Divergent Stories Research Articles

Examination of state-level school safety data dashboard characteristics

Choices made on data visualizations guide how users make meaning of the information presented. This research investigates design decisions made on 115 state-level dashboards reporting school safety data. Using pre-determined codes drawn from a framework of visualization rhetoric, dashboard characteristics were described and analyzed. Analysis demonstrates that school safety dashboards vary significantly in types of school safety data included as well as how such data are presented. Most dashboards lack specific interpretative text or narration, meaning the messages and stories communicated by dashboards are influenced largely by choices in data included, how it is visually represented, and the interactivity provided to users. The choices craft divergent stories about school safety for dashboard users—including, but not limited to, those that foreground student behavior as the central threat, those that present school practices as problematic, and those that center community creation—which may shape public discourse around school safety. In concert, rhetorical choices reflect different perspectives on safety, students, and schools.

Divergent Stories in the History of Physics

Divergent Stories in the History of Physics

Cultivating health policy capacity through network governance in New Zealand: learning from divergent stories of policy implementation

Abstract Wu, Howlett, and Ramesh’s understanding of policy capacity has been used to identify generalizable strengths and weaknesses of specific jurisdictions and policy sectors such as health. In an extension of this work, Howlett and Ramesh have argued that the mode of governance of a policy sector accentuates the importance of specific elements of policy capacity. In this paper we focus on the implementation of the System Level Measures Framework (SLMF) in New Zealand that has been specifically focused on health systems improvement and which aimed to do so by fostering network governance at the local level. However, this policy is introduced in a context in which there has been significant contestation regarding which mode of governance—network or hierarchy—is dominant in New Zealand health policy. By exploring three divergent local cases of implementation of the SLMF we develop three arguments that contribute to the literature on policy capacity and health. Firstly, local histories of interorganizational play a crucial role in shaping health policy capacity. Secondly, it is crucially important to understand the dynamics and feedback loops between operational, political, and analytical policy capacity. Network and hierarchical governance are characterized by distinct and contrasting understandings of the content of policy capacity elements and of the way in which they are dynamically related. Thirdly, the key challenge in developing policy capacity compatible with network governance is how to facilitate this capacity when connections between operational, political, and analytical policy capacity fail to fire.

The Ethics of Storytelling: Indigenous Identity and the Death of Mangas Coloradas

To reveal responsibilities of storytelling, I first disclose my representation of indigeneity, and then, as an indigenous writer, I use the narrative paradigm to examine divergent stories told about the death of Apache Chief Mangas Coloradas. This study demonstrates for teachers and students of writing how important it is to remain ethical in telling and listening to stories.

Kinsey and the psychoanalysts: Cross-disciplinary knowledge production in post-war US sex research

The historical forces of war and migration impacted heavily on the disciplinary locations, practitioners, and structures of sexology and psychoanalysis that had developed in the first decades of the 20th century. By the late 1940s, the US was fast becoming the world centre of each of these prominent fields within the modern human sciences. During these years, the work of Alfred C. Kinsey and his team became synonymous with a distinctly North American brand of empirical sex research. This article offers the most nuanced account to date of the shifting relationship between these two fields in the late 1940s to mid 1950s. It argues that this was more collaborative and mutually influential than previous historians have assumed, even as, following the publication of the first ‘Kinsey report’, tensions grew between the Indiana team and the conservative brand of psychoanalysis that by this stage dominated 1950s North American psychiatry. A keen sense of professional competitiveness accelerated the growing split between these two fields, as Kinsey’s team developed a distinctly modern, technologized brand of statistically oriented sexology that contrasted with the older patient case history, and assumed a very different approach to conservative analysts on ideas of homosexuality and ‘normal’ sexual behaviour. Yet this story of divergence is also tempered through consideration of other aspects of ‘situated knowledge’ such as religion and gender identity, even as accounts of cross-disciplinary competitiveness are expanded by contrasting Kinsey’s positions on psychoanalysis with those of contemporaries such as Harry Benjamin.

