Conceptual Contributions Research Articles

Deservingness and temporal borders: the reproduction of global mobility hierarchies in Swedish family reunification

European immigration policy is increasingly selective and stratified, favoring immigrants considered productive in the eyes of society. Using the case of Swedish family reunification, this article investigates how ideas of deservingness underlie this selection process and how it intersects with temporal bordering, impacting hierarchies of transnational mobility. Through qualitative interviews with individuals across a spectrum of legal statuses, the study finds that the increased connection between immigration policy and the housing and labor markets, combined with restrictions concerning visas, age, and legal status, induce and reproduce inequalities in waiting times and access to reunification. Within these restrictions, however, families find ways to circumvent the wait and get family time. The study contributes to the temporal turn in migration studies by exploring reunification among families with diverse backgrounds, complementing previous literature’s focus on the experiences of forced migrants. By considering how deservingness and temporal bordering shape mobility, the article offers both conceptual and empirical contributions to mobility and migration studies. Ultimately, the study brings forward a nuanced analysis of the consequences of restrictive shifts in Swedish immigration policy, contributing to the broader understanding of the current, transnational, mobility regimes.

Smart ignorance: Instrumentalising useful unknowns to bureaucratise and rescale power in the city

Critical geography inextricably associates smart cities with modalities of entrepreneurial governance, the privatisation of government assets and functions, and an effectively diminished role of the state in urban governance. In this article, I argue that this is an incomplete examination of ‘actually existing smart cities’ as it overlooks the bureaucratisation of city government through rescaling, which occurs via the instrumentalisation of ambiguity and ignorance. Furthermore, the existing literature focuses on the rescaling of power in ‘spaces of exception’ or enclave developments, but does not adequately address what happens when these corporate parastatal entities land in ‘actually existing’ cities where urban spatialities and political geographies are alreacy established and do not need to be formulated afresh. I draw on rich qualitative research in one case study of an ‘actually existing’ smart city – Pune in western India – to explore how the implementation of a smart cities programme results in a bureaucratisation of city government through existing useful unknowns, and generates further ambiguity around issues of authority and power in city government. This article offers a significant conceptual contribution to the understudied political geographies of city government by moving beyond the examination of zones of exception and investigating the dynamics of integrating privatised governance mechanisms into a historical ‘actually existing smart city’ with a formalised city government dating back to the late 19th century.

Actor-specific adaptation objectives shape perceived roles and responsibilities: lessons from Mumbai’s flood risk reduction and general considerations

Adaptation efforts need to be advanced significantly, involving multiple actors and a diverse portfolio of options. Despite this being well established, there is little understanding of different actors’ perceptions of adaptation goals and their associated expectations regarding roles and responsibilities to achieve them. In this analysis, we seek to address this gap by elucidating the diverging viewpoints held by various actor groups concerning adaptation objectives, target beneficiaries, and the distribution of roles and responsibilities for adaptation. Here, we use the case study of flood risk in Mumbai, drawing upon qualitative interview data collected through key informant interviews with diverse stakeholders including state, civil society, and academic actors. Interviews revealed stark disparities between state and non-state actors, in particular on the objective of efficiency, largely emphasized by state actors for physical infrastructure measures. Other contested objectives included ecosystem protection and fairness for vulnerable populations. The findings showed consensus on the importance of planning. Non-state actors heavily debated the lack of planning and implementation of institutional changes and ecosystem-based measures. They called for a stronger role of the state in caretaking and fairness for vulnerable populations, mainly through deeper institutional changes. Overall, the findings point to the urgent need for understanding how actors navigate competing priorities, make trade-offs, and negotiate conflicting viewpoints on the distribution of roles and responsibilities. This paper makes an empirical and conceptual contribution to the debates on “social contracts” for adaptation, offering an operationalization of the concept and application to a real-world example through an actor lens.

Penerapan Teori Behavioristik Classical Conditioning Oleh I.P Pavlov dalam Pembelajaran IPA Siswa Kelas 5 Sekolah Dasar

This research was conducted in response to a number of difficulties faced as well as the low level of interest in learning from grade 5 elementary school students in the context of science learning. This study focuses on the science learning ability of grade 5 students in elementary schools in response to the results of PISA 2018, Indonesian Education Report Card Data, and AKM Scores which show the low level of students' science literacy skills. Using the Nonequivalent Pretest Posttest Control Group design, experimental research was conducted to evaluate the impact of the application of Behavioristic Classical Conditioning Theory by I.P Pavlov in science learning. Class V students were divided into experimental and control groups with the Cluster Random Sampling Technique. The test method was used to collect science learning ability data, and the data analysis used the Polled Variance T test due to homogeneous data variance. The results showed a significant difference in science learning ability between the group that applied the Behavioristic Classical Conditioning Theory and the control group. The implications of this research provide a solid foundation for designing effective learning strategies in the future, focusing on curriculum development and learning approaches that can enhance students' understanding and interest in learning. As an effort to improve the quality of science learning in elementary schools, this research provides significant conceptual and applicative contributions.

