Contemporary Projects Research Articles

The Absent Present Hauntings of Coloniality: Examining ‘Management in the Wild’ through the Bottom of the Pyramid

The paper contends that within neoliberal spaces of reform and remediation the Global South has reemerged as a site for reflection, experimentation, and intervention in ways that (a) re- inscribe creatively colonial forms of hegemony and domination (epistemic, economic, and ideological); and (b) mobilize strategically colonially inflected thinking on race, class, gender, and nation in a bid to advance and sustain regimes of neoliberal normativity. Using the critical lens of postcolonial studies, I attempt to understand the ways in which colonial rationalities continue to underwrite contemporary neoliberal crisis management projects. Taking the case of the well-known Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) program, the paper seeks to understand how colonial rationalities are mobilized and harnessed in the interest of neoliberal market making, in our case, in the context of market-led poverty alleviation efforts. The paper puts forth the concept of ‘management in the wild’ in an attempt to theorize the heterogeneous spaces of neoliberal regimes aimed at solving long-standing global challenges and issues. I argue that coloniality (enduring effects of colonial grids of intelligibility) haunts the terrain of management in the wild. How and in what ways does the colonial past fold into our present? This is what the paper seeks to address, comprehend, and clarify.

Energy Consumption Regimes in the Arctic and Siberia: the Use of Resources by Indigenous People in the Context of Socio-Economic Change

This article aims to stress poignant energy problems that have arisen among indigenous population in the Arctic and Siberia in the early 21st century and acquired a systemic character within the process of globalization. Until now, the study of energy processes and the analysis of the use of natural resources by indigenous peoples were considered as two distinct areas of research, barely intersecting each other. This paper aims to deconstruct the border between them and to discuss the exploitation of resources by local population of the Arctic and Eastern Siberia in the context of contemporary industrial development projects, rationalization of local economic activities and introduction of new infrastructure, technologies and equipment

Literature and Postcolonial Capitalism in Contemporary Vietnam: Indian Characters in Hồ Anh Thái’s Writings

This paper explores the relationship between literary representation and nationalism in contemporary Vietnam, a socialist state which has opened up to capitalist forms of economic organization. It asks if Vietnamese literature has changed its political role in the context of Vietnam pursuing policies of economic liberalization, engaging with global capitalist relations and opening to global private capitalist sectors. In other words, the paper asks how national literature, a body of literary works in the Vietnamese language that was historically constructed in anti-colonial, anti-imperial terms, has participated in the contemporary cultural, economic and political projects that the Vietnamese state has undertaken in order to retain its socialist and nationalist goals, while practicing transnational negotiation and socialist flexibility. In continuing the tradition of constructing Indian characters as “capitalists” and “foreign invaders,” Hồ Anh Thái’s writing suggests that the so-called political and economic relaxation of post-reform Vietnam is a strategy for the Vietnamese state to maintain itself on the path of socialism and nationalism. Through its examination of Hồ Anh Thái’s novels and short stories, focusing on their construction of Indian characters, the paper argues that socialist realism remains the guiding principle of contemporary Vietnamese literature. The choice of Hồ Anh Thái and his writing about Indians is based on the fact that the author and the Indian setting of his work embody important political and economic characteristics of post-reform Vietnam.

Urban development falling into the gutter: sanitation planning and ‘anti-politics’ in Myanmar

Urban development, and particularly the improvement of basic services delivery, is still approached in mostly technical terms by international development actors and municipalities of the Global South. Sanitation planning, for instance, remains the realm of engineers despite decades of evidence that conventional approaches focusing on infrastructure upgrading have failed to tackle socio-environmental challenges. Against this background, this paper explores sanitation planning in Mandalay, the second largest city of Myanmar. Here, the Asian Development Bank and a French consulting firm have seized the opportunity created by the country’s recent opening to embark with the municipality on a multi-million dollar scheme: the Mandalay Urban Services Improvement Project (MUSIP). Drawing upon insights from critical development studies, the paper argues that the MUSIP can be interpreted as an ‘anti-politics machine’ that ignored local needs and proposed disputable solutions to local sanitation challenges. The paper further explores how this machine jeopardised urban development in Mandalay more generally, and was eventually challenged by the municipality. The paper concludes that the case is not unique and illustrates how urban development is today being reshaped throughout Myanmar, while it also shows the continued relevance of the ‘anti-politics’ framework to understand contemporary urban development assistance projects.

