Essentialist Approach Research Articles

Od redaktorów: W kierunku refleksyjności, inkluzyjności i różnorodności – znaczenie płci w studiach nad niepełnosprawnością

Celem artykułu jest wprowadzenie w tematykę numeru specjalnego poświęconego zaprezentowaniu znaczenia płci, która w relacji z niepełnosprawnością i innymi czynnikami demograficzno-społecznymi wpływa na konstruowane tożsamości i wypełniane role społeczne osób z niepełnosprawnościami. Wymagało to przedstawienia obecnych w tradycji badań nad niepełnosprawnością nurtów metodologicznych i prześledzenia dominujących współcześnie podejść badawczych. Analiza ta pozwoliła zauważyć odchodzenie w ostatnich dekadach od traktowania niepełnosprawności jako nadrzędnej kategorii umożliwiającej wyjaśnienie wszystkich aspektów funkcjonowania osób z niepełnosprawnościami. Zastąpiło ją dostrzeganie wzajemnego wpływu różnych czynników demograficznych i społecznych determinujących położenie społeczne osób z niepełnosprawnościami. Ten trend dostrzegalny jest w badaniach nad płcią prowadzonych w ramach studiów nad niepełnosprawnością. Odrzucają one podejście esencjalistyczne i podążają w kierunku analiz o charakterze konstruktywistycznym i intersekcjonalnym. Takie podejście pozwala na ukazanie wielowymiarowości i złożoności samego zjawiska niepełnosprawności, które wymyka się prostej dychotomii sprawny/niepełnosprawny.

The changing discourse of intercultural ethics: a diachronic meta-analysis

ABSTRACT Contemporary epistemological debates on how to research interculturality frequently draw on either side of a schism between positivist and essentialist approaches vs. critical and poststructuralist paradigms. The debate lives from its retrospective either-or character dividing the history of research on interculturality into a first epoch of epistemological naiveté and a more recent age of ethical consideration and reflection. This dichotomy however is too simplistic, and it blurs our views from perceiving a more complex present and past reality. This study assumes that research on interculturality has always built on normative orientations from social discourse and that this discourse has been under permanent change. Accordingly, it assumes that there has not been a paradigm shift or break in research but that this shift has only been used as a hegemonic instrument in inner-disciplinary discourses. This study re-traces this changing discourse of intercultural ethics using a grounded theory approach to central literature from the field. Since the 1960s, four epochs of different normative orientations have been identified from pragmatism via modesty and then a new hope up to a most recent epoch of new explorations. This results in a more complex picture of the normative discourse on interculturality beyond the positivism-poststructuralism debate.

Rethinking youth bulge theory in policy and scholarship: incorporating critical gender analysis

Abstract For decades ‘youth bulge’ theory has dominated understandings of youth in mainstream International Relations. Youth bulge theory has also become part of some public media analyses, mainstream political rhetoric, and even officially enshrined in the foreign policy of some states. Through the ‘youth bulge’ lens, youth—especially males—have been presented as current or future perpetrators of violence. However, this article argues that the youth bulge thesis postulated in mainstream IR is based on flawed theoretical assumptions. In particular, supporters of youth bulge theory fail to engage with existing research by feminist IR scholars and thus take on a biological essentialist approach. This has led to theoretical and practical misunderstandings of the roles youth play in relation to conflict, peace and security. These partial and biased understandings have also resulted in less effective policy-making. In critically reflecting on the ‘youth bulge’ thesis, this article argues that applying gender analysis is crucial to understanding the involvement of young people in general—and young men in particular—in conflict. Doing so will contribute to advancing more accurate analysis in scholarship and policy-making.

