarch is decisive for determining the next beloved son in Genesis. The article argues that matriarchal merit is not tied to any essential construction of gender, but to the capacity to exercise freedom under conditions of providential silence. I contend that the practice of matrilineal descent re‐inscribes matriarchal merit for every generation of the Jewish people.

Place-Based Solutions for Net Zero: Gender Considerations on ‘Green’ Skills

There is a global effort towards transitioning to a zero or low-carbon economy due to climate change and the current energy crises. This requires a shift in socio-technical systems and cross collaboration amidst sectors. The move to a clean energy-based economy also involves the creation of a broad range of skills, the upskilling and reskilling of the existing workforce, and providing opportunities for training. While many critical analyses of emerging decarbonisation or green skills, focus on issues of clean energy transition and the distribution of opportunities between fossil fuel-based and clean energy industries, there is limited critical analysis of justice and equality regarding the distribution of opportunities for developing key green skills for place-based decarbonisation.
 There is evidence of asymmetric power relations and gender inequalities regarding the acquisition of skills, employment opportunities, kinds of jobs and pay gap which disproportionately affect women. This paper presents compelling evidence of hegemonic masculinisation within the energy industry; this tendency is now mirrored in ecological industries and technologies, including within the renewable energy sector, leading to an ‘eco-masculinisation’ of the sector.
 Just transition principles promote a fair distribution of resources and the representation of vulnerable groups, including women and minorities. By relying on local assets and resources, including human resources, place-based approaches to green skills could address local communities’ needs while strengthening their resilience. These processes are pivotal to a fair and equitable transition. By explicitly articulating the context of place in understanding the gender(ed) dynamics of decarbonisation and skills, the authors identify and reflect on an innovative way of understanding the intersections between infrastructures, skills, and masculinisation in the transition to low zero carbon.

Acknowledging language variation and its power: Keys to justice and equity in applied psycholinguistics

AbstractRecent studies have demonstrated incontrovertibly thatperson perceptioninfluences language perception. Much of this research is predicated on the notion that social categories are stable constructs that are perceived similarly by members of various speech communities. Power differentials necessarily impact the legibility of the social performances circumscribed by macrosociological categories and thus bely any claim to objectivity in these categorization systems. Developing a more just applied psycholinguistics requires researchers to explicitly consider the role of power in language, how power shapes fields’ notions of what research questions are important and meaningful, and therefore how research data are collected, analyzed, and disseminated. We argue that psycholinguists should widely adopt approaches to studying linguistic processing in ways which acknowledge the role of social ideologies in shaping their outcome, and which reckon with how asymmetrical power relations shape the perception, acquisition, and judgment of both social and linguistic variation. We conclude with a series of guidelines intended to promote characterizations of social and linguistic diversity which accurately reflect the importance of power differentials and which engage ethically with sociopolitical goals of justice and equity.

The Gallery as Contact Zone: Renée Green’s Taste Venue, 1994, at Pat Hearn Gallery, New York

In 1994, artist Renée Green rendered the Pat Hearn Gallery as an open-ended site to study shifting taste cultures in New York City’s SoHo. The project tested the commercial gallery as a potential ‘contact zone’ (Mary Louise Pratt), where cultures meet and grapple with each other in asymmetrical relations of power. By embracing curatorial and museological tactics, she activated long-standing issues regarding the representation of race, first by ‘curating’ an exhibition of real and mimetic historical artefacts and second by refashioning the gallery as a venue for events. This article discusses how exhibitions may or may not facilitate contact zones. Focusing on postmodern ‘hipness’ in the 1990s, I argue that Green’s framing of the gallery as a site of trendiness complexifies Pratt’s idea of the contact zone as well as more classic sociological theories of class.

Beyond boundaries? Disability, DIY and punk pedagogies

DIY is often viewed as a core element of punk, an aspect that enabled activism against an assumed authority and power (Guerra, 2018; Martin-Iverson, 2017). It is therefore often lauded as a means of engaging with/utilising punk in a pedagogical sense (Bestley, 2017; Cordova, 2016). It should be capable of working in tandem with education in developing and encouraging the ‘movement against and beyond boundaries’ (hooks, 1994). However, this is not necessarily simple or straightforward to realise through one’s own pedagogical practices, especially when one considers them through an intersectional lens. We argue that punk scholarship on DIY fails to account for its capacity to support ableist ideologies and structures - incorporating it into punk pedagogy in an uncritical manner risks further deepening asymmetrical power relations in regards to disability and the adversity that people with disability experience. We utilise collaborative auto-ethnography to unpack some of the complexities involved in pursuing punk pedagogical practices and unpacking the aforementioned critique of DIY further. We consider how DIY can/could potentially be a powerful, empowering pedagogical tool and consider the ways DIY purports a damaging, ableist narrative, which at times can even aid the neoliberal agenda within higher education. The necessity for punk pedagogies to be underpinned by considerations of intersectional issues, both from the viewpoint of the teacher and the students, is demonstrated through our use of critical disability theory as an analytical tool.

