Drawing Boundaries Research Articles

A kóser törvények márki recepciója

Mk 7, 17-23 and its context is a two-level narrative. On the first level, the text is a prophetic critique initially directed against the Pharisaic tradition of handwashing or, more generally, against the Pharisaic understanding of purity. On this level, Jesus opened the way for a departure from Judaism in no way. In other words, Jesus did not teach against the Torah's dietary laws. The second level of the text is Mark's interpretation. For him, Jesus' saying about the food being eliminated into the sewer no longer meant (or primarily did not mean) only that morality is prior to purity questions but also that everything is pure (i.e. for Gentile Christians). Mark, therefore, found in Jesus' saying the basis for the Gentile Christians' exemption from kosher laws. However, it is important to emphasise that one can discover the problem of identity behind the Marcan interpretation. By eating what the Jews did not, Christians clearly signal that they were now outside Judaism. Eating non-kosher food was an identity marker for (Gentile) Christians, emphasising their separation from Judaism. The drawing of boundaries between Judaism and Christianity was and remained an important issue in early Christianity. Whether they interpreted the kosher laws allegorically (Barnabas, Clement of Alexandria) or accepted their literal meaning (Justin), the common theological position was that the kosher laws (Lev 11), as interpreted by Judaism, were not valid for Christians. However, the practice was sometimes quite different from theological thinking: the extent to which the dietary laws applied to Gentile Christian communities was and remains a serious problem.

Contemporary Self-identification as a “Tutejszy” in Southeastern Lithuania

The article raises the issue of identification as a “tutejszy” among people who live in southeastern Lithuania today. The question of how and why “tutejsi” (plural for “tutejszy”) draw identity boundaries between themselves and other people is very important due to the overall social and political changes in this region over the last century. To answer this question, qualitative field research was conducted using observation, participant observation, and in-depth interviews with the region’s inhabitants. The data analysis revealed two categories that play a role in the drawing of identity boundaries: the first relates to ethnicity and the second one relates to the value ascribed to being a “tutejszy”. Based on these two axes, the authors developed four models of “tutejszy” identification in southeastern Lithuania.

“How Many Black Hippies Do You See?” The Counterculture in Black and White

Historians have treated the counterculture largely as a white phenomenon and drawn sharp boundaries between its escapism and the political engagement of the Black freedom struggle. A look at the counterculture's origins and growth in the late 1950s and the 1960s reveals that the counterculture intersected with Black culture in many ways. White beats, hipsters, and hippies generally admired the civil rights movement's support for equality and nonviolence, but sometimes scoffed at its effort to gain integration into American society. Hippies considered themselves outsiders from society and imagined that they shared affinity with Black Americans. Blacks’ responses to the counterculture ranged from contempt to curiosity to embrace. Some Blacks despised the hippies’ lifestyle and political apathy, but others considered the counterculture an important challenge to “the System.” American culture, style, literature, and music were all affected by the counterculture's experimentalism. The counterculture changed white culture, Black culture, and American culture. Drawing boundaries between cultural forms proves less instructive than focussing on the connections between them.

Social infrastructuring in public libraries: librarians' continuous care in everyday library practice

PurposeAs social infrastructures, public libraries are increasingly recognised as providing more than access to books and information; librarians’ work is importantly centred around practices of care. However, the ways in which they provide care is poorly researched, let alone conceptualised. This paper explores how this important part of librarians’ daily work is practiced through the lens of infrastructuring.Design/methodology/approachThe paper first theoretically discusses the concepts of social infrastructuring, care and tinkering. Then, it turns to ethnographic research conducted in the public library networks of three European cities: Vienna (Austria), Rotterdam (the Netherlands) and Malmö (Sweden). The paper comprises empirical materials from all three countries and unpacks 16 librarians’ daily working routines of care through participant observations.FindingsThe empirical analysis resulted in three modes of social infrastructuring in public libraries: (1) maintaining, (2) building connections and (3) drawing boundaries. Practices of care are prominent in each of these infrastructuring modes: librarians infrastructure the library with and via their care practices. Whilst care practices are difficult to quantify and verbalise, they are valuable for library patrons. By using the concept of tinkering, the article conceptualises librarians’ infrastructuring enactments as crucial community-building aspects of libraries.Originality/valueBy focusing on the enactment of social infrastructuring, the paper goes beyond a descriptive approach to understanding public libraries as important social infrastructures. Rather, the paper unpacks how libraries come into being as infrastructuring agencies by highlighting what librarians do and say. Our international study articulates the importance of care practices in public libraries across different national contexts.

