Essentialist Approach Research Articles

Overcoming Essentialism? Students’ Reflections on Learning Intercultural Communication Online

The fields of intercultural communication (IC) and intercultural education are in flux and the paradigmatic shift is away from essentialist approaches on culture and interculturality towards seeing IC and interculturality as flexible, fluid, contradictory, political, and ideological constructs. This study presents a virtual exchange project, a joint introductory course on IC between a Finnish university and a French university. One of the objectives of the course was to provide students with a more critical, non-essentialist perspective on interculturality. This study presents an analysis of 32 students’ texts (learning logs) that are processed qualitatively using content analysis to find answers to questions of (1) how students make sense of their experience of learning IC through multilingual online interactions, and (2) how different approaches on culture and interculturality are reflected in students’ leaning logs. The learning logs are written by participants during their six-week learning experience. The findings indicate that students gained confidence in interacting with people from diverse backgrounds and using multiple languages. How students reacted to and reflected on the more critical perspective on interculturality varied greatly, with many learning logs seeming to juggle between different approaches. The online environment was considered a major source of concern prior and at the beginning of the course, but as the course progressed it did not represent a barrier within the documented experiences. Our analysis aims to help teachers of IC to better address the needs of different learners. We also discuss the challenges and possibilities of a multilingual intercultural virtual exchange with a view to creating safe and motivating spaces for teaching and learning about interculturality.

Yeni Toplumsal Hareketlerde Kimlik Taleplerinin Dönüşümü

Kimlik konusu küreselleşme, ekonominin yapısal dönüşümü vb. süreçlerine paralel bir biçimde geniş kitlelerin farklı talepleri doğrultusunda yeniden şekillenmeye başlamıştır. Kimliğin evrensel ve özcü yaklaşımına karşılık farklılık temelinde ele alınması gerektiğine dair görüşler dillendirilmeye başlamıştır. Her kimliğin kendine özgü koşullar içerisinde ele alınması fikri, “öteki” olarak nitelendirilen kimliklerin de görünür olmasına imkân sağlamıştır. Bu minvalde kimlik geleneksel algısının ötesinde ve farklılıkları da içerecek şekilde daha kapsamlı bir şekilde ele alınmaya başlamıştır. Çevre hareketleri, barış hareketleri, kadın hareketleri vb. hareketler, ulus ötesine varan nitelikleri ile farklı coğrafya ve ideolojiden bireylerin ortak söylem, dil ve talepler doğrultusunda hareket ederek katılımcı diyalog zemininin oluşmasını sağlamıştır. Kimlik, yeni toplumsal hareketler ile birlikte siyasal bir talep şeklinde, kamusal hayatın merkezine yerleşmiştir.Bu çalışmada, eski ve yeni toplumsal hareketler kavramlarına yönelik literatür taraması yapılmış ve hareketler karşılaştırmalı olarak ele alınmıştır. Sonrasında kimliğin bu hareketler ile yaşadığı dönüşüme odaklanılmıştır. Yeni toplumsal hareketler ile yeniden şekillenen kimlik, farklılıklar ile birlikte ötekilik meselesini de gündeme getirmiş, kimliklerin homojen yapısından ziyade çok parçalılık ve çeşitlilik temelinde yeniden düşünülmesini gündeme getirmiştir. Kimliğin bu yapısı, taleplerin siyasallaşmasına ivme kazandıran bir gelişme olarak değerlendirilmektedir. Çevre ve kadın hareketleri, yeni toplumsal hareketler çerçevesinde farklı kimlik taleplerinin gündem olmasına zemin hazırlamıştır.

Essensializmin Yeniden Doğuşu: William Bagley ve Arthur Bestor’un Temel Eğitime Yönelik Bakış Açıları

In the historical process, different educational theories have emerged and these theories have affected the education systems of countries. In this process, an essentialist approach has emerged, which describes education as the transfer of cultural values and advocates the transfer of basic disciplines by the teacher. Essensialism, especially in the early 20th century, became an organized movement and turned into a theory as a result of the reactions it showed against the progressive understanding. The progressive education approach criticized by the Essensialists has affected the education system of many countries as well as the Turkish and American education systems. According to Essensialist thinkers, while the standards and achievements of European schools have increased recently, the academic standards of American schools, which adopt a progressive approach and ignore disciplined basic education, have decreased. The aim of this study is to analyze the ideas of William Bagley and Arthur Bestor, who think that progressive and constructivist theories weaken and weaken the education system, and who are considered to be the founders of the 20th century Essentialist approach. In the study, Bagley's views on basic education and his war against the progressive understanding that prioritizes student experience will be examined. In the next process, the disciplined intellectual education approach created by Bestor within the framework of liberal education and his criticisms of the progressive understanding that characterizes education as preparation for life will be analyzed.