Ecological restoration under rural restructuring: A case study of Yan’an in China’s loess plateau

The contemporary ecological projects paid more attention to the coordination between ecological restoration and rural development. China have launched the world’s largest Grain for Green Program and made significant achievements in this respect in south-west and north-west regions. This paper uses Yan’an as its case study location to bring the detailed spatiotemporal process of vegetation restoration to light and interpret the role of socioeconomic restructuring in rural areas as a mechanism for driving forward ecological restoration. The results showed that vegetation restoration in Yan’an has emerged as a continuous process and holistic pattern with 91.6% area NDVI index increasing from 2000 to 2015, but returned slope cropland directly account for only 15.68% of NDVI growth. The NDVI growth is closely related to change of rural resident population, proportion of agricultural output and regional urbanization level which signifying rural restructuring. Rural economic restructuring, social community reshaping and rural space readjustment have reduced the dependence of these areas on resources and environment, improved the man-land relationship, and spurred sustained, stable and holistic ecological restoration. In addition to supporting eco-compensation and ecotourism industries, more active and comprehensive measures should be adopted to promote rural restructuring and make ecological restoration more stable and sustainable.

Prejudice, military intelligence, and neoliberalism: examining the local within archaeology and heritage practices in Jordan

ABSTRACTA particular theme dominates contemporary heritage projects in the neoliberal context of Jordan: sustainable development on the basis of participatory approaches. Although these approaches are celebrated in academic and governmental circles, the history and power dynamics within which they operate remain underexplored. We aim to establish a theoretical framework that examines why and how local communities in the Arab region shifted from periphery to centre, and from background to foreground, in the field of archaeology and heritage. We situate archaeology and heritage within two seemingly different contexts, colonialism and neoliberalism, that have governed the relationship between the West and the Arab region. As we contrast colonialist exclusionary policies with the inclusivity promoted by neoliberal policies in archaeological and heritage projects in Jordan, we argue that despite the obvious differences between the two, they both managed to make substantial shifts in the perception of and attitudes toward archaeology and heritage. In spite of participatory paradigms, the shifts seem to have always come ‘from the outside’, operating on sites and peoples alike.

Application of eco-technologies in modern sculpture and land-art objects

Topical issues of the development of environmental technologies and it’s application in contemporary art have been explored, with particular emphasis on sculptural practices and land-art objects. In fact, it has been found that the Ukrainian scientists have addressed rather indirectly to the problem of environmental trends in the context of contemporary art objects. It should be noted that the vast majority of research is limited to the generic characteristics of eco-design and does not focus on the artistic and stylistic features of this phenomenon in general and in art in particular. The historical aspect of the interconnections of scientific and technological progress, exacerbation of environmental issues and the evolution of artistic practices of twentieth century art is revealed. It was found out that these processes were consonant and synthesized. Representative contemporary art projects that can be attributed to environmental art were outlined, their characteristic artistic features were clarified and the main directions of eco-art were determined. The influence of the latest technologies on enhanced dynamics and the adoption of eco-style as a kind of counteraction to the processes of digitalization of modern culture as a whole are analyzed. In particular, it has been traced how environmental technologies are used today in three-dimensional art objects, and how well-known artists work with the most actual issues of the 21st century. Two main vectors of eco-sculpture have been identified: complex objects using technology and land-art projects, which are mainly focused on philosophical concepts and issues of human harmony with nature. However, it has been proved that these two areas are of equal value and extremely relevant in the dynamic artistic processes of today, and also have considerable potential and prospects for further development in view of the increasing aggravation of environmental problems in the modern world.