Long Strange Journey: On Modern Zen, Zen Art, and Other Predicaments by Gregory P. A. Levine

Reviewed by: Long Strange Journey: On Modern Zen, Zen Art, and Other Predicaments by Gregory P. A. Levine Toshio Watanabe (bio) Long Strange Journey: On Modern Zen, Zen Art, and Other Predicaments. By Gregory P. A. Levine. University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu, 2017. xiv, 328 pages. $62.00. Whether we like it or not, Zen seems to feature everywhere, from a Shiseido perfume bottle to a brand of breakfast cereal, from an advertisement for Mercedes Benz to the sign on a more modest hair salon. Restaurants with "Zen" in their names exist in Dallas, the Real Madrid football ground, Saipan, and Nairobi, among other places. Even in the Veneto region in Italy, where Zen is a well-known family name unrelated to the Oriental Zen, most restaurants with "Zen" in their name offer sushi and other Japanese delicacies. The spread of Zen is truly global. What, however, do we mean by this "Zen"? This wonderful book tries to answer this very question. The main title of the book Long Strange Journey is suitably enigmatic and Zen-like, but the subtitle On Modern Zen, Zen Art, and Other Predicaments is more to the point. The book's main focus is on the modern period and it deals with the discourse of Zen, Zen art, and Zen within more popular manifestations. Gregory P. A. Levine provides many examples of Zen art and Zen in everyday life, including some hilarious cartoons. However, what is most impressive and original is his methodology in approaching this topic. This study is highly erudite, interdisciplinary, against essentialist [End Page 279] approaches, and very aware of the historicity of the subject, but it is also open and honest about its own subjectivity. It is a definitive study of this topic. Let us unpack this. Levine's erudition is astonishing. There are nearly 1,000 endnotes in this volume, which show that much of the evidence is taken from primary material. He warns us that this study is not comprehensive, but this just means that he couldn't include everything. Also, the point of the book is that this is not a survey of the subject but a critical analysis of the phenomenon of modern Zen and Zen art. If you want to know what these are about, this is the book you should read. The introduction and coda give a good overview of the author's approach. The eight chapters start with one on the period from the mid-nineteenth up to the early twentieth century and another on D. T. Suzuki, the most influential modern writer on Zen. Subsequent chapters consider Zen iconoclasm, Zen art, the postwar Zen boom, the postwar Zen influence on art, Zen and humor, and popular and commercial Zen, including Zen design. Long Strange Journey is a highly interdisciplinary, transnational study with North America as the primary focus. Any historian of postwar American art would need this book and anybody interested in Zen art would want to consult it. The book also shows that Levine is very well versed in premodern Japanese Zen art, as his book Daitokuji: The Visual Cultures of a Zen Monastery (University of Washington Press, 2005) also attests. This means he knows a lot about Zen Buddhism, and this new publication is essential reading for the student of modern Zen Buddhism as well, although one should note that it deals more with the history rather than the theology of this religion. It is also a transnational study with North America as the primary focus. One minor complication with such an interdisciplinary work is that some terms are rather esoteric to nonspecialists in particular fields. The greatest contribution of this book is perhaps its nuanced way of dealing with its subject, avoiding an essentialist approach. Unfortunately, the literature on Zen published in both East and West has been, and still is, riddled with comments on the "true" or "correct" Zen. Levine navigates this tricky terrain beautifully. While reading this, I was repeatedly saying "yes!" He is critical of the purist approach but also declares that this book is not intended as Zen-bashing. He resists cynicism, as he is not advocating for relativism or a free-for-all. Though...

In Search of an Evanescent Object: Science and Its History

The authors start from the premise that science is an empirical manifold and then examine different ways of dealing with it. The traditional essentialist approach would construct a single “essence,” a unique and normative set of distinctive qualities that is to be found with minor variations in any branch of science. The usual elements in such a set are the concepts of fact, method, theory, experiment, verification and falsification, while any social, political and cultural processes or factors are discounted as external and collateral. This approach would provide a relatively straightforward account of what science is and reliably distinguish science from everything that is not science so that its claim to autonomy would be supported by a normative “strong” image of science. The history of science would then be reduced to a selection of illustrations of how that essence was formed and implemented. The most well-known versions of this essence and strong image are derived from a logical positivist philosophy of science and from the self-descriptions of many scientists, which are usually considered the authoritative explanation of science and often referred to when science is popularized. The authors point out some considerations that cast doubt on this privilege of self-description. Furthermore, scientificity requires that science itself become an object of specialized research. Studying the activities of scientists and scientific communities using the empirical methods of sociology, history and anthropology has exposed a divergence between the normative “strong” image and the actually observed variety of sciences, methodologies, ways to be scientists, etc. When those empirical disciplines are applied to science, they do not provide an alternative “strong” image of it, but instead construct a relativized and pluralistic “weak” one. The authors locate the crux of the dilemma of choosing between these images of science at the point where the desire to study science meets the urge to defend its autonomy. The article closes by briefly describing the current state of the history of science and outlining the possible advantages of choosing the “weak” image.

