Citational Practices Research Articles

Citational politics in and through animal geographies: interrogating onto-epistemological diversity

ABSTRACT This paper contributes to geographic literature on the effects of inequity in citational practice and politics, focusing in particular on onto-epistemological diversity (or lack thereof) in animal geographies’ citational structures. Through a bibliometric analysis of journal articles in Anglophone animal geographies (as a subdiscipline of human geography), we examine the intersections between citational trends, the contours of knowledge in the field and everyday academic lives. Our goal in this paper is to highlight some of the ways in which citational inequities are fueled. Specifically, our analysis shows that within Anglophone animal geographies, citational esteem can accrue through institutional networks and shared onto-epistemologies, which often go along with ethical and political orientations that refrain from explicitly contesting the status-quo of anthropocentrism. We ground our analysis with a reflective discussion of everyday academic practice to understand the multi-scalar dynamics and implications of citational politics and prompt heightened reflexivity among geographers concerning how animal and other geographies are constructed and reproduced – and how these reproductions can be contested.

Faith in citation

A citation may be a gift or a curse, a clue or an erasure, a mode of argument or a piece of evidence. Or it might be all of these things, depending on who is writing and reading it. This essay engages with the varying ways that the articles in this special issue draw attention to the relational dynamics of citation – conversational, generous, aggressive, predatory or exclusionary – as the authors have experienced and analysed them within the study of religion and, more specifically, the anthropology of religion. Three primary questions are focused on: (1) how the form and mediation of a citation – for example, citing a book one read in a bricks-and-mortar library or online through an open-access pdf – change its purpose and possibility; (2) how different kinds of sources shape what citational practices are possible, with a comparative focus on norms of citation within anthropology and history; and (3) the liminality of religious studies as a field that is at once promiscuous and open-minded in its practices of citation. Across these questions, the author hopes to show that she has faith in citation as a necessary and adaptable tool in the ongoing work of scholarly creativity and critique.

Follow the citations: Tracing pathways of “race as biology” assumptions in medical algorithms in eGFR and spirometry

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the concept of 'race' as a biological unit continues to persist in various scientific disciplines, notably in the field of medicine. This paper explores the persistence of 'race as biology' in medical research via examining select citational practices that have perpetuated this problematic concept. Citations serve as a cornerstone in scientific literature, signifying reliability and expert affirmation. By analyzing citation threads and historical patterns, we aim to shed light on the creation and perpetuation of false scientific truths and their impact on medical research, training, and practice. We focus on two prominent examples, eGFR and Spirometry, and trace key articles’ citational histories, highlighting the flawed evidence in support of racial corrections in medical assessments. The eGFR equation incorporates 'race' as a factor based on the erroneous belief that Black individuals have higher muscle mass than white individuals. Our analysis reveals that key cited sources for this belief lack robust and well-developed datasets. Similarly, Spirometry measurements incorporate racial correction factors, relying on questionable evidence dating back to the Civil War era. Citations serve as a cornerstone in scientific literature, signifying reliability and expert affirmation. They play a crucial role in shaping theoretical positions and validating data and assumed knowledge. Evaluating citation threads and key articles consistently referenced over time can reveal how falsehoods and erroneous assertions are constructed and maintained in scientific fields. This study underscores the need for critical examination of citational practices in medical research and urges a shift toward a more cautious approach when citing sources that support 'race as biology.' The paper calls for a reevaluation of pedagogical approaches and assigned readings in medical education to prioritize an anti-racist perspective in future research endeavors.

Reflections on a Counter-Humanist Archaeology: A Commentary on Greer 2023

In ‘Humanist Missteps’, Matthew Greer makes the pointed observation that non-anthropocentric frameworks, including symmetrical, object-oriented and posthuman feminist archaeologies, have primarily focused on deconstructing the human–non-human binary while failing to problematize humanist assumptions about who counts as Human. At the core of Greer's argument is the matter of citational practice: which social theorists are archaeologists referencing in their efforts to craft relational approaches to humans, things, animals and plants? In answering this question, the author points to a notable lack of Black Studies theorists, particularly the work of Sylvia Wynter, Zakkiyah Jackson and Tiffany King, in posthumanist archaeologies. While I agree with Greer's critiques, his essay stops short of explaining this citational silence. In this brief commentary, I suggest that this absence of Black Studies scholarship reflects the fact that the discipline of archaeology remains a ‘white public space’ (Brodkin et al.2011: 545) and maintains an artificial division between analysis and activism.

La citation dans le discours journalistique satirique: entre norme et détournement

In this article, we have chosen to observe the functioning of citational practices through the analysis of a corpus of articles published in satirical newspapers written in French and Romanian. In fact, satirical discourse most often presents uses of quotation sometimes considered "deviant" in the sense that it subverts the norms: the role attributed to direct discourse is different, the sources cited are chosen and named according to particular criteria, the methods of inserting the quoted discourse into the quoting discourse transgress usual practices. In the articles taken into consideration, the purpose of this diversion is the triggering of laughter through the degradation, the distortion of reality. Our analysis will examine the sources of laughter through the nuanced observation of the uses of citational practices identified in the corpus, in an equally comparative and complementary approach.