Reconciling Theory and Practice: Confronting Violent Histories in Poland and Israel–Palestine

AbstractThe role of violent histories and their legacies in reconciliation processes has been a central question in debates on reconciliation and nation building after conflict: whether, how, and when painful events should be remembered in post-conflict and post-transition societies. A dominant approach to this question since the 1980s has been the “reconciliation paradigm,” which views addressing violent histories as condition for reconciliation. A comparative study of the implementation in practice of this global paradigm by civil society–based memory activists in Poland and Israel–Palestine raises questions about its applicability. The findings point to two weaknesses: first, mistreatment of asymmetrical violence and power relations between the conflict sides and, second, the lack of systematic consideration of how reconciliation is perceived by local actors in practice. In light of these weaknesses, local memory activists developed alternative strategies to those of the reconciliation paradigm, while governments infused reconciliation with different meanings that impede reconciliation instead of advancing it. Cultivating a sociological approach to reconciliation theory, this article proposes new theoretical modifications that would expand the paradigm's applicability: reciprocity or mutual respect instead of mutual acknowledgments, a normative basis that transcends the liberal boundaries of reconciliation, and an agonistic memory instead of consensus about the past.

Emi Lo Kan’ Concept in Nigerian Politics: A Critical Discourse Defragmentation

Text and context, mind, and domination are key concepts whenever we consider language and politics. This study examines the ways in which political and ideological undertones were conveyed in political speeches, as well as how texts reproduce and maintain power and unequal power relations. In order to understand how language shapes and maintains power relationships and ideological structures the study employs the principles of critical discourse analysis by Norman Fairclough. Critical Discourse Analysis helps us to see how specific language techniques produce, enact, and legitimise power relations. The study found out that the aspirant used the expression to reflect both good self-ideology and negative self-ideology in order to neutralise the asymmetrical power relationships that exist between his group and the other groups within the APC at the point of liberalising power. It was a declarative. Typically, this resulted in the other aspirants’ power being politically diminished. The aspirant also used discourse structures that have implications for ideology as weapons of persuasion and pleading, positive self-representation of “Emi", meaning "I”, negotiation and personality projection. The researchers conclude that language of politics has the power to weave visions and “imaginaries” that can alter, obfuscate, and politically interpret realities.

The construction of the Turkish woman author’s image through translation: the image of Suat Derviş in In The Shadow of the Yalı

ABSTRACT This study seeks to explore the paratextual packaging of Suat Derviş’s In the Shadow of the Yalı through a sociological lens, probing the connections between the consecrating power of translation and its role in dispelling cultural stereotypes. Arguing that asymmetrical power relations and translation flows have a significant impact on the representation of cultures in and/or through translation, the study first focuses on the stereotypical image(s) of the Turkish women writers in the Anglophone book market. Secondly, the study notes that the representation of Derviş for the Anglophone reader’s reception is beyond the confines of those images, revealing the role played by the translator Maureen Freely in challenging the prevailing practices of Western image construction and dissemination. Thirdly, against the backdrop of the distinction between translation as consecration and consecration by translational agents, the study scrutinizes the paratextual framing strategies that serve to transfer the consecrating agents’ symbolic capital to Derviş. The study concludes that while translation into a dominant literary field might be the initial step toward consecrating a writer from a less dominant culture, translation becomes an instrument that propagates existing power hierarchies when translational agents perpetuate the stereotypical representations that influence the positioning, promotion, and reception of translations.

Socioenvironmental conflicts under COVID-19 pandemic and the need of historical-sociological perspectives in conservation science

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global epidemiological, economic and social crisis of unprecedented scope and scale, with significant corollaries for biodiversity conservation. In response to this challenge for humanity, the scientific interest in COVID-19 in a short period occupied the attention of several researchers in different disciplines. However, understand the causes and impact of the pandemic is a complex task. In part, because even though it is a global crisis, the impact of the pandemic is not the same for everyone. The historical asymmetric power relations in the World-System are crucial for understanding environmental impacts and thinking about solutions in the post-pandemic world. In this article, we review some synergistic effects of the pandemic on socioeconomic and environmental conflicts. For this, we conducted a critical review of several primary studies, from July 2020 to March 2021. We observed that socioeconomic inequalities and our strong footprint in terrestrial and marine environments are putting humanity in a position of increasing fragility. We also note that systematic exploitation processes, power conflicts and the complex situation of abandoned local populations interact and reinforce each other, playing a dominant role in driving the dynamics of the pandemic. Likewise, we emphasize the need for a historical-sociological perspective in conservation sciences, and the development of an interdisciplinary scientific perspective, aiming to attack the bases of production and reproduction of inequalities that compromise the success of the objectives of biodiversity conservation and human well-being.