Towards a trans‐regional approach to early medieval Iberia

AbstractThe past few decades have witnessed great change in the study of the early Middle Ages in the Northern Iberian Peninsula. Spanish and Portuguese historiographies have moved away from older grand narratives such as ‘Reconquest and Repopulation’, which traced a centuries‐long process encompassing the ultimate victory of Christianity over Islam and the construction of distinct nations or national societies. The basic tenets of these and other essentialist approaches to a period traditionally seen as the cradle of Spain and Portugal have been questioned and now superseded by a clearer awareness of the territorial diversity characterising the 8th to 11th centuries. Yet the ballast of both nationalism and regionalism has obstructed meaningful comparison amongst the Iberian regions to date. Drawing on the work of the research groupEarlyMedIberia, this article argues for a new trans‐regional approach to Northern Iberia, looking beyond political and geographical boundaries to consider the whole in a comparative light, and stressing the commonalities between regional and local societies. It does so by providing an overview of the extant charter material from before 1100 (indicating the principal editions) and by reviewing the major historiography. The conclusion proposes a closer assessment of the differences and similarities amongst regional historiographies, based on a more nuanced understanding of how they have been moulded by the specificities of the charter corpus in each region, as the first step towards a more integrated, contextualised, and rigorously comparative approach to the early Middle Ages in Northern Iberia.

Problematising ASEAN language policy

Abstract In a world where linguistic and cultural diversity is increasingly celebrated, opting for English as the sole working language, as stipulated in the ASEAN Charter, on pragmatic grounds, has made ASEAN an interesting case study from the language policy and planning (LPP) perspective. ASEAN’s LPP can be understood as the manifestation of the principles of the ‘ASEAN Way’, i.e., quiet diplomacy, non-interference, and flexible consensus. Drawing on an analysis of the three overarching principles of the ASEAN Way and with reference to the ASEAN Charter, this paper problematises the ASEAN Way of LPP, arguing that a monolingual and essentialist approach to LPP might be both insufficient and inappropriate, and calls for an ecology-of-languages paradigm for ASEAN LPP. It invites readers to reimagine language policy that is more inclusive, democratic and socially equitable – one that reflects the sociolinguistic diversity of Southeast Asia and the Association.

South Africa’s public higher education institutions, university research outputs, and contribution to national human capital

ABSTRACT This paper uses essentialism and human capital theory to argue that South Africa’s public universities are expected to contribute towards the production of national human capital and development. It also uses research output performance, academic staffing profile, and knowledge contributions to critical scientific fields such as mathematics and engineering to demonstrate that South Africa’s public universities have made negligible progress over the past 15 years. The paper deduces that these public universities have not made noticeable inputs to the national human capital development in the specific scientific fields, which the national labour market and economy needs. Instead, South Africa’s public universities’ relatively greater contribution has continued to be in social sciences and humanities when national development required chartered accountants, medical doctors, and engineers. The paper makes a conclusion that all these failures are explicable through the politics that have infiltrated the leadership of South Africa’s public higher education sector and the visionary deficits. As a recommendation, the paper notes that remedial measures can only start with the extrication of the public higher education sector from the ruling party and government politicking, which would allow university leadership the necessary ‘academic freedom’ to ensure that these institutions focus on the essentialist approaches.

Women and Their Uteruses: Symbolic Vessels for Prejudiced Expectations

What is a uterus to a woman and to society? This article calls for a holistic reevaluation of how we perceive and what we expect from women’s uteruses. We explore the powerful and deeply rooted cultural representations of women’s uteruses as mere receptacles and the impact of such representations on biological categories, medical practices, and current policies. Considering controversies surrounding hysterectomies, cesarean sections, and uterus transplants, we elucidate ambivalent narratives that either promote an essentialist approach where the uterus is emblematic of womanhood, or imply that the uterus is a dispensable organ useless outside of reproduction.

