Conceptual Toolbox Research Articles

Construction of Private Space in An Urban Semioscape: A Case Study in the Sociolinguistics of Globalisation

Abstract Across the world urban semioscapes emerge from multiple and mutually interlocking social activities of the members of sociocultural groups and are established through the deployment of layered configurations of semiotic resources and discourses which index patterns of these activities as well as the underlying norms and values of these groups. A particularly conspicuous semiotic practice which has established itself as a distinct semiotic layer in Slovakia’s urban semioscape is one through which social agents declare certain segments of space as private. By erecting ‘private property’ signs they impose a certain ‘power regime’ on a physical territory but also imprint upon that space a particular ideological meaning. This practice is particularly salient in Slovakia’s geopolitical environment in which the notion of ‘privateness’ was excluded from official ideology under socialism. As language is a principal semiotic mode for the construction of the practice of constructing private space, the practice can also be looked upon as a sociolinguistic phenomenon indexing the post-1989 political and economic transformation processes in Slovakia; that is, the re-establishment of ‘private ownership’ within the larger processes of ‘rectification’ which post-socialist societies underwent in the transformation period. My argument is that the practice is a manifestation of geocultural globalisation on a local scale-level which leads to the emergence of new forms of locality. In the paper I employ Blommaert’s (2010) innovative conceptual toolbox of the sociolinguistics of globalisation’ along with the analytical practices and procedures of geosemiotics and linguistic landscape, and apply them to the corpus of signs which I believe index this practice and establish the topography of private space’ in the urban semioscape examined.

Learning as an Emergent, Creative Process: A Review Essay on Joseph E. Stiglitz and Bruce C. Greenwald's Creating a Learning Society

In Creating a Learning Society, Joseph Stiglitz and Bruce Greenwald examine the role of knowledge in economic growth. They view economic growth as an impersonal and automatic phenomenon. The history of economic growth however suggests that it is a creative and personal process. We argue that the analytical framework deployed by Stiglitz and Greenwald is unsuited to study the creation of new products, new ways of doing things, and the discovery of new markets. While the questions Stigltiz and Greenwald ask are of fundamental importance, their analysis is neutered by the inability of their conceptual toolbox to grapple with creativity and novelty.

Religion, Migration and Identity

This article aims to give a representative overview and appraisal of insights and theories developed thus far in the field of religion, migration and identity. It investigates whether the present conceptual toolbox is adequate to describe and analyze the impact of migration phenomena on individual and communal expressions of faith. The article first explores the concepts “migrant” and “migration”. It then discusses theories focusing on the significance of faith and religious communities for migrants, followed by theories pertaining to the changes effectuated by migration in the religious landscapes of the country of origin as well as destination. The article argues that there is a need for further clarification and stipulation of key terms in the discourses on religion and migration, as well as a necessity to do more comparative research, since most of the prevailing theories so far have emerged from research on Christian migrant communities in theusa. Finally, it identifies areas for further research.

Conceptual Design Framework and Taxonomy Assessment for Capstone Design

The Integrated Civil Engineering Capstone design were introduced to combined all the civil engineering discipline such as geotechnical, water and wastewater, environmental, project management, structure and road into one subject. The complex multiple constraints which were set by Engineering Accreditation Council (EAC) are compulsory for the Civil Engineering Bachelor degree. The designing of a complex solving with multiple conflicting constraints are developed in this course so that the students were trained to have achieved the level 5 and level 6 of bloom taxonomy level. The multiple criteria were tested for the students when the students were deciding the platform level for their project constructions. The multiple criteria were consisting of the time, cost, technical feasibility, societal, cultural, legal, and environmental and sustainability. These criteria were then evaluated based on the ranking matrix. The high, medium or low impacts of the criteria were assigned to each of the multiple criteria. Finally, the platform level was decided based on the criteria that have the lowest impact to the environment between the two layouts. The conceptual toolbox was used as guidelines for the student to propose the two layouts. This capstone design course is the key element to prepare the students to real engineering problems which requires the student to solve the complex solving with multiple conflicting constraints.

Understanding social media

Understanding Social Media provides a critical and timely conceptual toolbox for navigating the evolution and practices of social media. Taking an interdisciplinary and intercultural approach, this book provides a clear and concise explanation of the key concepts but also goes beyond specific brands, sites and practices to show readers how to place social media more critically within the changing media and cultural landscape. As an aid to understanding, key concepts in each chapter are illustrated by case studies to give real-world examples of theory in action. Cutting across the many dimensions of social media, from the political, economic and visual, this book explores the industries, ideologies and cultural practices that are increasingly becoming part of global popular culture. This book is essential reading for students of media studies and cultural studies.