The "UFO Taboo" Is What IR Theorists Make of It: "Sovereignty and the UFO" in Citational Perspective.

In 2008, Alexander Wendt and Raymond Duvall published an article titled "Sovereignty and the UFO," which demonstrated how a UFO taboo in international relations theory upheld an anthropocentric model of sovereignty. At a distance of a decade and a half, this review evaluates the validity of the claim that a UFO taboo exists in international relations, and explores the citational practices that influence the prestige economy of the field. The article employs a methodology of interpretive scientometrics informed by methodological debates in political science and international, as well as theoretical debates in actor-network theory. After testing the claim of the UFO taboo in a comparative perspective, the article investigates the strategies of association (weak and strong) present in the citations of "Sovereignty and the UFO." In addition to a revaluation of core claims in an often-read but less-often-cited article in international relations theory, this article provides important insights into how citation works in the discipline of international relations.

Film(i) Culture after Film: Lip-sync Media and the Expanded Archive of Hindi Cinema

This article considers the remediation of Hindi cinema’s filmi culture in the citational practices of digital media. Foregrounding a case study of the lip-sync video on platforms such as Dubsmash and TikTok, it traces the formation of an expanded archive of Hindi cinema, one which reveals this cinema as less a canon of films than a repertoire of gestures, expressions and style offered up for use to a non-traditional cinephiliac public. The article argues, however, that such an archival view of a historical filmi culture is possible only because of the recession of a filmi culture organised around the sign of cinema to one organised around the sociality of platforms. Among other things, it attributes this shift to the passing of the masala film. The article then pays particular attention to this form as an assemblage of detachable parts primed for circulation. It finally addresses the emergence of a new industrial reflexivity in response to the currency of filmi style in an age of platforms.

How the notion of epistemic injustice can mitigate polarization in a conversation about cultural, ethnic, and racial categorizations

ABSTRACT It is a common contention that education done uncritically and unreflectively may serve to sustain and justify the status quo, in terms of mechanisms of cultural or racial privileging and marginalization. This article explores an argument made from within anti-oppressive education theory and advocated by theorist Kevin Kumashiro, namely that transformative education must entail altering harmful citational practices. I see two shortcomings in relation to this argument: first, its focus on discursive practice entails a prerequisite of high discursive literacy. Second, it may lead to a failure to give credit to people’s intentions, risking a conflation of honest mistakes and wilful ignorance, and depriving us of theoretical nuance. While a well-argued and important call, I argue in this article that both shortcomings lead to the risk of a polarized conversation. Focusing on cultural, ethnic, and racial categorization, and using social studies as an illustration, it is suggested that applying notions from the theoretical concept of epistemic injustice may open up a space for granting nuanced credit to people’s intentions, thereby mitigating the risk of polarization. Rather than viewing attention to outcome and attention to intention as oppositional to one another, it is argued that both theoretical perspectives may benefit from the insights of the other. By applying needed context-specificity and nuance to categorizations of dominance and marginalization in individual discursive exchange, this can be done without granting priority to the experience of dominantly situated knowers.

The Citational Practices of Science Fiction Fan Podcasts

Podcasts are important sites of knowledge sharing and co-creation. As opportunities to discuss niche interests, podcasts are where individuals come together to discuss the things they love, and for fans, podcasts are often opportunities to critically engage with their franchise or work with others in the fandom. The conversational nature of podcasting means each party can bring forth new ideas and perspectives that shape how we engage with the work and fandom that’s grown around it. This paper shares the results of an exploratory study of the citational practices of science fiction fan podcasts. Initially intending to analyze transcripts of science fiction fan podcasts, barriers explored in the paper caused a pivot to analyzing show notes of podcasts, instead.

Reason enough to hope? The citational practices and disorienting subjects that make menstruation a matter of human rights

ABSTRACT Calls to think or embrace an ‘after’ to rights, particularly ones that suggest adopting alternative ways of thinking or acting politically, often do so because of frustration with the liberal dimensions of rights. In this paper, I draw insights from theories of performativity and feminist phenomenology to show that rights claiming remains a site of contestation over key elements of the liberal tradition. Turning my attention to efforts to make menstruation a human rights issue, I show how rights claims that cite norms and conventions from the phenomenological tradition work to shift ways of thinking about the subject of human rights, offering new ways of thinking about human vulnerability and agency. This has implications for how we think the ‘after’ in two senses. First, it expands what counts as an ‘after’ that is an effect of specific rights claims and second, it provides important lessons for any effort to think an ‘after’ as a future with or without rights.