Arqueología de las identidades locales. La producción de localidades en el noroeste peninsular en la Alta Edad Media

ABSTRACT The study of early medieval European localities and local identities has previously been approached from the perspective of the later emergence of 'classic' medieval towns and cities; the post-Roman centuries have been considered a formative, transitional, period in the emergence of the stable and well-organized settlements of the High Middle Ages. However, new findings and conceptual contributions have been made in recent years, allowing for a redefinition of the mechanisms involved in the creation and transformation of local identities. Drawing on concepts of the production of locality and communities of practice, this study aims to analyze some processes observed in northwestern Iberia to argue that local societies resorted to multiple mechanisms for aggregating and negotiating spatialized identities.

Thou Shalt Not! – How the institutional afterlife of research misconduct scandals shapes research integrity training

ABSTRACT Scandals involving cases of research misconduct are often considered to be main drivers for policy initiatives and institutional changes to foster research integrity. These impacts of scandals are usually witnessed during scandals’ peak visibility. In this article we change this perspective by examining the way in which scandals continue impacting academic institutions long after the initial attention has faded. To do so, we empirically study research integrity courses at multiple Danish universities. We combine data from document analysis, participatory observations and interviews. In addition, this article makes a conceptual contribution by introducing the notion of the ‘institutional afterlife’ of a scandal. We use this notion to demonstrate how scandals can affect academic communities and practices long after their initial visibility has faded, by re-entering communities and institutions. We thereby contribute a novel approach to studying scandals and their wider implications in academia.

Indigenous peoples in carbon pricing policymaking

The article contributes new thinking on the exclusion and inclusion of Indigenous Peoples in carbon pricing policymaking. Using a Canadian case to draw broader lessons for other countries and make a conceptual contribution, we ask and answer five questions: (1) who is excluded; (2) why does exclusion happen; (3) how does exclusion happen; (4) what does exclusion cause; and (5) how could policymakers enhance inclusion? To inform and answer these questions, we construct a decolonial theoretical framework and use it to guide qualitative analysis and doctrinal legal analysis of original data, including 34 semi-structured interviews and few court decisions, to enhance thinking on exclusion and how to enhance inclusion in carbon pricing policymaking. The thesis is that Indigenous Peoples are externally and internally excluded because of legal and practical problems in policymaking, and this impacts legitimacy, transparency, justice, policy effectiveness and indigenous reconciliation, and should be mitigated by enhancing transparency measures, prioritizing the value of legitimacy over cost efficiency, and, overall, transformationally rethinking policymaking processes. Altogether, our theory-grounded empirical sociolegal study demonstrates key concepts for thinking about Indigenous inclusion and exclusion, extending the extant public participation literature as applicable to climate, natural resource, and environmental law and governance, and other relevant legal and social science fields.

What Is Our Added Value? A Systematic Analysis of Epidemic Narratives in the Social Work Literature

Abstract This article addresses social work’s singular conceptual and analytical contribution to the field of epidemics. A systematic literature review was conducted to analyze how social work studies overlap to construct epidemic narratives. The author collected 601 articles from the Social Services Abstracts database and carried out a targeted search within 20 social work journals. Five epidemic narratives were identified: (1) a psychosocial consequences narrative, (2) a social work competence narrative, (3) a social risk factors narrative, (4) a misinformation narrative, and (5) a power matrix narrative. Results highlighted the social success of psychosocial perspectives prevalent in classic public health narratives. This understanding relies on a “politics of access” perspective and advocates for the improvement of current social services. The findings revealed that social work does not have a conceptual specificity in the field of epidemics but, rather, its current distinctive contribution mostly lies in its use of social work–centric inquiries that analyze social work practices and describe the consequences experienced by social work actors during epidemics. The author argued that the social work literature could benefit from analyses informed by a “politic of emancipation” that are less prominent in the analyzed studies. Avenues for future research are considered.