The Spillovers of Competition: Value-based Activism and Political Cross-fertilization in an Indian Campus

The recent spur of student-led mobilizations in India led to the portrayal of select public universities as the epitome of resistance, dissent and countercultural politics. Departing from essentialist approaches to student politics, this article outlines the processes by which campus spaces activate the formation of political attitudes among participants. It builds on an archival and ethnographic account of educated youth politics in one of the most politicized universities in the country, Jawaharlal Nehru University. I suggest that everyday political competition among student organizations is a central condition for the development of dissonant political participation, as it enables both inter-cohort political socialization and the spilling over of ideological idioms to the sociologically diverse student groups on campus. I argue that mechanisms of political outbidding sustained by politically enterprising student collectives nurture value-based dissent by continually emulating political counter-narratives while fostering ideational cross-fertilization.

Feminism in Cyprus: women’s agency, gender, and peace in the shadow of nationalism

ABSTRACT This article explores the ways in which feminist and women’s agency is articulated in the Cypriot context through the paradigms of nationalism, peace, and conflict. It does so to broaden our understanding of gendered and peace agency in troubled and divided societies, in which complex and conflicting discourses meet. Analyzing data from interviews with feminist and women’s groups’ representatives, it examines how nationalism and women’s approaches to gender, politics, peace, and conflict enable or restrict feminist and women’s agency. It finds that a strategic essentialist approach has initiated a reconfiguration of gender(ed) power relations, women’s agency, and peacebuilding processes. It argues that when this approach is combined with feminist theory and praxis and the employment of transnational peace paradigms, the possibilities for feminist and women’s agency increase, as long as feminist scholarship and grassroots activism inform each other through dialogue. Therefore, it highlights the nuanced and complex dialectic between essentialist and anti-essentialist feminist gender discourses. Moreover, it challenges theories that posit a rigidly hierarchical relation between local and transnational gendered and peace agency paradigms, by demonstrating their malleability and reciprocity. Thus, it contributes to the debate about the modalities and possibilities of feminist sociopolitical intervention in nationalism- and conflict-ridden contexts.

Reformulating ‘Holism' in hydropower decision‐making

AbstractThis paper investigates the necessary‐impossible paradox facing hydropower decision‐makers of the Mekong River Commission: that aspiring towards a holistic risk assessment is both socially useful and necessary, but also meaningless and impossible (because the future remains unknown). The thesis here is that to come to terms with this paradox, a Luhmannian inspired relational model offers superior analytical tools compared with an Aristotelian essentialist approach. This is because where the latter typically employs integrative approaches which attempt to show why through rational reasoning risk assessments are holistic, the former takes into account that holistic risk assessments are contingent on the observer, on an organisation's position within a network, and on the ‘temporal atoms' that mark the ‘time' of social systems. By employing a relational framework comprised of variation, selection and retention to capture this comparative sociology of the observer, the contribution here offers a radical reformulation of holism in hydropower decision‐making.

Language ideologies and English in Chinese primary education

ABSTRACT English education has been promoted widely in China and has driven scholarly attention to young Chinese learners of English. However, not much has been done to address language ideologies embedded in English education oriented towards young Chinese learners from a perspective informed by the research on the global spread of English as a lingua franca (ELF). To narrow the gap, we adopt an ELF perspective to investigate textbook representations and teacher perceptions of English in relation to culture and identity in Chinese primary education. The findings demonstrate a Standard English ideology and an essentialist approach to language. We thus argue for a reconsideration of ‘English’ in primary education in order to empower young generations of English learners in China. While English is an essential language for international engagement, it is necessary to reconsider the relationship between English and China and to review the ownership of English.