Sex Contextualism

This paper develops the conceptual framework of “sex contextualism” for the study of sex-related variables in biomedical research. Sex contextualism offers an alternative to binary sex essentialist approaches to the study of sex as a biological variable. Specifically, sex contextualism recognizes the pluralism and context-specificity of operationalizations of ‘sex’ across experimental laboratory research. In light of recent policy mandates to consider sex as a biological variable, sex contextualism offers constructive guidance to biomedical researchers for attending to sex-related biological variation. As an alternative to and critique of biological binary sex essentialism, sex contextualism contributes to current debates in philosophy of biology, feminist science studies, and social ontology on the construction of categories of gender/sex differences in scientific research.

Critical terrorism studies and the far-right: beyond problems and solutions?

ABSTRACT Recent years have witnessed increasing academic, media, and political attention to the threat of far-right terrorism. In this article, I argue that scholarship on this threat has suffered from two limitations, each with antecedents in terrorism research more broadly. First, is an essentialist approach to this phenomenon as an extra-discursive object of knowledge to be defined, explained, catalogued, risk assessed, and (ultimately) resolved. Second, is a temptation to emphasise, even accentuate, the scale of this threat. These limitations are evident, I argue, within scholarship motivated by a problem-solving aspiration for policy relevance. They are evident too, though, within critical interventions in which a focus on far-right terrorism is seen as an important corrective to established biases and blind spots within (counter-)terrorism research and practice. In response, I argue for an approach rooted in the problematisation and desecuritisation of the far-right threat. This, I suggest, facilitates important new reflection on the far-right’s production within and beyond terrorism research, as well as on the purposes and politics of critique therein.

Emigrants, Refugees, and the Post-Colonial Novel, or the In-Between as an Articulatory Space. Editorial Introduction

The issue of emigration and refugees is one of the major global problems of the contemporary world. The challenges faced by nations, states, and cultures in the face of the above-men­tioned phenomena include issues of social, historical, and cultural policy, but also an ethical dimension and the character of practical social involvement. Challenges to work through historical legacies and traumas in a spirit of respect for difference and the cultural legacy of peoples who were once colonised play an extremely important role. The multicultural ten­dency of the politics of history is inclined towards a project of entangled history or histoire croisée. In the context of increased emigration phenomena, it is necessary to rework and re­fashion the notion of nation, to remove from it the traces of an essentialist approach marked by nationalism and ethnocentrism. The most important challenge, however, is to change the way we think about the concepts of nation, emigration, and exile, i.e., to ‘decolonise minds’. The postcolonial novel is a literary genre that is closely related to the aforementioned chal­lenges. The key issues of the postcolonial novel are emigration and exile. The genre addresses the theme of emigration both synchronically, diagnosing current problems, but also histor­ically, recalling the colonial conditions of current relations. Emigrant narratives are about articulating the experience of being between cultures, countries, and times. The postcolonial novel provides an insight into the dynamics of changing attitudes of successive generations of emigrants towards the culture of the ancestral country and the country of present residence. The generational dynamics of the postcolonial and expatriate novel show the transformation of rhetoric from nostalgia to irony. As proposed by Rosi Braidotti, one can speak of a tran­sition from the figure of the outlaw to that of the nomad; the figure subversively oriented, questioning all restrictions and top-down imposed political and cultural orders.

Words, Species, and Kinds

It has been widely argued that words are analogous to species such that words, like species, are natural kinds. In this paper, I consider the metaphysics of word-kinds. After arguing against an essentialist approach, I argue that word-kinds are homeostatic property clusters, in line with the dominant approach to other biological and psychological kinds.