Context-Dependent Competition in a Model Gut Bacterial Community

Understanding the ecological processes that generate complex community structures may provide insight into the establishment and maintenance of a normal microbial community in the human gastrointestinal tract, yet very little is known about how biotic interactions influence community dynamics in this system. Here, we use natural strains of Escherichia coli and a simplified model microbiota to demonstrate that the colonization process on the strain level can be context dependent, in the sense that the outcome of intra-specific competition may be determined by the composition of the background community. These results are consistent with previous models for competition between organisms where one competitor has adapted to low resource environments whereas the other is optimized for rapid reproduction when resources are abundant. The genomic profiles of E. coli strains representing these differing ecological strategies provide clues for deciphering the genetic underpinnings of niche adaptation within a single species. Our findings extend the role of ecological theory in understanding microbial systems and the conceptual toolbox for describing microbial community dynamics. There are few, if any, concrete examples of context-dependent competition on a single trophic level. However, this phenomenon can have potentially dramatic effects on which bacteria will successfully establish and persist in the gastrointestinal system, and the principle should be equally applicable to other microbial ecosystems.

Hybrid Qualifications, Institutional Expectations and Youth Transitions: A Case of Swimming with or against the Tide

This paper uses the concept of hybrid qualifications to expose some of the ways in which the English system, with its longstanding Academic and vocational divide, fails to support the transitions of young people with ‘average’ educational attainment. The concept of hybrid qualifications was developed during EU funded research undertaken in 2010 - 11 with project partners from Germany, Austria and Denmark. It was conceived to mean those qualifications generally achieved by young people aged 16-18 which would facilitate entry to the labour market or access to university. In the English system we defined Level 3 qualifications such as the BTEC National suite of Diplomas, Applied A-Levels, the Advanced Diploma and some qualifications contained within the Advanced Apprenticeship programme as contenders for hybridity. Compared with the clear pathways for entry to bachelor degrees that are articulated for those who have attained traditional Academic qualifications (namely A-levels), the routes for those leaving school with vocational qualifications are poorly and narrowly-defined, and fragile. Using the rich, narrative data gathered from interviews and focus groups with students, tutors and key stakeholders, we illustrate how for this group transition often involves ‘swimming against rather than with the tide’. To make sense of their uncertain and at times fragmented journeys we draw on Bourdieu's conceptual toolbox, and argue that his notion of ‘doxa’ is especially helpful in making sense of the way in which educational institutions play their own very distinctive roles in shaping those transitions.

Enlivening the Supra-personal Actor: Vectors at Work in a Transnational Environmentalist Federation

Recent anthropological literature on NGOs has focused on the agency and creativity of activists. The focus on the subjects of NGOs and agency in this work is an explicit response to scholarship in which actors are eclipsed by formal and technical analyses of organizational structures. This article revisits the concept of organizational structure by attending to it through the experience of activists of a transnational federation of environmental NGOs, namely Friends of the Earth International (FoEI). On a daily basis FoEI activists encounter and engage with various institutions. In certain situations, such institutions as well as the activists' own organizations are experienced as agentive entities. This article argues that from certain positioned perspectives such entities have material effects as supra-personal actors. Informed by Ingold, Latour and Haraway, but also by the FoEI activists themselves, I present the interdependent concepts of vectors, direction of attention and 'unprotected backs'. This conceptual toolbox is presented as a shared puzzle (Marcus and Fischer 1999), and as such is activism itself, that engages in conversation with environmental activists.

Nikolas Rose

Nikolas Rose

Notes from the field on organizational shadowing as framing

PurposeShadowing is becoming an increasingly popular method in management and organization studies. While several scholars have reflected on this technique, comparatively few researchers have explicated the specific practices that constitute this method and discussed their implications for research on processes of organizing. The purpose of this article is to address these issues by offering a conceptual toolbox that defines shadowing in terms of a set of framing practices and provides in‐depth insight into the methodological choices and challenges that organizational shadowers may encounter.Design/methodology/approachIn this article, the authors explicate the specific framing practices in which researchers engage when taking an intersubjective approach to organizational shadowing. To demonstrate the value of viewing shadowing as framing, the paper grounds the theoretical discussion in actual fieldwork experiences, taken from three different ethnographic studies.FindingsBased on a systematic and critical analysis of fieldwork experiences, the paper argues that organizational shadowing is constituted by three interrelated framing practices: delineating the object of study; punctuating the process/flow of a given organizing process; and reflecting on the relationship between researcher and the object(s) or person(s) being observed. These analytical constructs highlight specific activities with which shadowers are confronted in the field, namely foregrounding and backgrounding particular aspects in defining a given object of study, trying to keep this object in focus as the fieldwork unfolds, and making decisions about the degree to which the relationship with shadowees should be taken into account in understanding this object.Originality/valueThis article provides an in‐depth reflection on the subtle practices that constitute organizational shadowing. It offers a useful conceptual toolbox for researchers who want to use this method and demonstrates its operational value to help them understand how knowledge construction is the outcome of a coconstructive process that depends on a series of decisions negotiated in ongoing interactions with the actors under study.

