Essentialist Assumptions Research Articles

The Dynamic Nature of European Identity

EU citizenship requires a multilayered and dynamic concept of European identity. The idea of European identity embodied in the Declaration on European Identity and within A Charter on European Identity needs to be rethought. These documents should not contain essentialist assumptions based on the difference between "Europe" and "Other" that excludes and marginalizes a number of citizens. European identity should not create new forms of nationalism. That is why the concept of European identity should be flexible and dynamic. The concepts of identity, values, and Europe need to be rebuilt and reinterpreted in a multifaceted, adaptable, and dynamic manner. We can only discuss the dynamic nature of the European Union and the European identity in this sense. The concept of European identity should be developed less in terms of a predetermined past and more in terms of shared projects, long-term goals and connections resulting from a long-term, deliberate process.

The Interplay of Language and Gender in Dominant Discourses: Examining the Masculine Bias in Language

Numerous studies have critiqued the stereotypical and essentialist assumptions inculcated by cultural artefacts and texts through the lens of feminism, poststructuralism, sociology, and linguistics. Notwithstanding the attempts to establish gender equality and inclusivity in contemporary times, the present study examines how language spreads and supports masculine biases through various dominant and popular discourses of society. The study considers the omnipresence of language in society and observes that language tends to legitimise the behaviour and preferences of men as dominant while objectifying or trivialising those of women. Taking a cue from Robin Lakoff’s deficit and dominant approaches, the paper chooses instances and examples from various discourses to study how language nourishes patriarchal attitudes and naturalises the domination of men over women. Though Lakoff’s perspectives came four decades ago, an overview of the present scenario reveals the contemporaneity of her observations in studying the masculine bias in language.

Kitchen Table Politics: Bannock and Métis Common Sense in an Era of Nascent Recognition Politics

Abstract: Bannock, a simple bread made of water, flour, and lard—fried or baked—is a staple of Indigenous diets across what is now called Canada. A pan-Indigenous symbol, bannock is a historically dynamic food grounded in both European and Indigenous origins. On both counts, it presents a paradox to the settler imagination, which clings to fixed definitions of Indigenous Peoplehood essentialized in precontact traditions. For Métis, however, bannock is no paradox. Neither its European origins nor its diverse forms and composition across time and place cause confusion. Rather, in oral history interviews Métis positioned bannock as a critical component that sustained a Métis identity through the twentieth century. Bannock offers important lessons for understanding the place of Métis within Canadian history and reveals how Métis mediated state interventions into Indigeneity in the 1980s. Tracing this historical trajectory, I suggest a useful inversion of Mark Rifkin's concept of settler common sense to focus on what I call a Métis common sense; that is, those aspects of a Métis livedness that were obvious for Métis. I follow other Métis writers who have proposed the kitchen table as a site of Métis identity survivance that functions as an alternative to public, androcentric expressions of Métis-ness legible to Canadian recognition politics. Métis interviewees negotiated with, and simultaneously rejected, essentialist assumptions of their Indigeneity. Interviewees understood bannock as a key marker of kinship sustained through female labor and activism within a matrilocal Métis Peoplehood.

ESSENTIALISM AS THE PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATION OF AMERICAN CONVENTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS (1969)

The article focuses on the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR), known as the San José Pact of Costa Rica, because of its political and legal importance for protecting and promoting the Americas' rights. The objective is to analyze the consistency of the theoretical foundation of that human rights document. Therefore, we will first analyze the Convention's text and point out essentialism as the philosophical foundation. Then, we will discuss the essentialist assumption philosophically. Finally, the theoretical problem of essentialism as the foundation of the Convention will be analyzed in light of Sartre's existentialism. From the considerations presented, the philosophical foundation of the rights in the 1969 Convention, essentialism, is not theoretically consistent, despite being an indispensable rhetorical argument.

Indigenous Peoples and Criminal Justice

Abstract In this article, I draw on the specific case studies of the Xakriabá people and the Judicial District of Manga, and the Maxakali people and the Judicial District of Águas Formosas, both located in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. I examine how criminal justice officials apply dominant concepts of indigeneity in these regional contexts, showing how they arbitrarily construct and deploy the category of Indigenous person based on essentialist assumptions of indigeneity that ignore Indigenous peoples’ self-identification as such. This adds to scholarship on how indigeneity is institutionally conceived and applied within the justice system in ways that contrast with Indigenous notions of it and aim to deny Indigenous persons recognition in legal processes. By providing specific accounts of how Indigenous defendants are treated in the justice system and experience loss of rights, I consider the professional practices of state officials within the broader framework of Brazilian indigenist policies.