Juridifcation of the Concept of “Artifcial intelligence” and the Limits of the Use of Artifcial Intelligence Technology in the Judicial Process

The active development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology poses the question of how to integrate this phenomenon into legal reality, about the limits of using this technology in social practices regulated by law, and ultimately about developing an optimal model of legal regulation of AI. The paper focuses on the problem of developing the legal content of the concept of AI, including some methodological and ontological foundations of such work. The author brings to the scientific discussion certain constant characteristics of AI that are significant for legal regulation, which, if adopted by the legal scientific community, could be used as a scientifically sound basis for constructing specific variants of legal regulation that meet the needs of a particular sphere of social practice. The author believes that the scientifically based legal concept of AI is largely able to determine the direction and scope of applied legal research on the multidimensional problems of using AI technology in social interaction practices, including in the administration of justice, to distinguish the legal issues and problems related to this from ethical, philosophical, technological and other issues.According to the author, the task of forming the legal concept of AI is not limited to the formulation of specific legal definitions and cannot be solved at this level. The result of the juridification of the concept of AI should be a set of unchangeable (constant) legal characteristics, while specific definitions of this term in regulations may differ depending on the needs of legal regulation practice. In the work on the formation of a legally significant concept of AI, it is proposed to abandon the descriptive essentialist approach aimed at identifying the essence of AI in favor of an ascriptive constructivist approach, which involves attributing to the content of the concept of AI those legal properties that, on the one hand, are significant for the purposes of legal regulation, and on the other hand, limit the limits of legal regulation.

The strong arm of the law: a unified account of necessary and contingent laws of nature

A common feature of all standard theories of the laws of nature is that they are ‘absolutist’: They take laws to be either all metaphysically necessary or all contingent. Science, however, gives us reason to think that there are laws of both kinds, suggesting that standard theories should make way for ‘non-absolutist’ alternatives: theories which accommodate laws of both modal statuses. In this paper, we set out three explanatory challenges for any candidate non-absolutist theory, and discuss the prospects of the two extant candidates in light of these challenges. We then develop our own non-absolutist theory, the essentialist DTA account, which combines the nomic-necessitation or DTA account with an essentialist approach to metaphysical modality in order to meet the three explanatory challenges. Finally, we argue that the distinction between kinematical and dynamical laws found in physical theories supports both non-absolutism in general and our proposed essentialist DTA view in particular.

Narrative identity as a bridge between two historical models of identity: a sociologist’s perspective

The current concepts of identity widespread throughout social sciences are basically linked to two historical models. One is connected to psychology, while the other is related to sociology. In psychology, the concept of identity is traditionally considered to come from the work of Erik Erikson, who considers that identity is to be found in the deep structure of personality. Erikson studies the development of identity. He attributes central importance to the question of man’s inner unity. In sociology, the concept of identity is usually linked to George Herbert Mead, who traces identity back to interaction between the individual and society. According to this, identity is shaped by social conventions, which can be conveyed by a profession, a role or a social situation. As those constantly undergo change, the individual’s identity is continuously changing as well. Erikson’s is regarded as an essentialist approach, whereas Mead’s is called a constructivist one. The problem is not that there are differences between these two historical models, but that their adherents never or hardly ever reflect upon each other’s views. A solution to this problem could be offered through the concept of narrative identity, to which the author of this study attributes a bridging role, due to the recent appearance of several new theories which consciously undertake to “reconcile” the two historical models (“the double track”). The present study starts by describing the development and deepening of the current chasm between the two historical models. Next, it outlines several theories of narrative identity which are becoming increasingly popular both in sociology and in psychology. While the influence of the two historical models can also be detected in the theories of narrative identity, they make a perceivable effort to play a bridging role. If sociology wants to use narratives as sources in the research of identity, it should take into account the fact that the individual is striving to reach a kind of inner identity and stability even in late modern circumstances. Likewise, if narratives are to be used for research in psychology, it must be acknowledged that social circumstances in our modern world are extremely changeable, which hinders the formation of a stable, inner identity core. I suggest that that narrative identity started to be seen as bridge. In sociology, no reflection upon this process has begun yet. The aim of this study is to articulate the problem and to promote further reflection in sociology and psychology as well.

