Conceptual Arguments Research Articles

Pluralist neurophenomenology: a reply to Lopes

Abstract Lopes (2021) has argued against my use of neural networks and dynamical systems theory in neurophenomenology. Responding to his argument provides an opportunity to articulate a pluralist approach to neurophenomenology, according to which multiple theoretical frameworks—symbolic, dynamical systems, connectionist, etc.—can be used to study consciousness and its relationship to neural activity. Each type of analysis is best suited to specific phenomena, but they are mutually compatible and can inform and constrain one another in non-trivial ways. I use historical and conceptual arguments to elaborate on this type of pluralism as it applies to cognitive science, phenomenology, and neurophenomenology.

Resonanz und Rezeption. Werk und Wirkung Friedrich Ratzels im internationalen Vergleich

Abstract. The text explains the main themes and conceptual arguments of the thematic issue on the reception of Ratzel's spatial theories in Italy, France, Germany and the USA. The work and impact of Friedrich Ratzel between 1880 and 1945 are examined in the perspective of a history of transformation based on the history of knowledge. As a result, the case studies demonstrate that Ratzel's work had an international impact on the object constitution of the academic subject of geography, firstly through the later widespread geopolitical theorising, secondly with regard to the conceptualisation of anthropogeography and thirdly in the relationship of the discipline to the formation of nation states, territorial rule and colonial expansion. Equally decisive is that some interpretations of Ratzel's writings turn out to be rather appropriations of already existing receptions of his work. This reception of reception is undoubtedly a key element of a differentiated impact analysis.

An Opportunity for Expanding University-School Connections: Stakeholder Views of the Religion and Worldview Proposal

This article explores the results of an 18-month project exploring the opinions on Religious Education in schools and the religion and worldview’s proposal (CoRE 2018) with key stakeholder groups ‘outside the classroom.’ This article begins with a review of relevant academic critiques and then explores the key themes revealed by the stakeholder groups in the course of the research. We highlight three key thematic areas of challenge 1) structural and resourcing issues facing RE in schools, 2) conceptual debates about key words and areas of subject focus and pedagogical approach and 3) the perceived value of the subject. These issues are explored in some depth, noting that all groups thought that greater resource sharing and cooperation between the various stakeholders was important. It concludes by arguing that this discussion offers a unique opportunity for university engagement. Although academics in particular expressed concerns about a lack of conceptual coherence in the religion and worldview proposals, we suggest that university engagement with schools could effectively model constructive discussions across differences of academic disciplines and the various ways of understanding beliefs, practices and ethical choices.

The Rise of the School District Chief Equity Officer: Moving Beyond Mimetic Isomorphism and Promoting Anti-Racist Systemic Change

Purpose: A growing number of school districts have recently added a position to the superintendent's cabinet, often titled chief equity officer. While the chief equity officer position is still in its early stages, we have an opportunity to examine insights from this work in the higher education context—both to support the adoption and implementation of the position, and the change work the chief equity officer will lead throughout the organization. The following conceptual question guides our analytical review: How can the role of chief equity officer be meaningfully and thoughtfully adapted for K-12 schools and districts in a critical anti-racist manner? Moverover, how might insights from higher education and scholarly knowledge on the nature of educational institutions, change within organizations, leadership practice, and learning inform the development of this role? Proposed Conceptual Argument: While the chief equity officer position was initially developed in response to historic and systemic inequities, over time, as this position becomes standardized through a process scholars call mimetic isomorphism, it runs the risk of becoming symbolic, only serving to signal an organization's commitment to equity-oriented work without meaningfully attending to its structures for learning, policies, or practices. Implications: Chief equity officers have a formal role within the district; however, their work requires an organizational commitment, from educators and educational leaders, for anti-racist systemic change. Structural, financial, and personnel-oriented supports are critical. Training programs for educators and leaders should thoughtfully prepare future chief equity officers, and continue to extend existing efforts to prepare anti-racist, equity-oriented principals, superintendents, teachers, and other educational leaders.