An Object-Oriented Defense of Poetry

This essay is one of the first to explore the implications of the emerging philosophy known as object-oriented ontology (OOO) for the study and creation of poetry. OOO provides a powerful conceptual toolbox for understanding how poetry works. Furthermore, poetry itself may be seen as a template for understanding how any entity—a human, a ball of string, a star cluster—can interact with any other—a toaster, an octopus, an abandoned warehouse. This is because OOO's theory of causality reserves a very unique and powerful place for the aesthetic dimension. In this essay, I read Percy Shelley's A Defence of Poetry in light of OOO.

Evolution and Biodiversity: the evolutionary basis of biodiversity and its potential for adaptation to global change.

Biodiversity has a key role in maintaining healthy ecosystems and thereby sustaining ecosystem services to the ever-growing human population. To get an idea of the range of ecosystem services that we use daily, think of how much energy and time it would cost to make Mars (or some other Earth-like planet) hospitable for human life, for example, in terms of atmosphere regulation, freshwater production, soil formation, nutrient cycles, regulation of climate, etc. On our own planet, that process took four billion years and required the contribution of a vast amount of functions performed by different life forms, ultimately driven by evolution and that is only the top of the (melting) iceberg. Unfortunately, the ecosystems that we so exploit and dearly need for our long-term survival and welfare are jeopardized by our own actions. Global change, triggered by human activities, is all around us. The pervasive effects of climate change, habitat loss and fragmentation, overharvesting, pollution, altered nutrient cycling, invasive species and interactions thereof affect virtually all Earth's ecosystems (Rockstrom et al. 2009). With seven billion people consuming natural resources more rapidly than they are created, we are at the onset of a major environmental revolution. As a consequence, species are already shifting, expanding, disappearing, changing their behaviour and phenology, exploiting newly available food resources and abandoning scarcer ones. Ecosystems are changing too, driven by changes in environmental drivers and by the reshuffling of their biota into previously unknown combinations of species (Williams and Jackson 2007). The interplay of all these processes makes the forecast of changes in ecosystem services a daunting task. All these changes are likely to have a bearing on and be influenced by the evolutionary forces at play. The main legacy of Charles Darwin was to make us realize that we owe everything, including the formation of our own species, to evolution. We thus learned that the history of life is driven by evolution. But what about the future? What is the contribution of evolution to these ecological changes? And, probably most relevant to policy: what is the potential of evolutionary processes to exacerbate or mitigate the effects of global change? Is evolutionary biology just a scientific gimmick compared to the real problems that we are facing? This volume deals exactly with these questions. Until a decade or so ago, evolutionary change was broadly assumed to happen on a vastly longer time scale than ecological change. As a corollary, our view on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning has often been static, trying to conserve biodiversity as it is, and preferably, as it once was. Just like our ecosystems, however, this paradigm is shifting. The closer we look at adaptive evolution, often with the aid of new biological insights and technological advances, the faster it seems to happen. Evolution and ecology are proving to be so heavily entwined that the distinction is becoming increasingly hard to make. This knowledge profoundly affects our thinking on how evolution affects patterns of biodiversity, especially in the face of global change. Adaptive responses to climate change, for example, have been shown to occur within a single generation (Van Doorslaer et al. 2007). Contemporary evolution is probably more important than we assumed to date and is, therefore, likely to mediate the response of populations, species, communities and ecosystems to both gradual and sudden environmental change. In April 2010, the European Platform for Biodiversity Research Strategy (http://www.epbrs.org) hosted the meeting ‘Evolution and Biodiversity: The evolutionary basis of biodiversity and its potential for adaptation to global change’, funded by the BioStrat project (http://www.biostrat.org). The meeting was preceded by an electronic conference that lasted 21 days and gathered over 62 contributors and more than 1600 participants (Grant et al. 2010). Both the conference and the meeting revolved around three main themes: (i) the evolutionary basis of biodiversity, (ii) evolutionary responses to global change and (iii) evolution in complex systems and co-evolutionary networks. This special issue builds from the diverse arrange of contributions made at the conference and aims to provide a diverse and interdisciplinary perspective on the interplay between evolutionary and ecological responses in the face of global change.