Artistic Research as Citational Practice

Artistic Research as Citational Practice

Constructing Risk through Jurisdictional Talk: The Ontario Review Board Process under Part XX.1 of the Criminal Code

AbstractThe Ontario Review Board (ORB) makes and reviews dispositions that limit the freedoms of individuals found not criminally responsible (NCR) due to a “mental disorder.” Their dispositions must be responsive to the risk NCR individuals pose to the public. To assess how risk is measured, the authors studied twenty-six publicly accessible court files pertaining to the appeal of ORB dispositions. The authors studied hospital reports, the ORB’s dispositions, and transcripts of ORB hearings found in the court files. In this paper, the authors draw on institutional ethnography and critical legal theories of jurisdiction to analyze how certain citational practices—namely citation of closely related statutes and the ORB’s procedures—participate in structuring the ORB’s analysis of risk. The authors argue that risk becomes legible to participants in the NCR process through the intertextual mediation of these citations, which legitimize and naturalize the NCR individuals’ dependence on forensic institutions.

Cosplay, Academia, and Me—Some Thoughts, and a Note on the Future

Cosplay, Academia, and Me—Some Thoughts, and a Note on the Future

Introduction: Citational Politics in Medical Anthropology.

Introduction: Citational Politics in Medical Anthropology.

Anticolonialism’s “Homosexual Territory”

Frantz Fanon’s powerful conception of racial anticolonialism occurs in the shadow of his vexed treatment of homosexuality. This essay considers the traffic between Fanon’s anticoloniality and the recalcitrance of queer transnational writers to argue that sexuality obtains a political force in their fiction through specific citational practices. It explores how fabulation and farce enable a citational queer of color aesthetics that circulates around, unsettles, and adapts Fanon’s historical signatures. The essay ultimately traces a sphere of influence between literature and political culture that makes sexual politics the ground zero for statist decolonization and yet also always a sign of more radical possibility.

Beyond the Limits: Medicine, Healing, and Medical Anthropology.

Beyond the Limits: Medicine, Healing, and Medical Anthropology.

The Unbearable Whiteness of Citational Practice in US Medical Anthropology.

In this article, we examine the citational practices of US medical anthropology and seek to decenter Western-centric theory to minimize its theoretical dominance in the field. We call for a robust engagement with a broader variety of texts, genres of evidence, methodologies, and interdisciplinary forms of expertise and epistemology in response to the unbearable whiteness of the citational practices we critique. The practices are unbearable in that they do not support or scaffold the work we need to do as anthropologists. We hope this article invites readers to move in different citational directions to build foundations and epistemologies that support and enrich the capacity for anthropological analysis.

Not All Citations Are Equal: Reflections from Medical Anthropology in the Philippines.

Long before recent calls to decolonize anthropology, practitioners of "national anthropologies"-such as local anthropologists from/in/of the Philippines-have sought to implement a more inclusive kind of scholarship, and this has been reflected in their citational practices. Indeed, a look at the scholarly output of Philippine anthropologists would show a diverse set of citations that feature local scholarship, including those written in Filipino. As I will show in this article, however, not all citations are equal. Theoretical and methodological citations are typically drawn from Euro-American scholars while scholarship from the Global South is typically invoked as illustrative examples, as parallels, and to set context. Such citational practices, I argue, are a consequence of particular disciplinary histories and divergent priorities. They reinforce the inequalities of power and academic capital within medical anthropology, raising the need for more reflexivity not just about whom medical anthropologists cite but for what reasons.

On the Shoulders of Giants Or the Back of a Mule: Awareness of Multiplicity In Citational Politics.

Citational practices reflect values and valuation in academia. Far from being merely consciously or unconsciously political, they reflect academic "upbringing" in complex ways, and, although one may be unhappy at how they were raised, it still may not be clear how to live better. In this article, I highlight aspects of my upbringing in anthropology, noting how I was instructed in citational practice by senior anthropologists from biological and social anthropology. In exploring my journey from naivete to an understanding of citational politics, I describe two figures, the giant and the mule. These figures illustrate the impacts of the practices I was taught. One comes to us from the history of great white men of Europe, the other from Black feminist anthropological fiction of the United States.

The Performativity of AI-powered Event Detection: How AI Creates a Racialized Protest and Why Looking for Bias Is Not a Solution

This article builds a theoretical framework with which to confront the racializing capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered real-time Event Detection and Alert Creation (EDAC) software when used for protest detection. It is well-known that many AI-powered systems exacerbate social inequalities by racializing certain groups and individuals. We propose the feminist concept of performativity, as defined by Judith Butler and Karen Barad, as a more comprehensive way to expose and contest the harms wrought by EDAC than that of other “de-biasing” mechanisms. Our use of performativity differs from and complements other Social Studies of Science and Technology (STS) work because of its rigorous approach to how iterative, citational, and material practices produce the effect of race. We focus on Geofeedia and Dataminr, two EDAC companies that claim to be able to “predict” and “recognize” the emergence of dangerous protests, and show how their EDAC tools performatively produce the phenomena which they are supposed to observe. Specifically, we argue that this occurs because these companies and their stakeholders dictate the thresholds of (un)intelligibility, (ab)normality, and (un)certainty by which these tools operate and that this process is oriented toward the production of commercially actionable information.