“I Was a Stranger and You Welcomed Me”. The Role of Religion and Faith-Based Organizations in Refugee Accommodation

Abstract Support for strangers is deeply anchored in the social ethics of various religious traditions. Based on a qualitative content analysis of interviews with refugees and immigration executives. the article focuses on the role of religion and religious communities in refugee accommodation in Germany between 2011 and 2018. It sheds light on different schemes and measures of support offered by religious communities and explores the significance of religious and cultural differences for processes of accommodation and early integration. The empirical analysis is embedded in conceptual debates on the re-emergence of faith-based service providers in the crisis of the late modern welfare state. The findings suggest that the so called ‘refugee crisis’ has served as an opportunity structure for Christian refugee aid. At the same time, refugee accommodation centres in Germany have responded to an increase of non-Christian refugees (notably: Muslims) by a more restrictive handling of religious freedom.

Urban infrastructure patching: Citizen-led solutions to infrastructure ruptures

This article explores how citizens respond to ruptures and problems in the places they inhabit by enacting adaptive improvised and incremental urban infrastructure patching. This might relate to citizens deciding to undertake small scale interventions in their communities to develop solutions to problems that are being overlooked by local government; or it might involve a community response to an ongoing systemic place-based problem that formal agencies involved in managing change are not addressing. This paper develops the concept of urban infrastructure patching with reference to conceptual debates and informed by research undertaken in Birmingham, UK. Drawing upon observations, interviews, and collective art projects, citizen-led urban patching is identified as an important urban intervention process that emerges in response to tensions between professional urban policymakers’ ostensive views of a place and the lived experiences of inhabitants. Cities are in a continual process of becoming and this includes the impacts of citizen end-user adaptive and incremental patching to maintain and enhance urban social-material environments. Two distinct contributions are made. First, citizen-end-user urban patching is based on residents’ experiences of perceived or actual ruptures in local urban infrastructure. Secondly, patching in response to ruptures is an individual and collective response. As a collective response, the power of numbers can bring about transformational change in places, but such participatory action is often viewed as challenging existing hegemonic power structures associated with representative democracy, whereas citizen-led responses can serve as a useful and parallel activity to urban government if it is legitimised.

Creative counter-discourses to the “green city” narrative: practices of small-scale urban agriculture in Hanoi, Vietnam

ABSTRACT As a central component of the “green city” narrative, urban agriculture is gaining importance in urban planning and global sustainability agendas. In Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam, the “green city” is core to the state’s urbanisation agenda, with a green corridor envisioned as part of the city’s Master Plan for 2030. We investigate the patterns and processes of small-scale urban agriculture underway in this green corridor to better understand whether this type of agriculture actually intersects with, and is supported by, state plans. We frame our paper in conceptual debates around food safety and everyday governance, while supporting our analysis with data from interviews with resident gardeners and officials, as well as the mapping of urban gardens in seven wards in and alongside the green corridor. We pay attention to practices and motivations of residents who maintain small-scale vegetable and fruit plots (the most prevalent form of urban agriculture), and the challenges and constraints they face. Our work reveals the temporary and interim status of urban agriculture in Hanoi, highlighting the contradictions within Vietnam’s “green city” discourse. Nonetheless, urban residents still undertake urban agriculture, negotiating or compromising with state officials, to meet their demands for fresh and safe food.

Modal Inertness and the Zombie Argument

This article proposes a way of blocking the zombie argument against materialism. The central idea—which can be motivated in various ways, but which I will motivate by drawing on recent work by Wolfgang Schwarz—is that sentences reporting conscious experience are modally inert, roughly in the sense that adding them to a description of a metaphysically possible scenario always results in a description of a metaphysically possible scenario. This is notable in that it leads to a way of blocking the zombie argument, which is perfectly compatible with modal rationalism and with the view that conceivability entails possibility.

China as seen from Belgium: how does the place of knowledge production affect research on China?