Distribution of Income in India : The Story of Divergence Since 1991

Distribution of Income in India : The Story of Divergence Since 1991

Canada–United States Environmental Relations during the Trudeau-Trump Years: A Story of Divergence and Resilience

ABSTRACT More than any previous presidential transition, the 2016 election of Donald Trump gave rise to fears on both sides of the border as to what consequences might follow for the state of the environment. In Canada, by contrast, the 2015 election of a Liberal government was widely expected to produce a significant increase in both environmental spending and regulation. Divergence in the environmental policies of the two countries and friction over transboundary environmental issues appeared likely. Three years after the election of President Trump, the environmental policy conflicts between Canada and the United States are fewer and less fractious than many anticipated. Moreover, the consequences for Canada of the Trump administration’s weaker concern for the environment also have been less dire than many predicted. In short, the environmental relationship between Canada and the United States has proved to be more resilient than expected. Two main factors are responsible for blunting the bilateral effects of an undeniable and wide gap between the Trudeau and Trump governments on the environment. One involves the nature of environmental policy, characterized by high levels of technical and scientific complexity, multiple stakeholders, and the important role of subnational governments. The second factor involves governmental structure. In particular, the American system of divided powers makes it more difficult than Canada’s more centralized, prime ministerial system of government to change the direction of policy.

Consider the Oyster Seller: Street Hawkers and Gendered Stereotypes in Early Modern London

Abstract Oyster sellers were ubiquitous on London’s streets and as characters in high and low culture. This article contrasts the varied, sophisticated working life of mostly female hawkers with their sexualized representation in the multimedia genre of Cries. It connects these divergent stories to bigger narratives of socio-economic change in London, gender relations, and changing ways of imagining the emergent metropolis. While previous work focused on hawkers’ marginality and read the Cries uncritically, this article shows how humble food sellers kept the city fed, became symbolic of cultural change, and may have been affected by their representations.

Simulacra and the structure of the work of art

The concept of simulacra, with a propensity to diverge into in-betweenness, is a complex notion at the best of times. A dualistic structure of communication made up of signifier and signified that always produces a floating signifier, links simulacra with experience as an active agent of change. A story of divergence in an artwork can simultaneously affect the communication of it, even given no apparent narrative. This article then identifies three ways the simulacrum effects the communication of a work of art in artist-curator practice through the Deleuzian concept of simulacra, as a living recurrence of difference.

The Arusha Call

For the Protestant churches, the 20th century wrote a story of divergence so far as missiological understanding is concerned. Mid-century tensions eventually led to a split into two camps, usually described as “Ecumenical” and “Evangelical.” This is a division that has run deep and been definitive for identity, association, theology, and practice in many different contexts around the world. This article argues that, by contrast, the 21st century has seen a remarkable missiological convergence as the two sides in the long-running debate have sought to attend to each other’s concerns. This trend is evidenced by reference to significant conferences and documents, leading up to the World Council of Churches Conference on World Mission and Evangelism, held in Arusha, Tanzania, in March 2018. Examination of the “Arusha Call to Discipleship” issued by the conference reveals the extent of the convergence now taking place while also exposing its limitations. Even while acknowledging serious remaining challenges, it can be concluded that the Arusha Call is a signal of missiological convergence.

Karl Kraus on Stage

Little attention has been paid to Karl Kraus's performance as a public speaker. While his poetics and his contemporaries tell us wildly divergent stories of how he shaped a larger‐than‐life public persona as a cantankerous and infallible moral authority, this article proposes to take a look at the media that were involved in Kraus's staging of his polemical satires. These media include not only recording techniques, but also a specific rhetorical habitus influenced by traditions of pronunciation. In a second step, we discuss the political and intercultural ramifications of Kraus's spoken‐word performance by comparing it with Thomas Mann's speeches. This double outlook allows us to see to what extent Kraus's strong scenic strategy anticipates anti‐illusionistic directing strategies.

Medicare and private spending trends from 2008 to 2012 diverge in Texas.