A Kingdom of Possibility

A Kingdom of Possibility

Influences of specialty identity when implementing a new emergency department in Denmark: a qualitative study

BackgroundThe Danish Health Authority recommended the implementation of new types of emergency departments. Organizational changes in the hospital sector challenged the role, identity, and autonomy of medical specialists. They tend to identify with their specialty, which can challenge successful implementation of change. However, investigations on specialty identity are rare in implementation science, and how the co-existence of different specialty identities influences the implementation of new emergency departments needs to be explored for the development of tailored implementation strategies. The aim of this study was to examine how medical specialty identity influences collaboration between physicians when implementing a new emergency department in Denmark.MethodsQualitative methods in the form of participants’ observations at 13 oilcloth sessions (a micro-simulation method) were conducted followed up by 53 individual semi-structured interviews with participants from the oilcloth sessions. Out of the 53 interviews, 26 were conducted with specialists. Data from their interviews are included in this study. Data were analysed deductively inspired by Social Identity Theory.ResultsThe analysis yielded three overarching themes: [1] ongoing creation and re-creation of specialty identity through boundary drawing; [2] social categorization and power relations; and [3] the patient as a boundary object.ConclusionsSpecialty identity is an important determinant of collaboration among physicians when implementing a new emergency department. Specialty identity involves social categorization, which entails ongoing creation and re-creation of boundary drawing and exercising of power among the physicians. In some situations, the patient became a positive boundary object, increasing the possibility for a successful collaboration and supporting successful implementation, but direct expressions of boundaries and mistrust were evident. Both were manifested through a dominating power expressed through social categorization in the form of in- and out-groups and in an “us and them” discourse, which created distance and separation among physicians from different specialties. This distancing and separation became a barrier to the implementation of the new emergency department.

An Emergent Community of Cyber Sovereignty: The Reproduction of Boundaries?

Abstract This research probes the boundary-work of Communities of Practice (CoP) by examining China’s active efforts in advancing a state-centric approach in managing cyberspace in the international arena. Boundaries separating the Global North and South are reproduced in the expansion of what I call the “community of cyber sovereignty.” This phenomenon points to the CoP literature’s omission of the proactive aspects of boundary-work undertaken by core members and its surrounding and confounding historical contexts. I argue that boundary reproduction arises from both deliberate and unreflective moves in cultivating CoP. First, emerging from reflexivity in interacting with the external environment, practitioners in CoPs that are vigorously contested will likely replicate historically successful boundary drawing to acquire or maintain credibility. Second, CoP members engage in the habitual selection of strategies, anchoring the community toward sustaining relationships with actors that its members traditionally associate with. These proactive boundary-work dynamics are enabled by inclusive and exclusive mechanisms such as “brokering” varied practices to include potential members and “gatekeeping” others. My analysis suggests that scholarship must attend to actors’ proactive efforts to establish communities preferentially as well as their linkages with prevailing social structures.

Severity of Atelectasis during Bronchoscopy: Descriptions of a New Grading System (AtelectasisSeverity Scoring System-"ASSESS") and At-Risk-Lung Zones.

Atelectasis during bronchoscopy under general anesthesia is very common and can have a detrimental effect on navigational and diagnostic outcomes. While the intraprocedural incidence and anatomic location have been previously described, the severity of atelectasis has not. We reviewed chest CT images of patients who developed atelectasis in the VESPA trial (Ventilatory Strategy to Prevent Atelectasis). By drawing boundaries at the posterior chest wall (A), the anterior aspect of the vertebral body (C), and mid-way between these two lines (B), we delineated at-risk lung zones 1, 2, and 3 (from posterior to anterior). An Atelectasis Severity Score System ("ASSESS") was created, classifying atelectasis as "mild" (zone 1), "moderate" (zones 1-2), and "severe" (zones 1-2-3). A total of 43 patients who developed atelectasis were included in this study. A total of 32 patients were in the control arm, and 11 were in the VESPA arm; 20 patients (47%) had mild atelectasis, 20 (47%) had moderate atelectasis, and 3 (6%) had severe atelectasis. A higher BMI was associated with increased odds (1.5 per 1 unit change; 95% CI, 1.10-2.04) (p = 0.0098), and VESPA was associated with decreased odds (0.05; 95% CI, 0.01-0.47) (p = 0.0080) of developing moderate to severe atelectasis. ASSESS is a simple method used to categorize intra-bronchoscopy atelectasis, which allows for a qualitative description of this phenomenon to be developed. In the VESPA trial, a higher BMI was not only associated with increased incidence but also increased severity of atelectasis, while VESPA had the opposite effect. Preventive strategies should be strongly considered in patients with risk factors for atelectasis who have lesions located in zones 1 and 2, but not in zone 3.