This essay offers personal reflections on the question as to how the experiences of living and study in Belgium, the place of knowledge production, affect my research on China. One effect is that it might be more critical to study China from a place of knowledge production outside China, since major theoretical and conceptual debates are predominantly defined by scholars from the Anglophone countries. The other effect concerns the application of the theory and concepts to China issues, for instance, the agrarian transformation in rural China. The author also reflects on how knowledge is exchanged on an international basis, in both Belgian and Chinese academia.

Conceptual Debate on the Intelligence Cycle

The author provides a systematisation on the theoretical approaches and views of applied intelligence cycle from a conceptual approach. The article focuses on systematising of the diverse contemporary concepts and approaches to the framework and stages of the intelligence cycle as a workflow model in the security and defence sphere.

RELAÇÕES DE PODER NO DOMÍNIO DA EDUCAÇÃO E DA ARTE: DIÁLOGO ENTRE GOFFMAN, FOUCAULT E BOURDIEU

This paper develops a discussion that seeks to establish the possibility of a dialogue between Goffman, Foucault and Bourdieu. The objective is to propose a conceptual debate around the notion of power in the theoretical perspectives of these authors, approaching the fields of art and education, approached through different empirical experiences. The main argument of the article is based on interdependent fields of research – Culture, Education and Art – developed in three ongoing research projects. In the field of art, the investigation takes place around the space of resistance and creativity in the face of forms of field domination. Then, when dealing with education, the investigation is aligned with the approach of power as an instrument of domination, subjection and discipline. As a possibility, the dialogue between a perspective oriented to a micro sociological tradition focused on the analysis of situational interaction and an approach to power understood in its relational sense is sought. It is assumed that for a theorization of the modern, decentered and relational subject, it is only possible from a dialogue between an approach that considers action and structure as inseparable parts of the social relationship.

Conceptualizing new avenues of the Indo-Pak hostilities: an analysis of the invisible PsyWar operations and challenges

The modern era of information warfare has also opened new avenues of warfare. “Psychological War” or “PsyWar” has been a non-violent weapon used to attain military aims and objectives against the enemy since biblical times while ensuring the minimal loss of human life. India and Pakistan, after their inception, have been psychologically obsessed with each other on a number of disputes. The disputes between India and Pakistan are considered one of the most long-lasting disputes of the post-World War era. The article specifically covers the Post nuclearization scenario of the Indo-Pak region and the conceptual debate of the re-emergence of PsyWar in the region. The study digs deep into the nuclear dimension of the Indo-Pak crisis, which played a subversive role in aggravating the hostile relationship and its relevance. The psychological dimension of disputes is as crucial as its physical dimension. In the present era of technological advancement in warfare, new concepts of artificial intelligence (AI) have become even more relevant, particularly for a nation-state where the socio-psychological danger is more pronounced. Thus, it is imperative to analyze the notion of PsyWar operations and the role of information warfare in digital theatre to highlight the upcoming regional challenges.

A Conceptual Argument on the Digital Resilience Capability within the Developing and Developed Countries

A Conceptual Argument on the Digital Resilience Capability within the Developing and Developed Countries

Guest Editorial : Urban Youth - Engaging young people and their futures in African cities


 
 
 The twin reality of Africa as the world’s demographically youngest and most rapidly urbanising continent should, by default, make it a hotspot for youth-centred urban research. And yet, the voices of young Africans remain grossly absent in public discourse, policy debates and mainstream research on issues that directly affect them. This lacuna propelled the conceptualisation of this themed volume, entitled Urban Youth – Engaging young people and their futures in African cities. Showcasing submissions that not only push the envelope in terms of conceptual debates but also reflect in unconventional ways on experimental methods of co-production, this volume contributes to contemporary youth scholarship in three ways: firstly, by bringing together empirically rich, theoretically profound and collaborative scholarship from Africa; secondly, by showcasing cities in general and African cities in particular as productive, epistemological and relevant socio- political settings; and thirdly, by highlighting the importance of collaborative, multimodal research with youth that takes seriously their agency, aspirations and lived experiences, as much as the everyday structural challenges they face. To situate the volume, we first look briefly at common representations of young people, and particularly young Africans, within global media and policy discourses. To outline the broader knowledge project this volume connects to, we then discuss a few basic epistemological overlaps between the emerging fields of Global South Youth Studies and Southern urbanism. Introducing the rich array of creative, rigorous, experimental and propositional practices and research- based contributions that make up this themed volume constitutes the heart of this editorial. In conclusion, we argue that to secure our common urban future, it is pivotal to centre the voices of Africa’s youth. For this, creative multimedia approaches to knowledge co- production and representation will be needed, as will robust, multimodal Afro-centric partnerships.
 