Remembering like a state: Surveillance databases, digital activist traces and the repressive potential of mediated prospective memory

Departing from personal memories of protests in London and Berlin, in this article I make space within the memory-activism nexus to consider how contemporary activists are remembered by that which they conventionally target: the state. To do this, I first recount existing understandings of that nexus and the position of the state therein. I then emphasise how states remember activists via police surveillance databases before discussing the digital activist traces held in such databases via the concept of mediated prospective memory. Thereafter, I empirically ground these conceptual contributions via a discussion of the surveillance databases used in the United Kingdom and Germany and the growing adoption of automated facial recognition technology in these countries. This discussion relies on the work of police monitoring groups whose activism contributes, alongside the various actions of the state and its agencies that I foreground, to the complexity of the memory-activism nexus.

Enacted emotionality: a missing concept for directing affective screen acting?

ABSTRACT Creating emotionally truthful screen performances is often thought the performance elixir for screen actors and directors, but how this process is approached is subject to significant, and often idiosyncratic, variation from both actors and directors alike. During my own experience as a professional director working in filmed drama, I recognised the struggle rationalising a response to each performed take. In this article, I attempt to identify a conceptual frame implicit in many approaches to directing screen acting but not explicitly referenced or conceptualised as a directorial skill or intrinsic directorial process. This analysis aims to identify enacted emotionality as a missing concept from the directing screen acting literature. This analysis rooted in the theories of distributed cognition, a constructed theory of emotion, and affect theory attempts to explain how the process of directing screen acting can be more explicitly defined as characterising the range of cognitive activities involved in, and experienced by, screen directors and actors while making Film/TV drama. This inter-disciplinary approach offers a conceptual contribution towards the application of an enacted emotionality as a missing concept in the directing screen acting literature that can benefit future media education and practice for screen directors, actors, and media scholars.

Towards a "trauma-informed spaces of care" model: The example of services for homeless substance users.

While clinical practitioners have long recognized the importance of trauma-informed models of care, geographies of care scholars have been slow to engage with and address trauma in its methodologies for better understanding environments that support, or hinder, care for people. Marrying the conceptual contributions of geographies of care, trauma geographies, and geographies of addiction, this paper aims to advance the inquiry of trauma-informed spaces of care. Drawing on the example of the homeless substance user, we present a novel theoretical imperative for considering trauma on both an individual and collective level for advancing spatial interventions for healing in spaces of care.

Modular reconfigurable rotary style soft pneumatic actuators

Modular soft robots have the advantage in their ability to be reconfigured and change their morphology on-demand according to a specified task. The actuator design and particularly the inter-unit connectivity strength commonly govern the usability and functionality of these modular robots and their applications. In this paper, we present development of reconfigurable modular rotary soft actuators that allow the construction of highly versatile soft robotic actuators and systems. These pneumatically driven modular actuators are composed of an inner balloon and a flexible arched reinforcement structure to produce a rotary motion. They serve as building blocks which may be combined in various configurations to construct linear assemblies capable of extensile or bending motions. The connection scheme allows for the larger actuators to grow or shrink with the addition or removal of modules. Using finite element simulations and physical characterizations, we systematically explore the mechanical response of individual modular actuators and the role of various connection schemes on their motions upon pressurization. A key conceptual contribution of this work lies in the idea that for a modular soft robotic system, offsetting and tuning actuator alignment relative to an axis of symmetry can lead to substantial changes in mechanical performance. Utilizing these modules we demonstrate the reconfigurability of this modular system by both reconfiguring a large actuator into a pair of smaller actuators that can grasp delicate objects, and reconfiguring actuators to develop a linear crawling robot.

Bringing Animals in-to Wildlife Tourism

The objective of this paper is to highlight animal stakeholders, evidenced-based best practices, care ethics, and compassion as essential components of sustainable wildlife tourism. These tenets stem from an animal geography lens, which is well-positioned for studies of animal-based tourism and transspecies caregiving. As a conceptual contribution, this paper presents a theory synthesis that ‘stays with the trouble’ of wildlife tourism and identifies ways to ‘bring animals in’. Our approach could be described as multispecies, critical, and socio-ecological. We argue that the trouble with wildlife tourism writ large includes nonhuman suffering and biodiversity loss, unethical and unevidenced practices, gaps in the knowledge of wildlife welfare, and limited engagement with animals as stakeholders. We then present four ways to ‘bring animals in’ as co-participants in wildlife tourism research and practice. This involves enfranchising animals as stakeholders in wildlife tourism, buttressed by ethics of care, best practices, and a commitment to improved outcomes along the conservation-welfare nexus. Finally, we consider the extent to which wildlife sanctuary tourism serves as a further problem or panacea that balances the conservation and welfare of wild animals. The result of our theory synthesis is the promotion of a more care-full and compassionate paradigm for wildlife tourism, which draws from diverse scholarships that contribute, conceptually and practically, to the underserved niches of wildlife welfare, rehabilitation, and sanctuary research.