Ovariectomized mouse uterotrophic assay of 36 chemicals

The concern over endocrine disruptors prompted international establishment of a strategic framework for the identification of the estrogenic compounds. OECD has launched the Conceptual Framework tool box containing various screening and testing methods including the uterotrophic assay. The (anti)estrogenicity of 36 chemicals suspected to be estrogen-receptor interactive by in silico and/or in vitro screening in the Extended Scheme for Endocrine Disruptor Screening and Testing of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan, were monitored by the uterotrophic assay using C57BL/6J ovariectomized adult female mice after a 7-day exposure by oral gavage (po) and subcutaneous injection (sc). Ethynyl estradiol was used as reference for agonist and antagonist detection. In addition, Bisphenol A (sc) and Genistein (po) were tested for the comparison to rat assays. Among the 36, 2-[Bis(4-hydroxy-phenyl)methyl]benzylalcohol, 2,2',4,4'-Tetrahydroxybenzophenone, 2,4-Dihydroxybenzophenone, 3,3',5-Triiodothyroacetic acid, New fuchsin and alpha-Naphtholbenzein, showed both estrogenic agonistic and antagonistic activities; first two showed U-shaped dose-response in antagonistic studies. N,N-Diphenyl-p-phenylenediamine, 2,2'-Dihydroxy-4,4'-dimethoxybenzophenone, n-Butyl 4-hydroxybenzoate, and Reserpine were agonistic by sc. Benzo [a] pyrene, Benz [a] anthracene, Dibenz [a,h] anthracene, 2-(2H-Benzotriazol-2-yl)-4,6-di(t-pentyl)phenol, Rosemarinic acid, meta-Thymol, 6-Gingerol, Colchicine, Malachite green base, Fenbuconazole, and Lead acetate were antagonistic. The rest, i.e. n-Heptyl 4-hydroxybenzoate, Tetrazolium violet, Pravastatin sodium salt, Physostigmine, salicylate (1:1), Nordihydroguaiaretic acid, o-Cresolphthalein, 1,3-Dinitrobenzene, C.I. Pigment orange, Tetrabromobis-phenol-A, 2-Hydroxy-4-methoxybenzophenone, Ethylparaben, Propyl p-hydroxybenzoate, Kaempferol, 2-(2-Benzotriazolyl)-p-cresol and Phenolphthalein were negative for both effects. Taking together with in silico/ in vitro screening, the result suggested that the ovariectomized mouse uterotrophic bioassay has sufficient performance comparable to rat for the screening of (anti)estrogenicity of various chemicals.

Ulrich Fastenrath, Rudolf Geiger, Daniel-Erasmus Khan, Andreas Paulus, Sabine von Schorlemer, Christoph Vedder (eds). From Bilateralism to Community Interest. Essays in Honour of Judge Bruno Simma

In his first seminal Hague lectures, published in 1994, Bruno Simma defined the �community interest�, which in the meantime has become an indispensable component of the discipline�s conceptual toolbox, as �a consensus according to which respect for certain fundamental values is not to be left to the free disposition of States individually or inter se but is recognized and sanctioned by international law as a matter of concern to all States�. Bruno Simma, a prolific writer and, since �

IDENTIFYING HARMS

ABSTRACTMoral disagreements often revolve around the issue of harm to others. Identifying harms, however, is a contested enterprise. This paper provides a conceptual toolbox for identifying harms, and so possible wrongdoing, by drawing several distinctions. First, I distinguish between four modes of human vulnerability, forming four ways in which one can be in a harmed state. Second, I argue for the intrinsic disvalue of harm and so distinguish the presence of harm from the fact that it is instrumental to or constitutive of a valued act, practice or way of life. Finally, I distinguish between harm and wrongdoing, arguing that while harm is a normative concept requiring justification, not all harmed states are automatically unjustified. The advantage of this view is that it refocuses the moral debate on the normative issues involved while establishing a common basis to which both sides can agree: the presence of harm to others.