Affective geographies and tribal epistemologies: studying abroad during COVID-19

Abstract This paper explores the relationship between epistemologies, tribalism and affect in the experiences of Chinese international students studying in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on data from student diaries, interviews, and focus groups, it explores how boundaries between in-groups and out-groups were erected and dismantled through processes of socio-temporal scaling, whereby social actors configured affective geographies by linking local spatial relationships to higher level (national and international) scales. The analysis reveals how negative emotions like fear of infection led to practices of spatial distancing and the drawing of cultural boundaries between groups, while feelings of worry about family members in China shaped communication patterns and information flows across geographic spaces. At times, however, positive emotions like affection and sympathy helped participants transcend boundaries, leading them to readjust their emotional mappings of the world and reevaluate their beliefs about COVID. The study highlights the central role affect and emotional labor play both in the formulation of epistemologies around health and in the drawing of boundaries between groups.

Crisis and resilience in psychology

Crises that occur after natural disasters are real and serious issues that can cause serious depression. A crisis is a situation in which a smooth process suddenly turns into a depression with negative, dangerous consequences. Since our country is in an earthquake-prone region and has experienced earthquakes with great losses, it has a very traumatic history. The concept of crisis, which spreads over a wide area, is a phenomenon that needs to be talked about by drawing boundaries. Natural disasters cause crises, and crises cause trauma. Resilience is the most effective way to deal with natural disasters and the traumas that follow. Resilience can be considered as the ability to adapt to the adverse conditions caused by external factors causing the crisis for disaster management. Psychological resilience is defined as the ability to cope with the negative consequences that may follow a natural disaster and adaptation to a negative situation. The phenomenon of resilience is important for both the individual and the society in societies where major natural disasters such as earthquakes are experienced. This definition of psychological resilience points to an approach that leaves the individual on his/her own in the face of disaster, crisis, and trauma by placing a great responsibility on the individual. However, individuals who have been exposed to natural disasters should not be left on their own and all opportunities should be mobilised to help them. Passive exposure to the wounds caused by natural disasters decays both the individual and the society. Instead, engaging in emotional, mental, social, and artistic investments and taking part in new and multiple fields will benefit the individual and the society in order to tackle the wounds.

The regimentation of femininities in the world: the translated speech of non-Japanese women in a Japanese TV documentary series

Abstract This paper aims to demonstrate the ideological workings of translation by analyzing the ways Japanese women’s language is employed to translate the speech of women in seven cities worldwide in a Japanese TV documentary series. The analysis finds that the TV production team allocates the features of Japanese women’s language differently to the speech of women according to region, drawing boundaries between women in Europe and the Americas, those in Asia and Africa, and Japanese women. The program’s practices of translation regiment the femininities of women according to region in terms of formality and politeness by actively expanding the indexicality of features of Japanese women’s language away from reticence, politeness, and gentleness, and by restricting the use of these features to co-occurrence with the plain form. The analysis implies that this regimentation of femininities serves to reproduce and reinforce Japanese domestic stereotypes concerning women in distinct regions among Japanese audiences.

Social Media Ethics on Instagram as a Virtual Public Space for Teenagers

The understanding of ethics in interaction with social media is different for each individual. Some people consider social media as a public space that must maintain boundaries of behavior and others consider social media as a medium of expression to show self-identity. Problems that arise in the use of social media include the fusion of private space with the public space of its users, especially on Instagram social media. This research uses a virtual ethnography strategy with a qualitative research approach. The type of research used is descriptive qualitative with the population of this research is teenagers who are active Instagram users. The first finding is the ethics of drawing boundaries between public and private space on Instagram. How Instagram social media blurs the boundaries between public and private matters. This research also reveals the ethics and interactions that occur in the social media space of Instagram.