Just for kids? How the youth decarceration discourse endorses adult incarceration

This article lays bare three interrelated and previously overlooked pitfalls of calls to reduce or abolish youth incarceration. First, despite their anti-carceral semblance, such calls persistently portray the overwhelming majority of people in trouble with the law—namely, adults—as incorrigible, blameworthy, and therefore as deserving of punishment and imprisonment. Second, this ageist rhetoric often disregards adult vulnerability. Thus, despite adults’ greater medical vulnerability to the COVID-19 disease, it is youth whom some organizations singled out or even called to prioritize for release from prisons during the coronavirus pandemic. Third, at the heart of the youth decarceration discourse are essentialist assumptions about youth, which rest on questionable science and downplay the socially constructed dimension of age differences. All three pitfalls epitomize a dual fault of the child rights discourse more broadly, as evidenced in other contexts: repeatedly lending legitimacy to punitiveness and apathy toward adults while also working to the detriment of children. Doubtless, there are compelling arguments against penal confinement, but it is only decarceration across the age spectrum that can truly challenge carceral thinking—and ageism.

Calcified identities: Persisting essentialism in academic collections of human remains

Essentialist assumptions about human beings persist in scientific practice, despite their erroneous logic. This article examines essentialism related to research on, and handling of, academic collections of human remains. Historically human remains, and skulls in particular, have served to produce various forms of scientific racialization and racism, confining people to fixed notions of identities and legitimizing violent systems of exploitation and oppression. Contemporary handling of these human remains aims to account for the problematic and violent past, examining the provenance of particular human remains, often leading to their restitution. Despite the different political and ideological motivations of contemporary practice, it too often relies on essentialist categorization and inaccurate or erroneous assumptions. This text exposes the problematic logic of social essentialism and challenges its prevalence in scientific practice.

Can the Slumdweller Speak? James Joyce and Mediating Dublin Slum Discourse

The concern of this article surrounds the discourse of recent calls by elite researchers to do away with the “s-word,” to quote Mike Davis’s endorsement of Alan Mayne’s (2017) groundbreaking new study. I take issue not with their critique of the idea of the “slum,” even if others have pointed out limitations in their visions (Harris 2018), but rather in their essentialist assumption: accepting as ontological fact the pre-given existence of a geographical body identified by others as a “slum,” they only disagree that this categorization does not accurately represent the “essence” of that space. Their critical discourse may resolve issues with the particular conceptions and stereotypes associated with the term, “slum,” but it does not effectively challenge the theoretical and practical foundations on which that term rests. Against current post-slum calls for a more accurate representation of these spaces, I conclude with a call to abandon the logic underpinning both slum and post-slum discourses of the twenty-first century: the assumption of a bounded and identifiable space with “naturally” representable interests. To demonstrate this thesis, I turn to a reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) as a means to re-orient researchers’ relationship with mediating and re-presenting the slum. This reading of Ulysses calls for researchers to embrace a diverse set of subject formations, modes of habitation, and fluid residencies that can no longer be contained within the ontologies of slum and post-slum discourses.

Leadership development, gender and race: Intersectional insights from South Africa

AbstractThis research explores the existence of differential group‐level experiences in a South African retail group's leadership development programme (LDP). Primary data were collected with semistructured intersectional focus groups. Findings were triangulated with secondary data from organizational document analysis. Emerging themes were identified with Thematic and Axial coding. Gender‐ and race identity shape how content, development needs, peer interactions, and support are experienced within the LDP. Additionally, certain findings also contradict existing knowledge of LDPs, such as the prevalence of mistrust between participants in a mixed‐group programme. Findings indicate a need for further research to explore the differential effects of intersectional identities on the experience of LDPs. Findings challenge psychologically and behaviourally focused conceptions of leadership development by demonstrating how multiple identities interdependently influence the experience of an LDP. Concurrently, the study challenges existing knowledge of group dynamics within mixed‐group development programmes by highlighting essentialist assumptions about gender and race in the context of leadership development. An analysis of the qualitative data also produced the counterintuitive finding that intersecting bases of privilege might actually result in negative outcomes within a learning context. Finally, the study also contributes to the body of knowledge of intersectionality by demonstrating its utility in leadership development research.

Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments and the Stratification of Powers

The subject of the article is the idea of unconstitutional constitutional amendments. The essay does not concern any specific legal order but takes the perspective of a general theory/philosophy of law. The study is divided into two parts. The first part briefly describes the theory and practice of applying the idea of unconstitutional constitutional amendments. The second part reveals and analyzes the basic assumptions of the theory of unconstitutional constitutional amendments: “the assumption of the stratification of powers” and “the essentialist assumption.” As a result of the analysis, it is concluded that on the grounds of democracy and constitutionalism the inadmissibility of amendments to the constitution should be linked not to the difference between the establishment of the constitution and its amendment, but to the difference between the degree of democratic legitimacy of the indicated law-making activities. Therefore, the article also formulates a postulate that the admissibility of declaring the unconstitutionality of constitutional amendments should be limited to cases where the amendments were adopted in a procedure with an evidently lower degree of democratic legitimacy.