HUSH WOMAN! THE COMPLEX ‘DISABLED’ WOMAN IN NIGERIA’S LEGAL AND HUMAN RIGHTS FRAMEWORK: A DECONSTRUCTION

Few studies have paid enough attention to the relationship that exists between law and the oppression that women in Nigeria face, mainly when this oppression manifests as sexism and disability discrimination simultaneously. The interest has mostly been on the oppression that manifests as sexism and disability discrimination as separate issues. Yet, reality shows that many women in Nigeria have sustained injuries as a result of sexist oppression and have become disabled. This situation is testament to the interactions and intersections that exist between identity categories of sex/gender and disability as well as resultant oppression of sexism and disability discrimination. However, these interactions are rarely acknowledged. Against this backdrop, the objective of this article is to ask the question: Who is a disabled woman in Nigeria? By asking the question, the intention is to expose the Nigerian legal framework's definition of the disabled woman as 'born and essentialist'. Yet, unlike the essentialist approach that law and human rights adopt, I demonstrate, how the identity categories of womanhood and disability that a disabled woman embodies are unstable and fluid. Unfortunately, Nigeria's legal and human rights framework hardly contemplates this fluidity and instability. I posit in the conclusion that particularly where it concerns women, Nigeria's legal and human rights framework can no longer afford to define violations of rights as if disability and sex/gender are entirely separate, stable, monolithic and essentialist identity categories.

Феноменалистическое понимание ценностей

The paper aims to reveal foundations for phenomenological understanding of values, a promising alternative to the essentialist approach, less flexible in studying modern realia. Scientific originality of the research lies in the fact that affective characteristic of a worldview element is for the first time considered as an autonomous “meaning”, which makes it possible to interpret values as special signs and to develop their hierarchy according to internal logic of digital reality. The research findings are as follows: the author introduces the notion “basic values of worldview”; these values are inherent to a particular worldview and can serve as a basis to compare cultures.

Prisca Theologia and Retrograde Phenomenology at Eranos : Corbin, Eliade, not Scholem

The article proposes a re-evaluation of the Eranos meetings by analyzing its underlying aspects as a «laboratory of spiritual scholarship». To this aim, the first half of the article highlights R. Otto’s approach to religious experience as a source of inspiration for the Eranos project, as the mentor of Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, and it advances three key terms to understand the atemporal character of the lectures held at Ascona and their connections to Renaissance thinking. The first one, prisca theologia, is the assumption that Christianity «preserved» an ancient mystery which granted it a triumphalism perspective both over other religions and traditional forms of Judaism. I will propose the second key term as retrograde phenomenology, an essentialist approach designed to uncover alleged ancient mysteries and superior forms of religious ontology. The third term necessary to comprehend the Eranos enterprise is academic mystagogy, here regarded as the elaboration of uniquely «inspired» methods of interpreting religious texts. The second part of the article revisits the scholarly triad of Henry Corbin, Mircea Eliade, and Gershom Scholem, famously associated with the Eranos enterprise by Steven Wasserstrom, more than two decades ago, and suggests a reassessment of their roles at the Ascona meetings. I suggest that Henry Corbin’s form of academic mystagogy embodied forms of subjective interpretations of the role of imagination in Sufi texts, while Mircea Eliade’s search for pristine origins promoted an imagined archaic highly endowed with ontological significance. Finally, I situate Gershom Scholem’s historical approach in direct opposition to Corbin and Eliade’s mystagogical and perrenial projects and suggest considering the Kabbalah scholar as a theoretical mystic, whose work explored the tensions between academic and metaphysical approaches to religion.