‘Block talk’ on Twitter: Material affordances and communicative norms

This article explores the phenomenon of block talk among Germanspeaking Twitter users, based on a subsample of 1700 tweets from a larger corpus of 380,000 block-related tweets collected between February and December 2021. Block talk refers to users publicly mentioning and conversing about the disconnective practice of blocking, which sometimes stimulates a debate about the legitimate use of blocking while at other times providing an outgroup marker for collective positioning. Through the example of block talk we demonstrate that the platform’s curatorial infrastructure for drawing boundaries between public and private is continuously negotiated, and that this negotiation transforms the meaning of some of the default communicative affordances of the platform but also creates its own routines of making public. On the one hand, we show how users adapt conversational devices such as hashtags, screenshots, and @-mentions in the context of block talk. On the other hand, we present examples of Twitter users’ normative reflections about blocking and discuss them as processes of metapragmatic enregisterment. In the final discussion, we propose to integrate processes of routinized adaptation as well as reflexive enregisterment into a joint process of ‘communicative infrastructuring’.

Re‐tribalization in the 21st century, part 1

This exploratory study presents ‘re‐tribalization’ as a framework for comprehending contemporary global patterns and phenomena. It posits a link between the erosion of modernity's traits and a resurgence of tribal behaviour – the more elements that we associate with modernity diminish, the more we see the emergence of group formations akin to anthropological notions of tribes. This trend manifests not only in societies where tribal and lineage affiliations remain central to identity but also – perhaps more notably, considering modernity's promises – in developed nations, including global powerhouses like the USA, India and China. ‘Re‐tribalization’ signifies a modern‐day recourse to a so‐called tribal past, fortifying intra‐group cohesion and creating a distinction from other groups, thus delineating ‘us’ and ‘them’. This process highlights the drawing of boundaries between communities, positing that such delineations were more apparent in the past and need to be re‐established to navigate today's challenges and crises. The study traces the historical lineage of re‐tribalization appeals and their ties to nationalism, citing instances from Johann Gottfried Herder's works. This argument leverages the authors’ nearly two decades of ethnographic fieldwork, a collection of four studies and initial insights from their soon‐to‐be‐published book.

What’s Going on in the Hospital?: A Qualitative Study Investigating Patient Experiences of Prolonged Hospitalization After Video-assisted Thoracoscopic Surgery

Background: Patients with lung cancer in “enhanced recovery after surgery” programs are offered the prospect of early hospital discharge before undergoing surgery. Little is known about what patients experience when hospitalization lasts longer than expected. Objective: To explore patient experiences of prolonged hospitalization in an “enhanced recovery after surgery” program following video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery lobectomy. Methods: Fifteen face-to-face, nonstructured interviews were conducted with patients who had undergone surgery and were hospitalized for 7 days or more. Results: Six themes emerged regarding experiences and coping strategies: lacking information, drawing boundaries, coping with boredom, time for existential thoughts, relying on other patients for reflection, and sufficient time to worry about the aftermath. The analysis was based on Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutical approach and Antonovsky’s theory of sense of coherence (SOC). Conclusions: Patients had various strategies for coping with their situation when hospitalized for a prolonged period in an “enhanced recovery after surgery” program. Health care professionals had an important role in supporting patients’ individual coping strategies to help patients maintain a SOC. Implications for Practice: The findings can be used to understand how patients experience hospitalization when their trajectory deviates from standardized programs. Need for an individual approach to patients is recommended. Foundational: The results indicate an important role for nursing care in “enhanced recovery after surgery” programs and underscore that an individualized approach to patients can bolster coping strategies and thus a SOC.

Performing nationalism – Sámi culture and diversity in early education in Norway

Kindergartens are institutional arenas for raising the nation through educating children in an every-day setting. With the implementation of the Framework Plan of 2017 (FP), the notion of “Sàmi culture” became part of the mandatory curriculum in all Norwegian kindergartens for the first time. All kindergartens are now expected to ensure that children develop respect for, and solidarity with, the diversity of Sàmi culture. This paper based on policy analysis and interviews in kindergartens investigates how the notion of “Sàmi culture” is part of the national Framework Plan (FP) for kindergartens and how it is understood and implemented in kindergartens. The concept of everyday nationalism sheds light on tensions involved in including indigenous rights and perspectives in a national Framework Plan. Including indigenous rights and cultures as part of a national Framework Plan can widen the content of what it means to belong in a national state as well as sharpen the lines and maintain boundaries. Conceptions of diversity are an integral part of the messiness involved in drawing boundaries and in the making of the everyday nationalism, suggesting that the relationship between diversity and everyday nationalism deserves more interrogation.