Horizons of Sustainability and Individual Ethics: The Case of the International Space Station

Sustainability is a hot topic in contemporary politics both nationally and internationally. While the current framing of sustainability promoted at the international level favours social policies, doubts about their possible success are growing. If social aspirations are not realised, technological solutions to ecological problems might appear to be the only options. This study contributes to the field of sociology of the future. It explores and problematizes the technologically-oriented approach to sustainability. I consider a radical case of sustainable living – a spacecraft – looking at the emerging challenges to individual human ethics and the general order of sociality. More specifically, the largest contemporary manned space project, the International Space Station (ISS), is taken into analytical focus. With the help of the Foucauldian notion of governmentality, I examine routines and discourses related to the utilization of the life support system at the ISS in regard to human conduct, both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial. Mass-media materials comprise a large part of the dataset for this research. As demonstrated, techno-functionalism characterizes sustainability as governmental rationality. It imposes a subordination of individual human actors to the general order driven by systemic objectives frequently framed in pragmatic and technical terms. Specific practices, including ethically controversial ones, might be requested from individual humans in the name of the system’s stability and efficiency. Those practices are naturalized and normalized within a truth regime constituted by scientific discourse, the authority of experts, media events and the related public discussions.

Decolonising the higher education curriculum: An analysis of African intellectual readiness to break the chains of a colonial caged mentality

Background: Forging ‘new’ decolonial education curriculum policy reform with ill-conceived intents may lead to both socio-political and economic pathologies and failure. Aim: The aim of the social sciences meta synthesis done was to consolidate gathered evidence from published scientific articles on decolonial curriculum reform policies. It was critical during the process of synthesising to acknowledge the fact that Africans continue to experience multifaceted socio-political and economic shifts of being as influenced by a variety of global ideologies. Concerted decolonial efforts should be made to manage these matrices of material social constructs such that the contamination and decapitation of true African educational curricula, identities, cultures, values, ethos and principles are curtailed. Setting: The critical exploration of meta-data underpinned by a critical-dialectical perspective attempted to dig beneath the impact of coloniality of power on the conscious mind of an African intellectual. The critical social research analyses how the African colonised mind can effectively decolonise African university curriculum given their colonially captured mind. Method: An extensive search, guided by selected key words, yielded about 35 articles on decolonisation but were trimmed down to 15 as determined by my main focus thus: decolonial curriculum reform in post-colonial nation states. Results: Findings indicate that African scholars, political pundits and researchers tend to rely on the mentally embedded notion of caged colonial mentality (CCM) in advocating for decolonial curriculum reform, with little regard for the multifaceted seismic shifts that impact on the socio-politico-education life of post-colonial African existential Beings. Conclusion: I strongly advocate for the dismantling of systemic CCM and embrace those seismic shifts that incorporate contemporary decolonial projects when crafting the architecture for decolonial curriculum designs that build on appropriate knowledge, competences, skills, values, beliefs and practices from around the globe to buttress multiplicities of identities, while nevertheless retaining Africa’s interests at the centre.

Exploring the knowledge practices of psychology: Reflections on a field study

The epistemic project of psychology is currently under intense and broad debate. As a contribution to this debate—and as a deliberate attempt to steer the debate towards a more situated and material understanding of epistemology—this article presents a 2-month anthropological field study of how knowledge was produced among a group of psychologists in a psychology department at a Danish university. First, the article presents a detailed account of how this particular group of (cultural-historical) psychologists constructed knowledge in their daily practices. Second, the article discusses these specific knowledge practices in relation to a selection of contemporary pragmatic ideas about research, knowledge, and theorising. Finally, the article discusses how the study of this particular case of knowledge production may contribute to the broad current debates about psychology’s contemporary epistemic project and its role in society.

Santo Domingo: City profile of the Caribbean's metropolis

As the oldest city of the New World, Santo Domingo has undergone major institutional, political, economic and urban restructuring in five centuries of urban history. This city profile article investigates first the historical urban development of the city and then scrutinizes contemporary urban policies and projects that respond to challenges of rapid growth, inequality, and vulnerability to climate change. The article highlights how centralized policies initiated by divergent political regimes have resulted in a segregated city where Presidents used urban space to leave their legacies without adhering to planning mechanisms. The article also uncovers how rapid growth and absence of urban planning have produced two city making approaches, the “formal” and the “informal” cities converging parallel to each other. Furthermore, as the capital city of a Small Island Developing State, Santo Domingo's recent urban policies are embedded in global frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement; in this line, inequality and climate change vulnerabilities continue to be the city's main challenges in the 21rst century.