Irreducible Incoherence and Intelligent Design: A Look into the Conceptual Toolbox of a Pseudoscience

The concept of Irreducible Complexity (IC) has played a pivotal role in the resurgence of the creationist movement over the past two decades. Evolutionary biologists and philosophers have unambiguously rejected the purported demonstration of "intelligent design" in nature, but there have been several, apparently contradictory, lines of criticism. We argue that this is in fact due to Michael Behe's own incoherent definition and use of IC. This paper offers an analysis of several equivocations inherent in the concept of Irreducible Complexity and discusses the way in which advocates of the Intelligent Design Creationism (IDC) have conveniently turned IC into a moving target. An analysis of these rhetorical strategies helps us to understand why IC has gained such prominence in the IDC movement, and why, despite its complete lack of scientific merits, it has even convinced some knowledgeable persons of the impending demise of evolutionary theory.

A 'Nudge' for Public Health Ethics: Libertarian Paternalism as a Framework for Ethical Analysis of Public Health Interventions?

Is it possible to interfere with individual decision-making while preserving freedom of choice? The purpose of this article is to assess whether ‘libertarian paternalism’, a set of political and ethical principles derived from the observations of behavioural sciences, can form the basis of a viable framework for the ethical analysis of public health interventions. First, the article situates libertarian libertarianism within the broader context of the law and economics movement. The main tenets of the approach are then presented and particular attention is given to its operationalization through the notion of a ‘nudge’. Essentially, a ‘nudge’ consists in an intervention, which aims to suggest one choice over another by gently steering individual choices in welfare-enhancing directions yet without imposing any significant limit on available choices. Finally, the article concludes that, while it fails as an overreaching framework of ethical analysis, libertarian paternalism nonetheless constitutes a valuable addition to the conceptual toolbox of public health ethics.

Competitive advantage in interfirm cooperation: old and new explanations

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how different strategy theories complement each other with respect to understanding competitive advantage of a single firm that utilizes interfirm cooperation.Design/methodology/approachThe paper provides an analytical review of three schools of strategy research in order to highlight their contributions, shortcomings, and interrelations with respect to sustainable competitive advantage and to clarify their explanations of competitive advantage in interfirm cooperation. On the basis of this analysis, an integrated perspective that captures industry, organization, and relationship attributes is proposed.FindingsThe paper suggests that old and new paradigms in strategic management (industrial organization economics, resource‐based theories, and the relational view) are applicable alongside each other when analyzing how a single firm gains competitive advantage by utilizing interfirm cooperation. It is argued here that no paradigm can be used to substitute others and thus an integrated perspective is needed. The paper provides a discussion and implications on how each paradigm complements others and illustrate this by sketching a refined strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT) analysis framework.Practical implicationsThe paper gives a practical implication for managers who utilize traditional SWOT analysis in their decision making. By including relationship potential and limitations to the conceptual toolbox of thinking strategy through SWOT, managers can gain additional insight into internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats analysis.Originality/valueThe study increases understanding on how prevailing perspectives on competitive advantage can be used in analyzing interfirm cooperation.

A caixa de ferramentas de Michel Foucault, a reforma psiquiátrica e os desafios contemporâneos

Este artigo busca discutir as influências das ideias de Michel Foucault - sua caixa de ferramentas conceituais - na reforma psiquiátrica brasileira. Nesse sentido, parte-se de um olhar mais amplo sobre o projeto do autor, buscando identificar sua atualidade no cenário da saúde mental brasileira. Para tanto, traça-se um percurso histórico que retoma, brevemente, os acontecimentos do final dos anos 1970 no Brasil até alcançar os dias atuais. O esforço é justamente o de colocar em questão a necessidade de outras ferramentas conceituais, no intuito de esclarecer as condições de possibilidade de noções como as de loucura, doença mental e desrazão, em busca de uma relação porosa com o Fora (Dehors). Sendo assim, busca-se refletir sobre a importância das artes, em sua potência de criação e invenção, nesse processo, como possível fornecedora de ferramentas de trabalho.

What You See is What You Get: Analytical Lenses and the Limitations of Post-Conflict Statebuilding in Sierra Leone

This article juxtaposes donors' analyses of state failure and strategies of post-conflict statebuilding in Sierra Leone with actual processes of state-formation. It argues that international state-builders' analytical and policy frameworks are built on stylized assumptions about how states form and operate influenced by ideas derived from neoclassical economics. They focus on individual decision-making and functionalist formal institutions and provide a-historical analyses that fail to comprehend long-term state-formation. Interveners need to broaden their conceptual toolbox by paying more attention to local power structures, informal institutions and historical path dependency. Such a deeper analysis would encourage reflection on whether and how social change can be influenced by external intervention and allow donors to evaluate their statebuilding activities more honestly. This would raise important questions about the mismatch between interveners' ambitious goals and modest tools.