Patients’ and healthcare professionals’ perceived facilitators and barriers for shared decision-making for frail and elderly patients in perioperative care: a scoping review

BackgroundShared decision-making (SDM) in perioperative care, is an organizational approach to instituting sharing of information and decision-making around surgery. It aims at enabling patient autonomy and patient-centered care. Frail and elderly patients suffering from multiple health conditions and increased surgical vulnerability might particularly benefit from SDM. However, little is known about the facilitators and barriers to implementing SDM in perioperative care for the specific needs of frail and elderly patients.Our objective is twofold: First, we aim at collecting, analyzing, categorizing, and communicating facilitators and barriers. Second, we aim at collecting and mapping conceptual approaches and methods employed in determining and analyzing these facilitators and barriers.MethodsThe search strategy focused on peer-reviewed studies. We employed a taxonomy which is based on the SPIDER framework and added the items general article information, stakeholder, barriers/facilitators, category, subcategory, and setting/contextual information. This taxonomy is based on preceding reviews. The scoping review is reported under the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses extension for Scoping Reviews. Based on the databases MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, and Web of Science, we screened 984 articles, identified, and reviewed 13 original studies.ResultsWithin this review, two primary facilitators concerning patients’ willingness to participate in SDM emerged: Patients want to be informed on their medical condition and procedures. Patients prefer sharing decisions with healthcare professionals, compared to decision-making solely by patients or decision-making solely by healthcare professionals. Communication issues and asymmetric power relationships between patients and clinical healthcare professionals are barriers to SDM. Regarding the methodological approaches, the evaluation of the conceptual approaches demonstrates that the selected articles lack employing a distinct theoretical framework. Second, the selected studies mainly used surveys and interviews, observational studies, like ethnographic or video-based studies are absent.ConclusionDiverging findings perceived by patients or clinical healthcare professionals were identified. These imply that SDM research related to elderly and frail patients should become more encompassing by employing research that incorporates theory-based qualitative analysis, and observational studies of SDM consultations for understanding practices by patients and clinical healthcare professionals. Observational studies are particularly relevant as these were not conducted.Trial registrationhttps://osf.io/8fjnb/

Cultivating Community through Language Learning in a Benedictine Seminary Network

St. Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology, a seminary located in southern Indiana, was founded in 1857 by monks of the Benedictine order of Einsiedeln in Switzerland. The seminary has since been devoted to the education of faith leaders—priests, deacons, and graduate lay students. Due to the growth of underserved Latino populations in the Midwest region of the United States, there is a need to prepare future faith leaders to serve Latino congregations. This work provides an exploration into the ways in which language learning collaborations based on Benedictine hospitality can cultivate community. It outlines a Benedictine pedagogy of community that is threefold. First, given the importance of language to communicate with members of Latino communities in the United States, the cultivation of community is understood in terms of the world readiness standards of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). Second, because Benedictine monasteries were founded on the value of hospitality, these interactions are imbued with Benedictine hospitality. Third, it is argued that Benedictine communities are contexts in which the liminal intertwines with the liminoid, resulting in fertile ground for the creation of what we call liminal/liminoid encounters that have the potential to level asymmetric power relations and lead to meaningful dialogue. The final section shows how this Benedictine pedagogy of community is enacted in one specific Spanish language learning immersion that takes place at a sister Benedictine Monastery abroad, Our Lady of Angels, in Cuernavaca, Mexico. It also provides a small sample of seven students’ responses to two critical questions from a survey questionnaire. Even though this small qualitative sample is not generalizable, it helps illuminate how these interactions may lead to the development of cultural sensitivity, of a sense of community, between students and members of this language learning immersion abroad. Responses indicate that students who participated in this program for at least eight weeks exhibit an interest in continuing to interact and collaborate in multicultural communities as well as a willingness to learn the target language beyond this experience.