Hope, tolerance and empathy: employees' emotions when using an AI-enabled chatbot in a digitalised workplace

PurposeInformation Systems research on emotions in relation to using technology largely holds essentialist assumptions about emotions, focuses on negative emotions and treats technology as a token or as a black box, which hinders an in-depth understanding of distinctions in the emotional experience of using artificial intelligence (AI) technology in context. This research focuses on understanding employees' emotional experiences of using an AI chatbot as a specific type of AI system that learns from how it is used and is conversational, displaying a social presence to users. The research questions how and why employees experience emotions when using an AI chatbot, and how these emotions impact its use.Design/methodology/approachAn interpretive case study approach and an inductive analysis were adopted for this study. Data were collected through interviews, documents review and observation of use.FindingsThe study found that employee appraisals of chatbots were influenced by the form and functional design of the AI chatbot technology and its organisational and social context, resulting in a wider repertoire of appraisals and multiple emotions. In addition to positive and negative emotions, users experienced connection emotions. The findings show that the existence of multiple emotions can encourage continued use of an AI chatbot.Originality/valueThis research extends information systems literature on emotions by focusing on the lived experiences of employees in their actual use of an AI chatbot, while considering its characteristics and its organisational and social context. The findings inform the emerging literature on AI.

“Warphans” and “Quiet” Heroines: Depictions of Chinese Women and Children in the Comité mondial des femmes contre la guerre et le fascisme's Campaigns during the Second Sino-Japanese War

AbstractThe Comité mondial des femmes contre la guerre et le fascisme (CMF) was an international organization formed under the direction of the Communist International in 1934 in response to the threat of Nazi fascism. However, it did not restrict its activities to tackling issues in Germany; it expanded its remit to confront many of the crises that marked the mid- to late-1930s across the globe. This article analyses the CMF's work to aid civilians and refugees during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It discusses how the predominantly European committee perpetuated some essentialist and imperialist assumptions in its work and how they utilized violent and emotive language in the “Warphans” child sponsorship fundraising scheme. However, the committee also provided spaces for Chinese women to vocalize their experiences to women in the West, creating an effective humanitarian aid strategy.

Structural Racism

Structural Racism

The Psychological Construction of Emotion – A Non-Essentialist Philosophy of Science

Advocates for the psychological construction of emotion view themselves as articulating a non-essentialist alternative to basic emotion theory's essentialist notion of affect programs. Psychological constructionists have also argued that holding essentialist assumptions about emotions engenders misconceptions about the psychological constructionist viewpoint. If so, it is important to understand what psychological constructionists mean by “essentialism” and “non-essentialism.” To advance the debate, I take a deeper dive into non-essentialism, comparing the non-essentialist views of the early empiricists with those of the psychological constructionists, focusing on the theories of James Russell and Lisa Barrett. Using Lakatos’ notion of scientific research programs, I also describe how Russell's and Barrett's views have evolved into different and potentially competing research programs under the psychological constructionist banner.

Concealing researcher identity in fieldwork and social media: Sexuality and speaking for participants

AbstractResearchers often conceal or reveal parts of their identity to ensure the success of fieldwork. Yet, connection between researchers and research participants can now be maintained via social networking sites. This raises new questions about the ethics and practicalities of negotiating identity during and after fieldwork. The paper draws on a narrative ethnography of concealing my lesbian identity during and after ethnographic research in Bolivia. I demonstrate that in a socially mediated world the “curation” of researcher identity is no longer temporally and geographically bound to the periods and locales of fieldwork. Second, I argue that a researcher's decision to conceal elements of their identity may be informed by essentialist assumptions about research participants. Third, researchers may effectively colonise and silence research participants because they speak for them and remove any opportunity for participants to respond to the element of the researcher's identity being hidden, such as sexuality, class, or religion.

Queering Ageism

Queer theory is an effective tool for challenging ageist assumptions concerning the life course. Recent approaches by age studies scholars and queer theorists, such as Barbara Marshall, Linn Sandberg, Elizabeth Freeman, and Dustin B. Goltz, make use of a queer-theoretical lens to expose naturalized essentialist views of old age and the life course as normative constructions. As a significant way to heighten and shape cultural visibility, literary and filmic narratives play a crucial role in queering ageist cultural scripts of growing older and in highlighting the importance of non-heteronormative representations of aging. Leonora Carrington’s novel The Hearing Trumpet (1974) and Bruce LaBruce’s film Gerontophilia (2013) both exemplify, in their own ways, this process of queering as one of questioning, dismantling, and transforming essentialist assumptions about aging.