Aeg, sotsiaalse aja kiirenemine ja ajalised taktikad Eesti muuseumitöötajate vaates

This article seeks to map out the use of time and instances of acceleration of social time as experienced by museum employees. It is also an attempt to delineate the danger points resulting from the acceleration of social time and the respective coping strategies employed in museums. Although certain aspects of time, such as deadlines or duration of work, are often clearly fixed by the documents guiding museum work, time is a more multifaceted phenomenon than the typically regulated time units would suggest. Thus, by paying attention to different dimensions of time and discussing the symptoms and problems of the acceleration of social time, we may gain a clearer understanding of one of the sources of possible conflicts in hectic everyday work, both theoretically and practically. Drawing on the theories of acceleration of social time, it is also possible to address some of the more difficult-to-measure aspects of time, i.e. its subjective and social aspects. Taking this theoretical framework as a starting point, this article draws upon semi-structured interviews conducted with eight Estonian museum workers. The interviews were analyzed using the tenets of constructivist grounded theory. The collection of data for the research took place in the disruptive spring of 2020, when due to the emergency situation, museums were initially completely closed to visitors and museum employees were encouraged to use more flexible work forms than before. The changes caused by the emergency situation and the corona crisis are therefore also discussed in this article. With regard to time, there are three major topic areas: the conceptualization of time more generally, a multitude of work tasks and social pressure in time management. All three topics are related to the gaining of control over one's work time, and as a result, it is possible to develop strategies to overcome the challenges faced in these three areas. Some of the aspects through which time conceptualization may be perceived include: setting aside time for tasks that require deeper focus (as urgent, more superficial tasks press their way into the working day anyway), balancing between scheduled and freely planned activities in the working day and the creation of time buffers. Miscellaneous work tasks that multiplied even more with the arrival of the emergency situation in 2020 reflect the multitude of work tasks, as do longer- and shorter-term shifts of attention from one task to another and then back again as well as the techniques for managing work tasks. Some of the manifestations of social pressure accompanying time management include the continual attention to colleagues, visitors and interest groups, the daily, weekly and yearly work rhythms as well as the drawing of boundaries necessitated by the urgency of some tasks. In all three of the topic areas regarding time, there is a search for a certain temporal balance in work activities both at the level of the museum employee and the museum, while the balance may consist of various details. It is all the more necessary to understand the use of time in its entire multiplicity as part of the default knowledge of museum work which needs to be introduced to new colleagues as well, and which must be taken into account when communicating and cooperating with representatives of fields closely related to museum work (e.g. teachers, journalists).

Confronting the figure of the "mad scientist" in psychedelic history: LSD's use as a correctional tool in the postwar period.

Since reports about CIA-funded LSD studies came out in the 1970s, psychedelic drugs have invoked images of unethical experimentation and "mad scientists" in the public imagination. Even now, as the stigma surrounding psychedelics diminishes in the 21st century, the figure of the "mad scientist" continues to occupy a space in what Ido Hartogsohn calls the "collective set and setting," the larger framework of cultural understandings that shape how individuals experience psychedelic drugs. Scientists and humanities scholars who study these drugs have responded to this issue by drawing boundaries between those who used psychedelics carefully and those who used them ignorantly. Yet these boundaries were not always so clear in the past. Drawing on historical examples of LSD's use as a correctional tool in Canada, I show how enthusiasm about the drug's potential led several experienced and knowledgeable psychedelic therapists to use it on vulnerable populations in diverse institutional settings, such as correctional facilities. These examples reveal how the institutional context of modern industrial societies shaped the application of psychedelic therapy in the past and suggest that today's therapists need to carefully consider how this broader context impacts their work.

Gender Confirmation Work, Rest, and Symbolic Boundaries in (Trans)Gender Support Groups

Research on transgender identity and community boundaries has developed steadily over the last decade, but many of the inquiries center around personal identity boundaries and development rather than collective boundary drawing. To understand how and why gendered symbolic boundaries are drawn and enforced in shared spaces, I collected and analyzed qualitative data from thirteen in-depth interviews with trans people in gender support groups in the United States. I investigated the symbolic boundaries that members of gender support groups draw around who “counts” as trans, who is welcome in the groups, and factors that influence boundary drawing. I found that trans participants engage in high amounts of emotional work, that I term gender confirmation work, to uphold their gender identities in a cisnormative world. Consequently, gender support groups function as space of rest from work, and boundaries are drawn to ensure rest inside the groups. My study on gender support group membership boundaries advances new terms to describe trans people’s response to gender-based harm. My findings also demonstrate how trans people—a marginalized population—employ group strategies for navigating cisgender-dominant society.

Sámi Literature in Norwegian Language Arts Textbooks

Sámi Literature in Norwegian Language Arts Textbooks