The recent relatively slow growth in health care spending masks significant differences among payers, clinical settings, and geographic areas. To better understand the spending slowdown, we focus on 2008-2012 trends in Texas among Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries and enrollees in Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas (BCBSTX). Spending per person for Medicare grew only 1.5% per year on average, compared with 5.2% for BCBSTX. In Medicare, utilization rates were relatively flat, while prices grew more slowly than input prices. In BCBSTX, spending growth was driven by increases in negotiated prices, in particular hospital prices. We find that geographic variation declined sharply in Medicare, due to drops in spending on post-acute care in two notoriously high-spending regions but rose slightly in BCBSTX. The aggregate spending trends mask two divergent stories: spending growth in Medicare is very slow, but price increases continue to drive unsustainable spending growth among the privately insured.

Aquarius and Beyond: Thinking through the Counterculture

Aquarius and Beyond: Thinking through the Counterculture

Studying the Land, Contesting the Land: A Select Historiographic Guide to Modern Bukovina: Volume 1: Essay

This guide surveys the historiography of Bukovina, a region adjacent to the slopes of the outer, eastern Carpathians in East Central Europe. This work is intended as an introductory guide to the historical literature on Bukovina, which is voluminous but not easily accessible to readers who are not familiar with Eastern European languages. Another purpose of this guide is to demonstrate how historiography became a tool for political and cultural controversy in a borderland region. The discourse about Bukovina’s past, or rather the multiple controversial interpretations that tend to ignore each other, suggest that ideas of nationalism and territoriality, which have provided the major framework for conceptualizing of Europe’s past and present since the late eighteenth century, continue to dominate historical writings about the region. A (linguistically equipped) student of Bukovina would be looking at a large variety of general studies and an even more striking number of period- and theme-specific studies, published at different times and in various places. The naïve researcher might be surprised to fi nd quite divergent stories about the same region: many historical studies of Bukovina illustrate what might be called the borderland syndrome of contesting shared land―different ethnic communities produce quite separate historical narratives.

Studying the Land, Contesting the Land: A Select Historiographic Guide to Modern Bukovina: Volume 2: Notes

This guide surveys the historiography of Bukovina, a region adjacent to the slopes of the outer, eastern Carpathians in East Central Europe. This work is intended as an introductory guide to the historical literature on Bukovina, which is voluminous but not easily accessible to readers who are not familiar with Eastern European languages. Another purpose of this guide is to demonstrate how historiography became a tool for political and cultural controversy in a borderland region. The discourse about Bukovina’s past, or rather the multiple controversial interpretations that tend to ignore each other, suggest that ideas of nationalism and territoriality, which have provided the major framework for conceptualizing of Europe’s past and present since the late eighteenth century, continue to dominate historical writings about the region. A (linguistically equipped) student of Bukovina would be looking at a large variety of general studies and an even more striking number of period- and theme-specific studies, published at different times and in various places. The naïve researcher might be surprised to fi nd quite divergent stories about the same region: many historical studies of Bukovina illustrate what might be called the borderland syndrome of contesting shared land―different ethnic communities produce quite separate historical narratives.

Coping with Intense Reproductive Aggression in Male Arctic Ground Squirrels: The Stress Axis and Its Signature Tell Divergent Stories

We tested the adaptive stress hypothesis that male arctic ground squirrels (Urocitellus parryii) exhibit a stress response over the course of the breeding season that is characterized by increasing free cortisol concentrations, increasing mobilization of stored energy, and decreasing physical condition. We assessed the functioning of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis by measuring cortisol levels in response to the stress of capture and in response to a hormone challenge protocol (dexamethasone suppression and adrenocorticotropic hormone stimulation). We measured blood glucose levels, free fatty acids, white blood cells, and hematocrit to assess the downstream physiological responses to cortisol. Immediately after spring emergence, male arctic ground squirrels had ample free abdominal fat and few signs of wounding. By the end of the breeding season 3 wk later, visible fat reserves were almost entirely gone, and most males had extensive wounds. Total plasma cortisol concentrations increased over this period, but so did corticosteroid-binding capacity, resulting in no change in the free cortisol response to capture. We found no significant changes in how the animals responded to our hormone challenges, contrary to our prediction that the stress axis should increase free cortisol production. Even though we found no change in the functioning of the stress axis, all of the downstream measures suggested that male arctic ground squirrels are chronically exposed to high cortisol concentrations. Over the breeding season, blood glucose increased, fat stores and circulating free fatty acids were depleted, and both hematocrit levels and white blood cell counts decreased significantly. Our data suggest that a more complex relationship between the stress axis and downstream measures of stress exists than that proposed by the adaptive stress hypothesis. We propose several nonexclusive, testable mechanisms that could explain our observations.