Progettare la «Stimmung». Dialogo tra Quintus Miller e Armando Ruinelli

The architects Quintus Miller and Armando Ruinelli operate mainly in Switzerland and in particular in the Grisons area where they have carried out several projects thus facing the different issues affecting the requalification of landscape and of existing architecture in the valley and mountain context. The dialogue between the two architects highlights their design approach in relation to the historical, cultural and environmental peculiarities of this heritage. What emerges strongly is the need for the contemporary project to reinterpret the existing in order to identify and restore in each project the «Stimmung» intended as an absolute synthesis of all those elements that characterize a given place or a given architecture in time and space. From the architectural redevelopment of small buildings to the insertion of new volumes within historical fabrics, from the restoration of monuments to the expansion of historic structures, the narrated projects show a well-read approach towards the intervention on heritage allowing a critical reinterpretation of history, of memory and of the long lasting Alpine settlement processes.

States of Nature in Immanuel Kant’sDoctrine of Right

From an analysis of Kant’s states of nature in each division of the Doctrine of Right—the state of nature in general and the international state of nature—this paper reinterprets Cosmopolitan Right and the duty to exit the state of nature as more colonial than previously recognized. Kant places “savages” in the state of nature, depicting them and their lawless condition as bellicose. As such, states may force them to exit the state of nature; those who encounter hostile peoples on foreign lands may be justified in aggressing. Having shown that colonial features of the Doctrine of Right cannot be wrested from the text, this paper unsettles the interpretive dominance of the established view that Kant is staunchly anti-colonial. Nevertheless, anti-colonial features of the text remain. The paper shows that interpreters must accept that Kant’s text is both colonial and anti-colonial. Kant’s global vision remained too statist to appropriately include indigenous politics. The paper closes by briefly indicating a path for future research whereby contemporary Kantian cosmopolitan projects become more attuned to—and modified in light of—the political agency and particular struggles of indigenous peoples.

Imitation and adaptation: lessons from a case study of a metro rail project in India

Oversight arrangements which articulate technical, contractual and organizational decisions in a project domain constitute project governance. In the light of rapid globalization and an increasing number of complex, pluralistic and heterogeneous projects, the need for contingent project governance arrangements which bridge both stability and temporality of project decisions is emphasized in the literature. Nevertheless, inadequate attention has been paid to study how these governance arrangements are actually set up on contemporary projects. We use a combination of institutions-based and practice-based lenses to develop arguments on how governance arrangements are initially selected and replicated or revised, thereby leading to the emergence of order in project governance structures. We gather empirical evidence by qualitatively studying the shaping of project governance structures in a metro rail project in India. Our data show how the project promoters drew from the Delhi Metro’s governance structures to make technical, contractual and organizational decisions in the Chennai Metro, and then contested or stabilized these structures within the project field through situated interactions. Consequently, we identify 11 underlying mechanisms of sustenance and change of governance arrangements and project norms. By bridging both generic and contextual governance perspectives, the study underlines the role of situated “governing” in (re)creating governance structures.

Responsive governance in PPP projects to manage uncertainty

Despite the awareness that uncertainty impacts projects with long time horizons, public-private partnership (PPP) research has not extensively examined the operations phase of such projects where interactions between public and private counterparties will be frequent and long-term while subject to a changing environment. Accordingly, two distinct but related investigations examining how governance strategies can address uncertainty in PPP projects are presented. The first identified contractual mechanisms for risk sharing formed during the shaping phase of a broad set of PPP projects; a majority of these mechanisms were strategically designed to address risks as they unfold so counterparty project managers can rely on current information and circumstances during risk resolution. The second explored the emergence of relational mechanisms over time, which revealed that project managers had to consistently adjust established relational approaches to respond to unforeseen events in PPPs. The findings of both studies illustrate the necessity for responsiveness and complementarity of contractual and relational mechanisms in PPPs. Further, the mechanisms uncovered demand project management agility and flexibility as well as improved relational strategies, which is aligned with the emphasis on learning and adaptation in the broader, contemporary project management literature. Consequently, principles from project management 2.0 such as empowering competent project managers and shared global awareness are likely to enhance responsive PPP governance and warrant further exploration.