Human Dignity: Between the Existentialist and the Essentialist Approaches

Human dignity is an important part of Western culture, which has spread over the world, and theses on it can be considered in and applied to various spheres of human life and whole societies. In this paper, a selected aspect of dignity is undertaken, namely, how we get to know and understand dignity. This aspect is considered by personalists and other philosophers interested in shedding some light on human dignity. Two approaches to the matter are adopted and contrasted: existentialist and essentialist. The former stresses how dignity is discovered and how it exists in its very essence, via experience and phenomenological insight. The latter concentrates on the description of personal characteristics and other relevant factors, which result in a thesis on dignity. In the conclusions, the author points out that these two approaches should not be considered as alternatives contending with each other but rather narratives complementing one another.

What Can We Do for Amphibians and Reptiles at Schools? Between Personal Conceptions, Conceptual Change and Students' Pro-Environmental Attitudes.

Simple SummaryAmphibians and reptiles play an important role in ecosystems, usually in the middle of trophic networks, but at the same time they are one of the most endangered groups. Their value seems still to be underestimated by society and is based on many misconceptions and a simple lack of knowledge, which in turn might influence society’s willingness to protect these animals. The authors investigated students’ conceptions about amphibians and reptiles, then designed a teaching sequence in order to trace some possible conceptual changes and to shape pro-environmental attitudes towards amphibians and reptiles.Students’ conceptions and conceptual change are deeply investigated phenomena, and the results of such studies can be implemented in the didactic process. For this research, amphibians and reptiles were chosen, because they are animals which are significant for ecosystems but at the same time are often confused with each other. The goal of this study was to investigate students’ conceptions about both groups, and on the basis of the results to design a teaching sequence (TS) which could lead to conceptual and attitudinal change. Authors used questionnaires and in-depth interviews to investigate conceptions and the results of the intervention. The significant correlations show that students tend to classify animals as amphibians or reptiles according to their skin and their living environment. Students’ conceptions about animals indicate a tendency of being focused on purposefulness towards environment and evolution, and therefore can be considered an essentialist approach. The alternative conceptions did not change much after intervention, and results did not differ between age or gender groups. On the other hand, conceptions after intervention were more developed, and students asked more diverse questions about evolution and environmental protection, indicating their growing interest in these animals and attitudinal change.

Beyond Essentialist Interreligious Education: Insights with a Whiteheadian Perspective of Multiplicity

In the late twentieth century, interreligious education emerged as a way to transform one’s attitude toward other religions and reduce religious prejudice. This article addresses the philosophical aspects of this practice, in particular the problems that arise when an essentialist approach is accommodated. The problems include the why (philosophical rationale), the who (subject and participant), the what (content), and the future (purpose). In response, the author explores how a relational approach grounded in a Whiteheadian philosophy of multiplicity would allow us to understand interreligious education differently. The article finds that a relational approach can help us imagine and embody interreligious education in a more humanizing, inclusive, and transformative way.

Diseño y artesanado: una mirada contemporánea

Resumen
 El escaso reconocimiento de la identidad y estética presentes en el artesanado y uso de la Caña flecha (Gynerium Sagittatum) de las culturas indígenas Zenú, plantea la necesidad de indagar sobre cómo entender el diálogo entre el diseño, el artesanado y procesos de producción industrial orientados hacia la innovación de procesos y productos en un contexto de sustentabilidad. Mediante una revisión bibliográfica organizada en dos fases, la primera consistente en la búsqueda de artículos científicos y libros y la segunda en el análisis, permitió clasificar la información en dos categorías: 1) Design, Handcraft y nuevas tendencias y 2) Design y Decolonization. Como resultado se muestran aspectos críticos en la relación entre diseño, artesanado y conocimiento indígena. En esta búsqueda se discute sobre el potencial que, desde el diseño, hace posible generar procesos de innovación y se presenta el diseño contemporáneo como una disciplina de síntesis que responde a un enfoque culturalista o esencialista del diseño con grandes capacidades de empoderamiento y emancipación en contextos periféricos. Esto permitió cuestionar sobre cuáles metodologías permiten acercarse a la comprensión del legado de las culturas y los procesos de artesanado.
 Palabras clave: Artesanía; diseño centrado en el sujeto; diseño sustentable; humanismo proyectual; materiales tradicionales; tradiciones indígenas;
 