Social capital strengthens agency among fish farmers: Small scale aquaculture in Bulacan, Philippines

Using a case study approach focusing on Bulacan, Philippines, we examined three types of social capital (i.e. bonding, bridging, and linking) accessed by small scale aquaculture producers through fish farmers associations. The aim was to determine whether and how types of social capital contribute to promoting human agency among small scale aquaculture producers in the context of their livelihoods. Here, agency is considered an important part of sustainable livelihoods and is defined as people’s ability to choose in ways that align with their values and goals, and to act to realise their goals. Agency was analysed in relation to livelihood preconditions, processes, power, and possibilities. The premise of this paper is that types of social capital from fish farmers’ associations distinctly contribute to expanding and strengthening the agency of small scale aquaculture producers. The study found that all three types of social capital contributed to enhancing the resources that producers draw on for their livelihoods. The bonding and bridging types helped producers cope with various livelihood challenges by enabling access to mutual assistance and collective efforts for problem solving. The types of social capital were less effective in addressing issues of asymmetrical power relations which adversely affected livelihoods. All three types and particularly linking social capital contributed to expanding livelihood possibilities and enabling producers to explore new avenues for improving livelihoods, enhancing agency. The findings point to the distinct contributions and complementarity of different types of social capital to the exercise of agency in livelihoods. Attending to the different types of social capital and understanding how they are most beneficial in specific contexts as well as where they are insufficent, can improve priority-setting, targeting, and design for initiatives that seek to work with fish farmers organisations and other types of community-based organisations for livelihood improvements.

Language Policies in Asian Countries: A Review

Many Asian countries are multilingual and multi-ethnic and have gained political and economic independence only in the last half of the century or before. Therefore, when formulating language policies, these countries have been confronted with similar issues though they have responded to their specific sociopolitical contexts in different ways. This paper outlines some of the major issues. One is the continued domination of English after gaining political and economic independence resulting from a complex interplay of endogenous as well as exogenous factors. The endogenous factors pertain to the need to balance the interests of social and political groups within the country whereas the exogenous factors pertain to globalization and the use of English as the lingua franca. Another major issue is the asymmetrical power relationship between those who have access to English and those who do not, both internationally and internationally.

Research collaboration in asymmetric power relations: A study of postgraduate students’ views

Collaboration among researchers and across disciplinary, organisational and cultural boundaries is essential for addressing the increasingly complex challenges and opportunities facing international development. Despite the known advantages and various incentives, research collaboration within Africa (specifically within South Africa) is lacking. To better understand the reasons for this lack of research collaboration, this study explored collaboration between students and supervisors in an information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) postgraduate student project in South Africa. South Africa, a country with major social inequalities and asymmetric power relations, provides an appropriate context. The students’ perspectives provided a space for investigating the collaboration factors by unpacking the capability inputs according to Robeyns’ representation of personal capabilities. Data were captured from a survey and focus groups (FG) with students and supervisors in ICT4D from different universities in South Africa. Thematic analysis was used to identify and link the participants’ expectations of research collaboration with their perceptions of the challenges of such collaborations. The contribution is a conceptualisation of the main components representing research collaboration viewed in terms of personal capabilities, including the factors that influence collaboration.Transdisciplinarity contribution: Research collaboration is fundamental to promoting multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary research. The novelty of this study lies in applying a theoretical lens from the field of human development to explore research collaboration in the transdisciplinary field of ICT4D. Given the research application context and the theoretical lens applied, the findings have implications for initiatives and policies on funding transdisciplinary research collaboration.

Exiling Karl Marx from Karl Marx Square: The Political Lives of a Leipzig Monument before and after 1989

Across the world, the ‘difficult heritage’ of discredited monuments has prompted pitched disputation. This article explores the fraught origins and fate of Leipzig's Karl Marx monument. From its unveiling in 1974, it was one of the East Bloc's most controversial landmarks, as it stood on the site of an intact Gothic church dynamited in May 1968 in the face of East Germany's largest mass protest between the 1953 Uprising and 1989 Revolution. Enthroned on Leipzig's central Karl Marx Square as an ideological triumph, the post-communist expulsion of Marx to a remote courtyard evolved out of a selective, contingent process, wherein asymmetrical power relations culminated in ‘events’ when the monument acquired an ideological charge. From a myriad of potential destinies, the decision to exile (rather than retain or destroy) Marx's effigy can only be deciphered by unpacking the layered symbolic messages players ascribed to the evolving aesthetics at its initial location before and after 1989. Informing disputes about landmarks from Ukraine to the American South, the rise and fall of Leipzig's Marx monument exemplifies how and why a metal object can become a lightning rod for controversy, as well as how its re-exhibition can facilitate discussions about trauma, guilt, and redemption.