Stakeholder Theory and Globalization: The Challenges of Power and Responsibility

Globalization is a blind spot in stakeholder theory and this undermines its explanatory power and usefulness to managers in global corporations. In this paper we build on Edward Freeman and colleagues’ attempts to construct divergent stories about how to create value for the corporation and its stakeholders when developing a stakeholder theory that is more sensitive to globalization. We achieve this by highlighting two particular challenges that globalization brings to stakeholder theory. The first challenge is to acknowledge new power relations (sub-political movements, new forms of bureaucracy and hierarchy) and the second is to acknowledge new dimensions of responsibility (a political responsibility). In the paper we relate our developments of stakeholder theory to two previously published case studies.

La economía política institucional del desarrollo local: dos cuentos de turismo en Brasil

There is growing recognition within local and regional studies regarding the importance of institutions. A 'soft institutionalism' predominates, which is criticised here for leaving out the explicit role of the State and for having a bias towards synergies and positive externalities. We seek to contribute to an institutional political economic theory of local development. We bring together social and political conceptions of 'old institutional economics' and evolutionary economics, and the State is explicitly brought back into the analysis. The construction of new institutions is explored as a path dependent process in which institutions (re)shape the development path of an area in a particular direction. Using different kinds of power resources, different social groups struggle for control. We use the framework to analyze the divergent stories of two cases of local development in Brazil based on tourism. Prainha do Canto Verde developed community-based tourism, while in Jericoacoara local development culminated in mass tourism.

Where is Creativity in the City? Integrating Qualitative and GIS Methods

This paper discusses a new blend of methods developed to answer the question of where creativity is in the city. Experimentation with new methods was required because of empirical shortcomings with existing creative city research techniques; but also to respond to increasingly important questions of where nascent economic activities occur outside the formal sector, and governmental spheres of planning and economic development policy. In response we discuss here how qualitative methods can be used to address such concerns, based on experiences from an empirical project charged with the task of documenting creative activity in Darwin—a small city in Australia's tropical north. Diverse creative practitioners were interviewed about their interactions with the city—and hard-copy maps were used as anchoring devices around spatially orientated interview questions. Results from this interview-mapping process were accumulated and analysed in a geographical information system (GIS). Digital maps produced by this method revealed patterns of concentration and imagined ‘epicentres’ of creativity in Darwin, and showed how types of sites and spaces of the city are imagined as ‘creative’ in different ways. Qualitative mapping of creativity enabled the teasing out of contradictory and divergent stories of the location of creativity in the urban landscape. The opportunities which such methods present for researchers interested in how economic activities are ‘lived’ by workers, situated in social networks, and reproduced in everyday, material, spaces of the city are described.

“A Great Complication of Circumstances” – Darwin and the Economy of Nature

In 1749, Linnaeus presided over the dissertation "Oeconomia Naturae," which argued that each creature plays an important and particular role in nature's economy. This phrase should be familiar to readers of Darwin, for he claims in the Origin that "all organic beings are striving, it may be said, to seize on each place in the economy of nature." Many scholars have discussed the influence of political economy on Darwin's ideas. In this paper, I take a different tack, showing that Darwin's idea of an economy of nature stemmed from the views of earlier naturalists like Linnaeus and Lyell. I argue, in the first section of the paper, that Linnaeus' idea of oeconomia naturae is derived from the idea of the animal economy, and that his idea of politia naturae is an extension of the idea of a politia civitatis. In the second part, I explore the use of the concept of stations in the work of De Candolle and Lyell - the precursor to Darwin's concept of places. I show in the third part of the paper that the idea of places in an economy of nature is employed by Darwin at many key points in his thinking: his discussion of the Galapagos birds, his reading of Malthus, etc. Finally, in the last section, I demonstrate that the idea of a place in nature's economy is essential to Darwin's account of divergence. To tell his famous story of divergence and adaptation, Darwin needed the economy of nature.