 AbstractThe low recognition of the identity and aesthetics present in the craft and use of the cane arrow (Gynerium Sagittatum) of the Zenú indigenous cultures, propose the need to inquire about how to understand the dialogue between design, craftsmanship and industrial production oriented processes towards the innovation of processes and products in a context of sustainability. Through a bibliographic review organized in two phases, the first consisting of the search for scientific articles and books and the second in the analysis, allowed the classification of information into two categories: 1) Design, Handcraft and new trends and 2) Design and Decolonization. As a result, critical aspects are shown in the relationship between design, crafts and indigenous knowledge. This search discusses the potential that, from design, makes it possible to generate innovation processes and presents contemporary design as a discipline of synthesis that responds to a culturalist or essentialist approach to design with great empowerment and emancipation capabilities in contexts peripherals This allowed us to question which methodologies allow us to approach the understanding of the legacy of cultures and craft processes.
 Keywords: Crafts; subject-centered design; sustainable design; projective humanism; traditional materials; indigenous traditions;

Locating Savitribai Phule’s Feminism in the Trajectory of Global Feminist Thought

Initially, the feminist thought was based on Humanist approach, that is, the sameness or essentialist approach of feminism. But recently, gender and feminism have evolved as complicated terms and gender identification as a complicated phenomenon. This is due to the identification of multiple intersectionalities around gender, gender relations and power hierarchies. There are intersections based on age, caste, class, abilities, ethnicity, race, sexuality and other societal divisions. Apart from these societal intersections, intersection can also be sought in the theory of feminism like historical materialist feminisms, postcolonial and anti-racist feminisms, liberal feminism, radical feminisms, sexual difference feminisms, postmodern feminisms, queer feminisms, cyber feminisms, post-human feminisms and most recent choice feminisms and so on. Furthermore, In India, there have been assertions for Dalit/Dalit bahujan/ abrahmini/ Phule-Ambedkarite feminisms. Gender theorists have evolved different approaches to study gender. In addition to the distinction between a biosocial and a strong social constructionist approach, distinctions have been made between essentialist and constructionist approaches. The above theories and approaches present differential understandings of intersections between discourse, embodiment and materiality, and sex and gender. The present article will endeavour to bring out the salient points in the feminist ideology of Savitribai Phule as a crusader for gender justice and will try to locate her feminist ideology in the overall trajectory of global feminist thought. The article suggests that Savitibai’s feminism shows characteristics of all the three waves of feminism.

Indigenous data and health: critical approaches to ‘race’/ethnicity and Indigenous data governance

‘Race’/ethnicity data have become increasingly institutionalised within research on Indigenous health. While these data are important to monitoring the differential distribution of health risks and benefits in racialised societies, their uncritical and undertheorised use can perpetuate harmful biologically deterministic and essentialist approaches to Indigenous health. In addition, narratives of Indigenous health are often still shaped by colonial logics, with Indigenous data rights, priorities and governance overlooked or ignored. Researchers need to critique the use of ‘race’/ethnicity concepts and data in Indigenous health research. This requires an explicit shift away from describing ‘race’/ethnicity as ‘risk factors’ to examining processes by which ‘race’/ethnicity become meaningful in relation to health outcomes for Indigenous communities. In addition, researchers need to consider how Indigenous rights to health data are recognised, including the application of frameworks or principles of Indigenous data sovereignty.

Asian tourists and cultural complexity: Implications for practice and the Asianisation of tourism scholarship

Asian tourist behaviour is often characterised along essentialistic terms such as Asians are collectivistic and hierarchical. The essentialist approach to understanding culture faces serious criticisms. In using cultural complexity instead of culture, this paper introduces functional culture and negotiated culture perspectives, as derived from structural functionalism and conflict theory respectively, to situate Asian tourist behaviour. Cultural complexity is manifested as a dynamic web of stable and yet changing social manifestations. The pool of contrasting and contradicting cultural manifestations is a resource for members of society to express, control and navigate the variety of situations they encounter in life. The diversity of potential cultural expressions also provides society room to experiment, respond and manage changing circumstances. This paper offers implications from the functional culture and negotiated culture perspectives on the management of Asian tourists. It also addresses the academic implication, in the context of the Asianisation of tourism scholarship.