Every Child According to Its Pace: School Maturity between Expertise, State Policies, and Parental Eigensinn in Socialist Hungary

It is widely known that socialist states such as Hungary attempted to increase social mobility through a compulsory elementary school system. While the research on socialist education is vast, the relevance of school maturity to an egalitarian education system is still understudied. By the end of the 1950s, lack of preparedness for school among children had captured the attention of Hungarian experts in medicine, psychology, and pedagogy, who were hoping to ensure that first-year students would begin their schooling under roughly the same conditions. In response, in 1965, local initiatives started experimenting with corrective (remedial) classes. The aim of these initiatives was to overcome class differences by offering targeted support and helping children who were less prepared for institutional schooling catch up and transfer into the standard school system later. During the first half of the 1970s, the Hungarian Ministry of Education adopted this pedagogical experiment on a national level. In this article, I put two distinct methodological approaches into dialogue, the sociology of expertise on the one hand and Eigensinn on the other. By doing so, I shed light on the complex interplay of state policies, concepts of expertise, and parental agency. As I show, corrective classes reflected persisting social inequalities, thus children from the lower middle classes and the Roma minority were overrepresented in these classes. Ultimately, I explore how bottom-up initiatives had unintended consequences that were often disadvantageous for the children who were in principle the intended beneficiaries. These initiatives thus worked against rather than for the quest for social equality. In the discussion below, I show how pediatricians, psychologists, pedagogues, and parents shaped the school system, working within, taking advantage of, and thus limiting efforts for social transformation despite asymmetrical power relations.

Supporting teachers in safeguarding against harmful sexual behaviour: service providers’ perspectives on transformative practices

Sexual abuse of children is a growing public health issue, with a substantial proportion of such abuse carried out by other children and young people. Schools and teachers are uniquely placed to prevent and intervene against harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) among children and young people. Yet, for schools to safeguard effectively, they are reliant on cooperation with a range of children’s services. This study forms part of a wider research project exploring teachers’ safeguarding role. It identifies two emerging issues critical in interpreting the data and developing sound safeguarding processes: recognition of the role of professionals’ emotional reactions in addressing HSB and the impact of asymmetrical power relations. Building on Draugedalen and Osler’s theorisation of teachers’ safeguarding, this article examines front-line service providers’ perspectives on how they can support schools’ safeguarding, proposing a holistic structure of transformative practices that addresses emotions and asymmetrical power relations.

From Divided to Diasporic: Re-envisioning Italian American Texts through Transformative Translingual Practices

From Divided to Diasporic: Re-envisioning Italian American Texts through Transformative Translingual Practices

Italian Detective Fiction in a European Context: National, International, Transnational

Abstract: Detective fiction and place have always been tightly connected, both within the fiction itself and within the criticism. In this article, I look at French, Scandinavian and Italian crime fiction, with an eye not only to what a comparative analysis shows (traditionally rooted in a relatively static notion of national literatures that are assumed to be more or less “comparable” and thus in some sense equivalent) but—more importantly—to what an analysis attentive to a transnational understanding shows. The notion of the international and the idea of comparative are remarkably close in locating themselves in an abstract space between two objects of attention. Those objects are, in their abstracted state, more or less equal. What is lost in those abstractions is precisely what is not lost in the space of the transnational, since transnational movements are always from one specific place to another. Transnational studies should always capture the question of the asymmetric and differential power between nations and cultures—what makes it easy to go to some places, hard to go to other. Broadly speaking, I look at two very different kinds of crime fiction. First, the international thriller, in which the detective moves effortlessly around the world, the movement of Bauman’s “liquid modernity”—a genre that is, unsurprisingly, strongly associated with an invisible privilege and prestige. This subgenre is perhaps most tightly associated with the Anglophone world but certainly appears in France and Scandinavia as well. Second, what I call the “Euro-procedural”, a form that was pioneered by the Swedish authors Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöo in the 1960s but that has particularly flourished in the age of globalization, perhaps particularly in Italy. The Euro-procedural stresses, like all procedurals, the grinding and unpleasant day to day work of the detective, caught between a hostile public and a decaying European state; not every crime in the Euro-procedural involves other nations but, when they do, their transnational or transcultural nature is clearly marked, as human capital and valuable illicit materials like drugs are trafficked from the (relative) periphery to the (relative) center. Broadly speaking, the Euro-procedural insists on the boundaries that demarcate national spaces but does so in order to stress both the weakness of the nation state in an era of global crime and movements of capital, material and persons and also to stress the asymmetric relations of power between different nations or cultural spaces.