Multiple ways to bend the curve of biodiversity loss: An analytical framework to support transformative change

Abstract Humans are significantly impacting ecosystems worldwide. Scientists of the IPBES Global Assessment are therefore calling for a transformative change that includes all aspects of society in order to address drivers of biodiversity loss. However, these calls are rather abstract, and thus it remains unclear how this goal can be achieved. With this conceptual contribution, we present an analytical framework for evaluating existing processes of societal change which are enhancing biodiversity, and we illustrate its application using three case studies in Germany. We argue that an empirical analysis provides insights into the causal mechanisms that initiate or promote change processes. In doing so, we can draw recommendations for future transformative change processes with regard to biodiversity conservation. In our analysis, we are dealing with questions concerning the following three areas: the drivers and context of societal change processes, the change processes themselves and finally their impacts. Subsequently, we generate recommendations on how to enhance and support the process of future societal transformation that aims at biodiversity conservation: (a) Retaining co‐benefits for biodiversity with goals that are primarily focussing on other objectives; (b) harmonising biodiversity use and conservation by turning conflicts into drivers of transformation; (c) prioritising biodiversity conservation by taking advantage of windows of opportunity. With our conceptual framework, we provide an analytical tool to learn from existing processes of societal change how to support future transformative change. This is an important step that contributes to the generation of relevant knowledge of promoting transformative change for nature and people. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Principled pragmatism: A Latin American contribution for foreign policy analysis?

The key purpose of this paper is to identify key Latin American theories proposed to study foreign policy. The essay points out that Latin America has made a significant contribution to foreign policy analysis. The most important conceptual contribution in the field is the concept of principled pragmatism. A crucial premise is that Latin American nations resort to this type of policy to come to agreement with the United States, address domestic issues, advance national interests, and cope with economic problems. The paper is divided into four sections. The first describes key analytical models and theoretical approaches created to explain foreign policy. The second identifies the Latin American thought on this subject. The third section explains the concept of principled pragmatism. This approach stems from the models and theories explained in the second section and from the Latin American thinking described in the third section. The last segment explains the case study of Cuban foreign policy in the early 1960s using the notion of principled pragmatism.

Hybrid organisations embedded in resource-poor contexts: linking organisational capabilities and individual capabilities – a slippery ground?

Purpose This paper aims to contribute to research on hybrid organisations operating within the information and communication technology for development paradigm to foster socio-economic inclusion through the capacity building of marginalised individual youth to enable their entry and participation in the formal labour market. Design/methodology/approach Using a qualitative research design, the authors investigated impact sourcing service providers and their beneficiaries to unpack how hybrid organisations fulfil their social mission and to provide a nuanced understanding of their needed capabilities. Data triangulation through document analysis, participant observation and semi-structured interviews were conducted for the empirical findings’ robustness and in-depth analysis. Findings This paper illuminates how hybrids strived to build beneficiaries' capabilities through empirically grounded approaches of “standardised” and “individualised” skills development, which were strongly connected to the perceived capabilities among the beneficiaries. Organisations that practiced the “individualised” approach imparted technical knowledge and, depending on individual needs, relevant social skills. Critically, the empirical findings call into question the effectiveness of the scalability model, as the results showed that the creation of standardised, low-skilled and low-paid jobs contradicts the idealised self-help status that employment advocates. In addition, the findings underline the central role of constant experimentation, resilience and organisational learning in revamping capabilities of hybrid organisations. Remarkably, compared to organisations committed to the “standardised” technical competency path, the results underscored the difficulties that organisations taking an “individualised" approach face in developing organisational capabilities for their financial sustainability. Further, organisations engaged in standardised” skills development were found to readapt their business model to the economic value and kept the wording of dual mission as a narrative. Originality/value The paper makes a conceptual and empirical contribution bringing together two separately developed literature strands – the organisational capability approach and – the individual capability approach, to enhance a more profound understanding of how both capabilities are connected to each other in the dual-mission orientation of hybrids embedded in resource-poor environments, global value chains, Global South, hybrid organisations, organisational and individual capability building.