The Overcommitted Nurse Executive

Unreasonable demands on the nurse executive's time mount daily. Extricating self from teams and special projects can be difficult due to self- and/or supervisor-imposed expectations. Refining delegation skills and adopting an essentialist approach can provide the nurse executive with time to consider participating in those initiatives that yield the highest organizational rewards.

Philosophy of Science, Technique and Technology

The philosophy of technology constitutes a relatively recent area of reflection, compared to other topics of philosophical interest such as science or morals. This fact is not independent of the change in public sensitivities regarding technological change and anti-essentialist tendencies of contemporary philosophy. On the one hand, the traditional essentialist approach in philosophy of science and knowledge, typical of currents such as logical empiricism, conceived of technology as applied science and, more globally, practical activity as an application of general rules or principles. Recent historicist and naturalistic approaches in philosophy of science, and the development of ICT studies, have favoured a more realistic and contextualized view of science and its relations with technology, facilitating awareness of the great diversity of problems. specific philosophical posed by technology. Technology, on the other hand, has been categorized as a social problem in recent decades, becoming prominent in the media, public forums and political agendas. With the current intense technological development, the close dependence of the economy, institutions and ways of life on technological devices and processes, as well as the serious environmental repercussions or ethical and legal dilemmas caused by nuclear energy, has become especially evident. As a result of both factors, the interest in technology acquires in recent decades a remarkable impulse and ends up making it an object of study in more and more monographs, specialized magazines and international conferences. The academic conceptualization of technology, understood as applied science, only reflected a culturally generalized point of view during much of this century.

In varietate Concordia: two perspectives on the European values

In the first chapter of the paper we elaborate on the attitude towards the Other in the European Union by discussing two adversative yet simultaneous processes taking place in the EU. The first tendency is a legacy from the centuries-lasting model of European unification against certain important Others. The second one refers to the aspiration of the supra-national European project to encourage in an unprecedented manner the co-existence with the otherness. We argue that this ambivalence results from the fact that the transformation of the attitude towards the otherness takes place with different tempo in the different social spheres. In the second chapter we develop further the reflection on the EU attitude towards the Other by focusing on the East European Other. We discuss the normative and de facto application of the European values both in the West and in the East part of the continent.In the last chapter we articulate two separate discourses framing the European values. The first one refers to the essentialist approach looking for a metaphysical reasoning of their universality by developing the common culture, history and spirit rhetoric. The second reading of the European values presents them in a more postmodern and debatable way and offers a mechanism for reconciling the heterogenic East-West European society.

Dialectic of essentialism and constructivism in modern sociohumanistic research (illustrated by ethical and religious range of problems)

The article defines the possibilities and character of complex application of essentialist and constructivist approaches in the study of socio-humanistic processes and phenomena. Modern scientific methodology should abandon the “shallow”, one-sided rational thinking, incapable of encompassing and comprehending multi-faceted, complex and ambivalent social and individual reality. The study of productivity of interrelated essentialism and constructivism methodologies in concrete scientific inquiry is one of the steps in this direction. The subgoal of this article is to broaden and refine the knowledge regarding the potential linking of essentialist and constructivist attitudes in specific scientific socio-humanistic research. The general goal and novelty of the article is the preparation of theoretical background to develop the current modern version of the multidimensional rationality concept of the human with multifaceted objectives and activity. These goals are reached by determining the productivity/unproductivity of one-sided absolutization of the above approaches in the analysis of modern socio-humanistic processes and phenomena and by clarifying their complementarity and its character. On the basis of addressing essentialist and constructivist traditions of describing Orthodoxy and Christianity at large, consideration of fundamentalism phenomenon in various denominations, comparison of essential and constructivist-mythological approaches to ethic phenomena analysis, the conclusion is made that the tradition of clear division between essentialism and constructivism is becoming irrelevant; comprehensive and therewith multi-criteria analysis of modern socio-humanistic range of problems suggests defining both its permanent essential component and its dynamic, constructing trends. These approaches should be used in their dialectic unity: inviolability of fundamental cultural values and their new “integration” in changing social life conditions every time constitute the most important condition for creative constriction and study of social reality.