Queer asylum politics of separation in Germany: homonationalist narratives of safety

Despite the increasing awareness of the difficulties facing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) refugees worldwide over the last few years, there has been little research undertaken to critically investigate discourses of LGBT refugee accommodations in Germany. Separate living spaces for LGBT refugees aim to minimize experiences of discrimination and violence. However, homophobia and transphobia also occur in LGBT-exclusive refugee accommodations but remain unrepresented in the media and undiscussed in academia. In this paper, I aim to explore the paradoxical argument for separation of LGBT refugees in the context of homonationalist narratives. Deploying homonationalism as an analytical tool, the paper examines narratives about LGBT refugees found in 117 German LGBT magazine articles. The study reveals simplistic representations that reinforce orientalist imaginations of refugee accommodations as an unsafe space for LGBT individuals. Narratives about LGBT refugees, coherent with existing metanarratives of victimization and saviorism, my study suggests, cement essentialist assumptions of progressiveness and liberation by equating the situation in their countries of origin with living conditions in refugee accommodations. Media coverage reinforces a line of argument where ‘vulnerable’, ‘passive’ LGBT refugees in a threatening environment depend on the rescue by German LGBT organizations. The establishment and promotion of LGBT-exclusive accommodations, therefore, must be read in a political context where LGBT organizations navigate tension between accessing resources and permanently legitimizing their work. My in-depth analysis of the textual structure and spatial connotations reveals a pattern of an odyssey in which the LGBT-exclusive accommodation is presented as a safe haven.

“Illegal Religious Activities” and Counter-Terrorism in China

AbstractThe fight against terrorism prompts governments to differentiate between “good” religious practices and the “bad” ones. The simplistic dichotomy of “good” and “bad” Muslims has led to a cascade of criticism, but a fallacy underlying this dualism remains underexplored. This paper examines the “no true Scotsman” fallacy that is prevalent in the political discourse surrounding terrorism and religion. It argues that China's attempt to counteract the essentialist assumption about Uyghurs leads to a reinforced “good-versus-bad” dichotomous categorization of Muslims, reflected in the binary of “normal” and “illegal” in China's religious policy. This is a major contribution to the existing literature on politics and religion because, theoretically, this paper applies the “no true Scotsman” fallacy and “good” and “bad” Muslims dichotomy to explain the relationship between politics and religion; empirically, it provides a rich overview of the political nature of religious policy in China.

‘The Most Revolting Ideas I’ve Read in a Woman’s Magazine’: The Female Eunuch, Affective (dis)investments, and McCall’s Reader-writers’

ABSTRACT In March 1971, American women’s magazine McCall’s published an extract of Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch. Myriad unpublished letters to the editor contained in the Greer archive at the University of Melbourne reveal that the magazine’s readers were largely dismissive of Greer’s feminist vision. These reader-writers, best conceptualised as ‘anti-fans’, took both author and editor to task for criticising them as wives and mothers. Through an analysis of these letters, this article argues that their authors contested Greer’s burgeoning authority as a second-wave celebrity feminist largely by pathologising her, invoking essentialist assumptions about femininity, and mobilising discourses of ‘choice’ more commonly understood as the product of a ‘postfeminist’ representational environment. Through their anti-fan practices, they challenge Greer’s attempts to deprive housewives of agency, deploying rhetorical strategies that are at once reliant upon and highly critical of second-wave feminism. By complicating dominant ways of framing the feminist past and the postfeminist present, this article demonstrates how celebrity feminists, including ‘blockbuster’ authors, have historically always elicited complex affective responses.

REVIEW: THE WELLBEING OF WOMEN IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP. A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

The Wellbeing of Women in Entrepreneurship. A Global Perspective (2019) provides a unique and detailed portray of the life and businesses of women entrepreneurs around the world - validating not only women’s experiences as legitimate sources of knowledge, but also giving a long needed attention to women entrepreneurs and the causes and effects of their wellbeing and flourishing. This work speaks of the process of expanding and challenging the essentialist assumptions and paradigms of women’s entrepreneurship research, acknowledging the vast heterogeneity of women entrepreneurs and their contingency within the spatial fabric of their everyday lives. As any social actor, women entrepreneurs are influenced by and accountable for the societal structures in which they interact –where issues like distribution of productive and reproductive roles, labour markets structures, power dynamics, culture, legislations and politics play a significant role in shaping their behaviours and the outcomes of their businesses. By attending to issues like work-life balance, family responsibilities, and job-satisfaction, among others, the authors explore business sustainability and the “multiplier effect” of the wellbeing of women entrepreneurs within their communities and regions.