Victoria Barracks of Disappearance: Contested Post-Military Landscape in High-Density Urban Hong Kong

This research paper examines the post-military landscape of the Victoria Barracks regarding the high-density urbanism in Hong Kong from the 1970s to the 2000s. The article first interprets the concept of post-military landscape according to the ideology and urbanism of the then Hong Kong society. It then studies three plans of the Victoria Barracks of different stages, showing contestations between domestic, commercial and administrative powers in controlling the military redevelopment. Several contemporary architectural projects on the site will also provide an alternative view of the transformation according to the local economic laissez-faire policy. Its influence to the unsatisfactory heritage protection leads to the disappearance and false representation of the identity of this particular military and cultural heritage.

Media theory and media technologies in contemporary art projects

With the powerful development of the advanced technologies, art actively engages the innovation to create a new system of imagery. As a result, there appeared various contemporary forms of media art. The estimation of such experiments is constantly fluctuating from their radical condemnation as spheres of the functioning of the “simulacra” ( J. Baudrillard etc.) up to hope for them to overcome the existing barrier between the “culture of hearing” and “culture of vision”, which in media art reaches its equilibrium (M. McLuhan etc.) In our opinion, it makes sense to take a moderate stance on the question of contemporary technological innovations, avoiding both their absolutism and total criticism that borders with demonization, whereas any changes in the artistic realm have their causes; they are connected to the constant unstoppable socio-cultural movement. These processes reflect changes in the perception and value hierarchy of the modern personality, which, with the help of technological innovations, can reproduce high-minded meanings, as well as simulate the world of horrible and ugly, or reduce artistic works only to the level of entertainment. For example, using modern media technologies in contemporary Ukrainian art projects, we will try to carry out a philosophical and cultural analysis of the nature and specifics of the media’s use by Ukrainian artists in comparison with world trends in this area.

‘The Weapons of our Adversaries’

This article examines Georges Bataille’s engagements with fascism and community during the 1930s as a means of providing a living historical lesson which might assist the navigation of the complex waters of fascist-curiosity in contemporary art. Two distinct methodologies in Bataille’s work are discussed and distinguished from one another: a) Bataille’s analytical approach, which investigates the conceptual underpinnings of fascism in order to better defend against them; and b) the appropriative methodology of his work with the group Contre-Attaque, which sought to co-opt the weapons of fascism to anti-fascist ends. Whilst the latter has proven problematic, the former is characterised as enacting a subversive internal fracturing of fascist discourses essential to the contemporary anti-fascist project. Bataille’s pertinence to our current moment, and the field of contemporary art, is drawn out through analogy with the work of artist Dean Kenning, whose analytical engagement with fascism is contrasted with the appropriative nature of London-based gallery LD50’s fascist-curiosity.

Effects of the digital transformation on the contemporary city project

According to many sociologists and technologists today we live in the midst of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The research aims to investigate this paradigm shift that is taking place in the contemporary city to understand how urban design is facing this digital transformation. Starting from the technological and digital innovations that are pervading the field of architecture, engineering and urban planning, this study will also try to understand how these radical changes will affect citizens' life.

Symbolic Survival and Harm: Serious Fraud and Consumer Capitalism’s Perversion of the Causa Sui Project

AbstractBased on empirical research carried out with those convicted of serious fraud, the current article explores the motivations behind engagement in acquisitive criminality. Drawing on the work of Ernest Becker, the article seeks to transcend superficial explanations of fraud which draw on notions of greed and individual pathology, locating causation instead at the level of consumer capitalism’s perversion of the contemporary causa sui project through its stimulation of deep human existential anxieties. It will be suggested that the acts of economic predation perpetrated by the men in the study represent attempts to escape anxiety through the avoidance of symbolic annihilation and that they are illustrative of the way in which the contemporary capitalism generates harm.