The Ontophobic Turn

My paper sketches a critical historcization of the post-heideggerian philosophy of technology, i.e. of the so called Empirical Turn. In particular, I emphasize its Ontophobic Outcome and its consequent Genetivization. In 1997 Hans Achterhuis publishes a volume (American Philosophy of Technology: The Empirical Turn), which presents an overview of the post-continental (i.e. American) philosophy of technology. Achterhuis argues that from the eighties of the last century the philosophy of technology must be traced back to its Empirical Turn, i.e. its rejection of the essentialist approach inspired by Heidegger. The Empirical Turn, or the second generation of philosophers of technology, is characterized by a pragmatist, optimistic and constructivist approach. My thesis is that during these 35 years the Empirical Turn has proven to be an Ontophobic Turn. By this expression, I mean an over-reaction against Heidegger’s legacy. This over-reaction consists of a two-stage process. On one side we have the rejection of the potential ‘mystical drift’ involved in Heidegger’s approach. I consider it a legitimate rejection, i.e. a physiological parricide by the second generation of scholars, in order to free itself from a bulky legacy. However, this physiological parricide gradually turned into an illegitimate rejection, that is an over-reaction (total refuse) against Heidegger’s legacy. Such an overreaction equates to an exclusive interest in the ontic dimension of technology, i.e. an a priori disinterest in its ontological implications. These implications finally become a taboo, i.e. a real Onto-phobia. The benchmark of this change of attitude in the philosophy of technology is the lexical replacement of its object (the transition from “technology” to “technologies”) and its main outcome the “Mr Wolf Syndrome”, namely the transformation of the philosophy of technology into a problem solving activity. In turn, this syndrome produces the eclipse of the epistemic difference between “problem” and “question”, i.e. the metamorphosis of the philosophy of technology into a “positive Wissenschaft”. With reference to this state of things my objection is the following. If the philosophy of technology turns into a search for solutions of the concrete problems emerging from the single technologies, it must be admitted that this kind of activity is performed much better by ‘experts’ than by philosophers. As a result, the Ontophobic Turn culminates in the disappearance of the reason itself for a philosophical approach to the question of technology. The paradoxical fulfilment of the Empirical Turn should be therefore the self-overcoming of the philosophy of technology. To avoid the current Genetivization of the philosophy of technology is necessary a countermovement towards its Ontophobic Turn. The first step of an Ontophilic Turn (i.e. the foundation of a “Philosophy of Technology in the Nominative Case”) consists of the right metabolization of Heidegger’s legacy, i.e. of a Heidegger-renaissance within this discipline. The final goal of this renaissance is the safeguard of the Fragwürdigkeit of technology as philosophical Grundfrage.

Reading Identity, Reading Essence: A Strategic Essentialist Approach to Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable

The term strategic essentialism, coined by Spivak, is generally understood as “a political strategy whereby differences (within Group) are temporarily downplayed, and unity assumed for the sake of achieving political goals.” On the other hand, essentialism focuses that everything in this world has an intrinsic and immutable essence of its own. The adaption of a particular “nature” of one group of people by way of sexism, culturalization, and ethnification is strongly linked to the idea of essentialism. Mulk Raj Anand’s Bakha is dictated as an outcast by the institutionalized hierarchy of caste practice. He is essentialized as an untouchable by attributing to him the characteristic of dirt and filth. However, unlike other untouchables, Bakha can apprehend the difference between the cultured and uncultured, dirt and cleanliness. Via an analysis of Anand’s “Untouchable,” the present article aims to bring to the forefront the horrid destruction of the individual self that stems from misrepresentations of personality. Through strategic essentialism, it unravels Bakha’s contrasting nature as opposed to his pariah class, defied by his remarkable inner character and etiquette. The term condemns the essentialist categories of human existence. It has been applied to decontextualize and deconstruct the inaccurately essentialized identity of Bakha, which has made him a part of the group he does not actually belong to.

The Theoretical and Methodological Status of the Concept of Religion According to the Essentialist Interpretation of Ethnic Community in Foreign Researches

The article focuses on the theoretical and methodological status of the concept of religion in the essentialist interpretation of ethnic community by analyzing the material of foreign researches. The key effort is to reveal whether the essentialist views on ethnic communities are compatible with the constructivist paradigm of religion. The essentialist approach to the notion of an ethnic community now develops in the frame of primordialism, which can be divided into two main directions: cultural and socio-biological. Proponents of the former concentrate on a detailed description of cultural differences between ethnic communities, with cultural diversity being accepted only to describe the essence of a particular ethnic community. Sociobiological primordialists deny cultural features’ status at the face of biological evolution. The common theoretical assumption of primordialisms turns out to be the essentialist vision: an ethnic community is endowed with the essence defined by a number of attributes, including religion. The constructivist approach, however, suggests that religion has no referent in reality and its notion is defined conventionally and empirically. Accepting this approach would deprive religion of its essence. Rendering the essence of religion relative, therefore, means blurring the boundaries defining the essence of an ethnic community. This consequence clearly contradicts the essentialist approach to an ethnic community. Thus, embracing an essentialist approach to ethnic community leads to the need to adopt the essentialist interpretation of religion.