 

Control and Inner exile of female educators during the Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera

The aim of this article is to study the consequences of Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship on women educators, focusing our interest on repression and internal exile during this totalitarian period. Our study takes as its starting point the conceptual debate on inner exile as a consequence of totalitarian regimes and their repercussions on female educators. The analysis of the research shows the mechanisms of reaction of some female teachers to the control, local despotism and punitivism that was exercised over the teaching profession during this regime. At the same time, it has allowed us to demonstrate with some examples the oppressive context of the female teaching collective, contributing to the reconstruction of some trajectories during the inner exile of two teacher trainers: Gloria Giner and Concepción Alfaya.

Considering the Importance of Attachment in Outcomes: The Case of Summer Camp

Youth programs are consistently described as settings that offer youth developmental experiences. Summer camps are one example of youth programs with empirical evidence suggesting positive outcomes of participation; however, researchers seldom address how youth’s social development, such as attachment, may shape outcomes. By not accounting for differences in attachment, researchers may be missing reasons why youth programs, like summer camps, function as developmental settings that foster outcomes for some youth, but not for others. Using summer camp as an example youth program, the purpose of this paper is to consider the role of attachment in youth outcomes. This article reviews and integrates positive youth development, summer camp, and attachment literature to arrive at a conceptual argument for the importance of including attachment when studying summer camps. Suggestions for how researchers can enhance their efforts by accounting for how attachment may shape youth outcomes are also offered.

The Equations for Consciousness: A Reply to “Tracking the Travels,” a Review of Journey of the Mind

The Equations for Consciousness: A Reply to “Tracking the Travels,” a Review of <i>Journey of the Mind</i>

Religious accommodation, agonism, agnosticism in healthcare: A commentary on Joshua Hordern, 'Accommodating religion and belief in healthcare: Political threats, agonistic democracy and established religion'.

Religious accommodation, agonism, agnosticism in healthcare: A commentary on Joshua Hordern, 'Accommodating religion and belief in healthcare: Political threats, agonistic democracy and established religion'.

Does Adult-Directed Early Behavioral Intervention Improve Family Quality of Life? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

For decades, researchers and providers of adult-directed early behavioral intervention services have made conceptual arguments linking the receipt of such services to improvements in family and family member quality of life. To date, there has not been a review of the literature to empirically evaluate this claim. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review and identified 15 studies contributing 40 effect sizes to evaluate the relationship between the receipt of early behavioral intervention and family quality of life. Our analyses did not detect that there was a robust and meaningful difference in the quality of life of families with a child that did and did not receive early behavioral intervention. Considerations to inform future research are presented; and implications are discussed with respect to parents, pediatricians, providers, and those involved in the public dissemination of evidence-based treatments for individuals with autism.

Mereology is not a Guide to (In)conceivability

A sophisticated version of the zombie argument due to David Chalmers runs roughly as follows: a zombie world is ideally primarily conceivable, and whatever is ideally primarily conceivable is primarily possible. Thus, a zombie world is primarily possible, which implies, in turn, that either physicalism is false or Russellian monism is true. Appealing to some plausible mereological considerations, Daniel Giberman presents a novel argument to the effect that zombies are not ideally primarily conceivable. I shall argue, firstly, that a main premise of Giberman's argument is ill-supported, as it trades on a confusion between the primary and the secondary intensions of the "actually" operator. I then consider two lines of reasoning, which might be extracted from Giberman's text, in favour of another chief premise of his argument. I shall argue that the first line of reasoning is flawed, and the second one, in effect, will transform Giberman's argument into a kind of "parity argument" in which his mereological considerations play no role.