Epistemic injustice and neo-racism: how Zhihu users portray ‘Chinese doctoral supervisors’ working in Western academia

AbstractThe image of Chinese doctoral supervisors working in Western academia is riddled with stereotypes in urban myths but little research to date has been conducted on these portrayals of Chinese supervisors. Drawing on postcolonial theories, including notions of epistemic injustice and neo-racism, this research conducts a thematic analysis on around 450 Zhihu comments. It proposes that the Zhihu community has portrayed three images of the Chinese supervisors as (1) ambitious and supportive, (2) sneaky and exploitative, and (3) colonised. While the second and third images are more negative, the first image is overwhelmingly positive. In portraying these images of the Chinese supervisors, the community confronted two main underlying structural forces. These include (1) a steep ethnic/racial hierarchy where White middle-class, native speakers of English dominate and (2) an unequal classed sphere within Western academia. This paper argues that this Zhihu community displayed profound yet only partial recognition of the steep ethnic/racial hierarchy due to their internalisation of their own linguistic inferiority. Moreover, this Zhihu community perpetuates neo-racism and epistemic injustice over Chinese supervisors and postgraduate research students from working-class and rural backgrounds. Among the first to examine how Chinese doctoral supervisors are portrayed in online communities, this article provides informative insights for prospective postgraduate research applicants as well as admission professionals in Western academia. The neo-racism and epistemic injustice identified can also feed into future work on Diversity and Equality as well as decolonising efforts. Conceptually, this article innovates by combining neo-racism and epistemic injustice to form a framework that furnishes a comprehensive examination of unjust practices and portrayals in the realms of racial and knowledge inequalities in doctoral supervision. This article thus makes empirical and conceptual contributions to critical studies in international and doctoral education.

Democratization in the age of artificial intelligence: introduction to the special issue

ABSTRACT As artificial intelligence (AI) technologies become ubiquitous, research on their implications for democratization has blossomed. Will AI empower citizens and strengthen democracy or fuel the rise of autocracy? This special issue brings together diverse theoretical, conceptual, and empirical contributions to offer a synoptic perspective on this question across political contexts. In this introduction, we argue that the most significant socio-technical novelty pertaining to AI - the possibility for automated hyper-personalization - catalyses four structural changes that capture the complex relationship between AI, democratization, and autocratization. First, technology corporations have emerged as a new quasi-governing class that holds political power without democratic legitimacy. Second, automated hyper-personalization has transformed the citizen-state relationship by fostering hyper-technocracy and paternalism in democracies, and enhancing regimes' repertoires for controlling citizens in autocracies. Third, AI is changing the environment in which citizens exercise their political rights, exacerbating political polarization, societal fragmentation, and apathy. Finally, at the international level, AI has created new arenas for competition between democratic and authoritarian states, engendering a struggle for both technological capabilities and the values and norms that will govern them. The articles in this special issue explore these dynamics from micro impacts to structural changes in state behaviour and international relations.

Promoting the participation of women: agenda setting in Swiss sports federations

ABSTRACT Following observations that efforts to promote female participation vary across sports federations, this study employs the multiple stream model to analyse agenda setting towards promotion programmes in Swiss sports federations. Through qualitative expert interviews in three case studies (football, ice hockey, and badminton), the study analyses why and when gender policies encouraging female participation at the grassroots level appear on a sports federation agenda. The findings show that the availability of external funding and the adaptation of external projects are essential opportunities for promotion activities. Engaged actors institutionalised within federations or emerging from personal commitment play a crucial role in seizing and exploiting opportunities. The study provides a conceptual contribution to the analysis of agenda setting of policies outside federations’ daily business and offers empirical insights to assist stakeholders in promoting women’s participation. Recommendations include involving committed individuals, especially in male-dominated sports, and securing (external) support to facilitate structural changes at the grassroots level.

Sociology of the University and Sociology of Professions: Conceptual Articulation and Current Issues

The purpose of this article is to present the elements necessary to understand the current relationship between the sociology of higher education and the sociology of the professions. First, the relevance of a sociological study of higher education is made clear in view of the problems raised by knowledge society. Secondly, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber conceptual contributions to the tradition of sociology are outlined to further the understanding of Universities and professions as pursued by higher education graduates. Next, a presentation is made of the model of the sociology of science and of higher education based on the contributions of structural functionalism, focusing on the contributions of Robert K. Merton and Burton Clark. Thirdly, an articulation between the sociology of higher education and the sociology of the professions is introduced and supported by the elucidation of the relationship between the sociology of higher education, different modalities of knowledge production and distinct types of professional habits: science as a career, liberal professions and the new innovative entrepreneurship. It is intended to make it apparent how these various professional profiles perform differently in connection with the triangle of coordination in higher education system. Finally discussed will be the emerging issues of trends in professions and careers in the labor market.